Tell the ISPs NO to Bandwidth Caps

[Brett Schenker]

The ECA believes that gamers should be able to play the games they want on the internet. Several Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including Comcast, Frontier and Time Warner are actively moving towards implementing monthly caps for their users' Internet connections. These user caps could limit or stop game play by arbitrarily and artificially limiting bandwidth in the name of network management.

Take action now, http://action.theeca.com/t/2858/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2293

[MUTANT SPUD]

What type of caps are they talking about? If they want to cap existing services then that's a bad thing but if its part of a contract then consumers just need to choose an appropriate plan. The big trap is when they start charging for excess usage, that's a rip off, my ISP just throttles the speed to 64kbps if I go over my limit. I have a 12GB a month cap and even if I play games 3 hours a night I never use it all up, there's always 3 or so gig left and I watch a lot of streaming video as well. Most 360 games seem to use about 50MB per hour of online play, some less, its just a matter of keeping an eye on your usage. What we have to do is ask ISP's offer a gamer's package that has a cap like a mobile phone plan, example I pay AUD $45 a month for my phone but I'm allowed $200 worth of calls plus $50 in additional credit for calls to the same network. If an ISP offered a comparable deal where gaming was calculated at a separate rate or an allowance was made for excess usage I'd buy it, say 20GB of gaming usage and 15 GB of general usage. My ISP actually has a gaming network but using it counts against general usage which to me seems stupid, they should be enticing people to buy their products by offering discounts on gaming.

[GamesLaw]

Comcast is implementing a 250GB cap.

The argument is that people torrenting stuff slow the network down for everyone else.

Even a cursory look at the logic of this reveals that it's absolute bull****. If my connection speed is 5 MB per second, I'm using the exact same amount of network resources whether the file I am downloading is 1 gig or 250 gigs. In fact, I could download an infinitely large file, and be using the exact same amount of network resources as I would if I was browsing these forums.

[MUTANT SPUD]

Comcast is implementing a 250GB cap.

The argument is that people torrenting stuff slow the network down for everyone else.

Even a cursory look at the logic of this reveals that it's absolute bull****. If my connection speed is 5 MB per second, I'm using the exact same amount of network resources whether the file I am downloading is 1 gig or 250 gigs. In fact, I could download an infinitely large file, and be using the exact same amount of network resources as I would if I was browsing these forums.That may be true but 250 GB is still a huge amount, apart from file sharers who uses that much? What's a movie download, 2GB? that's 125 movies a month. Are the ISP's saying they want to stamp out piracy or free up the networks, because setting a lower limit would discourage piracy, or slow it down a little anyway.

[ezacharyk]

What this really boils down to is that the US is falling quickly down the ranks of broadband speed. So instead of the ISPs upgrading their service to match the speeds of other countries, they are limiting people's ability to use the internet so it appears to be faster to the untrained eye.

All this is doing is saving them money in the short term, because upgrading their network would cost too much in the short term and they like almost every other company in the US, they completely ignore long term benefits to short short term costs.

We even have ISPs who are suing local communities trying to prevent them from rolling out their own broadband network and licensing the management out to ISPs.

On another note, I was featured in one of Oklahoma's local gaming rags about this:

http://ptdmagazine.com/news/2008/knight-stop-internet-usage-caps/

[ZippyDSMlee]

What this really boils down to is that the US is falling quickly down the ranks of broadband speed. So instead of the ISPs upgrading their service to match the speeds of other countries, they are limiting people's ability to use the internet so it appears to be faster to the untrained eye.

All this is doing is saving them money in the short term, because upgrading their network would cost too much in the short term and they like almost every other company in the US, they completely ignore long term benefits to short short term costs.

We even have ISPs who are suing local communities trying to prevent them from rolling out their own broadband network and licensing the management out to ISPs.

On another note, I was featured in one of Oklahoma's local gaming rags about this:

http://ptdmagazine.com/news/2008/knight-stop-internet-usage-caps/
Its a mess I think they could do it better by implementing plan rates and having the cheaper plans limited,middle plans barely limited higher plans not limited, if they manage limit all the consumer stuff it will only hurt them in the long run because hey are owned by or partnered with big media.

[GamesLaw]

What this really boils down to is that the US is falling quickly down the ranks of broadband speed. So instead of the ISPs upgrading their service to match the speeds of other countries, they are limiting people's ability to use the internet so it appears to be faster to the untrained eye.

All this is doing is saving them money in the short term, because upgrading their network would cost too much in the short term and they like almost every other company in the US, they completely ignore long term benefits to short short term costs.

We even have ISPs who are suing local communities trying to prevent them from rolling out their own broadband network and licensing the management out to ISPs.

On another note, I was featured in one of Oklahoma's local gaming rags about this:

http://ptdmagazine.com/news/2008/knight-stop-internet-usage-caps/

You just hit the nail on the head my friend.