The day TW brings this to Austin is the day I switch service providers.
The Netflix services look better and better, then I’ll just have to deal with the evil empire of ATT.

Welcome to my world…the world of satellite connections. This is the kind of thing we rural folks who rely on satellite for our “broadband” connections have dealt with all along. I won’t feel like the kountry kousin anymore.

The competitive market will invite satellite broadband players to examine the potential to gain access if there is enough of a demand and obvious dissatisfaction among the consumers

I had a small taste of this a few weeks at a hotel in Bulgaria that charged their internet fees by bandwidth. I had no idea how much bandwidth I needed.

Is there a way to see what we use at home in a given month from our home Comcast account? My router may have this info in its logging — I’ll have to look.

This is destroying net neutrality in a whole new way - by segregating people based on $$$. People with money will be able to afford full throttle, unlimited data connectivity whereas the poor and even middle class who cant afford the all-you-can-eat data packages will be now second class citizens of the Net.

These monopolist Telecomm and cable companies have been turned the US into a third world country as far as mobile and broadband connectivity is concerned. Instead of investing in new, cutting edge technologies, the Phone and Cable companies are taking a step backwards. what a shame.

I say it again and again…. “Thank god I’m not living in Texas.”

That’s what I have in Australia, 60GB limit with iinet. I’ve only occasionally even reached that even with heavy torrenting. With a big enough cap it’s no problem, but I’ve never understood why we have caps in the first place

I feel for these people… this *and* having to live in Beaumont, Texas. (It’s the armpit of Texas).

No need to be rude about TX. I am from Australia, and I think TX is a great state to live in after having lived in dreary old Manhattan, Atlanta and other places in the USA.

The problem about Friedmanian open-market is this. You eventually get monopolies and if state does not come into the game, usually game overs at a night.

Heh, considering that you can now use your cellphone as a modem, and Sprint is already offering unlimited phone-as-modem plans $49.99/month, their hopes of there being no competition is going to dwindle fast.

I mean, not quite as fast as cable currently (they claim avg 600 kbps - 1.4 mbps download, 350 kbps - 500 kbps upload), but that is likely to change sooner rather than later, especially if TW is going to give them the incentive to do so.

I know the business plans cost a lot more money, and that simply telling someone to switch to a small business plan to escape these caps isn’t a solution I can’t help mentioning it. Ever since Time Warner increased their speeds here, and brought their home-based small business plans down in price I’ve been a Time Warner user. For only $100 I get 2 up and 15 down without any caps or other restrictions such as throttling. It’s great to have that nice upload speed to test out new ideas or websites that I don’t quite want to throw into a proper data center.

Also, check out if DSLExtreme is available in your area as I use them as a back-up for the cable connection, and primarily to run all of the VOIP based phones. Great prices, friendly support, and no caps or throttling.

if this works - watch timewarner sign on netflix (or apple, etc.) and say that if you use netflix for movie downloads, these won’t count towards you bandwidth usage.

WHAT?!? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!!!

Good thing I don’t live there!

@9: yeah, TX is a great place indeed - if you are from Australia! everything is relative of course.

this sucks. better dig out the dishtv offer from the trash. Only a few years ago there was no cable Internet in these parts (started in 2003). freedom isn’t free I guess. Could be a new start-up opportunity? Buying up and reselling bandwidth. How about a mobile WiFi truck or geosynchronous kites that amplify bandwidth and redistribute to areas like your suburban block?

This is expected and will continue. There is a tension between providing what people want - a loaf of bread - and what they are willing to pay for - a slice of bread.

Basically, these are non trivial capital capital expenditures, and there is a lot of spend here that has to be recovered. Doesn’t matter if there is competition or not, the costs are the same. If you want more details, let me know and more gory details on how this works can be yours.

Hey cable companies - you’re doing it wrong.

This is a very sad day for the internet..

Go ahead Time-Warner, you don’t scare Jeff Bezos. Amazon Broadband is coming! : )

Thanks for the call to action. Don’t wait on the state to fix it. Support net neutrality.

I wonder if it is possible at all to deal with this? I guess that telco and club has spend time and money not only to recover monopolies back, but also to ensure that antimonopoly disruption can not happen to them again….

Aren’t the telco/cable monopolies in place because of government involvement in getting ubiquitous access? Most the cable companies are allowed their control over the lines because they pay the local municipalities/politicians, the reason this is even a problem is because we give them exclusive rights to the infrastructure. As far as I understand, shouldn’t the extent of government regulation here should be to just allow multiple providers access to the lines?

Does anyone have statistics on how much data transfer people use?

I don’t mind if this puts some kind of limit on the top 1-2% of users, especially if they’re “abusing” the connection, however if it means that 25%+ of users have to spend more, that won’t be all that great.

Texas is a great place to live. I am glad that I am living in Texas AND that I have DSL…

How did they choose Beaumont to take a dump on? Poor Beaumontians

I call bullshit on the cable industry. You’re 100% right that limiting bandwidth stands in the way of economic growth and innovation. This may be a great opportunity for all of the Internet’s top blogs to sum the power of their voices and prevent metered bandwidth from spreading to other parts of the country. We need to abolish it in the early stages, otherwise, fuck.

This will give new meaning to Internet Bandwidth Theft ..

I guess this is the time to start developing software that helps you share bandwith with your grandma that just uses it for email .

Go ahead Time-Warner, you don’t scare Jeff Bezos, Amazon Broadband is coming! : ) lifeonamazon.com

The digital divide just grew exponentially! -How sad for students and others without the means to pay for additional bandwidth. And don’t forget the the people working and playing in MUVES and MMORPGS they are really gonna get screwed!

“The problem about Friedmanian open-market is this. You eventually get monopolies and if state does not come into the game, usually game overs at a night.”

Example please?

I really don’t see a problem with this. If they can get better performance for what 95% of people do, and the few torrenters leave their network, I guarantee they are happy.The reality is in all-you-can-eat, the normal users subsidize the huge users.

I switched to $35 Cricket EVDO because I don’t need as much, I do occasionally wish I had 20+ Mb/s like my old Comcast but I also like being able to use it anywhere.

Last note– my EVDO provider has ‘caps’, but I called and they said they are only used in cases where it negatively affects other people’s usage, and so far that’s been the case. I run torrents and download video all the time, well beyond my cap and I’ve heard nary a peep. I don’t begrudge them wanting to maintain a service level though.

And the LAST thing I want is some tool in DC mandating how the Internet should work.

*wonders if anyone actually knows how much transfer they use per month*

I watch 6-7 movies a month streamed, download about another ten. Use the internet a lot since I work on it, and still don’t go over my cap. Unless you’re downloading 40 HD movies a month then it’s not that big of a hassle. Also, my ISP ‘only’ limits the speed after you go over the cap, so I won’t wind up with a huge bill.

No need to exaggerate and act like it’s the end of the Internet

Does anyone think this is a good idea ??

I think Limited Bandwidth would help everyone in the long run. Bandwidth is a limited commodity (u need to add more capacity to increase bandwidth). So currently by providing unlimited bandwidth ur essentially asking people who use less bandwidth pay for the people who use more (a zero sum game). If you pay per mb or gb, people would only pay for what they use and the market will find the right price (based on supply and demand). Its always better for free market to find the right price rather than companies fix the price.

Ideally most ppl would see a reduction in the monthly bills coz they would be in the lower bracket of usage. In essence it would mean I choose more carefully what I view on youtube rather than watch every video.

the Armageddon … its finally here

This is a perfect example of why the UTOPIA project (google it) was such an awesome thing. They took the infrastructure out of the hands of the corporations and then forced them to compete over it.

In that environment there could be a place for a company that offered a tiered solution with bandwidth caps. I’m sure my grandmother doesn’t transfer a gig/month, but I use Speakeasy because I often transfer several gigs every day.

The day this shit becomes standard, is the day that I once again whip out my Swedish citizenship and leave the U.S. for good!

GREAT IDEA! Works amazingly well with Netflix for downloading movies!
Retards..

Also: Try sticking to 40GB when you start downloading lets say.. A box set of 4 seasons of ayour favorite tv-show on Blue-ray!

$800 internet bill anyone?

So what happens when the taxpayers subsidize the building of the bakery so everyone can get a loaf of bread, then the baker decides they want to charge by the slice anyway while at the same time demanding more taxpayer subsidies to build more bakeries?

When freedom is taken away in smaller increments, most people dont notice and get used to living under control over time. First they will put a cap that is insignificant, say at 60GB, then there will be premium and standard packages for “new” subscribers that put caps data at perhaps 40GB for new subscribers vs. 60 GB for old timers, then it will be less and less. this is an old business tactic.

For those who think that cable and phone companies are just trying to weed out Torrenters so they can provide better service to the other 95% are part of the problem. Even though people “abusing” bandwidth (whatever the hell that means) may be inconvenient, it is protecting the rights of these 5% that will ultimately protect our own rights when we become part of that inconvenient 5% at some point. And these “abusive” 5% are breeding ground for innovation, entrepreneurship and freedom of creativity and expression.

I’m almost never in favor of government intervention of markets, but monopolies are an exception.

You’re still not in favor of government intervention. The monopolies were granted by the government in the first place.

This model is a cash cow for mobile networks. I hope the common folks aren’t stupid enough to fall for this crap.

This is already pretty common with many ISPs.

Cox San Diego limits regular cable modem customers to 40 GB downloads per months and 10 GB upload per month, while premium ($13/mo more for 12 mbps down 1 mbps up) is limited to 60 GB downloads and 15 GB uploads.

Limits:
http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

Prices:
http://www.cox.com/sandiego/hi.....eplans.asp

And here is a good tool that I use to monitor bandwidth usage (no affiliation):
http://www.bandwidth-meter.net/

-Steve

To all those up in arms over bandwidth throttling: would you tell your mother what you are doing with all that bandwidth?

No. I don’t have stats to substantiate my implication.

Given that bandwidth is limited, which customers should suffer? Should it be Grandma waiting to see pictures of the grandkids or should it be the dude that is too cheap to buy/rent a dvd and is downloading a movie via bittorrent?

Well, the limited monthly data usage is the standard here in Portugal. It’s also common that cable companies offer “happy-hours” during which the data usage is not counted. That’s usually during the night (1-9am in my case).

And I have to say it sucks! I have to keep tabs on how much I’m “spending” and I have reminders sent to me when I go over 50%, 75% and 85%.
With these conditions I would never consider hosting any kind of webpage/application in my own server…

Ahha,

I think America is going backward. Because India is actually started internet in metered bandwidth now in India they started loosen up. So I think USA is going backward when all the countries India , China and Asian countries are going forward.

Scott Stole my thunder with the obvious point of how they even got to be monopolies in the first place. Looking for regulation from the same system that provides the force to back up the monopoly is as old world thinking as the actions of the telco’s involved.

I like Cereal Divider’s take.. Let’s get that last mile and invalidate it because regardless of any access agreement the main provider shares with those it’s forced to that’s not going to drive costs down just turn into the same type of confuseopoly that the Cell phone providers run.

“Time-Warner: The power of you, as measured (and controlled) by us.”

And the really infuriating thing is that the US tax payer -already paid- for high speed internet. I’m sorry I don’t have the source but the telecoms have already gotten a huge amount of money to build the network of the future, but after they got the money they decided they didn’t need to build it anyway.

Now they’re going to force the people to pay for this all over again. When is anyone going to stand up for the people instead of the interests of the big corporations? When will this bilking finally stop?

Here is a link: http://www.techdirt.com/articl.....40_F.shtml

@37

They don’t need to remove your data allocation in small pieces. All they have to do is keep it the same. With the rate at which internet usage requirements are growing, this will amount to the same thing…

If you really want to see where a Teleco monopoly is heading, take a look at what AT&T did to South Africa when they landed a monopoly there:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl.....26/1642210

SA’s 3 gig caps have been around since ADSL was introduced there.

This is the type of disgusting monopolistic shit I saw in Australia when I worked there in 2003-2005.

The question is how will this be enforced in the US as there is no Telstra like monopoly (or Telstra/Optus duopoly, whichever for the pedantic bitches). You basically need a cartel to enforce such garbage on consumers, but considering the political power that Telcoms buy in the US with good old fashioned corruption (er…campaign contributions) anything can happen, right?

This leads to nothing but significantly reduced use of the internet, it’s a major drag on consultants and anybody trying to quickly innovate (how many tiny software startups can experiment with new sites and services with $1/GB overcharge), and it’s simply disgusting, greedy, monopolistic hogwash.

I hope spreading the word on this trial helps get people to jump ship from this shit-service.

“And the LAST thing I want is some tool in DC mandating how the Internet should work”

It was worth repeating.

@29, @47: Right, you’d rather a cartel of Telcos determine how the internet should work for you through collusion on usage limits.

Two libertarian tools who would rather bend over for the ‘free market’ (read: giant corporations using publicly subsidized infrastructure, technology, and corporate tax breaks) than to have a regulator arbitrate the reasonable limits of service for the sake of the entire country’s progress, GDP, and so on.

Glad to be with ATT

Why the uproar over bandwidth caps? Should we all be able to place as many phone calls as we want (over copper lines) for a fixed fee? Or use as much water as we want for a fixed fee? Or use as much electricity as we want for a fixed fee?

The issue of net neutrality, in my eyes, comes down to ensuring that content creators aren’t discriminated against. Content consumers, on the other hand, should expect to be bound by the unfortunate reality that drives economics: scarcity.

I believe this their primary motivation is limiting growth of competition to the cable TV end of things. With so many TV program/movie over IP services popping up, and with channels putting their programing on websites, broadband is providing a real alternative to the cable TV monopoly. Right now you can get TV and movies from sites like Joost, Netflix, PBS, SciFi channel, and lots more. Today you can get a fairly good diet of entertainment, and it will only get better as time goes on. Soon people won’t bother with cable - they will just watch directly from websites of interest. The only way the cable companies can slow this down and temporarily keep their TV monopoly is with bandwidth caps.

Lets start a poll here to see how many of us will switch ISP to protest against metered internet.

Welcome to the real world.
I hate but understand bandwidth caps. They enforce fair use. Is there anything wrong with that? But, yes it can be abused. I would hope to expect 150gig for a typical service would be more then enough. 40gig is a joke.

$1 per extra gig is not bad however.

In my experience working with ISP’s, if you let the users abuse, thats exactly what they will do. Putting in a method to charge those who take advantage of the service sounds fair. Its just, like anything, it can be used to screw the users if the ISP wants. Ie, if you have a gun, you can keep the peace, but you can also rob them blind.

This is ridiculous. It will not only affect innovation for companies that rely their consumer have access to all you can eat, but will curtail innovation across the board as consumers will in general have less access.

Sad thing indeed.

One more reason to leave the states

This is what we live with in Australia and we have many internet providers (although Telstra has a near stranglehold on the copper). Some plans ‘rate-limit’ when you go over your download limit, so you don’t pay more, but you drop back to 64kbps.

It does mean that IPTV is dead in the water here unless the ISPs provide it as free usage, which is the way it appears to be heading. For example Telstra’s movie download service doesn’t count against your usage quota, but you’re stuck with using them as your ISP and content provider.

May I point out that the current situation is a construction of the current regulatory format.

Local, State, and Federal politicians and Bureaucrats love the current setup. They can posture and pontificate against the evil telephone companies. Oh that’s right there are new villains the cable companies.

They destroyed AT&T with the changing regulatory landscape. Now they want to muck around with the internet.

And, people are foolishly looking for the BOZOs, who created the problem in the first place, to solve the problem and save us from the evil ISPs.

Give me a break!

Look at the computer marketplace; falling prices, increasing capabilities, and a lot of energy in progress. A free and unregulated market means that we have to send the gooferment to the penalty box.

All they do is ‘penalize’ us!

@alex (50)

The problem with the scarcity theory is that when large corporations are allowed to control supply, whether through monopoly or cartel, then they can create the conditions for scarcity. This is the reason utilities have been regulated from almost the beginning.

Lest you all forget the lesson we learned from deregulation of electricity in California: Companies will lower supply in order to increase profit if given incentive to do so.

Call me a communist if you like (I’m actually a Green-tarian), but I think that there are certain public goods - such as electricity, phone, and internet - that have reached a ubiquity and necessity such as to be considered the birthright of every citizen. Allowing large companies to manipulate supply, and therefore prices, in a market with extremely inelastic demand is will only hurt the consumer and fatten the corporate bottom line.

I’m not a fan - and I think it’s ironic how it’s the polar opposite of the voice model. But I still understand why they’re doing it.
http://tinyurl.com/42vbkw

Alternatively how about open it up so that anyone can lay fiber, cable, phone line, or towers. Accidental competition in dsl and cable helps a little, how about opening it up all together?

Setting a maximum price is fine, but if some company wants to lay fiber and make a go of it, why would it be our policy to stop them? Making it fair for cable (or phone, or satellite) companies doesn’t make sense, they are grown up companies and need to grow or shrink based on their ability to please customers.

Unmetered bandwidth? WTF IS THAT??!

I live in a shitty country with a shitty teleco monopoly too, it bites.

@vijay gill
@Morgan
@alex
@James Gardiner

You are the voices of reason in this debate. I am a bit surprised that the readers of Tech Crunch would have such a one-sided, “emotional” reaction to what is a basically a business problem. I see it like this….

At some point the internet connection is going to replace all forms of incoming media. Imagine that all your hi-def TV, and all of your audiophile quality music comes through your internet connection on demand. Anything you want to watch or listen to anytime you want.

Does anyone think that the current telco/cable infrastructure could support this?

So the telco/cable folks who are on the hook for overselling bandwidth to consumers know that when this day comes they are basically screwed. They will have to invest more and therefore charge more. In fact many (e.g. Verizon have been taking on huge capex for building out their network that they will have to recover at some point). Metered bandwidth is as good a way as any for looking at how to deal with this. It may not be the way things end up and just a step along the way - after all the customers is always right and at least this group of customers have spoken.

We may have to use an outside firm of consultants.

i think its fine for an OPTION, i.e if they want to offer customers a cheaper monthly package with a GB cap. However Having lived in New Zealand previously, this system was entrenched, and very expensive. I believe it did cripple innovataion and hinder high tech entrepenuership.

-Karl

There’s nothing wrong with paying by the byte for internet access. If I paid by the byte for internet access, perhaps I would be able to access the bandwidth they sold me. However, the rate mentioned is exploiting the asymmetry of the market.

15Mb/s is 4860GB/month, which at $1/GB is $4860/month of maximum charges if we ignore upload bandwidth.

On average TWC will probably make an extra $10-50/customer with this, which isn’t very offensive. However, this rate makes services like storing all your data in the cloud artificially expensive; one example of a service which I think could create far more than $10-50/month of value for each TWC customer in the next decade.

Local cable monopolies are supported with the argument that it would be too expensive to allow multiple physical networks to cover the same area; but the cost of redundant physical networks is far outweighed by the potential value that government licensing of cable monopolies is destroying in favor of an unimaginative local optimum of slightly increasing TWC’s shareholder returns.

This is what happens when the FCC continues to drag its feet on allowing more competition for broadband access beyond the cable companies. They need to let the phone companies come in once and for all to lay Fiber to the homes and then make the pipe common to any provider that provides the service to the house. Then open the flood gates to any provider, not just the bloody cable companies. Here in Brooklyn, NY we finally have a choice for broadband now that FIOS has finally rolled into the city to put the pressure on Optimum Online (Cablevision)…I had a talk with the FIOS representative just the other day about their service options which start with 20Mbps data throughput (about 10 Mbps faster than the average Optimum Online speed for the basic plan) I didn’t ask about monthly caps though.

The thing with the caps that really is a showing of disingenuous intentions on the part of the cable companies, is that the back end fiber trunks can easily be fitted with DWDM switches (if they haven’t already been) DWDM allows trivial multiples of existing bandwidth to be upgraded by literally flicking a switch. No truck rollouts needed and essentially null cost, the existing fiber lines can theoretically take thousands of lambda’s (distinct wavelengths of optical data) essentially making trunk bandwidth infinite….yet here they are lying about their need to “preserve” a resource that they can procure for nothing, at will. As if electrical engineers (like myself) who are trained in the Fiber technologies available today won’t spill the beans on their plans.

The minute I ever hit a bandwidth cap from any provider is the minute that provider will wish they never put a cap in place. I have been telling only my non engineer colleagues about DWDM and fiber and how lambda’s make bandwidth issues moot, if they piss me off I’ll have to start telling everyone else.

For more on the technologies discussed: wikipedia has some mature articles on FTTP( fiber to the premises) and DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing).

@magixman

There a many good examples/arguments here on both sides of the issue, but I think you hit on something when you asked “Does anyone think that the current telco/cable infrastructure could support .. anything you want to watch or listen to anytime you want.?”

I think the unanimous answer here would be No. I’d like to ask, What type of environment is going to get us there faster: markets with monopolies or markets with competition? My guess is competition.

I think the focus of the article is on “government intervention of markets” and “monopolies”. If these types of pay-per-byte services thrive in a competitive markets, fine by me. At least we’ll get competitive pricing.

Another step towards making America a second world nation in the days to come:
http://citadel-of-light.com/20.....from-1770/

p.s.

Bravo Michael, it’s an excellent issue to get behind.

And, I think any Europeans upset with past articles will appreciate a post of this nature.

note: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....m-machine/

Come on…who needs start-ups?
1. they are unknown 2. they are unstable 3. they often fail.
Why not trust Time Warner Cable? This big company knows what best for us.
Need more arguments? Not convinced yet? Then listen to Laurence Lessig and convince yourself. http://change-congress.blip.tv/#784007

I think they destroyed AT&T with the changing regulatory landscape. A hot debate is taking place at http://www.Billionairepal.com now among hollywood celebrities and beaitiful people. Many guys said they were super-excited about it~

It isn’t an emotional response, just the question that remains unanswered by the “let ‘em charge what they want to” people– the taxpayers are subsidizing the build-out of the communication infrastructure. This is not being done because we feel that the communications companies need a hand at boosting profits, but because we need to communicate.

So Taxpayer pays communication company for infrastructure improvements to improve his communications and keep pace with his growing communication needs. Communication company happily accepts payment, builds out half what it promised to Taxpayer, then reduces the communications ability of Taxpayer to create a “crisis”, then tells Taxpayer that to alleviate the crisis, Taxpayer has to give them more money for infrastructure improvements.

And you’re okay with this, so I’m very happy for you. Personally, I don’t like it when I get screwed.

And by the way, using phone-over-copper as an example of scarcity is an incorrect assessment as well. I never recall paying by-the-call for landline telephone service. I remember paying for time spent on calls made outside a predetermined area. Distance does not equal scarcity, it equals a business model which balanced the needs of a community to communicate within itself with the needs of the provider to collect revenue.

I think installing a wimax tower using Xo’s LMDS would solve the problem

@josh

I am 100% in favor of free markets as a way to get to on demand media nirvana at the best price. I did not get too worked up about Michaels rant on monopolies because in most markets we have competition between Ma Bell Reinvented and the Cable Guy. It is not all that we could wish for as far as competition is concerned but a bit shy of the pure monopoly us geezers remember that prompted federal action that ultimately benefited everyone.

Man, I can’t wait until GWB is out of office. Having a Monopoly and then using it to raise prices unfairly should be illegal. First, they stop city wifi, now this. IF they do this in addition to shaping traffic it’s totally BS. I need to do some fact checking, but I heard somewhere that never since right before the great depression has there been such a great divide between the rich and the poor. This routine gouging, suing, raping, & everything else that corporate america is doing to innocent working class lower middle class people is getting to the point where its sickening. Customers have been paying a huge price to Time Warner so they could expand their freaking network, not spend a billion dollars on Bebo. Talk about a board that needs ousted. Don’t screw up and then make your customers pay, that goes for any other provider. I’ll drop Time Warner (look me up, 10 year customer) in a heartbeat if this thing goes any further.

@ dang son - don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out clown

Lack of competition aside, I don’t see anything wrong with metered bandwidth. Low-usage subscribers have been stuck subsidizing heavy users so it makes far more economic sense to make people pay for what they eat. Buffets are for food…when you know what the upper-bound for consumption is.

Additionally, carriers no longer have to throttle heavy traffic applications such as bittorrent because usage is aligned with revenue.

@ #5: since when did internet access become an inalienable right? No shit those who pay more should get more bandwidth.

I don’t see what the problem with this is. The lack of competition is a bad thing and should be fixed; however, I think charging for usage is fine.

Competition in a competitive market will force the rates to be reasonable.

Goverment should make sure the markets are competitive NOT determine the business model companies should follow.

This just pisses me off. Not that it will change. Cable companies are always pulling this crap. They control the internet.

I’m an American, but I live in Australia currently, where cap plans are the only thing available, really (if you want fast speeds). My boyfriend and I are with iiNet on a 40/40gb setup. While we’re not reaching that limit, just the fact that we have a limit is annoying.

We’re moving to the States in 2009, and there’s no way we’ll go with a plan that has a metered bandwidth. I hope a lot of people will leave them.

This is a good thing. Far far better than letting them controlling bandwidth with QOS and futzing with network neutrality.

Price hikes like this are very very visible, so people won’t have a hard time switching when they see their bills going up, or at least, clamoring for more options.

Insidious things like giving preference to one search engines traffic over another is *not* visible and people won’t always realize it’s their provider screwing them over, so won’t clamor for better options.

This is great news. I think all providers should be told to do this whenever they whine about network congestion.