I do this with my personal domain: [website or company name]@[mydomain.tld] - have done since I purchased the domain about 10 years ago.

Sometimes when I give my email address to organizations in person (like when opening a bank account, I've been asked "how can you have an email address with our company name in it?". After explaining my reasons for doing this, those who understand think it's a good idea, those who don't just give me a blank look and go "oh, ok".

But, as I operate a catch-all, I get tons of spam - not that I ever see it... it's all dictionary attacks, variations on email addresses used for junk messages or actual spam received after some company's email database was compromised.

All I have to do is remember to update my email filters when I sign up for new stuff so that legit messages don't get marked as spam - the result of which is that my email filters tend to be pretty good at sorting messages in to separate IMAP folders - if it lands in my actual inbox, it's probably safe to read.

Considering I'm in the process of building a network, I find the topic of FUPs and Bandwidth Management both interesting and of some concern.

As a consumer, I look at it from the perspective of "this is unfair, how dare you throttle my connection", while as a provider, I look at it from the "it's literally impossible to provide superior service at the cost consumers are willing to pay".

It's very true that much of the cost of building a network comes from the last mile - equipment and whatnot is a nominal cost as far as I'm concerned, but bandwidth depends very much on the market in which I'm buying it.

Let's assume for a moment I'm buying on the UK market - if I pay say GBP20,000 per month for a 10gbit/s link between New York, that gives me an effective price of GBP2.50 per megabit (80% utilization). Add to that peering of say GBP1000 per month for a 10gbit/s link which gives us GBP0.125 per megabit. Add equipment and last mile costs of GBP5 per subscriber per month and other overheads of about GBP5 per subscriber per month (being not 100% familiar with wholesale prices in the UK, I can only hypothesize, but I do know the prices where I am, so I'm trying to rationalize in the same way) we can establish that I can not effectively charge less than GBP12.625 + VAT for 1mbit/s if I wanted to make no money - add a 30% markup and we could say about GBP16.50.

Considering Virgin charges about that much for a 10mbit/s line (not counting phone or special offers http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-10mb.html), obviously then, there are various points on the network at which there will be contention. It is my understanding that the UK allows a maximum of 50:1 contention ratio (which in my view is a flawed measurement of network performance, but I digress), which effectively limits the amount of data available to each user to consume.

With the ratio at 50:1, a 1mbit/s user could reasonably expect about 6GB of actual usage if the lines were under heavy utilization - a 25:1 ratio 12GB and 10:1 ratio 30GB. Multiply that by the number of megabits they offer on any given plan, and you can see there what the ISP is expecting each user to use.

I mean, sure, a 10mbit/s plan *could* allow you to download about 3TB in a month, and 100mbit/s 30-odd TB, but that kind of usage is impractical to most people.
Then there is the other argument: if you're using more than a few hundred GBs a month, what are you downloading? Of course it's none of my business as a provider, but it's highly likely that there is a significant amount of pirated material there.

The idea is not so much that each user needs to have capacity available megabit for megabit, but that the network is shared in such a way that it can be utilized effectively, that is, transfers are finished sufficiently fast that the lines are free for other users to do their transfers - as such, 100mbit/s for 35 pounds, as the average consumer willing to pay GBP35-40 for less contention, especially if he is only going to be using 50-100-150GB a month. And why should he pay the same amount as you do for significantly less usage?

Being that Virgin is one of the few ISPs to not have a strict data-cap on their plans, this traffic management seems to be a way of trying to avoid going down that path, and while I disagree with FUPs in principle, I understand that they are necessary at some level. On the other hand, I also disagree with provider's use of "Unlimited". We use the term flat-rate because the meanings are very different - as you can probably guess, "unlimited" pertains to usage, whereas "flat-rate" is all about price.

At the end of the day, if you're really so desperate to saturate the lines 24/7, perhaps you should be offered either a pay-as-you-go usage plan, free of traffic management (if the provider charged a nominal amount for the infrastructure, then say 10p per GB), because the next alternative is that you should buy a dedicated line of some kind.

Methinks that we also need to talk to his payment processor (clickbank) and ask them to stop processing his payments (and/or freeze his account). ...but if he's in Auckland NZ, I'm happy to drive up there (it's only an hour) with a few... goons... and sort this guy out. I'm sure WLUG, AuckLUG, NZLUG, NZOSS and so one will have plenty to say about his activites.

I came up with a similar theory myself nearly 10 years ago, and I have my books to prove it...

That aside, I'm sure I've seen other sources with the same idea between that time and now.

Are you sure that list is complete? You seem to be missing a couple of ISPs in India.

BSNL claims somewhere on it's website to have a number of millions of subscribers (the numbers vary depending on which page you look at... and they're at least 3 years out of date).

Though it should also be known that a significant percentage of those are using this strange technology called "dialup", with the rest being on mobile, wimax or adsl... so an accurate number isn't easy to ascertain. ...However, I'm sure they have a few bot hosts.

Combine the three.

Bring a cheapie (or even an old, retired machine).

If they take it away at all, when/if they return it to you, take the machine and hurl it with full force at the wall or ground and stamp on it (lots) as much as possible - in front of them.

If possible, remove the hard drive and repeat. ...it might make you look slightly maniacal, but all they need to know is that you can no longer trust the device and the moment it left your sight it became useless and/or potentially dangerous to use.

I'm surprised to not see any comments regarding the state of access in India. There are comments regarding the US, Australia and New Zealand, but not India.

A 155Mbits line can cost as much as US$34k/month here, so the prices and speeds of consumer (and business) net connections are pretty horrific: USD$66 including tax will get you a 2mbit unlimited connection. If that provider supplies to your area.

I myself am starting an ISP and we are planning to offer the speeds which are available in Europe and Eastern Asia (read S Korea and Japan), so things like torrents are of great concern to us.

Most people get around the P2P thing by using DC++, but the last-mile ISP market is extremely fragmented (private cable-vendors "own" different suburbs of each city, and some are plainly psychotic, judging by the behaviour they exhibit towards customers - randomly unplugging cables, sabotaging cables of competitors and so forth).

Also, because of this fragmentation, DC++ servers are available only to a limited number of people, so it is really only a partial solution, and if I'm not mistaken, torrents are still king.

Regulations allow maximum contention ratios of 50:1 for consumer broadband. If everyone torrents at 2Mbits, in theory thats ONLY 70 customers to saturate a 155Mbits line.

So far, the most effective answer lies in either throttling or in data-caps. Is there another answer that can benefit the consumer AND allow us to provide an affordable, speedy service AND one that is actually useful to everyone - especially when we're paying for example $30k/month for 155mbits?

I personally would be interested to know (email your thoughts directly to slashdot.comments at-the-rate mathew-carley.com)

I am exactly the same way.

I was "let go" from a company in Finland, citing no more projects for me (which put my visa status in a questionable position). Fine.

So I moved to India.

I'm now an on-site consultant who makes more than twice as much as the salaried employees (while I start my own company), and they are very flexible about everything: work timings, listening to music - and I've got the ITS department in a position where they have to do what I want, when I want it (otherwise I will just email the CEO and tell him that I've done what I wanted anyway and without the IT department, but it has just cost the company more).

I am situated next to one of the break-rooms, so constant clinking from tea cups, chatter, the nearby AC closet and flow of traffic would severely impact my productivity were they to tell me I could no longer listen to music.

Since I get the projects that no-one else can work on (some clients sit and wait for months), if I left mid-project, they'd have wasted many thousands of dollars and be in rather a lot of trouble.

I've even been offered a permanent position, but... my own company launches soon, so I've not replied yet - that and being "the only one who can" is a bit of a double edged sword, so I think it would be best to remain a consultant.

This seems to be a phenomenon of the English speaking world... and India (thanks UK nanny state mentality!)

I grew up in New Zealand. My mother is a registered nurse, but as kids my siblings and I always got things like Onions on our ears and Vicks on our chest.

The pills we took everyday were just Garlic Oil and Vitamin C. Yes, I got sick, but that's unavoidable as a child. We lived on a farm for part of my childhood.

My Year 7 (Age 11) at school was completely unmarred: I had exactly 0 days off school that year. The previous year I had had something that they couldn't diagnose (was it Bronchitis? Asthma? Whooping Cough? After 6 months it just went away anyway). The next year I my immune system attacked itself and I got some disease ("Rutilus offa" or something... translated from Latin to English as "Red Lumps"). That too went away by itself.

When I was 15 I worked as a "bottle-boy" at a pharmacy (basic cleaning up, making cups of coffee, running errands etc). I had 1 illness in the 18 months I worked there - which was treated with Vicks in hot water, breathed through a cloth in order to clear up my stuffy nose.

Having lived in France (where I worked in a hotel and most diseases came from people travelling the continent), Finland (didn't really get sick) and now India, actually the worst was India: but that was just my body getting used to the water, food and air.

Now I don't really have any problems, and most food I prepare myself. I occasionally get a stuffy nose but that's about it. The only thing is I mostly drink bottled water (but at US$1.50 for 20 litres, it's a bargain).

My Mrs (who is Indian) inherited from her mother an obsession with keeping everything clean and the maid washes down the apartment with Dettol DAILY. I would hate to think what would happen to them if a super-bug comes along. I find the more I make my own maid scrub down my house, the more unhealthy I feel.

To conclude, in a very roundabout way, I'm with George Carlin on this one too - not just because the man is a legend, but because of my own experience.

It would be interesting to see where the company is registered. As a non-US citizen, I don't pay too much concern for your country's taxes, but if it's registered in the US, that's just foolish.