Death of Decent Australian Broadband 455
iamplasma writes: "As reported by several Australian newspapers, Optus cable internet services will be switching their standard plan to a 3gb "soft-limit" broadband service (once the limit is passed, the service slows to 28kbps). This is effectively the end of decent broadband in Australia, with Optus being the only major provider to offer a service without a highly restrictive usage cap. This is also the ISP who proudly promoted themselves over their main competitor specifically over the issue of the competitor's 3gb limits."
Dammit! (Score:1)
Re:Dammit! (Score:2, Informative)
So suck down that data while you still can
After a few weeks of rumours... (Score:2, Interesting)
Two things that deserve a mention though are the speed being "throttled" and no extra charges. At least you don't run up a massive bill as you do with another company we know well!
Re:After a few weeks of rumours... (Score:2)
"In practice the speed will be limited to a data speed ranging between 20kbps and 28.8kbps"
So it's even slower than that much of the time. Does anyone else find something hideously wrong with a cable service half the speed of a modem, and advertised as such?
Re:After a few weeks of rumours... (Score:2)
3gb "soft cap" - fine
28kbps - what is this? 1996?
Re:Dammit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Unofficial soft limits (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Unofficial soft limits (Score:2, Informative)
~N~
Re:Unofficial soft limits (Score:2)
Whine Whine Whine... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Whine Whine Whine... (Score:2)
For more information; (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:5, Interesting)
In fairness though, they have a point. $54.95AUS per month does compare favorably with getting a second phone line and hooking a modem up to it all day.
And it's also true that regular users don't need anymore than 3Gb per month. Unless you're a techie and downloading a lot of Linux ISOs or watching independant movies, 3Gb per month will get you a long way. It applies to Web hosting, so why not here?
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to charge per megabyte? There's no such thing as 'unlimited' or 'free'.. you end up paying in the end. So why not charge per megabyte, which will force users to consider what they're actually downloading. US$0.01 per megabyte sounds fair.
(In the UK, BT is also trying a similar scheme with dial-up. That is, their 'Anytime' service is not actually 'any time' anymore.. you can only use it for a maximum of 12 hours a day!)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2, Interesting)
3GB is NOTHING. Your average webpage is around 100K. You use about 50M for an hour of gaming. The streaming video that features prominantly in almost every broadband commercial will take much more than that. Game demos, streaming music, all of the reasons to use broadband. To say that someone who has broadband should not use it to its potential pisses me off. I however agree that there is a difference between abuse and power "use"...but I certainly don't put that point anywhere near 30GB.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2, Informative)
Telstra provides a number of unmetered sites for their 3GB capped users, including gaming servers, game demo downloads, 24 hour video music (thebasement.com.au), even the latest Linux and Free/Net/OpenBSD distros are available for unmetered download.
If Optus are not planning a similar system, I would be looking at switching to GASP Telstra for my broadband service. Sounds like they offer for free just what you want from broadband.
By the way, I too was pissed when Telstra introduced the 3GB limit, but I find by using the free sites on offer, especially GameArena (for my Linux downloads) I have no problem staying under the limit.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:4, Informative)
This may apply for ISP's outside the US getting service from major backbone providers of which most if not all are based in the US, and are charged by the amount of data they use.
However inside the US, ISP's pretty much pay flat fees from backbone providers, and in alot of cases, ISPs have peering agreements with each other, so source and destination traffic stays within the respective source and destination networks.
However once you have to cross the ocean, your being charge by the amount of data (whether undersea lines or satellite). The problem is, the US providers don't bear any of the costs, whether its someone in the US sending data to an ISP outside the US, or that ISP sending data to the US, that ISP bears ALL the costs
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, you will notice that the people complaining about the 3GB limit are ususally those who were sucking 10GB of warez a month. The "normal" consumer in Australia hasn't even considered ADSL yet.
Admittedly, some people do have a legit claim - Telstra sold their service as "unlimited bandwidth", and then imposed a limit. However, now that limits are here, I for one expect them to stay.
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to charge per megabyte? There's no such thing as 'unlimited' or 'free'.. you end up paying in the end. So why not charge per megabyte, which will force users to consider what they're actually downloading.
There are already some ISP's in Australia doing just this. TPG [tpg.com.au] for instance charges A$26.95 per month, plus 15c a meg. Note - this is not intended as an advert - I know nothing about their quality of service, or their terms and conditions, just their pricing scheme.
US$0.01 per megabyte sounds fair.
Sounds fair to whom? I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Oz, whenever paying for bandwidth gets mentioned, the same figure of $0.15-0.18 per meg gets mentioned (eg, this figure was always mentioned at uni whenever volume billing was suggested to a department).
That said, I notice that TPG sells high levels of bandwidth at 5c/meg - I have no idea where their figures come from.
It may be fair for the consumer to pay 1c/meg, but not if the supplier is paying 1+Xc/meg, X>0...
Russ %-)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Oz, whenever paying for bandwidth gets mentioned, the same figure of $0.15-0.18 per meg gets mentioned...It may be fair for the consumer to pay 1c/meg, but not if the supplier is paying 1+Xc/meg, X>0
I don't think it should cost that much.
If we can assume that T-1 lines are priced such that it's expected that you'll fill it up, we can get an estimate of a reasonable per MB bulk data rate.
A T-1 moves 1.54 Mbps, which is 16.6GB per day at full throttle, or just shy of 500GB per month (using 1 meg = 10^6, not 2^20). A T-1 generally costs between $600 and $1000 US per month, which equates to between $0.0012 and $0.002 per MB. Even if we assume that T-1 pricing is based on half or one-quarter usage, the cost is still less than $0.01 US per MB.
So it appears to me that $0.01 US or $0.02 AU (is that the right abbreviation?) is quite reasonable and, in fact, a very large markup over T-1 prices. $0.003 US or $0.006 AU would seem feasible, even.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just a hint: Anyone who is even remotely interested in thinking about how much bandwidth in Australia "should" cost really needs to understand that there is no such thing as a T-1 in Australia. Trying to make judgements without that kind of basic knowledge is a bit like making judgements about how much cars "should" cost without knowing that they're made out of steel.
If the deficiencies in your knowledge are really that basic, you just aren't qualified to comment about how much it "should" cost. A fundamental understanding of the market conditions in Australia is required before you can put yourself into the position of making authorative statements about costs.
What you are really doing is taking a US-centric view of the Internet, and applying it to other parts of the world -- And anyone who lives outside US territory will be able to tell you that that's just nonsense.
- mark
Network Engineer, Internode [on.net]
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Doubt you'd find many T1's anywhere outside of North America. Sicne most of the world's telecoms is more likely to use 2M than 1.5M primary rate.
What you are really doing is taking a US-centric view of the Internet, and applying it to other parts of the world -- And anyone who lives outside US territory will be able to tell you that that's just nonsense.
Not only do the technical details of telephone switching systems differ. ISPs in the US tend not to have to pay for international connectivity.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2, Informative)
Most providers in Australia charge around
Later, when connect dropped their own overseas links and got a 100Mb pipe to Telstra because Telstra was beating them at their own game, a number of the ISPs switched, but by that time the pattern had been set; all of the first-tier providers were doing usage-based pricing.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
The thing that always chokes me up about these sorts of conversations is that the people who have strong ideas about how much it "should" cost don't actually know what they're talking about.
Well, I'd hardly say I have "strong ideas" about it, and I never claimed to know how things work in Australia. I stated my assumptions, did some calculations and stated the results.
there is no such thing as a T-1 in Australia
Okay, so how *do* businesses and universities buy bandwidth? And what prices do they pay? The idea is to try to get a handle on what the costs should be; if my assumptions were bad, please provide some better ones rather than whining about my cluelessness. Do you know how much fully-utilizable bulk bandwidth costs in Australia? Someone must.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
It occurs to me that it might be worth working this in the opposite direction. If we assume that 0.10 AUD is a reasonable per-MB charge, this means that the equivalent of a T-1 (which is a reasonable amount of bandwidth for a small web hosting company) would cost approximately 0.02 AUD per second or 50,000 AUD per month.
Is that really what they pay? Even half of that seems impossibly expensive. For that matter, the bandwidth required to fill a 28.8kbps modem line 24x7 would cost 750 AUD per month.
Nope, 0.10 to 0.l5 AUD per MB seems way too high. 0.01 AUD would make sense if bandwidth in Australia costs 2-3 times what it does in the U.S., but I have a hard time believing that it really costs 40 times as much.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
I stand corrected.
I was always of the opinion that per-MB charges for broadband make sense; now I just wonder how far in the red your broadband ISPs are.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
If only those who knew all the facts posted to slashdot the site would be cleared out.  Talking out of one's ass is a invaluable content-generation strategy on the internet.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:4, Informative)
In the wholesale marketplace, ISPs have tended to use Telstra Megalink for 2 Mbps services (basically E1 on G.703), but that's increasingly being replaced by 100 Mbps Ethernet as next-generation carriers lay more fibre around the place.
Yes, you'd be right in thinking that all these connectivity options are very Telstra-centric. They're the monopology carrier in our, ahem, "competitive" telecommunications marketplace. It sucks, but it's one of the industry conditions which we just have to cope with, and it's one of the single largest reasons for the high cents/Mbyte figure you see quoted by retail ISPs in Australia. Just to give you some starting points, a Telstra Megalink in the 6km distance band costs $3000 to install and $800 per month to run. 64k on ISDN costs about $400 per month (if you've told Telstra which number you'll be dialling in advance - if you dial any other number, it's about $1800 per month in the local call charging band).
- mark
Network Engineer, Internode [on.net]
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:3, Informative)
(Unabashed praise from satisfied user follows...) Unlike a lot of ISPs, Internode has a high percentage of geeks at most levels of their infrastructure, and do their best to provide for all users, not just the average (how many other ISPs do you know that have a FreeBSD section on their support pages?). The management of Internode also are quick to respond to online concerns - f'rinstance, there was a concern raised over their adsl Terms of Use a while back on an Australian tech site. Internode's manager responded personally, and the offending section was revised within hours of the initial news posting.
When I eventually decide I really do need adsl, I know who I'll be going through...
Re:It's not our fault.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
ISTR reading that the cost to Telstra was about A$0.02 per MB -- possibly in one of the columns in The Australian's IT section.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:3, Insightful)
I use cable internet for the freedom of having it on all the time, and being able to just surf around a bit while I'm bored. I don't want to be thinking about every little page I visit and weighing up whether it's worth visiting. Or worse yet, to spend a long time downloading a large movie or game demo, only to find out it's absolute crap... and I've then effectively paid for it. That would annoy me no end.
No, I think Optus's decision is about the best we could hope for, I'm absolutely against the 'cap at XGig, and then xxcents per Meg after', it's just unworkable, and forces you to be constantly eyeing your usage meter... at least with Optus's plan you know straight away when you've used your allotment, and you aren't charged anything for it, you just cruise along at a slow speed until the next cycle.
Considering their large losses over the past few years, I would rather they switch to this and remain a competitor to Telstra ($69.99 for 3Gig vs $85 or so), than to close up and give the monopoly back to them.
I for one will be supporting Optus.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2, Interesting)
A streamlined company (efficiency keeps the costs down) could cover most, if not all, of its setup costs by passing those directly on to the customer (like they do now, via a "setup fee") and then divvying up their monthly costs between their customers, add $1 and make $customers profit. No per-bit stuff involved.
-knots
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
I'm going to disagree with some of what you said (Score:4, Interesting)
In truth, your post is coherent and logical, but let me play devil's advocate:
I've heard I don't know how many times that "xxxx is enough for the average user" in computer-speak, and every time it's short-sighted. It may be enough given usage patterns right now, but as soon as video is distributed on the network, all software is distributed that way, and as soon as The Next Big Thing (tm) comes along, your point becomes moot. Believe me, 3GB a month will seem like a pittance sooner than you think.
Computers in general aren't even 1 1,000,000th as powerful as they need to be. Look at the latest greatest game, look at how beautiful the 3D is, and then look out your window and realize how truly shitty it looks and you get the idea. We will need more computing horsepower for graphics and AI and everything else, and we will definitely need more bandwidth than 3 lousy GB per month.
Well, it makes business sense, pure and simple. If I want to download the 500 MB Lineage installer, and that alone takes one sixth of my monthly allotment, then it ought to be my problem, right? Wrong. The problem is, the Internet is as much an entertainment medium as anything else, and it's competing with technologies that are not pay-as-you-go, like television and so forth. I think the public will demand unlimited access, if given a choice. The first time they get a bill for $1000 in a month, they'll be looking elsewhere.
Of course, the industry coould just collude and force per-download pricing, but it's ridiculous.
As a consumer, I'm already pissed off that my cable company won't allow me to broadcast. It's their way of keeping distribution in the hands of the few; a way to maintain the status quo. Yes, I understand the reasons why they don't want to host my pr0n and wArEz, but I'm being selfish here; this is about what I want.
I for one will always seek out unlimited pricing if possible.
Re:I'm going to disagree with some of what you sai (Score:4, Insightful)
It is short-sighted, but complain when the Next Big Thing actually arrives. We have 2.4 GHz Pentium IV's, and I'm 'chugging' along on my 500 MHz Celeron, and the most processor intensive operation I do (aside from dnetc, but that doesn't count) is run mplayer, which eats 25% CPU. This is why the tech industry's in a slump, we don't have a Big Thing and haven't had a latest Big Thing for a while now.
Look at the latest greatest game, look at how beautiful the 3D is, and then look out your window and realize how truly shitty it looks and you get the idea. We will need more computing horsepower for graphics and AI and everything else, and we will definitely need more bandwidth than 3 lousy GB per month.
And in twenty years when we're at that point, we'll have a far better Internet infrastructure than what we have now. You presume that the 3GB a month limit will still be the same in the year 2022, and it won't. Sorry.
The problem is, the Internet is as much an entertainment medium as anything else, and it's competing with technologies that are not pay-as-you-go, like television and so forth.
While the Internet is an entertainment medium, it differs from traditional devices by the method of transport: Waves vs. bytes. You can put a 100,000 watt FM tower and cover millions of people with your radio station. With radio and television, you don't pay for each user like you do with the internet distribution.
Calculate the bandwith costs to cover four million people listening to 128 kbps Internet radio instead. To serve this, you'd have to be thinking 4,000,000 * 16 * 1024 bytes per second. Each OC unit (Optical Carrier, as in OC-3) transmits data at 51.84 Mbps, or 6,794,792 bytes per second. Divide out and you're going to need an OC-9645.
Even if this were a regular day, ie, not four million people listening, and you had a fraction of the total listeners, you'd still have to serve massive bandwith out; the costs of which would be far more than any large-market FM radio station could cover.
I'd rather put up my 100,000 watt FM antenna.
I hate to rain on your parade, but the Internet is not the best method of distribution for, uh, packaged entertainment, like pay per view and radio and television shows. Maybe in 2022 when we have your true-to-life 3D, things will change, but it is unfortunate that in 2002 we have advanced so far but still have a long way ahead of us.
If you disagree, reply.
Re:I'm going to disagree with some of what you sai (Score:2)
It is short-sighted, but complain when the Next Big Thing actually arrives. We have 2.4 GHz Pentium IV's, and I'm 'chugging' along on my 500 MHz Celeron, and the most processor intensive operation I do (aside from dnetc, but that doesn't count) is run mplayer, which eats 25% CPU.
Great, so you don't do much with your computer. If I merely capture some video from my DV camera and compress for Web playback (i.e., take a home movie and show to my friends), my computer is at 100% CPU utilization, and the compression takes a goddamned long time (it shouldn't). There's plenty of room for speed improvements. And that's to say nothing of gaming. Pretty much any game will max either your CPU or video (pick one). I'm talking consumer applications here; not futzing around at command lines writing code, which I also do, but which requires a computer made in 1985.
I have no idea why you selected 2022 as the year we will need more than 3 GB a month. 3 GB is nothing! I've downloaded that inside of a week before. Hell, a few movie trailers and some game demos will get you there pretty fast, not to mention casual surfing.
While the Internet is an entertainment medium, it differs from traditional devices by the method of transport...
Thanks for the primer on how the Internet works, but you're missing the point. I was discussing it from the consumer perspective, not the business perspective. From the consumer perepective, I don't care how they do what they have to do. If they could give me a bajillion terabyte per second connection for $20 a month, I would be more than happy.
My point was, whether IP networks are an efficient mode of transport for television or whatever, compared to broadcast, it doesn't matter, because that's one of the things it's going to be used for. And they have to get used to it.
Furthermore, just like Cable TV fragmented the television market (the networks are getting smaller and smaller auiences all the time), Internet distribution of viewable media will fragment the market even further, and this changes the economies of scale.
In other words, there will never, ever be 4,000,000 people listening to your online radio station. The only reason that happens at all is because there are so few stations, and people have to listen to something....so they do.
When there are a hundred thousand online stations for you to choose from, you will be able to choose "traditional sumatran folk music", with 15 other people, and the listening communities inside a given genre will be much smaller. In short, there will be different metrics for success.
This also means there will be different metrics for usage patterns, and different metrics for creating business models. The slowdown in the technology industry is, in my opinion, largely due to the fact that technology companies are operating under old economy business models rather than new economy business models (in short, they hemmorrhage way too much money and hire way too many people).
I agree with what someone said in another thread on this topic: these decisions are partly motivated by money, yes, but they are also motivated by a desire to maintain the status quo. These companies want to limit broadcasting, file sharing, etc., as much as they want to limit costs.
And, as a consumer, that's why it irks me. If I thought they would go out of business without a limited pricing structure, I would agree with you. But money is not the only operative concern here.
Re:I'm going to disagree with some of what you sai (Score:2)
First off, the reason why I picked 2022 is that you compared looking out the window to today's modern 3D graphics. We're running into hard, physical limits with what we have now, and to get to that true-to-life 3D will require a radical architecture shift (like PlayStation 2's Emotion Engine vs. conventional x86 computing) or maybe those CFNET-manufactured chips, which are 10 years off. Maybe 2022 is a bit late, but I try to be realistic. But I digress.
You made a loose tie-in to bandwith usage: We will need more computing horsepower for graphics and AI and everything else, and we will definitely need more bandwidth than 3 lousy GB per month.
Key word: Will.
Second thing while I have my soapbox:
I don't know what the average Joe does, and you're not an average Joe either--you're posting on slashdot. You can throw out statistics that X number of people own a DV camera and Yahoo has Y million users and casual surfing eats 6 - 20 MB/hour and try and correlate them to till the cows come home, but discussing what the average Joe does is wholly academic, and you can't add up anecodtal evidence of a hundred slashdotters to figure Joe out. He's a mythical bastard like that.
I read somewhere that something like 1% of cable internet users eat 90% of the bandwith used, and Optus cable is doing something about it. And this whole slashdot discussion is largely that 1% complaining.
From the article:
The [Optus] spokesperson said about 75 per cent of OptusNet Cable users would fall within the 3GB download range, but conceded that some customers would eventually pay more under the new system.
75% is a pretty clear majority, and I think Optus, after much research, has figured out Average Joe.
Lastly, you made one very disagreeable point:
These companies want to limit broadcasting, file sharing, etc., as much as they want to limit costs.
Start apache on port 8080 to circumvent your ISP blocking incoming port 80. Serve and broadcast at will. Pay for business class service which raises your upload cap and removes port restrictions. If you have something to say, pay the messenger, just like everybody else.
By the way, @home only blocked incoming port 80 on my segment because of Code Red, et al. Cox.net continues this cap and block as most people are too stupid to run a webserver, and looking at the big picture, I'm actually kind of glad they do this.
If you disagree, reply.
Re:I'm going to disagree with some of what you sai (Score:2)
Besides which, radio does have a saturation point. Every large object can reflect or absorb that radio signal, so that there are shadows, or possibly echos. Not to mention static that can interupt the signal.
Re:I'm going to disagree with some of what you sai (Score:2, Interesting)
Or you could get an ISDN line and multicast your Internet radio program to the entire Internet. The only problem with that is that it seems the average commercial ISP doesn't deal much with multicast users and definitely doesn't promote it like it should, especially with home users. I suppose it'd be a support hassle in their minds, but it'd save a ton of bandwidth.
In the end though, do ISPs really care? You're paying them for bandwidth and they don't really have any incentive to help you conserve it.. especially if you're a large Internet radio broadcaster as their customer. They'd rather sell you some massive pipe when you could have gotten by with a much smaller arrangement and used a more efficient "broadcasting" technology.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Was it was a typo for 128kbps?
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to charge per megabyte? There's no such thing as 'unlimited' or 'free'.. you end up paying in the end. So why not charge per megabyte, which will force users to consider what they're actually downloading. US$0.01 per megabyte sounds fair.
US$1 per 100 megabytes? That seems awfully steep. I sure wouldn't want to pay that for my cable modem (even though we currenly have a 1GB per day limit [sunflowerbroadband.com] and have no option to pay for more). Bandwidth is a lot cheaper than that, at least in the US. The web hosting company I work for, ITmom.com [itmom.com], only charges US$0.50 per gigabyte for bandwidth. Obviously we are paying for some big pipes to get the cost that low, but I'd think that an ISP covering half of Austrilia would be in a similar position. I'd be willing to pay about US$1-2 max per gigabyte for home usage, and that's after hitting a limit of say 1GB per day.Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:3, Interesting)
This fabulous deal is called "peering". If you're a Tier-1 ISP, you don't pay for data. This is by agreement amongst the ISPs. All the Tier-1 ISPs are in the USA, and guess what? They won't let any non-US ISPs join the club.
Eventually the principals of "free market forces", "globalism", and "user pays" will take over, and people in the USA will face a dramatic increase in internet costs. Then we're going to see a lot of complaining! But it'll actually be a fairer system, except for people in the USA who won't be getting a free ride any more.
There's no point saying "But the USA INVENTED the Internet!!!1!". Weren't cars invented in the USA? But you don't get free cars. And sooner or later, you won't get "free" internet any more either.
Definition of "regular user" (Score:5, Interesting)
Napster isn't much in the spotlight anymore, but do you remember when college netadmins would cringe as the students returned from break, turned on their computers, and brought previously more-than-adequate 'net connections to their knees? It happened a lot [google.com], and made Packeteer quite happy. (One of their Packetshaper [packeteer.com] appliances sold for (at the time) $10,000 each.)
Peer-to-peer (obviously!) is still quite popular. About two months ago, I fired up Gnucleus [sourceforge.net] to show my wife that the as-yet-unreleased-on-DVD Harry Potter movie was easily available. For my own curiosity, I set "pfctl -l we1" on my OpenBSD firewall, and logged the amount of data transferred across my 128/768 Kbit DSL line. The result was sobering:
- The movie was two files, each approximately 250 MB.
- I allowed Gnucleus to run 24 hours a day
- I maintained connections to 4 other nodes (for re-searching for the files when one source would die)
- I attempted parallel downloads
- I did not share any files
- I did not accept incomming connections (I was behind NAT and a stateful firewall anyway.)
Good Lord. Yes, that number includes all our other traffic as well, including my addict-levelIn the short span of 10 days, my downstream traffic count exceeded 7 Gigabytes!
From that massive amount, I received about one-half of a Gigabyte of useful data!
It's an impressive demonstration that a single computer (a Pentium MMX 233 at that!) can incur such massive amounts of traffic. Just doing the math, I find that if 100% saturated, my DSL could have transferred that much in less than one day!
Wow.
Now for the point of all this:
- ISPs need to realize that "normal users" aren't just Dad surfing the NY Times and checking email.
- "Normal users" use file-sharing networks from time to time.
- "Normal users" cannot be defined by decree.
- Not all "normal users" cause traffic only when they're physically in front of their computer -- some of us have figured out how to get our computers to do things while we're away! (I'm not talking about servers, either. In this case I'm thinking about offline-web-browsing spiders. <SARCASM> Internet Explorer does it, so it must be "normal!" </SARCASM>)
I admit that I'd love to have an all-you-can-eat, 10-Mbit, $50/month connection. It's just not realistic. I've used cable modems, I've used DSL, and DSL with a good ISP was noticably better, even though the data rate was supposedly one-half to one-quarter that of cable modems. It was a "you get what you pay for" situation.A "normal user" is going to get blindsided when s/he runs (Gnutella | Kazaa | Morpheus | ???) for a few days, and ends up throttled. How will they react when they think that the files they now have are all that got transferred, and ignore connection overhead? They'll likely scream bloody murder when their connection turns to crap.
I expect 'net access will eventually be billed like electricity -- you pay for what you use. The idea isn't new, but the last time it came up it received a lot of resistance.
Re:Definition of "regular user" (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Just because you can't think of a legitimate use for bandwidth doesn't mean that people shouldn't be allowed to use it. 3GB doesn't go very far at all if you are working on a collaborative video editing project with your friends (from around the world) in your spare time. Perfectly legal, legitimate, and very bandwidth intensive.
Honestly some things require more bandwith than others, and the infrastructure for charging people per megabyte isn't free either. You have to hire additional people to maintain the much more complex billing process, incuding handling incidents where some jerk on a university connection sends 500GB of UDP traffic to some unsuspecting sap on a Cablemodem just to surprise them with the $5k bill at the end of the month.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
Have there been any incidents of this occurring yet? If not, I'm sure there soon will be.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
US$0.01 per megabyte sounds fair.
The three ISO images for Mandrake 8.2 are about 2000 megabytes. At $0.01 per megabyte, downloading Mandrake 8.2 would cost $20! In the meantime, cheapbytes.com [cheapbytes.com] sells Mandrake 8.2 for $5.99, plus shipping, which usually brings it to around $11 or $12. In this case, it would be almost half the price to just order the CD's through the mail than to download the ISO images!
Is this a bad thing? Well, it would certainly lower the number of copies of Linux distributions that get downloaded. It would lower the bandwidth costs for those that provide the ISO's, since demands on their network would decrease as people look for alternative means to obtain the software. At my school, the one department keeps an internal FTP server with mirrors of popular ISO images, so students can download the ISO's without using up university bandwidth. Perhaps ISP's could set up similar mirrors without bandwidth restrictions that have popular ISO's?
In any case, charging per megabyte would lead to definite changes in the way people behave when downloading data from the Internet. I think it would be interesting to see on what content people place the highest value per megabyte.
Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? (Score:2)
There are a couple of problems with this first is that the ISP has to install something to measure and bill based on traffic, the more serious is that people could end up paying to be subject to denial of service attacks.
3GB fair? (Score:2)
It's easy as a regular user of broadband to hit 5GB, let alone 3GB. I don't download Linux ISOs (I use Debian), nor do I use file sharing software, or get in to downloading movies. I can easily break 3GB though. I do listen to the BBC radio test OGG streams occasionally. Here is a table/chart of how much 5GB can limit you: http://www.carricksolutions.com/bandwidthlimits.h
Re:Perhaps broadband should be cheap as donuts (Score:2)
upgrading (Score:2)
Maybe I will just have to go sat or dsl - is that a viable option in Oz?
Re:upgrading (Score:2)
How much is reasonable? (Score:2)
How much is reasonable? There has been alot of debate lately within australia, but I'd love to know what the world thinks - How much is a reasonable amount to download, and for what price?
For the record, I get (ADSL, Internode, Australia):
4.5 GB download, no upload limits, 512/128 Kb/s
Cost: $99
And, for the record, I think thats alot. I've used about 1500 MB this month, and cant see why I'd use much more... Of course, this could start a flame war - but that's not the point of this post. The question is, how much do we need to have for broadband?
Michael
Re:How much is reasonable? (Score:2, Informative)
But in Belgium the ILEC actually searches for the best wires in the local loop to connect you. It charges quite a fee for it, but that means you can actually reclaim money if the line is unsuitable for xDSL.
The numbers by themselves don't mean that much.
But I am famous for putting out nonsensical numbers, so here I go for the Netherlands anyway.
Academic pricing for students/university employees
one-time EUR 400
512/256, unlimited GB, EUR 35
uncapped/512, unlimited GB, EUR 53
Commercial pricing:
one-time EUR 400
512/256, 10 GB, EUR 53
uncapped/512, 100 GB, EUR 99
Commercial pricing (different ISP):
one-time EUR 200
512/128, FUP, EUR 50
1024/256, FUP, EUR 85
uncapped: as fast as the line goes, most people get about 6 Mbit/s
FUP: Fair Use Policy, sometimes capped at 30 GB
Re:How much is reasonable? (Score:2)
And, for the record, I think thats alot. I've used about 1500 MB this month, and cant see why I'd use much more... Of course, this could start a flame war - but that's not the point of this post. The question is, how much do we need to have for broadband?
I have Telstra ADSL with the 3Gb/month limit. I don't believe I actually need that much - in an average month I'd use 1.5 - 2Gb.
However, I dislike Telstra so intently, especially after they jacked the prices recently [1], so what I do, round about the 27th-28th of the month, is check my usage, and then go out of my way to download as many game demos and MP3s and so on as I need to bring it right up close to 3Gb.
If that's what they want to charge me for, damned if I'm not going to get it.
[1] Some of you may be under the delusion that a "contract" is an agreement which is binding upon 2 parties. An Australian ISP contract is different: it reads something like: you must continue paying for this service for 2 years, or else we'll charge you hundreds of dollars in early cancellation fees; we, however, reserve the right to change the price of the service, or the limitations upon the service, at any point during the period of this so-called "contract".
Re:How much is reasonable? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How much is reasonable? (Score:2)
From their website:
Personal Pricelist [on.net]
Reality Check (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's not bash every company that tries to succeed. I mean - we, and f---edcompany, and other sites all trash businesses with stupid business models. Cable modems, while awesome, have the side effect of providing incredible upload and download speeds to their users. Unlike a voice phone call - which uses relatively static bandwidth during a typical conversation, broadband connections can have vastly different usage patterns.
Now: if you were a cellular provider - would you price a phone the same if one person was able to talk at such a high pitch, that they took up 10, or even 100 times the bandwidth as the average person?
Let's analyze the post - it said the speed effectivaly drops to a 28.8k modem - well, sure, if you're browsing 24 hours a day all month long! If you browse for 6 hours a day, you still get 16.6MB per hour, which is not bad at all. Anyone short of an online gamer or warez/mp3 trader would be perfectly happy with 16MB per hour. This even assumes that the user goes online for 6hrs per day, every day. Even I with unlimited DSL, used ZER0 bandwidth for the 5 minutes it took me to write this.
Before everyone flames: what I'm saying is this:
We need differentiation in our services - one size fits all clearly doesn't work when you compare my parents browsing for 1 hour, 5 times a week, to someone telecommuting 20 hours a week, playing online games, and streaming mp3s. I'm certain that our friends down under will get either via competition, or market demand, other broadband options. Good Luck
Re:Reality Check (Score:4, Interesting)
if you look at their price listings, the larger bandwidth plans actually charge MORE per Gig than the smaller ones.
If they were really trying to honestly account for the cost of bandwidth the larger bandwidth plans should charge the same or less per Gig of bandwidth than smller plans.
This smells like a penalty.
Keep in mind that the "culture producers" have been very aprehencive about giving end users a lot of bandwidth, for some reasons that they tout (piracy) and some that they do not admit (desire to maintain monopoly on broadcasting). So for example in the US you get what is called asynchronous DSL that has a lot of download bandwidth and very limited upload bandwidth.
There is absolutely no technical reason for the upload bandwidth to be so limited, but it is. And of course that means makes things file sharing harder.
To summerize i dont think this price hike is based on purely economic reasons. It looks more like a penalty.
Re:Reality Check (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, yes, very insightful. Shame you didn't read the actual article. The issue is that now Australia only has one-size-fits-all. The two DSL providers now offer comparable services, one one price plan.
As regarding the viability of that plan, this is a return to the bad old days of metered diallup: it puts the cost of receiving spam, portscans or ping floods on the customer. I wouldn't mind, but residential DSL (and cable modem) providers seem to be astonishingly clueless and unhelpful regarding network security and efficiency even when they are paying for carrying junk traffic. If they're dealing with that problem by punishing the recipient, what chance that they'll even pretend to give a damn?
Check Yourself (Score:2)
Speak for yourself. I definitely use more than 3GB on some months. I like watching the movie trailers at Apple.com, which are around 24MB for a minute. I like being able to use files on my home PC from the office, rather than having to transfer disks around. And I like downloading the latest software releases.
Sure, I'm a Linux user, and using Codeweavers Crossover, Fish, and apt-getting packages for my Red Hat box from FreshRPMs, but I don't think a Windows user would be any different. They'd be viewing movie trailers, listening to online radio, downloading shareware and game demos, using remote desktop or PCAnywhere, being or talking to cam w**res on Netmeeting, acquiring porn, talking to Aunt Beatrice using a VOIP util, or whatever.
These were all the funky technologies broadband was supposed to give us.
Re:Reality Check (Score:2)
Really? 3GB = 5 CD's which is less then quite a lot of full linux distros.
3GB = 100MB/day. Tahts 2 apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y's a day on the unstable branch.
You get sent a movie/video diary of your nephew in guatemala, or you famlily that have just moved abroad (as mine have) - high quality, 10 minutes a day. At VCD quality thats £3GB a day.
3Gb is a lot, but theres a lot of LEGAL stuff to download.
Look at their old advertisement (Score:3, Informative)
They said it's up to 100 times faster than standard dialup.. except if you go over 3gigs you're only up to 1 times faster than standard dialup... wow.
(standard dialup being 28.8kbps)
Time for a petition! (Score:4, Informative)
Send all indications of support to optuspetition@ifinitech.com
Re:Time for a petition! (Score:2, Informative)
Customer Relations
Singtel Optus
Locked Bag 'yes'
Salisbury SA 5106
Also don't forget to join your local community wireless networking group eg Melbourne Wireless [wireless.org.au].
More information direct from Optus (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, if I was living by myself, it wouldn't affect me, but on 3GB, with 3 other moderate users in the house? ooh, about 1/2 a month and we'll be back to 28kbps
Aren't they forgetting the PURPOSE of broadband? (Score:2)
Or just screw broadband. Thankfully BellSouth has been very good so far, but at the rate providers are capping broadband, and seeing as they have an absolute monopoly in my town I am taking it as an 'enjoy it while it lasts' thing.
seems pretty reasonable (Score:3, Interesting)
Be happy that you get fast Internet access at all: in many areas, DSL providers have gone out of business.
One thing they should consider, IMO, is an peak/off-peak system similar to what you get on cell phones. They could probably give you 3Gbytes peak and, say, another 10Gbytes off-peak, for all those scheduled nightly Debian upgrades. Also, with volume-based pricing, the ISP should then not meddle in content anymore--"business", "home", and "server" uses should all be equivalent, since the main argument against "non-home" use has traditionally been the supposedly higher volumes.
Re:seems pretty reasonable (Score:2, Insightful)
At the small ISP where I work, we fret every day about folks who are allowing unlimited uploads with P2P. Our argument is that with a consumer-grade ADSL, we reserve the right to get pissed if a customer is doing psycho traffic. By doing so, they are using a far larger share of our (expensive) T's than most of our customers.
We don't advertise "unlimited" this or that, only 24/7 connectivity. We allow servers, as long as they are not super-popular. We will terminate Spammers as fast as you can say "no refund." Our AUP is one of the most lenient that you will find.
From our perspective, however, since we pay X dollars for our backbone connections, and the average consumer will use X mb/gb per day or month, if there are even a few that use disproportionate amounts of bandwidth, we have a few choices:
1- Get more T's, and charge more. Tough sell, since Verizon already hits the customer pretty hard.
2- Don't get more T's, and let a few customers make our life hell by sucking all the bandwitdh from others, who will call and complain (rightfully, and incessantly) about slow downloads.
3- Get the extra T's, let the bandwidth-hungry folks go crazy, charge the same prices, and be out of business in six months.
Do the math. *Especially* for the smaller guys like us, bandwidth is *not* free. It is quite finite.
Hey, I have cable, and have done tons of FTP installs of FreeBSD (Hey, somebody said that they were dead...), do occasional extended LimeWire download sessions, not to mention some prOn. Heck, early on, I downloaded Star Office 4 times in a row, because 65 mb in a minute-thirty was *amazing.* Still, I have to respect that somewhere up the pipe, my provider has to pay for it.
Couple that with the fact that our ISP proactively alerts customers to Code Red/Nimda/Virus-of-the-day infections, and offers to help the cutomer fix the problem (often at no charge) it's hard to call us jerks for getting crabby about excess bandwith usage.
What a shame... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why have these companies looked at the Network Worst Case Scenario Handbook (don't steal it's, my idea!)?
You are selling a huge pipe to residental customers. They don't consider the prices that their ISP's pay. They have figured that they are making enough on the deal already - I can't buy the idea my provider TW/AOL isn't able to keep up. Many broadband providers have been laying pipes for years.
I understand the problems in Australia - some of the content of their (backwards spiraling) downloads are not coming from Aussie Land. I'm very sensitive to that point. I'm also aware that the redundant infrastructure that we enjoy in the USA and elsewhere isn't exactly 'global'.
My rant I guess is off-topic, I admit that. My rant is with broadband providers who knew that for years we've wanted faster downloads and access to more, well, stuff. We've been salivating over this for years and they said "It's here! We've got it!".
Stop showing me a million Road Runner ads a day -beep beep - save those bucks, we are buying it. Spend those bucks on pipes.
From now on kids; if you are planning to set up a DSL service or any other type of broadband service (wireless even) do this:I know that this is a simple(-ifed) plan. You start off sometimes with a small subscriber base - you may need venture capital to get it going (ask Microsoft, but they might end up owning you...). It's not that easy - I understand. Maybe someone can help put this into mathematical terms for me or add something I've missed; and I'm sure I missed a few things.
But for God's sakes these companies are backpedaling and it's making me sick. Ok - I'm firing up my cable modem and getting linux and *bsd ISO's all day long until the cows come home. I'm also sending them to my friends (for some reason?). (Fuck it, I'm getting porn streamed to me for 3 bucks a minute-same difference). Either way why tell me now that "unlimited" means "limited" and $39.95 a month means $44.95 and then maybe more if I use the bandwidth I pay for.
It's not that I want bandwidth for free. Just figure out how much it's going to cost. If you take my plan above you don't have to "solve for" the monthly fee, or "solve for" the cap - maybe later on you can work with your own providers and "solve for" your own cost of bandwidth.
Dammit; you can't tell me they aren't making money.
Prices (Score:4, Informative)
1. 550Mb/Month $AU64.95
2. 3Gb/Month $AU79.95
3. 5Gb/Month $AU164.95
4. 10Gb/Month $AU305.95
The average user, according to Optus, uses around 65Mb per day (or almost 2Gb/Month). The 3Gb plan could therefore be construed as offering 50% more than the current average usage.
For comparison, the plan I am currently on is $AU74.95/Month (incl GST) for up to ten times the average monthly usage, or 19.5Gb.
So, time to start hunting for alternatives. Oh, and ways to monitor my usage.
Get two or more 3Gb plans (Score:2)
Live With it or Build Your Own Network (Score:4, Insightful)
Asking Australian service providers, no matter how large to foot the bill for file sharing networks, movie downloads etc. is a non starter as an idea. Would you like Optus to go the way of One.Tel? No bandwith is considerably worse than limited bandwith.
As far as file sharing goes, why not start building networks using wireless links etc. in urban areas (I realise this is a non starter in rural areas), or perhaps start an ISP who's emphasis is on file sharing (connections provided via wireless or ADSL (I have a feeling such an ISP would quickly attract the attention of the Australian equivalent of the RIAA)).
As far as distributing Linux ISOs via CD/DVD is a far more efficient method while bandwith is still limited. Perhaps talk to Optus about putting certain large files like this online for download at reduced bandwith cost (i.e. the bandwith used is say 10% when downloaded from their "mirror"). This could be a different way for Optus to distinguish their service from Telstra's (perhaps some sort of voting system could be implemented to request files)
Re:Live With it or Build Your Own Network (Score:2, Interesting)
For Melbourne users, there is a group called Melbourne Digital and Wireless [wireless.org.au] who are dedicated to building a community wireless network. Other states have the same (there are links on that page).
There is the Planet Mirror archive and the AARNet mirror site, which are both located on the AARNnet [aarnet.edu.au] not-for-profit network, which is currently operated by Optus backbone-wise. It would be a good idea if we had unmetered traffic to these sites. Telstra may win me as a customer based on their mirror archive on GameArena.
Re:Live With it or Build Your Own Network (Score:2)
There is a lack of competition in the Australian marketplace. The encumbent has no reason to provide reasonably priced wholesale and expedient access to the local loop. Just try getting a bank of DSL modems co-lo in a Telstra PoP. They own the only access point for broadband to the majority of potential customers. Laying cable/fibre/whatever is expensive.
Ok, so we use wireless to get around local loop issues, and take on the issues that come with using wireless (range, fresnel zones, interference, etc). Cool. Now I can talk to a wedge of other people in the same city as me. As soon as I want to send or receive content outside the local net you need longhaul upstream pipes. Guess who owns them?
I still think it'd be a fantabulous idea. Get a local WLAN ISP set up and buy wholesale longhaul pipes from whoever has them. There is slightly more competition in the PoP-to-PoP wholesale business. Sooner or later you're going to need to connect to the rest of the 'net though, and that's where you'll get slugged.
Building your own network is fine if you're a UUnet or a Sprint or just want to talk to the other WLAN people within line-of-sight. As soon as you start needing PoP-to-PoP connectivity, you're going to start needing wads of cash to pay the big boys.
So basically, if you want broadband you have to either jump through all the Happy Fun Hoops of setting up a small ISP or just embrace the BOHICA principle and hand over the cash.
Either way, I don't relish the idea of going back to dialup.
It really annoys me. (Score:2)
ttyl
Farrell
Neat idea but it should be a daily limit. (Score:2, Interesting)
What they should have done is say limited the connection to a couple 100 MB a day, then after that quarter the bandwidth. If you normally get around 2Mbps down 28kbps is 1/71'th of the bandwidth!!!
Seriously while it would be nice to be able to listen to shoutcast 24/7 and download fresh ISO's of *nix every two weeks you have to face the fact that this "unlimited inet pipe" was really just a fluke. It wasn't supposed to happend yet!
Tom
End of Australian broadband? Pfft. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of decent deals out there. You just have to be reasonable. Leechers should get their head around the fact that they are *not* profitable customers, and will be treated accordingly.
In Perth, Western Australia, Arachnet [arach.net.au] offers ADSL at pretty much the same price points, which the bonus that traffic to and from WAIX, a local peering point, is free. (Subject to fair use; don't run a heavy-traffic VPN across to your other office in Sydney over it). PlanetMirror [planetmirror.com] is on a network peered to WAIX, so that's all your ISOs taken care of.
The wholesale situation with exchanges and the local loop has finally reached the point where companies other than Telstra and Optus can offer decent pricing. They just need people to start buying the services they offer.
There are others here in WA too; Westnet, iiNet and probably more. I personally don't have any of these products at home (can't justify a long-term contract) - I'm a satisfied Arachnet dialup customer. At work, we have iiNet's offering and it's very, very nice.
Heaven (Score:2)
However large Australian corporations tend to be run by greedy little bastards who have no qualms in squeezing their customers for those last few pennies. Perhaps Telstra should be known as Taipan and Optus as Funnel Web.
Customer satisfaction is not a widely recognised concept in Oz.
Most of Australia didn't have it anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as warez goes: the main reason I want broadband is so I can download linux ISOs.
The second reason is warez. But people, if the entertainment and software companies arn't forced to provide downloadable versions of their products, they ain't going to do it out of kindness.
I'd pay for fast servers. I already do for some programs (ei DAVE, Virtual PC and EV Nova). The rest of software, movies and music will be legally downloadable if the corperations are forced by consumer soverignty. I'm not advocating free beer. But internet distribution (not just the ordering) is a good thing, and better when it's legal with artists and programmers compenstated.
BTW the only broadband for those aussies not in syd/melb/bris is ADSL. Decent ADSL (3GB peak, 7GB off-peak 512K/128K) is AUS$100 (US$50)
The again relates to why adam smith's free market is a good thing. As it is, their is 2 cable companies in Australia. If one changes terms, there far less incentive for the other to keep there old terms. This is far different with real competition.
Barto
Re:Most of Australia didn't have it anyway (Score:2)
BTW the only broadband for those aussies not in syd/melb/bris is ADSL.
Some parts of Adelaide have Telstra's cable internet, but Optus never rolled out here -- they stopped their (TV) cable rollout halfway through cabling Adelaide, and economically it didn't make sense for them to sell internet access here.
Perhaps Not (Score:2)
Another reason, is the simple fact that tracking bandwidth usage and billing for that usage can be very expensive in itself. It's not enough to just say "You transfered 8GB last month, so the bill is $80". With per MB billing, the biller would have to break down where exactly each download came from and each upload went to. That isn't cheap. This also brings to mind the fact that denial of services would take on a whole other meaning, someone on a hacked cable connection could suddenly have a $200 bill. And then the real reason against per MB charges, is that the real cost is in laying the lines, not running data over them. It doesn't cost the real ISP much at all to transfer data, why should the end users pay?
Does anybody know... (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe they could get a job at NASA converting meters to yards.
Re:Does anybody know... (Score:2)
Basically what everyone calls a Gigabit (Gb) now, is really a gigabit (Gbit).
What everyone calls a Gigabyte (GB) now, is really a gibibyte (GiB).
Megabit is now megabit (Mbit), Megabyte is now mebibyte (MiB) (not to be confused with Men in Black).
Re:Does anybody know... (Score:2)
Re:Does anybody know... (Score:2)
1.00069338745
No, I'm not kidding
One bit=2. One millibit=2^(1/1000).
A fraction of a bit may seem non-sensical, but it is actually a useful concept from information theory. It is used in things like error correction.
-
Telstra aka Golden Goose (Score:2, Informative)
Telstra is a telecommunications company that happens to be the largest company in Australia. It was created by the government as a public utility by from the public purse in the early 1900's. Through the 20th century, the Australian public paid for all of its infrastructure development many times over.
If the CEO of Telstra (Ziggy - http://members.ozemail.com.au/%7Eisherwood/fugiti
The only way for this situation to get better is if the government (who still owns 51% of Telstra), make a decision to split the company into service and infrastructure, then keep the infrastructure publicly owned (just like the road system). Only then are we going to see competition in Australian broadband, and only then will we find freedom.
This calls for class action! (Score:2)
... who's with me?
Problem with soft-limits? (Score:2)
Actually, I can see this being a problem with any type of bandwidth counter.
Let's say I don't like you or whatever, and at the beginning of every month/billing period I send 3 GB of UDP packets to your IP address. It will only take me a few hours to transmit this amount of data to you.
Your computer will ignore the packets, but the ISP's counter will log them and, blammo, have fun in 28k land.
I can only imagine the tech support hell I'd have to go through to get satisfaction - if ever.
That would suck, for lack of a better word.
Happening in Canada too (Score:2)
"Basic" service - 128kbs, 1GB limit - $29.95
"Normal" - 1.2Mbs up, 250kbs down, 5GB limit - $44.95
"Ultra" - 3Mbs up, 650kbs down, 10GB limit - $69.95.
Raising quite the uproar here, as the only major alternative is Rogers Cable, which will be doing the same thing shortly.
Can't Download Microsoft Security Patches (Score:2)
Would somebody please explain (Score:2)
Example: I'm downloading a 650 Meg file. The first minute I'm really cranking speed, but after that it kicks down because I've exceeded my burst rate. This would have let me load a web page in no time, but keeps me from sucking bandwidth. This also doesn't nail me in the fourth week of the month for getting a new distro in the first week. Bandwidth is not per month, it's per second. Overall usage really shouldn't matter (who cares what I do at 2 AM? I'm the only loony on!), it's the bitrate. Want it faster, pay more.
When you buy a line, you should own that bitrate at every second for no extra cost. Bursting ought to be something you can buy above that. And the smart provider would include that in the default plan to make their customers really happy. I just can't stand this per month thing...
The sign of the future (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, well (Score:2, Informative)
You can still get cut off for downloading too much (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Make sense? It's abuse of a duopoly... (Score:2)
You don't seem to understand that the reason that they fire staff, is that they DONT MAKE MONEY. When they do not make money, they have to INCREASE PRICES, or MAKE THOSE THAT USE MOST PAY MORE. The later beeing the fairest to those that really don't _abuse_ the network that much.
So, basically you've got the choice between _accepting_ this, or you australians can scream bloody murder, MAKE them stick with their old ads, and one year from now, you don't have a fscking cable provider at all anymore - because they've all gone tits-up.
Sheez.
Re:Make sense? It's abuse of a duopoly... (Score:2)
I'm not sure if you are stupid or just a troll, in either case, you're probably browsing this from school or work on a T3.
Greed vs. Greed. (Score:3, Insightful)
The users want more. Fair enough, people like me have become accustomed to the soft download limits we have previously had. We don't use the phonebook. I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. The Internet is everywhere, accessible anywhere in the house from the nearest PC or laptop with wireless card.
Compared to Telstra users, who are used to their 3GB/month cap, this is a major blow to our habits. This also affects the broadband acceptance in Australia - we've had all sorts of politicians and companies (even Bill Gates himself) tell us that our broadband is too expensive and inaccessible.