There has been some talk about several cable companies thinking about switching to a system where they charge by the byte of data that goes through your connection. I need to say something about this…
NO! That is a terrible idea, period. One article I’ve read is saying they are talking about caps from 5 to 40 GBs. Are they fucking serious?? The web browsing that my mom does in a given month can _easily_ hit 5GB. And she is not downloading big stuff.
In total each month… I estimate usage upwards of 500GB at least. This is spread amongst many computers… somewhere around 7 computers. Additionally, we have VoIP… each month that has a fair amount of traffic as well… I’ve never metered it but I estimate probably around 5GB in a month.
And these numbers are 12 to 100 times higher than their caps of just 5 to 40GB. While details of how they are going to charge are still unknown…. but guestimating from these numbers… I can probably predict that our bills would be pretty high… for the SAME crappy internet connection.
And if they try to make it seem like a better deal by boosting their speeds, then that’ll make it that much easier for us to increase that 500GB/mon usage… And they still can’t guarantee that high speed all of the time.
Charging by the byte is a HUGE step backwards. That is the same as dial-up services charging by the hour which is mostly gone now. It’s like your POTS phone company charging by the call.
If I ever find myself having to limit the internet usage (“Maybe I shouldn’t download the DVD ISO for [linux distribution of choice]“) then I will throw up… on the front lawn of the appropriate ISP.
I urge everyone to make their opinion on this issue known. The only people that can possibly benefit from this are old people just check their e-mail once a week, which isn’t the majority.
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