ISP says using the internet is like eating Oreos

[Mira Yurizaki]

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/internet-data-is-like-oreos-isp-claims-while-defending-data-caps/

 

I think I found something dumber than Trump.

 

(Basically some ISP is trying to justify data caps )

[SImoHayha]

No no no. How about shut your fucking mouth you greedy asses. You make more than enough money to fix and implement more cabling and equipment to provide better internet.  If I keep paying you for data or internet, you shouldn't be able to limit my ass, unless IT CLEARLY STATES " THIS IS A LIMITED INTERNET PLAN " and none of that fine little print bullshit either where a consumer is tricked into purchasing a internet plan that does't look limited but in the end is. 

 

Stop with the BS companies. 

 

 

[vanished]

Perhaps instead of comparing themselves to eating oreos, they should have taken the far more obvious and logical approach of comparing to buying electricity or water.  Sure, even in that case you have to pay more for what you use, but there's not really any hard cap, and even large quantities are easily affordable.

[Zyndo]

2 minutes ago, Ramamataz said:

No no no. How about shut your fucking mouth you greedy ass motherfuckers. You make more than enough money to fix and implement more cabling and equipment to provide better internet.  If I keep paying you for data or internet, you shouldn't be able to limit my ass, unless IT CLEARLY STATES " THIS IS A LIMITED INTERNET PLAN " and none of that fine little print bullshit either where a consumer is tricked into purchasing a internet plan that does't look limited but in the end is. 

 

Stop with the bullshit companies. 

 

 

You don't know what you're talking about.

 

7 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/internet-data-is-like-oreos-isp-claims-while-defending-data-caps/

 

I think I found something dumber than Trump.

 

(Basically some ISP is trying to justify data caps )

For some ISP's in some areas with some internet methods (such as satallite internet), data caps make a great deal of sense.

[Rune]

I would agree, if an oreo actually cost one hundredth of one millionth of a percent of a penny to deliver each.

[byalexandr]

Not only did they manage to make a garbage analogy, but also endorse a product.

 

Fuck you ISPs.

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Perhaps instead of comparing themselves to eating oreos, they should have taken the far more obvious and logical approach of comparing to buying electricity or water.  Sure, even in that case you have to pay more for what you use, but there's not really any hard cap, and even large quantities are easily affordable.

But they don't want to be a regulated utility (even though they want Title II benefits, which they get when laying down infrastructure)

[Shakaza]

Fascinating. Here we see a specimen the of the common spokesperson, frequently employed by the conning companies known to the astute as Internet Service Providers. Caution is advised, as they are easily able to deceive people with the crap almost constantly spewing from their mouths. 

[SImoHayha]

2 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

You don't know what you're talking about.

 

For some ISP's in some areas with some internet methods (such as satallite internet), data caps make a great deal of sense.

Well it may just be me, but I just hate ISP's. They do everything in their power to screw over consumers. With more and more enhancements to technology stuff like this shouldn't have data caps. If google can magically decide to send weather balloons in space to offer free internet to everyone  (Project Loon ) why should ISP's just constantly apply data constrictions? 

[SageOfSpice]

It's funny that they're trying to distract people with oreos, all the while giving them the same answer that has always been given. "Because we can."

 

I dunno. Data caps for me are annoying because they are inflexible, and difficult to keep tabs on when the ISP doesn't give you reasonable tools to do so. Some months you're just going to need to download more.

 

The ISP I'm under right now is pretty reasonable. They'll let you go over a few times, but if you continuously go over, they kindly "suggest" that you upgrade.

1 minute ago, Zyndo said:

You don't know what you're talking about.

 

For some ISP's in some areas with some internet methods (such as satallite internet), data caps make a great deal of sense.

In the case of satellites, what is the limiting factor that prevents the end user from having uncapped internet? With satellites, I'd be more worried about bandwidth than how much data you're pushing through it. I'm sure time poses more of a risk in many regards. Aging tech that is difficult to replace, and erosion from debris. None of that really has to do with a cap though. They don't have to whip the hamsters in the services panels to make them run any faster.

 

Perhaps there is a factor that I'm missing, but as far as I've seen in all the discussions regarding this, too few logistical reasons exist. I'd love to hear otherwise, though.

[Mira Yurizaki]

9 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

You don't know what you're talking about.

 

For some ISP's in some areas with some internet methods (such as satallite internet), data caps make a great deal of sense.

No, I don't think a data cap would make sense. There's limited access and total bandwidth through the pipe at once, but not how much data a satellite can send overall.

[patrickjp93]

22 minutes ago, Rune said:

I would agree, if an oreo actually cost one hundredth of one millionth of a percent of a penny to deliver each.

You assume Internet bandwidth is?! Do you know how much those Ethernet and fiber switches are at the nodes? A 40-NIC  1Gb is almost $12000, and then those have to be strung together with 40Gb NICs or Infiniband or a Fiber standard. Depending on which you choose, you're looking at $16000+ per blade in hardware costs alone, and then you need power and failover redundancy.

[Zyndo]

46 minutes ago, Ramamataz said:

Well it may just be me, but I just hate ISP's. They do everything in their power to screw over consumers. With more and more enhancements to technology stuff like this shouldn't have data caps. If google can magically decide to send weather balloons in space to offer free internet to everyone  (Project Loon ) why should ISP's just constantly apply data constrictions? 

You still don't know what you're talking about.

 

Let me elaborate.... No company in the world enjoys pissing off its customers, nor do they go out of their way to do so. ESPECIALLY when it comes to ISP. The IDEAL business model would be to provide everyone with infinite internet bandwidth and 100% reliability and charge everyone a fixed rate for that privilege. They could fire all their employees, have 0 customer service representatives, and just rake in pure monthly profit with absolutely 0 invested work and be bajillionares in no time. if they could do it they would LOVE to do it... Such a thing is simply not possible.

 

Take a look at something like water. you get up in the morning, and whether you're thirsty or need a shower or gotta flush your toilet or whatever it is you want to do, you typically have access to pressurized clean water. Now if everyone in your city all wanted to turn on all the taps in their house all at the same time, everyone would get very little water (if any). the infrastructure is simply not designed to keep up with that kind of workload. Same thing with electricity, if everyone turned all of their appliances on and lights, and everything like that across a city or country, there would be rampant power outages everywhere in no time.

 

From power and water to roads and transportation... No industry or infrastructure is designed to allow everyone infinite use. That people think that internet doesn't follow these same limitations simply because its not a tangible object is ludicrous.

42 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

No, I don't think a data cap would make sense. There's limited access and total bandwidth through the pipe at once, but not how much data a satellite can send overall.

You don't know what you're talking about. If its bandwidth is limited, then its overall data is limited (they are literally the very same thing)

 

43 minutes ago, SageOfSpice said:

It's funny that they're trying to distract people with oreos, all the while giving them the same answer that has always been given. "Because we can."

 

I dunno. Data caps for me are annoying because they are inflexible, and difficult to keep tabs on when the ISP doesn't give you reasonable tools to do so. Some months you're just going to need to download more.

 

The ISP I'm under right now is pretty reasonable. They'll let you go over a few times, but if you continuously go over, they kindly "suggest" that you upgrade.

In the case of satellites, what is the limiting factor that prevents the end user from having uncapped internet? With satellites, I'd be more worried about bandwidth than how much data you're pushing through it. I'm sure time poses more of a risk in many regards. Aging tech that is difficult to replace, and erosion from debris. None of that really has to do with a cap though. They don't have to whip the hamsters in the services panels to make them run any faster.

 

Perhaps there is a factor that I'm missing, but as far as I've seen in all the discussions regarding this, too few logistical reasons exist. I'd love to hear otherwise, though.

The limiting factor in satellites is the same as any wired or wireless connection: total bandwidth. You cannot push an infinite amount of data through any connection, and satellites have a lower threshold for this than most other connection types. Once again "data" and "bandwidth" equate to literally the same thing (bandwidth is the amount of data per second being used).

 

 

 

Here is another analogy... Roads. everyone uses them on a regular basis with their vehicles. Most people use them for daily use like getting to and from work. I shall use these to explain in a very simple way why there are caps on internet, since everyone understands how roads work. In this analogy the "roads" are your internet and the "cars" are your own personal experience with your internet connection. For normal everyday use, most people can use roads just fine. they can go from point A to point B with relative ease, and everyone can do this pretty much whenever they want to. If you live in a big enough city with roads advanced enough you might even have access to a highway/freeway (a connection like fiber), allowing you to go much faster than you could otherwise. However, if everyone in your city all wants to go driving at the same time you run into issues. Rush hour, traffic jams, and so on. If everyone tries to use it at the same time, EVERYONE gets super slow. The roads in a city have very limited amount of "bandwidth" (cars that can be in use it at the same time). Adding more cars than the roads can handle simply slows everyone down. If you can understand this, then you should have no issue understanding why ISP's do what they do.

 

This is the issue that is the purpose of Data caps. The internet (and many other kinds of business models and infrastructure models) works in exactly the same way. If everyone was allowed to use it all at the same time, as much as they want, infinitely, the system breaks down. Of course your response is going to be "well they should just build new roads", or "faster roads", or "more freeways" or whatever you want to say. They do this literally all the time (i work for a small local ISP of a few thousand customers and even we do this at least on a monthly basis to increase our "roads" for our customers).

 

Another way to look at it (another road analogy) is that the roads that are in place are only designed to handle so much speed. If you went out and bought a brand new Bugatti Veyron (super fast sports car, something equivalent to 4k streaming, downloading large files, and so on) and wanted to drive it on a normal road, you would not be able to drive it at full speed (due to the government placing speed limits on the roads for very good reasons). Of course this makes perfect sense, and of course you understand the reason for that. but would you call your local government and swear at them for having insufficient roads for your Veyron? Would you cus them out, threaten them, and then move to another city (whose roads are likely no better for exactly the same reasons). This is a perfect analogy for why there are bandwidth caps (and peoples resulting insane rage for why there are bandwidth caps).

 

People who think there should be an infinite amount of speed, or think that ISP's are evil, or whatever it is you think, simply do not understand the completely practical issues behind why your internet is capped/limited.

 

 

 

TL;DR "You don't know what you're talking about"

[patrickjp93]

43 minutes ago, SageOfSpice said:

It's funny that they're trying to distract people with oreos, all the while giving them the same answer that has always been given. "Because we can."

 

I dunno. Data caps for me are annoying because they are inflexible, and difficult to keep tabs on when the ISP doesn't give you reasonable tools to do so. Some months you're just going to need to download more.

 

The ISP I'm under right now is pretty reasonable. They'll let you go over a few times, but if you continuously go over, they kindly "suggest" that you upgrade.

In the case of satellites, what is the limiting factor that prevents the end user from having uncapped internet? With satellites, I'd be more worried about bandwidth than how much data you're pushing through it. I'm sure time poses more of a risk in many regards. Aging tech that is difficult to replace, and erosion from debris. None of that really has to do with a cap though. They don't have to whip the hamsters in the services panels to make them run any faster.

 

Perhaps there is a factor that I'm missing, but as far as I've seen in all the discussions regarding this, too few logistical reasons exist. I'd love to hear otherwise, though.

Resource contention. Satellites are not built to handle more than about 20 connections a piece. You can't cool then either, so you have to use low-power, low-throughput chips.

[SageOfSpice]

2 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

TL;DR "You don't know what you're talking about"

Right, so caps are supposed to be like speed limits in order to control how fast traffic reaches a certain point in order to ensure that everybody is able to get where they are going, but is this really an effective strategy for streaming? 

 

During peak hours, the traffic is going to be the same. The caps may reduce the length/frequency of these events, but they aren't going to be rid of them completely. It seems like an ineffective strategy.

[TheKDub]

Like they struggle to pay for providing internet, they're making at least fucking 95% on internet plans, data caps should not need to exist, and we should be able to get much faster service for the amounts we pay.

 

$80/month for 75/10 (Though I really get 90/12 magically), that's bullshit, especially with how companies like Google are offering gigabit internet, with no cap as far as I know, for as little as $70/month.

 

Jon Brodkin (They wrote the article) needs to stop spreading useless bullshit about ISPs and the services they provide, they truly are greedy pigs. (At least most ISPs are..)

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

You don't know what you're talking about. If its bandwidth is limited, then its overall data is limited (they are literally the very same thing)

Let's say I have a  monthly data cap of 250GB. I have an internet speed of say 32Mbps. If I were to utilize this pipe 24/7, I should be able to download 10,125GB of data.

 

Oh wait, but I have a data cap of 250GB, so in reality my average data rate is about 800kbps.

[SageOfSpice]

2 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

Resource contention. Satellites are not built to handle more than about 20 connections a piece. You can't cool then either, so you have to use low-power, low-throughput chips.

Ah, see, that's more what I was looking for. That makes sense. Radiation is not very effective. It makes sense in the context of Zyndos explaination. I supposed I'd have to see some actual statistics to draw any more of a conclusion. It just seems like an odd solution.

[Mira Yurizaki]

One more post...

 

The whole point of data caps isn't so much that everyone wants infinite instantaneous bandwidth. People will (hopefully) understand that there is a limited size pipe with limited resources and can only service so much. But it's when all conditions are ideal, there's no real reason why there needs to be an arbitrary data cap that's significantly lower than the maximum amount data the pipe can deliver over time.

 

So here's my analogy on the situation. It would be like if you sent a couple of letters every day by your postal service. The postal service charges you by weight and how fast you want it delivered. For the sake of consistency, the weight is more or less constant, but you'd like to have everything sent First Class or whatever the fastest method is. However, let's say when you want to send your 21th letter, they decide "Oh, sorry, you already sent 20 letters so you can't use First Class anymore, you have to use Media Mail (the US's slowest mail service, so replace this with your equivalent one). By the way, we're still charging you the same rate as First Class mail." Except they can still deliver the letter by First Class, there's plenty of resources to do it.

 

[SageOfSpice]

5 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

One more post...

Wouldn't people then accuse ISPs of picking favorites so to speak?

What determines who gets what, and how would you regulate who uses X amount of resources in comparison to the rest of the pool of consumers?

[Carclis]

51 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

From power and water to roads and transportation... No industry or infrastructure is designed to allow everyone infinite use. That people think that internet doesn't follow these same limitations simply because its not a tangible object is ludicrous.

You don't know what you're talking about. If its bandwidth is limited, then its overall data is limited (they are literally the very same thing)

Then why don't users get faster internet when using it during off-peak periods? Instead an arbitrary bandwidth is assigned to keep users in line even when the service is barely being utilised as a whole. It's being sold as a finite resource when in reality it's infrastructure limited.

[Zyndo]

4 hours ago, SageOfSpice said:

Right, so caps are supposed to be like speed limits in order to control how fast traffic reaches a certain point in order to ensure that everybody is able to get where they are going, but is this really an effective strategy for streaming? 

 

During peak hours, the traffic is going to be the same. The caps may reduce the length/frequency of these events, but they aren't going to be rid of them completely. It seems like an ineffective strategy.

The short answer is that the "roads" were never build for streaming. ISP's are still playing catchup for the invention of things like Netflix. Simply put Netflix is a Veyron (super fast car), and the roads are not build for Veyrons. If there are few people on the roads you could probably drive your Veyrons fast and well without much issue, but if everyone wants to drive a Veyron (which everyone does and is trying to do nowadays) then no one is going to be able to do so effectively since the roads are not yet designed for everyone to be driving Veyrons.

 

Its a band-aid solution until the problem is solved. and trust me, the problem is trying to be solved. It just takes time to build new, faster roads so everyone can be driving Veyrons.

 

4 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Let's say I have a  monthly data cap of 250GB. I have an internet speed of say 32Mbps. If I were to utilize this pipe 24/7, I should be able to download 10,125GB of data.

 

Oh wait, but I have a data cap of 250GB, so in reality my average data rate is about 800kbps.

This makes perfect sense. Its exactly what I was telling you. IF they let everyone download 32MBps 24/7, no one would be able to get even 800kbps. I'm not saying 250GB is enough, or that its even fair, I'm saying it has to be done that way because that just makes sense. Your reasoning is going to be that "well yeah, but I won't utilize it 24/7"... but most people will (or at least everyone would make use of it during daytime hours). without this cap the internet would simply be too full and it would be unpleasant for the customers, which would then raise hell with the ISP, which would interfere with them actually working towards a fix for the problem because they would be too busy holding the hands of their customers who are too ignorant to understand the cause of the problem.

 

The internet was never ever designed for 24/7 use. People have a very hard time understanding this for some reason. Its the same as water, its the same as electricity, its the same as roads. If everyone uses it to its limit at the same time, then nobody will have enough. "Unlimited" use works for roads, water, and electricity because most people are not going to be using it all at exactly the same time. That is not the case with internet, people will definitely be using it all at the same time quite frequently if ISP's let them. the caps exist so that fast internet can exist.

 

P.s. I agree and that is what I've been saying. when conditions are ideal, there will be no data caps. Conditions are not ideal for most ISP's across North America. There simply is not enough bandwidth on the continent in order to fuel the desires of the people on the continent. That is no exaggeration or hyperbole. The infrastructure as a whole (even beyond your specific ISP's own resources) is not large enough to provide what the people want out of it.

 

 

4 hours ago, TheKDub said:

Like they struggle to pay for providing internet, they're making at least fucking 95% on internet plans, data caps should not need to exist, and we should be able to get much faster service for the amounts we pay.

 

$80/month for 75/10 (Though I really get 90/12 magically), that's bullshit, especially with how companies like Google are offering gigabit internet, with no cap as far as I know, for as little as $70/month.

 

Jon Brodkin (They wrote the article) needs to stop spreading useless bullshit about ISPs and the services they provide, they truly are greedy pigs. (At least most ISPs are..)

95%? not a chance. Not a chance in hell lol. My dad owns the small local internet company I work for... we have a few thousand customers. I'm not going to divulge information on what we make or don't make as a business, but consider this.  Growing up we were never rich. there was always food on the table, and I got to play sports, we went on about 3 vacations throughout my childhood so we had enough money to live on. we were comfortable and had enough. we are not rich. my dad has never owned a new truck, our house was never huge. we never had a house in the country nor a cabin at the lake. he makes a reasonable amount of money, but no more than a reasonably paid worker at any other company (and he doesn't get any pension or benefits that he doesn't otherwise set aside for himself either).

 

If he was able to get 95% income from these customers we would be fcking loaded. "You don't know what you're talking about".

 

There is no way google can offer 1000mbps for 70 bucks a month (on current available technology without taking a significantly massive loss in the process). wherever you heard that number you must be incorrect.

 

If ISP's were truly greedy pigs, they would offer perfect internet (infinite bandwidth, infinite data) and charge you 1000 bucks a month for it. if such a thing was possible, that is what greed would look like. "You don't know what you're talking about"

 

4 hours ago, SageOfSpice said:

Wouldn't people then accuse ISPs of picking favorites so to speak?

What determines who gets what, and how would you regulate who uses X amount of resources in comparison to the rest of the pool of consumers?

What people get and don't get from their ISP is determined by how much they pay, and what sort of hardware they have running their connection. Its also limited by your location. people on the same plans from the same companies paying the same amount may have two different internet experiences if they live in different locations. Sometimes its just luck of the draw like that.

 

3 hours ago, Carclis said:

Then why don't users get faster internet when using it during off-peak periods? Instead an arbitrary bandwidth is assigned to keep users in line even when the service is barely being utilised as a whole. It's being sold as a finite resource when in reality it's infrastructure limited.

to a certain extent this does already happen for a lot of people on a lot of companies on various plans. Sometimes when you are having slow internet it is simply because the network is bogged down, rather than anything like faulty hardware or some other cause. You often hear about people not getting their paid amount of bandwidth, or about someone "having bad internet today" or something like that. Whilst there can be many causes for that, probably the most common reason is insufficient total bandwidth from your ISP.

 

It also would be frustrating to the customer to get 200Mbps one day and then 10Mbps at other times (not to mention that severely fluctuating internet bandwidth can cause stability issues and packet losses on its own for certain applications). If they were able to get 200Mbps sometimes then every time they were not getting that amount, or much slower than that amount, they would call into the ISP and raise hell about their circumstances and about how they're getting ripped off. which is expensive for an ISP to be chasing around ghosts of problems that don't exist and to send out technicians to diagnose these problems customers are having (sure they could just not send them out, but that just pisses off the customers more).

 

Lastly, it IS a finite resource BECAUSE the infrastructure is limited. I know what you're trying to say, but they are one in the same (like with how people in this thread keep saying that bandwidths aren't related to limited data caps, yet they are exactly the same thing)

 

 

 

I do want to say one thing though. there ARE such things as bad ISP's or ISP's with bad business models. not all ISP's are created equal. There are some problems that all ISP's share, and there are some problems they they create themselves. This can absolutely happen. but ISP's as a whole are not evil, or greedy, or selfish, or whatever it is you think about them. Largely speaking ISP's are fighting an uphill battle against the sudden rise of massive bandwidth requirements (you go back 15 years before youtube, netflix, movie downloads, mass spread online gaming, etc and there was almost always enough internet for everyone to use as they pleased) that normal everyday people just cannot understand.

 

Lets make another hypothetical "road" scenario. Lets say you woke up tomorrow and there was 100million more cars that needed to be driven on the roads in North America. It would not be possible to do this on the current road infrastructure. The governments of USA and Canada notice this and starts building in new roads for everyone. How long do you think it would take for them to catch up to that sudden increased demand for roads? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? Road infrastructure takes longer to improve than internet does, sure... but whilst the increase in internet demand didn't happen over night like it did in this scenario, it DID happen in a very short time over a very small number of years and the requirements placed on the internet were many thousands of times more than what was previously needed. Many massive companies back then were running their entire businesses on the same amount of bandwidth (or less) as what tons of people are using in their home connections today, connections that people deem "insufficient". People just need some perspective lol.

 

 

 

 

TL;DR "You don't know what you're talking about"

[Zyndo]

46 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Amazing how poor European countries manage to get way better internet to their people.

They are physically smaller, making it cheaper, easier, and quicker to upgrade their internet. Being that they're smaller, they also have greater population densities, resulting in cheaper access to more customers/money for ISP's to expand their networks on. All the American "greed" in the world cannot circumvent this problem.

[zMeul]

and here I stand eating Oreos like a mofo at 300mbps with no caps 

[QueenDemetria]

Using the internet is like eating Oreos, it's really good until you run out... So fuck off with your data caps.