Jump to content

ISP Data Cap not enforced?

Thelillypad123
By Thelillypad123
in Networking
 Share
Posted

Maybe it is just me but I seem to believe that my family uses WAYYYY more than the allotted 250 GB data cap per month. We stream HD netflix daily and are constantly on our phones, youtube, and social media.

 

My question is:

Do ISPs sometimes not enforce their data caps? Because we have never gotten throttling, a warning, or termination of service......

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Caps are pretty hard to enforce for revenue purposes because the nature of TCP/IP is that anyone with a connection to the IP network can dump packets in your direction.  Even if you haven't requested them.  When done maliciously, this is called a "denial of service" attack, but there can be other reasons why it happens which are not so malicious, yet are no 'fault' of the user.

 

I suspect many terrestrial ISPs monitor the numbers, and only use them to identify customers who are chronically using more than their 'caps', and force them to upgrade/pay more accordingly.  Some may use such numbers as an input to throttling algorithms.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
11 hours ago, Thelillypad123 said:

Maybe it is just me but I seem to believe that my family uses WAYYYY more than the allotted 250 GB data cap per month. We stream HD netflix daily and are constantly on our phones, youtube, and social media.

 

My question is:

Do ISPs sometimes not enforce their data caps? Because we have never gotten throttling, a warning, or termination of service......

There are 3 ways data caps are used. Firstly if you go over they might terminate you connection. Or they might do like T Mobile and slow your data down, in my case if I go over I drop to 2G Data. Third is the way Comcast does in some markets, you have a 1 TB cap and its $10 for every 50 Gb you go over. 

 

At one time ATT had caps on Uverse but did not enforce them till recently. So it depends on your ISP. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

You can also log into your ISP control panel and check your monthly usage. You SHOULD be able to at any rate...

Gaming Rig - ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (stock), ND-D15 Chromax Black, MSI Gaming Gaming X Trio RTX 3070, Corsair Vengeance LPX 32Gig (2 x 16G) DDR4 3600 (stock), Phanteks Eclipse P500A, 5x Noctua NF-P14 redux-1500, Seasonic FOCUS PX-850, Samsung 870 QVO 2TB (boot), 2x XPG SX8200 Pro 2 TB NVMe (game libraries), 2x Seagate BarraCuda ST8000DM004 8TB (storage), 2x Dell (27") S2721DGF, 2x Asus (24") VP249QGR, Windows 10 Pro, SteelSeries Arctis 1 Wireless, Vive Pro 2, Valve Index

NAS /Plex Server - Supermicro SC826TQ-R800LPB (2U), X8DTN+, 2x E5620 (Stock), 72GB DDR3 ECC, 2x Samsung 860 EVO (500GB) (OS & Backup), 6x WD40EFRX (4TB) in RaidZ2, 2x WD 10TB white label (Easy Store shucks), 2x Q Series HDTS225XZSTA (256GB) ZIL & L2ARC mirrored, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Other Servers -2x Supermicro CSE-813M ABC-03 (1U), X9SCL, i3-2120 (stock), 8 Gigs DDR3, 4x Patriot Burst 120GB SSD (Raid10 OS array), Mushkin MKNSSDHL250GB-D8 NVMe (game drive), Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - RAID 10 failed after a power outage... dang.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Telus used to ignore monthly bandwidth limit, but they started enforcing it last year. They did gave a warning right before the change though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Networking

×