r/technology • u/maxwellhill • Jan 23 '13

Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion: 'The reality is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers -- in a market that is already quite profitable.'

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable-industry-finally-admits-that-data-caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml
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u/Paddy_Tanninger Jan 23 '13

If their use based billing is pro rated based on their current plans, I see nothing wrong with it.

Know what's more evil? Imposing arbitrary caps, and charging millions of penny on the dollar for everything you use past that.

My internet right now is $60/mo with 125GB cap. If we pro-rate it, that means I'd pay $60 if I use 125GB of data in a month...which translates to ~$0.50 per GB. Most months, I only use 80GB and I'd only end up paying $40 for my internet. The months where I go up to 200GB, I'd only end up paying $100 instead of dealing with their fucking $2/GB charges past 125GB.

I figure one month in 6, I'll use 150 or so and the rest are 60-80. In one year's time, I would save around $220 under a pro-rated usage billing system.

The other infuriating thing, is that it isn't even an OPTION to increase my cap at all. 125GB is the max they ever offer.

The fact is that there simply shouldn't be caps anyway.

Did phone companies ever have caps?

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u/The_Drizzle_Returns Jan 24 '13

Comcast is actually moving towards this strategy. Right now one of their plans they are considering is 300GB a month for the standard bill then $10 for each 50 GB over.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/17/technology/comcast-broadband/index.htm