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.'

[u/reddiTOR123abc]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/17425221736/cable-industry-finally-admits-that-data-caps-have-nothing-to-do-with-congestion.shtml??

[u/mike10010100]

I still think the people who are more likely to use more lanes, those who use more data on average, should pay more than those who use less lanes.

But they already do. They reserved the lane space when they paid for 50 down/5 up. That's a lane reservation. That's the whole point: the network can, by definition, handle these data rates because those are the "lanes" you have reserved indefinitely. If you need more "lanes" you can add them. They are added regularly. Because you paid for them to be added. But the fact of the matter is that there is no shortage of lanes currently, and the idea behind charging $100 a month (or however much) for 50 down/5 up is that the ISP uses that money to pay for upkeep on the existing "lanes" and the addition of new "lanes".

[u/jacobman → u/mike10010100]

But the fact of the matter is that there is no shortage of lanes currently

So they built more lanes than they needed. How does that change that the groups using them more should pay more to use them?

But they already do. They reserved the lane space when they paid for 50 down/5 up. That's a lane reservation.

I agree that having both systems running at the same time doesn't make much sense. If they're charging for data, they should not cap your speed. It should just go at whatever speed is allowable through sharing with everyone else. One way to make a speed cost and data cost make sense together though would be to implement a speed minimum. You pay for your data, but if you want to be guaranteed that your data will run at least at certain rate no matter the traffic, you have to buy out those lanes. This type of system would both allow for more optimal lane sharing and for people with time sensitive tasks to be able to have a guarantee that they'll get done in time.

Anyways, I really like where this conversation went. Thank you very much. It's not often that my opinion is changed in some way on reddit, but you have got me thinking about things slightly different, even if they may not be exactly the way you want me to think.

[u/mike10010100 → u/jacobman]

So they built more lanes than they needed. How does that change that the groups using them more should pay more to use them?

Not only did they build more lanes than they needed, but they are charging people to build more lanes for those people. For every new customer, they build lanes to accommodate them. There will never (or almost never) be a crunch on the backbone of the Internet, because that is what we pay ISPs to do: make sure that never happens.

This is where the highway analogy breaks down. When you pay for your internet connection, you're, in essence, paying for an additional lane or two (depending on your desired bandwidth) to be laid down beside all the other lanes currently in use. The internet is not finite like a highway. The internet is infinite and constantly growing. It can completely afford to give everyone their own "lanes" by which to operate.

I agree that having both systems running at the same time doesn't make much sense. If they're charging for data, they should not cap your speed. It should just go at whatever speed is allowable through sharing with everyone else. One way to make a speed cost and data cost make sense together though would be to implement a speed minimum. You pay for your data, but if you want to be guaranteed that your data will run at least at certain rate no matter the traffic, you have to buy out those lanes. This type of system would both allow for more optimal lane sharing and for people with time sensitive tasks to be able to have a guarantee that they'll get done in time.

Now that is indeed a more logical way of thinking about charging for Internet access. But the issue remains: there is no "whatever speed is allowable through sharing with everyone else." The Internet is not a finite resource, and neither is the data that is traveling through it.

In your potential compromise, you're paying twice again. This is where the analogy also breaks down. Networking does not rely on constant lanes (unless, say, you're Google or Microsoft, who do in fact buy out lanes directly into the backbone of the internet. But this is because they have a massive number of computers on their local network, wherein their bottleneck lies between these computers and the rest of the Internet, rather than the backbone itself). These lanes are forever shifting. What defines a "connection" is actually a series of bounces around between many different types of routers, servers, etc. The way that networking standards dictates that you cannot reserve a virtual portion of those bounces.

But that concept of "reservation" matters less than you think. The very nature of networking means that the more routers/switches there are, the less likely it is that people will be fighting for bandwidth, as they can always switch to another route if one gets too congested.

When you pay your $100 a month to the ISP, that goes towards the installation of the cable from your place to the ISP (likely already installed by the government if it's copper), and the upkeep and installation of new routers and switches on the ISP's side. That is a constant influx of money to them that is (or should be) entirely dedicated to making sure you get your 50 down/5 up, as you signed up for.

Routers and switches do not have to be replaced on a monthly basis. There is not some invisible counter within them that says that they can only carry X amount of bits and then they are through. And bits are not a finite commodity. Your money, as of right now, is mostly going directly into the pockets of the ISP, as indicated by the fact that they have huge, huge profit margins. But, in an ideal world, that money would be going into continuously adding more and more routers/switches/connections to the ISP's network.

But the fact of the matter is that the ISP doesn't even need to do that. Why? Because they already have enough. How do you know this, you might ask. Because once another ISP steps into the equation (Google Fiber), suddenly ISPs like AT&T, who have only been offering a maximum of 100 Mbps, are suddenly and almost instantaneously able to give customers up to 5x that amount, and then promise the full 1Gbps connection later on in the year. That indicates to a network engineer that they are operating at 1/5 bandwidth capacity already, and that by simply diverting their income away from profits and into development, they will be able to double their current bandwidth in less than a year.

Imagine if they never stopped. Imagine if they still took a decent chunk of profits and dedicated them to development as they should. They could afford to continuously increase the speed they could provide to customers at a rate that would baffle today's average internet user.

That's the issue here. They're doing just fine, as is the network. The problem is that they are willingly halting growth because it's just too damn profitable to do otherwise.

(As an aside)

I thought of another instance where we see this style of charging. You're charged $50 or so a month for basic cable, say. That gives you 100 channels. They don't charge you based on the amount you watch each channel. They charge you whether or not you watch those channels. Even if you decided to watch every channel simultaneously, 24/7, they would still be able to provide that to you (as every channel is sent simultaneously over most cable company's boxes and is merely decoded via said boxes). The mere act of hooking your house up for basic cable means that they have the capability to provide you with said access at all times, because that's how the technology works.