Google’s Superfast Internet–Really?

To start, I'm going to say I have a background in ISP service, with a bit of detailed knowledge on both the service and technical side of things.

I'm a little confused. Are you talking about internet speed, or bandwidth? Those are two very different things, and I'm getting the impression from article that you are mixing the terms here.

1 Gigabits per second is talking only about speed. A full 1080p HD being streamed from, say, Netflix, requires only ~5 Megabits per second. That's half a percent of your speed.
To put that in perspective, you could have 200 people, each watching a different streaming full 1080p HD quality movie off Netflix at the same time before hitting any limits on your speed capability. Sounds awesome.. but the average person isn't ever going to see that kind of usage.

The Canadian talks were about letting resellers charge for bandwidth. If that was allowed, then if someone goes over their limit, they can be charged a price per gig on overages that the reseller determines. There are legality issues with that, considering a reseller isn't really selling their own service.. so it may or may not go against fair laws on who gets the money for the bandwidth.

Most ISPs have a limit to the bandwidth you can use. Many don't advertise, especially on the low speeds end, because they'll never hit a point where it'll matter on the infrastructure anyways. Plus, the average person (as in, over 95%, an actual statistic, I'm not pulling a number out of my butt here) never reaches anywhere near anything that would put strain on the infrastructure. If your usage starts bringing down the speeds for everyone on your network, you can be you'll get a call though.

The company I have experience with has hard limits on monthly usage. This is perfectly within laws (has been in place for over a decade). The normal practice was to call someone going over those limits to find out why (usually a virus or someone using their wireless because they left it unsecured). The rare "less than 5% of users" person went over because of file-sharing. Prior to the success of Netflix, this was the main source of going over a cap.. and it was almost always related to copyright infringement. Not that the company cared (most have a strictly "hands off as much as we can" attitude about what you actually use the internet for), they just wanted to make sure their infrastructure wasn't being bogged down by this single user.

So if you hit your limit, you'd get a call to discuss. If you need to use the extra bandwidth, not a problem, time to upgrade (or sideways shift, some business packages were cheaper with more bandwidth, but slower.. some preferred this option). If you didn't do anything and kept going over the limit, you are breaking the terms of agreement and your service would be shut off until something was done.

With the potential lifting of the "charge per use" ban, this opened a lot of options. Instead of having to upgrade to service levels you don't need, a company can charge for bandwidth usage alone. So you only need enough speed to watch a movie or tv show in HD, but you can buy bandwidth to watch a whole bunch of shows in a month, basically replacing your TV with your Internet (a laudable goal, I'd like to do that myself).
Instead of having to upgrade service to get more bandwidth, or being shut off because you are constantly going over limits.

As it was put so aptly: "Why punish your most avid users of your service? Why not cater to what they want?"

Stopping the "charge for bandwidth" option means you can't sell a bandwidth package. This means it needs to be part of a completely different service, and so now people have to upgrade and pay more for something they likely don't need just to get that little bit they wanted.

In the end, you pay for service because it literally costs more to provide that service. It really does. Laying down fiber costs a butload (I can go into specifics, but it's boring).

How about a story: I recall a time when a little town in Ontario was considered for fiber (it currently uses purchased space off a microwave tower owned by a school, granting ~30 mbits TOTAL for the entire town). Planning and marketing determined that this town of 5000 people would have to ALL have EVERY service (TV, phone and internet) in order to recoup costs... in 50 years. Fiber ain't cheap.

Docsis 3.0 equipment (granting higher than 30 mbit/s combined upload/download transfer) has costs. Not only for the modem installed in your house, but also for the entire infrastructure built to provide the higher speeds, and handle the sustained data transfer these things can manage. This is far more doable for a company, and even with that.. only a handful of people actually buy the service.

Most people don't even use the 5-10 mbits download service they have. With data transfers increasing due to Video Entertainment through your internet becoming more popular, it's something that might not stay that way forever. But really? Even 4 people all watching perfect 1080p quality picture is still going to only put even a remote strain on a 20 mbit service, and that's still WELL within Docsis 2.0 speeds. People don't need speed, they need bandwidth.

Most people want an infrastructure that can handle them downloading about 4-5 hours of high quality video a day (those that want to replace their TV service, really). This means a lot more fiber lines for higher data throughput... not fiber to the home ridiculous speeds. That fiber cost on the main infrastructure needs to be paid.. so unless the government foots the bill (like I heard they did, to an extent, in Australia), the customer needs to pay more to get more service.

I honestly have no idea if I even contradicted or addressed what you said, but I hope I least shed some light on the subject at hand. If this was simply an April Fool's joke post, then *golf clap*, because you confused me into posting a dissertation apparently.  

It's coming here ya and got Fiber optic last year  but it's At&T and I don't like them (Cause they only allow ONE cables box per home) and I have 3 DVR's

so stayed with Time Warmer

True, but bandwidth (simply the "amount" of data that can be transmitted across a digital circuit within a specific amount of time)  measured in bits per second(bps) means higher the bandwidth, the "faster" (there's where your reference to "speed" comes in) that your data can be transferred.... so purism aside, since amt/time is sort of speed, I think that for anyone but the purists this is largely rhetorical. Your point is taken, however.

Good pun. (Appreciated, but... buttload (the Jafo streak in me... ) 

I'm discussing type vs. load. There's no Socialism in any of this. The old "Free" internet is gone. The major question is who competes with whom over price.

I'm in favor of Internet users/customers forming cooperatives in order to leverage buying power. I can't really see how an individual could possibly compete with say, Procter & Gamble, and other huge corporations for the 'right' to get appropriate bandwidth and speed. I don't want to see the individual getting the very short end of the stick when it comes to bandwidth/speed. This will happen if the the bread is sliced. It won't if the ISP's are forced to face whole loaves.

I was going to comment on the same issue, but in a slightly different way.  But it still is speed versus bandwidth versus capacity.

First off, while most people talk about speed, the truth is the speed is pretty constant regardless of your connection.  From a dial up to a gig Ethernet connection, the electrons all move at the same speed (the speed of light or C). So a dial up user gets one bit at the same speed that a gig connection does.

What we are really talking about is bandwidth.  That is how many bits each connection can get at the same time.  Then your dial up can only get at most 56k, but your gig connection can get about 700mb (actual, theoretical is 1g but never achieved).

Now if you outfit everyone with a 1gb connection and everyone decides to download a movie at the same time (the 5mb that Kaisoku talked about), the ISP would dog it real quick.  because their incoming pipe is probably only a few gigabits to begin with..  So while you would not be maxing out your bandwidth, you sure would be doing that to the ISP.  So as Kaisoku said, many ISPs monitor total monthly usage. 

If all your work is done at 3am local time, the ISP really does not care.  But they do not have the resources to determine when everyone is using the bandwidth, so they just look at total bandwidth being used and ding the big guys that way.

Now all that being said, while 1gb is nirvana, the truth is  most of it would be wasted.  The bottlenecks would be farther upstream from the user, and again as Kaisoku says, each user would not be using even close to his capacity even on a full all out game.

The ISPs HAVE to cap bandwidth from a purely economical standpoint (or just start metering it like Canada does - but that is not efficient, just opportunistic).  However, the one thing they should not do (and so far, other than P2P, none have tried to limit it) is decide what TYPE of bandwidth to limit.  So while I prefer Netflix over Cable HBO, my cable company should not get in my face for using Netflix as long as my total consumption does not exceed their stated limit.

As Kaisoku also said (you see my mentioning him indicates he stole a lot of my thunder!), they use to come down hard on P2P sharing because it was the bandwidth hog.  But even though RIAA and MPAA loved them for it, they got slapped down for doing it (since not all P2P is illegal).  But the only constant in life is change, and so the bandwidth hogs have changed from P2P to streaming video (just not enough online gamers out there I guess).  Who knows what the next application that irritates the ISPs will be (if you do know, buy stock NOW!).

Finally, the Capacity.  That one is easy as well.  The capacity is the bandwidth times time.  In an ideal world, we would all be doing our "thing" at staggered times so the ISP could maximize their bandwidth 24x7 without adversely impacting anyone's performance.  That of course only happens on paper, never in real life.

So performance for me, at 35mb up and down is more than I really need.  Since 75% of the time it is only my wife and I.  When my son is down, or my guests are streaming, it may get a little tight, but 1gb?  I doubt I would ever see the high side of that.  My house is just not big enough!

I think you're mixing up the different issues, DRJBHL.

There's one discussion about net neutrality, which is favoring one type of traffic over other. (google favors net neutrality, ie not favoring any specific traffic, for obvious reasons as they don't want to pay premium for youtube)

Then there's the issue of whether or not bandwidth caps should be there at all (and if they are, then at what sizes). That's a whole other discussion.

Then there's the discussion of who "deserves" very fast connections, which can also be regulated or handled by the free market.

Now I want to add something important, and that is that there is no forced choice between these (as you seem to be saying?). You don't have to choose between capped bandwidths, or lack of net neutrality. An ideal ISP is very fast, has no bandwidth caps and is net neutral. So discussing which is "more preferable" is counter-productive to me. You should be raging against all the limitations, not pick the one you want the most.

I believe they are tied together, Heavenfall. Streaming and movies are big bandwidth hogs... and will inevitably be related to differently until consumers get more tailored packages and get together to bargain for them.

I don't believe in 'raging'. It's counterproductive. I am in favor of leveraging power to get control over rates.

The free market has failed the US broadband market.  Collusion has taken hold.  Look at NC, where Time Warner has gotten the state house to vote to legalize and enforce the broadband monopoly against their own cities.

While that's not on the level of outrage as Wisconsin/Ohio union-busting, that's only because they already have that here.

Sometimes to get things done, raging and revolt is needed.  We're not at that point yet, but it's getting close.

The most effective way to stop it is for the 'meh' generation to threaten to vote inorder to protect their youtube access.

Much of the reason some cable companies can't give people what they want is because of government regulations. Companies want to give people what they want. I'm not talking about any altruistic reason, it's because if you can give people what they want, you can compete better against competition.

Giving only the content a customer wants, would mean a massive reduction in the wasted data being sent out on cable systems (which usually sends all TV channels out, and unlocks content through a device or removing filters). It's a shame government regulations prevent this, mostly because they (rightly) fear people dropping most local (in my case Canadian) content.

Man.. I'd love to see the day where "watching TV" goes like:

- Hey hun, is that new episode of Fringe out yet, it's Friday isn't it?

- Oh yeah! Let's go watch it.

*Proceeds to pick up the remote and go to a "favorites" menu finding the NEW! tag, and starts streaming the episode.*

The technology exists. Too much "middle management" that'd lose the cash cow for their made up, obsolete service. Douglas Adams was right...

Doesn't really matter what speed you have(min,5mbs) to watch net flisks.  The only site I've seen where you get what your paying for is the speed site.  The rest cap the DL speed.

He was, indeed...and about so much.

Canada and Netflix:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110329/wr_nm/us_netflix_canada

It's pitiful. To prevent customization and competition, they impose "Standard", "Extra super-dooper" and the buzzword "Family" packages.

They'll impose 'data caps' any way they can. And the sheep will swallow it until someone tries to organize Coops-Consortia to leverage what we want.

I have a Question with a statement first

They said Digital was going to be better then Analog

But from what I see Analog is better

here's why

90% if not 98%

when I watch live or DVR

there is always some type of Fuck-up

not in any order

1) the voice will glitch some where in it

2) the show will Glitch some where in it and some how like when your in Photoshop with it Zoomed max (See the Square pixels)

   or it will do a blur thing of some sort.

3) it will Freeze..

4) others I just can't remember right now and/or really can't Explain

don't mater what channel it is or if it is HD or not

are they doing it on purpose? 

Analog just did not do this NO where near as much NO where near

I can agree but I believe this is changing fast as more and more devices get connected to the Internet and more and more people are able to use the Internet at the same time for various reasons such as listen to music, watch movies, browse the Internet, update devices, share content, communicate with other people, play games, etc. Not to mention the quality of the content one gets from the Internet such as HD movies, 3D video, games with more realistic graphics, HD video chat; these things get bigger and bigger making GBs look like MBs. I should know, I remember when I was excited about having a 150 GB hard drive in my computer and now I have 3 TBs and have already run out of space.

Agree. That is why Coops-Consortia are necessary. The individual carries no weight and needs leverage.

It is at times like these that I thank god I live in a Commonwealth and not a state.  We do have choices, but may have to move from one county to another to exercise them.  However, cable only has a monopoly in one county, not state wide (and then not totally as their is FIOS and DSL).

One of the tech gurus think that we will have that in a year - at least the choice part if not the bandwidth part.

I'm getting this serious feeling of bias here. So I have no idea if I'm going to be able to convince (or enlighten) at all, or rather just be called a "shill for the company". Ah well, I can't help myself.

Okay, the data caps you speak of here specifically are bandwidth used in a month. Extra charges for going over the bandwidth used.

Your original post (specifically the video I watched there) was talking about download speed. The guy was asking "why bother capping speed at all" if the technology exists to go really, really fast (fiber). My response to this original question was "the infrastructure isn't there / is too costly to implement / the company can't handle everyone using that speed in a sustained way".

Regarding the bandwidth caps, the reason they are there is to protect the company so that they can offer service without interruption or collapse. It would be nice if the infrastructure out there could handle everyone downloading whatever they wanted forever, but it doesn't exist.

Personally, in my own experience, businesses have a LOT less pull than the individual person. Businesses use FAR less internet than people. Businesses use POS (incredibly small data transfer), and then stuff that amounts to web surfing. A phone network takes incredibly little data on the network.
The heaviest users of an ISP's service is the general public. What they want hugely defines how an ISP builds it's infrastructure to handle load and use. If an ISP wants to move into a target city, they are looking at general public coverage... not whether a business will be using the service or not. In my experience, I don't believe you'll need to worry about Proctor & Gamble affecting how you get your internet.

Data Caps are there so that the ISP won't get crushed by spiking loads. The speed people can get can cap out their "usage" in literally 24 hours. This is because if everyone had unlimited speed and unlimited bandwidth... well, some people would use it asap, and suddenly everyone's connection would slow to a crawl because some people will load up P2P and hog the ISP's bandwidth. The few heaviest users would drop the overall access for everyone else... because an ISP's infrastructure isn't unlimited.

Sure, an ISP could packet shape and block, throttle, or find and report/ban users of P2P. But that smacks of 1984, and I'd rather that a few people get away with copyright infringement than opening that door to the "information police state". It's bad enough already with the way media is.

Data caps protect the ISP's service so that 5% of the people can't ruin the service for the other 95%. They want 95% of the people to be happy, and let the other 5% of people do most of what they want to do, just without abusing the infrastructure.

To be frank, the data caps don't really affect the majority of people. That link you posted specifically says:

"Netflix said its streaming service in Canada will by default now use two-thirds less data on average, with only a minimal impact on video quality. A customer can choose to select two higher quality streams that use more data."

To me, this sounds like they went from no choice in the bandwidth used, to multiple choices of bandwidth used, including ones that use more. How is having choice (that includes what you had before, or better) a bad thing? If I live in an area where the infrastructure isn't there to accommodate the data involved (such as a small town out in the middle of a lake, so I'm stuck with microwave tower signal, etc), then having the option to get Netflix without taxing my service is great.

And you believe the ISPs on this, when they are on record as saying " We get more money by not investing in our  product."  Time warner actually said this.

Caps are about price-gouging, pure and simple.  WHy is it when Time Warner tried to introduce caps in 2009, the four markets they picked where the four markets they had a total monopoly in?

I so want to leave NC now, but I'm job-tied until 2012.

I believe the ISP I have personal (non-consumer related) dealings with, and have specific inside knowledge of (with both marketing and operations). Most of my comments are from firsthand experience and knowledge, not some corporate "statement for the press".

I'm not saying that it's solely about making customers happy, and nothing about revenue/profit. Clearly, making money is the point of running a business.

But bandwidth caps being about price-gouging "pure and simple" is being hyperbolic.

Bandwidth caps had been around in Canada for the last decade. Considering that the only option up until now for those that used more bandwidth than was allowed has been to turn people's service off, I'm not sure how that equates to getting more money. Sounds like losing money to me.

The actual real numbers (data I've seen myself) of people who get even close to their cap is in the "less than 5%" mark. That's a lot of effort and heartache over a rather small percentage of people that a company might grab a little extra cash from.

Considering limits are in the tens to hundreds of gigs, and people can easily hit terabytes of bandwidth used per month (again, something I've personally witnessed) even on fairly normal speeds, it's hard to think that the decades old caps aren't something to do with preventing degrading service.

Now, I do have to put a big caveat on this: I don't know anything about US markets and companies.

Here in Canada, there really isn't a monopoly going on. In the few areas where there's only one ISP capable of bringing in service, the pricing methods are influenced by the fact that the company is provincially/nationally influenced, and government regulations enforce reseller competition. Not to mention non-land limited alternative options (satellite and cell options) still giving people at least some kind of choice.

If things are as bad in the US as people are implying, then it's just one more reason I'm glad I'm up north.

Nice.

There currently are "onDemand" style things around right now here. I'd love to see the day that ALL my TV can be bought a-la-carte like that. I don't buy access to a station or a network, but rather I buy a TV show I want to watch, and the only information that needs to be sent to me is menu data and the show I selected.

Canada , where the ISPs actually got the citizenry to revolt.  Your guys may actually be worse.

I expect this to become a secondary election issue in Canada.

There is a secondary reason besides price-gouging.  The ISPs also run cable, which is overpriced and outdated compared to stuff like Netflix and Hulu.  This is about burying those businesses, along with burying businesses like Steam and Impulse on the side.  Any PC gamer needs to be alarmed at what is going on.

Actually? I'd like to see an "Impulse" type app from which I can pick and choose whichever offering I wish to see, and from different ISPs if mine doesn't offer what I'm searching for.

Without a Cooperative, what are the chances of that ever happening? 

Hmm. I give examples, logic and reasoned responses, based on personal experience in this field, all in a light tone of open conversation. What I get back is alarmist parrotry, with no examples, proof or even explanation backing it as "rebuttal". Might as well say "Nuh-uh!".

Your statement, Alstein, about "burying businesses" sounds like you care more about destroying and taking down "the man", than wanting a company to change or move forward. I have anti (current) establishment friends who dream of a day when what's happening in Egypt, etc, will happen here against the long list of stuff our governments do against it's own citizenry. At least he has a reasoned and logical response to anyone trying to refute him.
I think I'm done trying to have a conversation about this.

Sorry Doc, your stuff is normally pretty good, but on this one I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I see a lot of problems with what's going on, but more in the vein of slow advancement in applying current technology (roadblocks in getting rid of analog and packaged services, etc). I really can't get behind the doomsaying.

I can understand (and even agree with) the feeling that things aren't advancing fast enough. See my sentiments above that mirror your own comments on an Impulse app. I just don't agree with the "average person is going to get screwed" sentiment.

let's see.  Local cable monopoly owns the ISP.  People start cancelling cable due to Netflix being a better alternative.  See a conflict of interest here?  I certainly do.

I'm not opposed to business.  I'm opposed to monopolistic practices and anti-consumer price-gouging.

It took congressional action, from out-of-state, to stop my community from being placed under a 5GB/month cap in 2009.   If you don't see what I'm seeing, then obviously you don't want to see it.  

I respect your reasoning and experience and appreciate the compliment, Kaisoku...thanks. As I can't argue with your experience, mine tells me that the opposite will probably happen, if only by virtue of the ISP fiefdoms and consumer apathy,

The TV Impulse-type app might change that, if someone enterprising gets behind it.

Thank you for providing some input.

Netflix gives movies and tv series if they've been out on DVD. Cable gives you the latest episode of that show you wanted to watch, as it airs. Or onDemand or pay-per-view movies before they are out on DVD. Check out the "recently added" section of Netflix, it's almost entirely 2009 content.

It's rare to see people cancel cable because they have Netflix. They have to be willing to wait over a year to see content.

When there is direct competition for cable content (someone creating what Doc is talking about), then things will get interesting. Either cable providers will have to wake up and smell the new freaking century already (or whatever's holding them back needs to give way), or there's going to have to be new laws written.
I might have a completely different opinion of cable providers at that point if things go "squid shaped".

Interesting fact: we have laws already (that have been around for years) that prevent the monopoly you talk of (at least in Canada). Large ISPs are prohibited from denying a reseller their service in areas where they are the only backbone. This means a reseller can come in, demand a portion of the ISPs service, and sell that very service to customers against the ISP. And the ISP has laws preventing them from doing anything untoward about it (such as reducing/inhibiting that traffic, etc). Yeah, the ISP gets some cash for selling to the reseller, but not nearly as much as if he had those customers directly.
This goes against the concepts of Capitalism (I think? Maybe it depends), but it makes sure there's no monopoly of service in a particular area, so an ISP can't just hike prices or let service degrade.
This is also where the legality of current bill is in question: Should a reseller be able to make money off charging bandwidth overages to customers, as this isn't even their service originally and none of that money goes to the original ISP, since the limits are in place by the reseller. The legality in question is about fair trade, it's not even about the consumer being limited, on the face it.

Ultimately, it's because "internet" isn't an essential service. Unlike the price of bread and milk, or basic phone service, the internet is not something that is close to a "right", so a company can pretty much do what they want. (Sadly.. I wish it was something the government considered important enough).

Monopolies are where it gets bad, and I agree with you completely there: no company should have a monopoly, or be allowed to buy their way into a monopoly. That's not happening anywhere I can see in Canada (and I have a much better visual than most on that).

You want to know how competitive it is here? Recent promo that was being tossed around like candy to nab customers: 10$ for internet per month (at 10 mbit down, 1/2 mbit up, 50+ gigs a month cap) for a year. Oh, and you want to double the speed/cap? Just add 10$ more.
Considering how much it costs to send a guy to install the service, give the customer a free modem, and just paying/maintaining the infrastructure involved... I can't see how that's anything more than a loss, just in the hopes that this guy won't jump ship the second his year is up and the price bumps back up to closer to 35$.
This is the kind of competition a consumer has at his disposal across Canada right now.

Okay, that would make me sick. I'm looking at normal service having between 50-100 Gigs of bandwidth per month as a cap. On the high end, that's something around over 3 hours of standard def (at Netflix best quality setting) per day.

At 5 gigs a month, you'd be looking at like half an hour a day at the lowest possible quality setting. If that were my only option, I'd revolt too. That's pathetic.

I think I see where we disconnect.. The reason I'm not seeing it, is because it's literally not happening here. My statement from before stands, I'm glad I live in Canada. If that happened here.. I'd seriously consider moving.