Fight For your right to INTERNET!!!

Started by DobbyDevotchka, February 01, 2011, 10:41:12 PM

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DobbyDevotchka

Strombo Talks About The Impending Metered Internet


I just have to love george strombolopolous for shining light on this kind of thing.

Wyrd

I'm going to sign that petition right now! :0
Ragtime Dandies!

RubySlippers

I signed it but as an American am not sure how far its going to go. On my opinion on this as a poor American this is the death nell to the poor having access to high speed internet we lost dial-up due to market forces, I can't afford to stay on if they do this. And add to that broadband is ALWAYS on when the computer is on so if they do this will they let you log on and off like you could with dial-up to not use time up? And what about people working at home telecommuting it would hurt those jobs and companies, hell most companies that use the internet even moderately.

In the US this would likely not go over very well I already contacted Brighthouse if they do this they risk losing alot of customers we of modest incomes may have our faults but we pay our bills on time and consider our internet the one luxury we love, as long as its affordable.

mystictiger

On what basis do we have a right to internet access? We have to pay for electricity, water, and sewage. The more you pay, the more reliable and better the service.
Want a system game? I got system games!

Wyrd

Riiight. I'm fine with my net right now but paying more for it as well as every thing else sounds so much better. If you want to throw money right out the window, fine.
Ragtime Dandies!

Zakharra

#5
Quote from: mystictiger on February 02, 2011, 09:37:04 AM
On what basis do we have a right to internet access? We have to pay for electricity, water, and sewage. The more you pay, the more reliable and better the service.

To a point. Right now, many people have unlimited access to the internet. No limitations. If something like this happens in the US, people who are used to and expecting unlimited internet access would find themselves suddenly paying much higher prices for something that was basically free(very low cost)  before.  That will piss off a LOT of people. People will ask, angrily why they have to pay more for the same access they had before.

Wyrd

I just hope that Canadians can pull together and do something to stop this.
Ragtime Dandies!

DobbyDevotchka

Quote from: mystictiger on February 02, 2011, 09:37:04 AM
On what basis do we have a right to internet access? We have to pay for electricity, water, and sewage. The more you pay, the more reliable and better the service.

I doubt that metering the internet would do anything towards making the service more reliable.  He said that it costs less than a penny to route 1 gig, and they're going to attempt charging upwards of 3 dollars per gig... That's ludicrous! Gig's are the same no matter what you say, or at least i hope, and you pay your service provider for the amount of bandwidth you require.  I can understand charging higher prices for more bandwidth, but screw allotting a certain amount of minutes.  It's like he said, in comparison to phone companies, they'll find ways to push you over your limit, or to throw in hidden downloading charges.  Whatever happened to the internet being our vehicle to freely do whatever the hell we want, for however long we want. So long as you're paying for a phone connection, you should be good, no?

Silk

Also not forgetting compaies like Net cafe's will be thrown out of buisness like no tomorrow. Around here its around a charge of £1.50 per hour ($3), now if that cafe has say 20 computers, each needing to download a 1-2 gig update (looking at mmos and such here) by comparison paying upwards of £200 ($400)just to get their products upto a playable standard, and thats just for one game. The local one has 20-30 such games, each needing regular updates. There looking at a regular fee of around $8000 just to keep their products up to date. Although there is LAN's and such, its not possible with all games.

Wyrd

Lets face it. The world is coming to an end
Ragtime Dandies!

RubySlippers

Quote from: mystictiger on February 02, 2011, 09:37:04 AM
On what basis do we have a right to internet access? We have to pay for electricity, water, and sewage. The more you pay, the more reliable and better the service.

Nobody is saying it is but when I pay $19.95 a month for basic 1 mbs high speed access and that is fair, a phone line via wire is around that and my basic cable is $15.00 I have no issues with the cost. They take people like me that use this as a vital social outlet and for education and work applications paying via meter is going to force many off the internet or I'll get pay go wireless for so much a month and sharply limit my use. I find a simple solution charge more for the faster service Brighthouse for 5 mbs charges $44.95 and more for faster speeds I find that reasonable its faster and for many necessary. But since the nation is making getting everyone basic broadband in the US metering is counter to that for the poor computer access is not a right but is more and more necessary to have as our society turns to the computer for more things. Applying for jobs, school, professional networking, social connections and also recreation.

I see this as an attack on the poor between the tech haves and have-nots with a huge favor on the haves.

Sure

Quote from: mystictiger on February 02, 2011, 09:37:04 AM
On what basis do we have a right to internet access? We have to pay for electricity, water, and sewage. The more you pay, the more reliable and better the service.

'Have a right to' does not equal 'free' (in the sense of currency). We have a right to those things too, most would agree. By the way, Internet Access is a right according to: The UN, Estonia, France, Greece, Finland, and Spain. Several of those countries do provide a lot of their people with free internet service (you pay to upgrade to faster speeds).

DobbyDevotchka


  The thing that i find the most disappointing is that if they start metering the internet, it will set its technology back ten-fold, sort of like the progress of the electric car.  The phone companies will hold a monopoly over internet services, forcing it to remain the same and only accessible to a small portion of the world, which will then slow it from evolving into the exciting places it's already taken us.
We need to follow Estonia, France, Greece, Finland, and Spain's example, gd it

 

RubySlippers

Under the Declaration of Human Rights which is I understand not binding but a commitment of nations signing it to certain key principles and forms a basis of common international common law has several articles that could apply.

One states governments shall treat people equally and it doesn't imply economic equality cannot be considered and another states cultural, educational and recreational rights are considered all important. One could easily imply cutting off the poor from a ,what has become, a multifaceted technolgy covering many areas - education, recreation, employment, public discourse and allow acts of liberty of thought as contrary to this document. No one is saying that people have a RIGHT to the best access but rather looking at it this way people have a right to basic access in the standard technology say basic high speed [1 mbs] as a right at a price a nation can see is affordable for fair market practice to the poor. I would argue metered access may very well deprive people of these rights by pricing broadband out of reach.

DudelRok

On the one hand: It makes sense from a business perspective to keep your income by correctly fluxing where that money is coming from. As more and more people shift away from more "normal" services and opt for what is currently the cheaper and more usable (internet) you need to do something to balance the scales (or outright reset them).

On the other hand: It's a dick move considering the current pricing, bandwidth standards and the outcry for mandated high speed internet. Charging more for a more specific service, on the other hand, is what the US is all about and doesn't annoy anyone. Let those who can (and want to) pay more for more, do so.


Short: It reads like a money-grab. Good business tactics, bad ethics.

I AM THE RETURN!

DudelWiki | On/Off Thread | A/A Thread

RubySlippers

Thankfully BOTH parties are supporting universal access to broadband internet so regulators would be hard pressed to make the most basic broadband ,what most low income people use, more than basic local phone service as a base. The US leaders have that right to compete and move us ahead most people will need such access to be part of a global society. Canada might lose big if they do this.

mystictiger

He also dismisses out of hand the idea of metering and only applying the increased rates to the higher users.

Most ISPs in the UK have upload and download limits already. Personally, I'm all for the person in the flat downstairs who seems to download porn all day long having to pay more for the privilege for bandwidth hogging.

The real reason excessive use charges would be beneficial would be to discourage congestion.
Want a system game? I got system games!

RubySlippers

I'm not opposed to hour based limits I had that for dial-up, you pay so much for 350 hours a month time. But if bandwidth is a few cents per GB are dollars for each one fair? Wi-Fi and high end services should be offered for more money but I'm talking 1mbs basic broadband what most people need for modern internet access. Do you really want the poor to be left out in the cold many of us already don't have fancy cellphones if we have one at all - this is another nail in the door keeping the poor in their place. Face it the internet is a de facto version of the Public Library it makes the poor and wealthy more even and all should access it but pay fairly for it.

Revolverman

Its all moot. The Conservatives told the CRTC to chance their decision, or they will do it for them.

Wyrd

Ragtime Dandies!

DobbyDevotchka


adifferenceinsize

For what it's worth, there's a similar sort of situation that already exists in the US, albeit in the opposite direction to the same end. Comcast Cable has a system in place where there's a set maximum one can download in a month with the residential plan, and if you hit that limit twice in a 12 month period, they drop you. The limit IS 150 GB in a month for like $30 per, so you can get down to $0.20/GB there, and I've barely been able to breach 50 GB in a month (though I'm not as torrent-addicted as some of my friends), so it's not that unreasonable for the time being. I can't say I know anything about the CRTC's specifics, but it sounds more like they were going overkill with the prices than initiating some new lock down. If it was $3/GB from the first up? That's some ol' BS. If it was like $20 / 25 GB and $4/GB after? Still sucks, but if you're given tools to monitor usage, most people will have a hard time hitting that cap regularly. Add some rollover and it's probably an alright option.

Wyrd

I don't think this is over yet. They said on global news that the gov told the CRTC to go and review and rethink their decision. But I herd that they will still strand by their choice. 
Ragtime Dandies!

Rayne Bluestone

Those of us in the United States who use Satellite internet are already severely metered.   Where I live the only satellite internet provider available and operating in the area was the satellite provider I use my plan also is not the biggest they offer.  For $70 a month I am getting 475 MB of traffic both ways combined at a speed of 750 Mbs.  If you break the limit, what Hughes net does is giving you half of dail up speed for 24hours starting at the time when the last MB was used. 

This recent attempt at Metering was probably prompted by the recent proclamation of Netflix that they want to do away with sending out physical DVD's entirely and move all to the on-demand business plan.  You know what if the entire nation got pretty much the deal I got, Hopefully cheaper prices, I would see no problem with it.

Also just so anyone knows my options are only satellite or basic dail-up

RubySlippers

Then fine meter everyone the same way businesses and government agencies to be fair. As I see it companies that do this risk pissing off alot of very talented black hat hackers they are going to piss off when this hurts their livlihoods I'm not for them but they do have a habit of picking fights with those messing with their income. Some in Eastern Europe are pretty brazen.

As a poor person I'm sick of the technology always being so expensive everyone wants you to get. They want me to get broadband and I did now they are thinking of metering it over a fair monthly price, that is so wrong. Unless everyone gets metered on gb use as I noted but you know they will not include them.

OldSchoolGamer

At least here in America, I don't think there's enough competition.

Note that I'm not categorically opposed to metering.  Depends on how it's implemented.  Let's say Skynet ISP offers (and yes, I'm pulling numbers out of my ass in this hypothetical example, but please bear with me) a 10Mbps connection for $39.99 a month.  The IT gurus at Skynet crunch some numbers and find that their userbase has the following usage patterns:

the top 2% pull 200+GB of data a month.
the 90th to 98th percentiles average 50Gb a month
The 75th to 89th percentiles average 20Gb a month
the 26th to 74th average 10Gb a month
the 10th to 24th use around 6Gb a month
the 1st through 10th average 1Gb a month

Though I made up those numbers, I suspect, knowing what I know about statistics and the Pareto Principle, that profile probably isn't terribly far from reality.  So yeah, if I ran that ISP, I probably would put in some kind of ceiling...and, likely a 5Mbps plan for $24.99 a month for that bottom 25%, maybe an economy 2Mbps for $14.99 for the bottom few percent.  Fair is fair--if I'm going to punish people for going way over, there should be some sort of give-back to those who remain well under typical usage. 

I'd probably start with a ceiling of 50Gb.  I wouldn't throttle people back to dialup speed, but I would say down to 2Mbps once you got over 50, 1Mbps once you hit 100, and maybe 256kbps once you hit 200 (I don't think many people would, at 1Mbps).  Every user who went over 200Gb in a month would be costing me 20 times as much as an average user, after all.  And I wouldn't be charging them a ginormous overage fee, or stopping them...I'd just throttle them so they couldn't swap ripped DVDs or stream 4,692 different torrents on any given Sunday.  2Mbps, even 1, is still a usable connection for things like e-mail and Web surfing.  I would probably allow users to lift the ceiling to 100Gb for an extra $20 a month (note that is providing ten times typical usage for only an extra 66-odd percent).

RubySlippers

Many cable companies do this my unlimited 1mbs service which is fine for most things even lower graphic MMO's costs $19.95 after the first month more than fair. And one must consider for many internet is as important as a cell phone or a car nowdays and being pushed by the American government as a must have for every household at least at a basic level 1mbs to 2mbs. They are likely to demand all companies with a wire connection and maybe wi-fi companies offer decent budget plans at that speed that is unlimited use.

gaggedLouise

#27
Quote from: adifferenceinsize on February 03, 2011, 09:16:45 PM
For what it's worth, there's a similar sort of situation that already exists in the US, albeit in the opposite direction to the same end. Comcast Cable has a system in place where there's a set maximum one can download in a month with the residential plan, and if you hit that limit twice in a 12 month period, they drop you. The limit IS 150 GB in a month for like $30 per, so you can get down to $0.20/GB there, and I've barely been able to breach 50 GB in a month (though I'm not as torrent-addicted as some of my friends), so it's not that unreasonable for the time being. I can't say I know anything about the CRTC's specifics, but it sounds more like they were going overkill with the prices than initiating some new lock down. If it was $3/GB from the first up? That's some ol' BS. If it was like $20 / 25 GB and $4/GB after? Still sucks, but if you're given tools to monitor usage, most people will have a hard time hitting that cap regularly. Add some rollover and it's probably an alright option.

Some major ISPs here in Sweden have the same cut-off point mechanism in place when it comes to mobile device broadband - laptops, smartphones etc connecfting in the open. If you hit let's say 7 gig within one calendar month, you're reduced to crawling speed, 56 kbit/s (which nobody has these days!) for the rest of the month. That was hidden in the very fine print, while their ads ostensibly say "Surf and download NO LIMITS on a super-fast 12 mbit/second connection, wherever you are!".  A less than candid way of selling it, badly misleading in fact... And it operates without any previous notice before axing the speed, and the subscription is locked so the end user can't break out of it without having to pay perhaps a thousand bucks in a lump sum.

Downloading traffic  in that way doesn't just mean things you've bought, actively chosen and downloaded such as movies, music, games. It means everything your browser, your antivirus programs, your software updaters pull home too, and that can be quite a bit over a few weeks. If you're watching a Youtube video or reading a picture-heavy news site, the pc doesn't save those materials permanently on the hard drive but it still has to download quite a bit of temporary files to make it work. So ordinary surfing may well mean hundreds of megabyte downloaded a week anyway. same with online gaming, even if you don't install any new stuff the game will still do some downstream traffic to make it run.

Plus these operatives can't really reach the promised broadband speeds in the open, not regularly. When lots of people descend onm a summer resort or an airport and they and they all want to chat and download music,  their kids all want to play online games and so on, it regulöarly breaks the spine of the mobile network highways in those places. As a customer, you just land in an endless queue at the support.

With low-speed, pay-as-you-go internet, I too think it's a market failure that they have been alll but pushed out of business. These days you can't really get a 100 kbit/s connection on a cheap basis, or a two-line ISDN subscription - it would be, like, more expensive than I mbit/s broadband. Because 1 mbit and higher is leavened by the efforts of the ISPs to woo customers, so they will give the fees a substantial cut there in order to make the customers come in. With lower speed internet they don't feel any need to do that. So it becomes more expensive to buy the small chunks than the biggie, but you're supposed to have the infrastructure at home and the money required to make this run smoothly. If one is using the web mainly for e-mail, reading newspapers, text chatting sometimes and some sites you're checking in on for personal and pro interest (not heavy on pics and video), but doesn't download any big things, then 128 kbit is still fully functional and in some situations that kind of pay-only-what-you-use model is still the preferable alternative - except, it doesn't pay under the price range we have now.

But without internet access at home, day-to-day life barely works anymore because the ways you used to do it without the internet are being taken down - you can't manage your bank accounts and your payments over the counter without spending a prohibitve amount of time and money and coming in in the morning when you should be working or studying (many banks here don't even handle cash over the counter after 1 pm, you can't even add funds to your own account if you have some upcoming payments and your wage or sick fees are tardive, and in any case if you do send or cash in a money order or your electricity bill in the  bank there's a heavy extra fee, the customer is simply supposed to run all this from one's home pc), you can't order books, travel or hotel tickets at reasonable prices or even look for work in an effective way without having internet access at home, and so on. Without web subscriptions and a pc at home, the ordinary Joe is reduced to a third class citizen.

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