That’s true, and yet Time-Warner and now Spectrum never had a cap. Verizon either.
Are data caps actually even enforced (outside of mobile)? I’ve had two ISPs that ostensibly had caps that I regularly violated given all the high-def streaming I was doing and never heard a word about it.
Like I say, if the stated policy is “we shut you off”, mostly not. Now that Comcast can charge me for it, you bet your ass they do. I have personal experience of it.
They don’t have competition. They can pretty much do what they like as a result. Limited minutes on phones shifted, slowly and they opened up competition.
Looking at this thread made me very thankful. 1Gb Fibre with about 100Mb upload (have not tested) cost around 60SGD (~40USD).
Edit: No data caps. It makes me wonder why it cost so much in the west.
Edit2: The govt believes in cheap Internet and subsidises all the wiring costs for each household.
The US is a huge country with a lot of very low population density rural space, and generally lower density even in urban areas. So in fairness it does have infrastructure challenges that a lot of countries don’t. Handing critical utilities over to regional monopolies with zero competitive pressure and extremely limited regulation is just the ingrained hatred of saving money and having nice things, though.
I agree. But the pricing in the cities should be cheaper would it not? Or is the cost of infrastructure of the rural areas pass on to the whole group of consumers?
Edit: Which is why I think infrastructure should be undertaken by government.
Mississauga, Canada - Rogers. 150 down, 15 up, unlimited data, $68 per month. Occasionally I get tempted by one of the smaller ISPs but it ends up being a marginal savings.
I mean, the cost and low quality of American internet isn’t really actually to do with the infrastructure challenges, just the monopolies and greed of same. But even if we had fully government administered cost-of-operation internet it would probably have to be more expensive and might not be all that great outside cities, compared to smaller, denser countries.
We have roughly the same density as Sweden, and they have better cheaper internet.
As you say, this isn’t really geography. It’s defanged regularity bodies not vigorously going after telcos who had been granted special exemptions to raise prices explicitly to roll out improved internet in the 90’s, but who took the money and didn’t do so. The regulatory bodies did not pursue redress for this breach of contract.
This is it.
Look at Spectrum in NY state. They agreed to the merger with Time Warner cable on the condition that Spectrum increased their rural infrastructure, and they basically did fuck all. Now the state is revoking their license to operate in the state.
These companies have 0 incentive to upgrade their infrastructure, because they don’t compete with eachother. Each provider has a region that they work with, and generally they have a monopoly over the physical cable networks. It is just plain stupid. This needs to be treated like a utility, or we need to abolish their ability to have a monopoly over regions of the country.
We could definitely use more competition. With the mere threat of Google Fiber moving into Nashville, Comcast started offering residential gigabit service with unlimited data for $70/mo. Go figure.
A major consideration if I ever move/relocate is losing out on my local ISP (Sonic) that gives me gigabit fiber without a data cap for about $70 a month.
Random share… I live in a semi-rural area outside a small town in central Texas. I’ve had Spectrum for 18 months now. It took over two months to get installed because my address hadn’t had service in many, many years and new lines had to be run from the street. Since they’ve been pretty good service and billing wise. No issues. I recently got upgraded from 300 -> 400 Mbps free. Then I upgraded to their “Gigabit” (940Mbps down / 35 Mbps up) tier. No caps, but it is $125 a month.
Not cheap, but I was previously paying Suddenlink $165 for 300Mbps service with a 1.8TB cap - I paid extra to raise the cap. Suddenlink has better plans now apparently.
On the topic of competition… I looked at all my options. There are a few WISP (wireless ISPs) with 10Mbps / 1Mbps capped connections for $100+. Centurylink offers traditional DSL 10Mbps / 768kbps for about $65. That’s it.
I’m just outside the Grande Communcations service area sadly. I’m doing better than my neighbor two doors over though, who has no Spectrum service. For whatever reason they stopped at my house. Apparently when they (re-)installed my house my next door neighbor also got service, but not the end of the street!
I keep telling my neighbor to call and find out how much to get Spectrum out to do the install. He insists they won’t, but hasn’t called in several years.
It’s crazy how much this stuff varies by location. I only have 250 (rated - actually closer to 290) for 90/mo (with basic cable and HBO that I am only getting because unbundled internet is actually more) and a 1 TB cap and so I’m jealous of these cheaper, faster, uncapped options y’all have. But I have easily triple the speed available for my relatives in Des Moines, and probably 10x or more what my step-dad can get in a smaller town in Wisconsin just east of the Minnesota border - to the point where heavily capped 50 mbit wireless is actually a better option than their cable service. But if he lived just a couple towns over he could get municipal fiber straight to his house because that town actually owns and invests in their infrastructure.
Anyone else constantly get spammed with ads for Internet service that you can’t actually get? I don’t just mean radio/TV/Internet ads, but direct mailings. I constantly get AT&T and Comcast mailers, but each time I’ve gone to their website to check availability, it says they don’t provide service at my address. (My local “it’s not a monopoly, no really” provider is Charter.) I’m not saying that I’d actually switch even if I could, but it’s another level of annoying to get junk mail about service that doesn’t actually exist.
Oh yeah. Along with the ads for insurance for the car I don’t own, and Sprint begging me to come back and pay $30/mo more at a temporary discount rate compared to what I pay on Ting for the same network.
1 year later…
Called RCN today, they FINALLY do have 1 GB service in my area, and will bump me to it while keeping me at my same $75 price. No contract. No automatic price increase after 12 months.
TODAY:
I love that there are 3 competitors in this area of the state, glorious price wars.
They will be out tomorrow for the upgrade. :D
Speedtests will be posted!
Due to networking overhead, 940Mbps or so is about the best you’re going to realistically see, even on your home LAN. So you’re getting what you paid for.
I mean, the upload blows.