The recent buzz around the blogosphere has been about ISPs capping bandwidth and charging by the Gigabyte. To some, this is a complete disaster while others couldn't care less. The idea of capping bandwidth is not new as companies around the world have been practicing this method of service delivery (like Australia).
With the recent advancements in transfer speeds alongside things like online HD movie rentals and video communication, these people decide to introduce the cap now, when they're supposed to be doing quite the opposite! Imagine how quickly an average internet user will suck through 30 to 40GB of bandwidth in one month - HD movie rentals, international video conferencing, browsing high bandwidth web content (Youtube!), and so forth.
I just don't understand why ISP companies want to be greedy and make more money this way now. They know that people will go above their capped limits and the easy money will flow right into their pockets. Eventually, I believe that internet access will reach a point where it'll be so cheap, companies will be forced to just have one monthly rate. More after the jump...
On top of all this, these ISPs are also planning on filtering our internet! I mean, damn, what the hell happened to net neutrality and all that. Yea, it'll be awesome to track down sex offenders and other cyber criminals, but there are other means of solving these types of issues; keeping a close watch on pornographic content providers, shutting down hosts that permit the type of activity, and enforcing security measures on social networking websites, and the likes.
Yea, I can claim that I don't care because I won't have anything to worry about in terms of breaking the law or whatever, but I have a feeling that this will get to a point where angry customers that we never knew existed will arise.
I am totally for stopping illegal distribution of copyrighted material and all, and it'll help businesses and individuals alike in many ways, but I just hope these corporations don't overdo it. I have this believe that the universe has a way of always balancing itself no matter what. Let's just hope this gets fixed up pretty quickly.
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So what extent are they going to with all this capping?
That really sucks, because here in Australia we've been looking to the international broadband situation as a sign of hope that one day our broadband will one day get better.
Regarding why they're considering limiting your downloads here is my theory:
1) By limiting download allowances they can charge big downloaders more money or forces them onto a higher "download plan"
2) It will ease congestion on their networks
3) It gives them the ability to do deals with content providers that allows the broadband subscriber to download data from that provider at no charge
Both 1 and 3 are true in Aus and I am sure they're the main reasons why providers are doing that.
I don't think it's 100% certain how it's going to be played out, but it probably won't be too different from what's already happening around the world.