After I broke the news that both Time Warner Cable and Comcast were considering monthly caps and overage fees, I noticed that a refraining industry talking point justifying the move usually went something like this: "Well, despite being hailed as a FTTH utopia, Japan is implementing caps too." The argument being that low caps and overage fees were inevitable even in the face of serious capacity upgrades and the latest throttling technologies.
Well, fiber carrier NTT Communications, which offers users symmetrical 100Mbps connections and VoIP for about $42 per month, today unveiled those long ballyhooed cap plans: a daily upload limit of 30 GB per day (930 GB per month), and unlimited downloads. No overage fees. Of course NTT's statement justifying the move sounds familiar:
A small number of individual users have been monopolizing substantial network resources by uploading massive amounts of data, which can slow the speed of the network and lower communication quality for other users
Damn those pesky users who consume more than 930GB worth of upstream bandwidth per month! Compare that to Time Warner Cable's proposed caps of between 5 and 40GB per month, and overage fees at a markup over cost of between 1000 and 1,500%. Apparently actually investing in capacity does make a difference after all. Did I mention FiOS, so far, has no caps? Did I mention French FTTH carriers don't either?
As an aside, while perusing the Intertubes, I came across this post on the cable industry's new blog that lets you know that Japanese broadband "isn't the beacon of broadband they were held out to be." I was fairly amused to find anyone in the American broadband industry attacking Japanese FTTH providers for offering 100Mbps speeds that fall below the advertised rate.
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Japan is small with a recent communications network- meaning it's modern and can handle speeds like that. The US, Canada, Europe, etc have older communications systems and a lot more area to cover- meaning it is cost prohibitive to roll out a new giant highspeed network. We'll probably have one in a decade or two, but the transition is going to be slow.
Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Japan is small with a recent communications network- meaning it's modern and can handle speeds like that. The US, Canada, Europe, etc have older communications systems and a lot more area to cover- meaning it is cost prohibitive to roll out a new giant highspeed network. We'll probably have one in a decade or two, but the transition is going to be slow.
And meanwhile ISPs rape us at exorbitant rates for Internet access.
Originally posted by: Xavier434
Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Japan is small with a recent communications network- meaning it's modern and can handle speeds like that. The US, Canada, Europe, etc have older communications systems and a lot more area to cover- meaning it is cost prohibitive to roll out a new giant highspeed network. We'll probably have one in a decade or two, but the transition is going to be slow.
And meanwhile ISPs rape us at exorbitant rates for Internet access.
Pretty much. Why we do not at least have our coasts covered with this same technology is beyond me. The population densities along most of our coasts are comparable enough.
Originally posted by: ebaycj
Originally posted by: Xavier434
Pretty much. Why we do not at least have our coasts covered with this same technology is beyond me. The population densities along most of our coasts are comparable enough.
And Chicago too !! Why do people always forget about Chicago ?!!??!!
And meanwhile ISPs rape us at exorbitant rates for Internet access.
Originally posted by: Regs
Even though I agree with all your sentiments.....I do have to agree that some people out there have been spoiling it for everyone. Like download 2-3 movies ( at 4-10gigs a pop) at a time or treating their lines like its a international trading organization with 4 different p2p programs open and bittorrent.
Originally posted by: Nitemare
hentai and tentacle porn require alot of bandwidth
Originally posted by: frostedflakes
930GB?! What are they doing with all that bandwidth? I didn't realize that much hentai existed.
Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Japan is small with a recent communications network- meaning it's modern and can handle speeds like that. The US, Canada, Europe, etc have older communications systems and a lot more area to cover- meaning it is cost prohibitive to roll out a new giant highspeed network. We'll probably have one in a decade or two, but the transition is going to be slow.
And meanwhile ISPs rape us at exorbitant rates for Internet access.
Originally posted by: Scouzer
Canada has had bandwidth caps for years. Standard cable service is usually 60GB download, and the premium cable internet services are 100GB.
Originally posted by: Wreckem
Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Japan is small with a recent communications network- meaning it's modern and can handle speeds like that. The US, Canada, Europe, etc have older communications systems and a lot more area to cover- meaning it is cost prohibitive to roll out a new giant highspeed network. We'll probably have one in a decade or two, but the transition is going to be slow.
And meanwhile ISPs rape us at exorbitant rates for Internet access.
I pay $30/month for 10down/2up
Its plenty fast for me and Im not getting raped.
Originally posted by: destrekor
do people not realize the extreme difference in land size between the US and most of the world. Russia, even if it were in a similar position of wealth as the US, would be on the same level as the US for broadband. Japan is tiny, the European countries are also small in comparison to the US. It's tough stringing expensive communication systems across the US to deliver that kind of bandwidth, and is partly why bandwidth is expensive at the moment, because those profits help fund the cost of communications upgrades to increase speeds.
+
Originally posted by: Scouzer
Canada has had bandwidth caps for years. Standard cable service is usually 60GB download, and the premium cable internet services are 100GB.
:QOriginally posted by: Xavier434
Originally posted by: frostedflakes
930GB?! What are they doing with all that bandwidth? I didn't realize that much hentai existed.
Haven't you heard of live action hentai...in HD!!!