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.  

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 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.

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.

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...

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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? 

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.  

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.