How do you feel about your ISP?

[Epyon9283]

My opinion is that it sucks. The service was probably sold to you as being "unlimited."

[Eviltape]

You should probably switch providers or get a seedbox (if you're torrenting). Are the speeds even worth the bandwith cap? Meaning, 700kbps from a Microsoft/Nvidia/AMD website.

EDIT: Misread the OP post.

[Ichihara Asako]

You think $2 per GB is expensive, one ISP here charges $150 per Gb excess. Most however, are 'nicer' and just slow down your connection once you go over your assigned quota, instead of charging you excess fees.

[ESC]

Originally Posted by Eviltape

Is it a flat 2 dollar penalty for any amount of GB that you go over? If so, then just imagine you're paying 2 more dollars for your ISP bill. If not, then you should probably switch providers or get a seedbox (if you're torrenting).

Its $2.00 for every gb so if you use 70gb when 60gb is max, you pay additional $20.00

Originally Posted by Epyon9283

My opinion is that it sucks. The service was probably sold to you as being "unlimited."

Lol yes, your right. They said it was unlimited.

Well, Im going to have to limit my downloads to 60gb/month lol
60gb is going to be used up pretty fast, and Im not the only person in my household Lol

Btw, does streaming videos effect the limit?

[SeijiSensei]

Of course; why wouldn't they? Those packets are being delivered to your computer even if you don't save them.

Most ISPs' terms of service include a variety of clauses that empower them to change the terms of the agreement at will. Your option as the consumer is simply to walk away. If the provider is a monopolist, or near-monopolist, you may not have many other choices, though.

In addition, BitTorrent almost always contravenes the terms of service on most residential accounts which ban "servers." The seeding side of BT constitutes being a file server to the remote BT clients and is thus technically prohibited by the TOS.

[faustianideals]

I've been using Comcast for the last year and a half. I've had no issues with them besides for the horrible downtime when snowstorms first hit Illinois. I probably use hundreds of gigabytes each month too, probably each week even, since I download way too many anime series, movies, and etc. Haven't had a complaint from my ISP yet!

=( Sorry to hear about your misfortune though. Always sucks when ISPs put ridiculous limits on usage. AT&T or SBC Yahoo! did the same thing to me before I switched to Comcast.

[Epyon9283]

Comcast will only send you an abuse notice if you're in the top N% of bandwidth users in an area. They won't say how much bandwidth that actually is though.

[King Lycan]

lol i have comcast..and there was a month i donwloaded like 76gb

[Slice of Life]

It all boils down to a simple question: Is the ISP market in your area working or not?

If not, you're screwed anyway. All you can do is to ask for a political solution, namely a regulation of the prices the monopoly/cartel demands.

If the market is working then switch to a competitor. If everybody starts doing the same then you can conclude that there must be a reason for it. Namely, that the ISPs (respectively their providers) are at a point where they need to invest more money to improve the net infrastructure because you are using too much. And not Granny who only uses the net to send e-mails to her grandchildren.

And sorry for sounding like a textbook but on our markets allocation of limited resources happens via prices.

I'd prefer a transparent price structure that tells me where I stand over pseudo-flatrates where the ISPs say "Well, of course you can generate as much traffic as you want except that if you generate too much we'll come around and poison your dog. We won't tell you how much too much is, in fact we won't even admit that this policy exists."

[Theowne]

The video shows that you have Rogers Internet Service "Express", so I don't think it's that odd for there to be a limitation. I guess the regular Roger Internet Service has no limitation. I have Bell Sympatico and there's no restriction, though it's somewhat slower than what others seem to have.

[Synria_]

I hope verizon dsl doesn't do this...

I wonder what the TOS have on Verizon FiOS. I hope to get FiOS sometime...

[Ending]

Around here, doing something like that would be unthinkable. Pretty much everyone takes it for granted that you can download/upload as much as you want with the monthly fee. But by what I have seen, in most foreign countries it's a common practise to rip-off paying customers with over-quota schemes.

So if I were in your pants, I would update my list of providers and their costs, then switch to a better one. I would also check if Roger's ToS mention anything about "advance warnings." I.e: is the line closed immediately or do I have to pay for one month extra.

[Ichihara Asako]

Originally Posted by Wordplay

Around here, doing something like that would be unthinkable. Pretty much everyone takes it for granted that you can download/upload as much as you want with the monthly fee. But by what I have seen, in most foreign countries it's a common practise to rip-off paying customers with over-quota schemes.

Yeah, a lot of people do take it for granted, that's why the internet is suffering for it. More and more ISPs (and nations) are enforcing quotas because the international backbone can't keep up with the huge amounts of use in the modern internet age. While the obvious solution is to upgrade the backbones, that's a slow and expensive task. Enforcing quotas is a preventative measure to help lighten the load.

[SeedFreedom]

Ive gotten the same warning. Mine however states it will only charge me for the first $25 over and because i'm sharing my internet with a lot of people its going to be impossible for us to keep under so we just consider it costing $25 more.

[Z3120]

I'm currently using AT&T SBC Yahoo DSL (whatever it's called) and have noticed they're starting to do something similar to Comcast except their actions are not as drastic and severe. I believe my ISP has announced they will be taking such actions and practices a few months ago I've heard on tech sites like arstechnica, but to what extent, I do not know for sure. Anyway, my ISP cannot detect what it is exactly I'm downloading as it's mainly anime, but I do notice if I attach myself to a torrent using a tracker from something like piratebay to find other peers, my connection will easily terminate soon enough. Also, my IP address doesn't refresh as often as it does now. I believe my ISP is using a form of 'tagging' to identify and experiment whatever system they're planning to implement in the near future. Perhaps to the extent of what Warner is doing in Texas as a hidden experiment. I suppose my ISP is investigating traffic to certain sites and shutting people's connection if they do so. It's nothing too serious at the moment until I see a larger than usual monthly bill.

[ESC]

Well, one thing I can do now is to upgrade my high speed to prem which is about $20 more and that will increase the limit to 90gb (which I still think is not enough). I went over the max of 60gb/month in 10 days, so i wont be able to use my internet with as much freedom I had before the new service.
If the best service they can offer is 90gb/month, I might as well change my ISP because I know I will go over the limit. Does anyone recommend any ISP in Canada/Ont?

[molebeing]

what what what what

[Z3120]

Originally Posted by ESC

Does anyone recommend any ISP in Canada/Ont?

I've heard from people's comments on other tech sites a few months ago when it was announced Bell was doing something similar to Comcast that Teksavvy was a promising option. I don't know now though.

[Utter_iMADNESS]

I'm currently using Bell Sympatica DSL with unlimited bandwidth. Ironically having unlimited bandwidth doesn't mean that you won't be a victim of traffic shaping. About a month ago they began slowing down my uTorrent speeds. I used to be able to download at about 1.6MB/s at any time, but now I can only download up to 600KB/s during the day (when I'm not at home anyways), up to 50KB/s after 4:30pm, and up to 25KB/s after 6:30pm until 4-6 in the morning.

Do I was happy with them before, but now I'm really pissed. I'm just glad that I discovered IRC which they can't slow down.

[Ending]

While the obvious solution is to upgrade the backbones, that's a slow and expensive task.

Maybe they should take stricter action against spam instead of directing the costs to the real customers. I read that majority of email is just semi-randomized crap, so closing the sources would be a far better option. Also, AFAIK, there usually is a small group of people who steal most of the bandwidth if their actions are not limited. Again: the extra costs should be put only on these users instead of everyone.