I'm so in. I don't use internet when I sleep... or at work.
Heck I think online games should adapt this idea.

I guess they oversold their capacity to deliver "unlimited internet" and instead of try to beef up their networks it's easier to just charge people more as a kind of "moral hazard" against using the 'net as much.

here's an idea...

why not offer pay-as-you-go as another pricing tier on top of the current model???

doesn't this make EVERYONE happy?

Go away money grubbers, go away.

Why don't you use the already excessive amount you charge us to...mmmm I don't know...maybe make it better? If you want a good business, you can't just take the profits it yields. You have to pour the profits back into the company to make it stronger and better. Business 101.
Try caring for the customer. It goes a long way.

AT&T is just made because they made the wrong investment by not doing straight fiber everywhere.. They are so cheap they are unwilling to simply upgrade like every other place in the world..

Another example of government placing their noses where it does not belong. Let the free market decide and let the consumers decide the best course of action for themselves. Competition in the market is healthy.

Another example of government placing their noses where it does not belong. Let the free market decide and let the consumers decide the best course of action for themselves. Competition in the market is healthy.

We have NASA working on technologies in which we can fly to Mars in a month, but yet these greedy corporations can't figure out a way to make their Internet Pipelines accommodate HD video of people playing with their cats on Youtube?

How come it's only the Internet to blame? What about all that bandwidth sucked up by HD TV channels that people watch day in and day out?

It's absolutely sickening what this country is turning into. (No, I'm not an old-timer, nostalgic about the way things used to be)

Corporate America is sucking up every cookie and crumb they can find, there's no limit to how much they'll keep digging into your bank accounts.

Tough shit, the Internet is ever expanding. Expand your technology and network structure. The bill isn't taxable.

Let's see... the Japanese ISPs are providing at minimum an 100M connections for 80% their customers and we have American ISPs complaining about providing at minimum an 8M connections for 40% of their customers...

**** you, American ISPs!

Time Warner Cable just upped my service about $20 dollars a month. They were the ones trying to make caps for everyone and all hell broke lose. Now I guess this is their way of getting the money that they wanted.

And here in UK they are providing minimum of 10M connections for about under 25% users. Most are getting 2M connection because they dont use fiber.
I use Fiber and I get 10M connection max. Had no problems with it.

This is nonsense. With the high internet speeds in Japan and Korea Time Warner and AT&T have no excuse for this.

Why do services there provide such high speeds with no caps?

With pay as you go, we have to pay for Windows updates, driver updates. This will put a big hurt in video streaming, online shopping, and probably kill online gaming....what a mess.

Oh please. The only reason you want to cap bandwidth and go to a service like this is because streaming services and downloads are hurting your OTHER business ventures. Look at every company that provides internet service.... AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc. Almost all of them also provide television service.

These companies want to use "increased data usage" as a scapegoat to force consumers back into their OTHER business ventures. People are dumping their television services right and left in favor of sites such as Hulu and movie streaming services such as Netflix instead of these companies own ridiculously overpriced services. They're losing profits because they can't provide a half decent service so they're looking for the easiest way to get people back on board. Hey, why don't we tell people these services they are using use too much bandwidth and cap their data? Sounds great!

Please tell me the FCC sees right through this thick layer of BS.

RCraig57, when there is no choice, there is no competition. This wont lower anyone's bill. It will only cost everyone more... Even if I can switch from Verizon to TWC to whoever, if they all can get as deep in my pockets as they want, they will.

Capping anything will destroy growth and entrepreneurship - aka: government and/or private businesses.

mm I am pretty sure this would not be taken lightly in the USA or around the world if they decide to do something so obviously absurd, its not our fault as consumers that your own personal business decisions got you to this place...that gold mine that you so clearly have by abusing your power,isn't gonna be there forever,better think of something better or just get out of the way for better competitors.

Nailed it.

Actually, if the internet infrastructure were government funded and owned this would be a complete non-issue.

The problem with free-for-all capitalism when it comes to ISPs is that there's no real incentive to improve the existing infrastructure when you can just keep charging ever increasing amounts for making use of the existing one.

Of course, if there were ISPs out there that were interested in investing and actually driving competition that would pave the way for a healthy marketplace as well but let's be realistic for a moment.

i use 100%of my bandwidth like 24/7 for this month already ive used over 50gb, this aint gon work unless its like 10 cents a gig

The problem is that the content providers (NBC, HBO, Viacom, etc) in many cases are also the service providers (Mediacom, Comcast, etc) and unlimited access virtually eliminates the need for their core offerings (pay TV)

I really hope one company (PLEASE let it be Verizon!) will continue to offer unlimited bandwidth and the other companies will be punished accordingly by customers.

This IS a VERY important topic and one that effects us all.

Plain greed from service providers...

Anyway, not to pour salt into any wounds but every rented apartment owned by the city comes with free 10Mbit here and you can get a 100Mbit upgrade with static IPs for ~$12 a month.

And no, they didn't up the rent when that service was introduced either.

It's nice in theory, except that A) the government already footed the bill for A LOT of the network building, and B) in many places there isn't a "free market" for competitive pricing. Free markets tend to work best when there's viable competition in a market.

Pay-as-you go would be fine with me.... as long as it is something like $1 for 1tb of downloads

This is a load of crap. When ISPs say "it's not fair, people who don't use it as much shouldn't be the same" - sure, sounds great! Charge them LESS, not other users more.

We never see arguments like this in asia where fiber-optics has penetrated everywhere. Seoul has fiber-optics running citywide and provides 100Mbps internet to almost everyone. Japan has a nationwide fiber optic service and they regularly get speeds of above 50Mbps with very high limits or no limit at all.

Only in NA we hear ISPs bitching and whining like this. If you can't support the traffic, then upgrade it, or get out of the business.

Yup

Let's also not forget that the problem with the government interfering is that the Government (as proven by our massive spending and debt) has absolutely no problem operating at a loss, bleeding out funds.

I hate the direction that Capitalism is taking these corporate empires, but once the government takes a hold of service like ISP's, they'd essentially smother any possible competition.

I'm for a free market, I'm just not for a free market where the major players dictate the rules.

To those who call for net neutrality, that will only result in the cost of services going up and will probably do very little of what it intends to. Those kind of programs like "Patriot Act" that have feel good names, usually do the opposite of what they are intended to do.

To those who point to Japan or South Korea and say why not us, the reason they have high broadband speeds is due to their population density, it requires much less fiber/copper/man power to reach people who want information.

I vote with my money. When they come up with a faster speed, I give them more money, if a competitor comes out with a faster speed for less money I buy that instead.

They already have you paying $50 a month, and they have a faster speed available but you don't upgrade. Since you won't upgrade, and there is really no competition they don't feel any pressure to increase the speeds.

The problem is they get the money they 'wanted', and they don't even bother reinvesting it into their own infrastructure. They just look at it as a way to still give everyone a 10% raise.

Bandwidth caps are definately a bad idea.

But I think metered bandwidth would be a good idea. If grandma only uses 2mb a month for email, then thats all she should pay for. But if mr. technoGeek wants to stream HD video and consume 250GB a month in downloads - then he should also pay accordingly. But dont go charging Grandma for somebody else's downloading habits.