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Old 07-17-2009, 10:26 AM
 
1,518 posts, read 2,763,175 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by budjb View Post
We're the 6th or 7th largest city in the US for crying out loud. We should not have a stagnant broadband market.
Sad isn't it... It's all the lobbying they do (on our dollar). In Austin we have Grande as well... not sure if they service me though. I'm on Earthlink which piggybacks off Time Warner and so far, they've said they won't implement caps, but reality may dictate passing the buck depending on the intricacies of their contract with TWC and FCC regs. I don't think this plan will see the light of day in Austin tho, at least anything below a 250GB cap because we have some very angry and vocal denizens inc. McCracken (watch out, lol!), as well as a great deal of creative media small businesses that would suffer the most. In fact, this 'red scare' may have bought some folks time to rally/think up something. But I hope it doesn't happen in San Antonio either... might actually spawn something real nice here, similar to Clear Wimax in Portland or better yet, muni Wi-Fi. Ironically, the largest cost from muni WiFi will prolly be the paid off politicians and legal fees against TWC/ATT. Or maybe dropping broadband and going back to dial-up like it's will be a good move! I do have a v.92 modem! Speaking of which, here's interesting food for thought:

Time Warner’s usage caps are so low, that if you averaged out the 100GB cap over the entire month, you would be limited to a speed of 5.06kB/sec if you wanted to stay under your cap in a 30-day month. Meanwhile, the speed of a v92 56.6k modem is 6.25kB/sec so I could actually download more than someone with 100GB cap (albeit a bit slower)! If anything, I'm sure this bold move back to the 90s will respawn 'internet accelerators', a less bandwidth intensive web, and more WAP sites, lol!

Last edited by tekka-maki; 07-17-2009 at 11:01 AM..
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Old 07-17-2009, 10:55 AM
 
1,518 posts, read 2,763,175 times
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Austin Wireless Alliance - City of Austin to Launch Free Wi-Fi Downtown

whattya know?! I'm about to put a directional antenna on the roof (j/k.)... think I might get a clear line of sight; just outside downtown. Nice to know anyway, bring my lappy on my next zilker park trail run...
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Old 07-21-2009, 07:01 PM
 
77 posts, read 221,654 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tekka-maki View Post
Time Warner’s usage caps are so low, that if you averaged out the 100GB cap over the entire month, you would be limited to a speed of 5.06kB/sec if you wanted to stay under your cap in a 30-day month. Meanwhile, the speed of a v92 56.6k modem is 6.25kB/sec so I could actually download more than someone with 100GB cap (albeit a bit slower)! If anything, I'm sure this bold move back to the 90s will respawn 'internet accelerators', a less bandwidth intensive web, and more WAP sites, lol!

That's assuming that you're constantly downloading something. That is only the case if you're a big user of bittorrent or some other P2P setup. Those folks are exactly who usage caps are going after. If you're a 'normal user' browsing the web, emailing, downloading the occasional mp3/movie, you shouldn't have an issue with the cap.

The shadiness of the cap is if you're a person who legally downloads movies from Netflix or watches TV from one of many free TV streaming sites. You'll very quickly approach your cap without having downloaded or done anything illegal. However you're competing with Time Warner's cable service, therefore they don't like you.

I agree that politics is an issue. I like the idea of WiMax or some other MAN tech, but I don't think that will solve the problem of limited bandwidth and TW taking as much money out of your pocket as they possibly can. I think that will only happen if enough people complain.
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Old 07-24-2009, 04:04 PM
 
1,518 posts, read 2,763,175 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sc hokie View Post
That's assuming that you're constantly downloading something. That is only the case if you're a big user of bittorrent or some other P2P setup. Those folks are exactly who usage caps are going after. If you're a 'normal user' browsing the web, emailing, downloading the occasional mp3/movie, you shouldn't have an issue with the cap.
Of course... I was just illustrating a point that spread out over time, it represents very little data consumption, yet if gone over from a consumer would cost dearly...

But perfect timing as I was just about to clarify what I mentioned earlier regarding traffic that hits your modem (even when your pc is not turned on). Turns out to be more data than I estimated...

Comcast Usage Meter Still A No Show - Usage tool still being tested in employee homes... - dslreports.com

If you take a look at the comments there (1st 4 or 5), you will see people that have done some measuring of WAN traffic in any given month and measured an average of about 10Kb/s consistently any given month on their DD-WRT (firmware) routers. That's 3.3GB/mo. Look down further and the Tomato fw screenshots and there's more... someone on DOCSIS 2.0 even saw 180MB a day. This would explain why Comcast is slow to roll out the measurement/metering software to their customers, besides the fact they'll be crucified by the media and blogosphere if they go about it wrong and let someone that used proportionally more slide while others using less get notices. This happens now btw, but they're not charging anyone. Probably similar to what happened to Cogeco (Canada) and the over charges there as they are in metered billing - full effect.

Anyway, the question remains if TWC (and other ISPs) are level headed and intelligent enough to exclude this CMTS/modem chatter from the measurements. I have my doubts, rightfully, on both accounts if the recent past is any indication.

Usage caps are going after 'everybody'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc hokie View Post
The shadiness of the cap is if you're a person who legally downloads movies from Netflix or watches TV from one of many free TV streaming sites. You'll very quickly approach your cap without having downloaded or done anything illegal. However you're competing with Time Warner's cable service, therefore they don't like you.
Let's not turn it into an ethical or moral debate. Even my Grandma would go over that cap and she doesn't even know how to turn her pc on. If you even lightly use sites like Hulu, Netflix Stream, or iTunes video downloads -- never mind off site [cloud] storage which is all the rave these days -- you will go over the cap. Take into account the modem overhead, and you'll almost certainly go over the 5GB even if not downloading much (except websites) at all. TWC knows that and that's exactly what they want. Classic reverse Robin Hood... Then, they can peddle their two bit, boring content and exclude that from the cap, thereby leading to a network neutrality issue which is insult to injury.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc hokie View Post
I agree that politics is an issue. I like the idea of WiMax or some other MAN tech, but I don't think that will solve the problem of limited bandwidth and TW taking as much money out of your pocket as they possibly can. I think that will only happen if enough people complain.
No more than this cap will solve limited bandwidth. It would be the same congestion during the same peak traffic times. Yet, as the facts already indicate, TWC is not attempting to deal with bandwidth congestion and rightfully so, as it's not really a problem at all for them, more so with DSL. They are simply one trick ponies seeking to re-monetize a (mostly) fixed based cost industry. So, to that end Clearwire, various Muni WiFI etc. do solve the problem because the problem is greed, and lack of competition, nothing more. However, bringing any of that to fruition amidst serious lobbying and legal action by the Telcos and Cable Giants to kill the very notion, is quite another story

Last edited by tekka-maki; 07-24-2009 at 04:38 PM..
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Old 07-24-2009, 04:43 PM
 
77 posts, read 221,654 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tekka-maki View Post
If you take a look at the comments there (1st 4 or 5), you will see people that have done some measuring of WAN traffic in any given month and measured an average of about 10Kb/s consistently any given month on their DD-WRT (firmware) routers. That's 3.3GB/mo and would explain why Comcast is slow to roll out the measurement/metering software to their customers. This is probably what happened to Cogeco (Canada) and the over charges there... the question remains if TWC (and other ISPs) are level headed and intelligent enough to exclud this CMTS/modem chatter from the measurements. I have my doubts, rightfully, on both accounts if the recent past is any indication.
That's interesting. I had never factored basic network management traffic into the equation. I always assumed that would be subtracted out of the metering, but it appears some ISPs are not that smart. Or perhaps they are and just don't care.

Quote:
TWC is not attempting to deal with bandwidth congestion ... to that end Clearwire, various Muni WiFI etc. do solve the problem because the problem is greed, and lack of competition, nothing more.
You're quite right, competition would fix many problems. I think the growth of AT&T's Uverse helps, but we need more providers and technologies.
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Old 07-24-2009, 05:21 PM
 
33 posts, read 82,318 times
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This thread won't die, TW has killed this test project, put a fork in it, taken it out to pasture and taken it out back and shot it...... twice !!

And DOCSIS 3.0 is just around the corner
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Old 07-24-2009, 06:03 PM
 
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I wish, but they haven't ... they put it on standby and are still testing in Beaumont; in all likelihood to weather out the storm and reintroduce a more reasonable metered plan (relatively speaking) at a later time... Plus, I just read a article recently Dudley said they are slowing down the DOCSIS 3 upgrade plan in direct response to the reaction over their tentative metered billing, basically implying that additional capital is needed to make 3.0 viable. Even prior to all this, COO Landel Hobbs said that the upgrade will be surgical which translates to slow as f--k and only in places where they face strong, fast[er] rivals... I'm not exactly sure if ATT would be considered a rival since they seem to be friends w/ benefits.

Edit: Here's the story:

Time Warner Cable to axe DOCSIS 3.0 trials without tiered billing?

TWC to Customers: You Don’t Want Tiers, You Don’t Get Super-fast Broadband

Last edited by tekka-maki; 07-24-2009 at 06:34 PM..
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Old 07-24-2009, 06:11 PM
 
1,518 posts, read 2,763,175 times
Reputation: 336
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc hokie View Post

You're quite right, competition would fix many problems. I think the growth of AT&T's Uverse helps, but we need more providers and technologies.
ATT isn't exactly what I had in mind... just as nefarious, they're just WAAAY mroe crafty than TWC at public relations and being 'sneaky'. They had (and still have AFAIK) an identical plan as Time Warner and have plans to introduce very similar caps in areas where they share a duopoly with TWC i.e. SA, Austin, etc. It only makes sense really. TWC may be stupid on the public front, but there's no way they'd willfully push their customers to the *only* competition on the block, whether in ADSL or FTTN form. Or would they? Dunno, I wouldn't vouch for 'em on anything.

Buuuut... It would appear many people either don't know this or just plain ignore it in their haste, based off the initial feedback I was reading in various local news comment sections, as everyone was writing TWC off for ATT in a heart beat.
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Old 07-24-2009, 09:28 PM
 
Location: Charleston, SC
5,615 posts, read 14,803,331 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sc hokie View Post
...
The shadiness of the cap is if you're a person who legally downloads movies from Netflix or watches TV from one of many free TV streaming sites. You'll very quickly approach your cap without having downloaded or done anything illegal. However you're competing with Time Warner's cable service, therefore they don't like you...
Daily podcasts - 500MB worth of the Adam Carolla Show per week
Weekly podcasts - A State of Trance, Global DJ Broadcast, and Trance Around the World - ~1GB/week
100% legal, all downloaded in the middle of the night when speeds are faster and fewer people are online (also the only time I'm at home). All legal activity at an off hour that doesn't impact anyone else's speed - I'd blow the cap wide open when you add in software updates, youtube and plain old browsing around like I'm doing right now.

No, thanks.
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Old 11-09-2009, 07:10 AM
 
8 posts, read 12,777 times
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Default new internet provider in town

This thread is a little old but just letting you know that theres a new internet in town. Clear.com Wimax is in San Antonio. For those who dont know what wimax is, it is kind of like wifi(but better) from area towers with a very long range. The prices are competitive. You can get home internet, mobile internet for a laptop and phone.
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