I’m an unfortunate captive of the oligopoly of the internet industry in the USA. In many places, you have 2-3 choices of internet, and all of them suck ass. I’m in this situation. All internet providers in my area have a 1-1.5 terabyte data cap. So when I download Call of Duty for 250 gb and it fails and has to update or reinstall, I’ve wasted 500 gb, and have now reached 50% of my data cap in just 1 day. There are crazy fees, for example, Cox Cable says:
If you go over, we’ll automatically add 50 gigabytes of data for $10 to your next bill. That’s enough for about 15 hours of streaming HD video. If you use that 50 gigabytes, we automatically add another 50 gigabytes for $10 and so on until you reach our $100 limit of data overage charges or until your next usage cycle begins.
So your $90 a month internet can easily become $190 a month, which is fuckin criminal, like that is so scummy and asinine how that can even be legal. But it is perfectly legal. The FCC is also looking into these data caps but now that we have a new anti-federal government president elect… This is probably toast… Nothing will change now that most federal agencies are about to be deleted.
From a technology standpoint too, nothing is really getting better
Comcast is still using Coax instead of Fiber Optic and desperately trying to convince people that somehow, someway coax can be just as good. Do with that info what you will, I have no opinions on it. There was a Federal program started recently to expand rural internet access, which will probably be gutted in 2025 leaving many without suitable internet again. Fiber Optic is fast, but still, not new technology, and doesn’t solve a critical issue… It doesn’t matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast. A single download on Steam is like 450 Mbps, Epic Games launcher is horrifically slow. I get like 120 Mbps max when downloading Fortnite updates even with 1500 Mbps internet hard wired to my router with top tier hardware
It’s just sad to think about the future of internet in the USA, and knowing we’ll be imprisoned by these data caps for the foreseeable future.
It doesn’t matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast.
Just to point out something, yes, there may not be many services online (except torrents perhaps) that will max out your gigabit connection, but you are looking at it from the perspective of a single user. I’m in a family of four, also with a roommate in the house, and with everyone gaming and streaming and doing their thing, it can easily saturate it. We had to pay extra for no caps though or we’d be toast. They at least did offer that. Dicks.
Anyway the point of a high speed connection is to be able to do many things simultaneously, not really one giant thing by itself.
there may not be many services online (except torrents perhaps)
Hmm… arr, matey
Yo ho ho.
We had to pay extra for no caps
fr fr
Idk about data caps, but I used to get 3MB/s and I had to be happy for it. Things are better.
I think because of recent programs new ISPs have popped up all over the USA. The IIJA invested in infrastructure and startups to increase number of servicers to areas with few to no providers.
So I guess it depends on which representatives we send to Congress and the White House.
Yeah, pretty much. The way the rest of the world deals with it is by splitting the infrastructure maintenance and retail sides to eliminate the profit incentive to not do maintenance.
You have a company who owns a/the fibre network in an area and is obligated by anti-monopoly rules to sell access to the network at the same rate and terms to anyone who wants it. They have a profit incentive to maintain the network to a reasonable standard because having a functioning network is how they make money. In a lot of places this wholesale provider will be at least part government owned given that the government usually pays a good chunk of the cost to build out large national infrastructure projects like fibre networks.
Separately, you have retail ISPs who buy access to the fibre network (or 4g, satellite, …) and sell it to the public along with value adds like tech support, IP addresses, peering agreement etc.
It’s never work in the US because holding private companies accountable for how they spend public money and maintaining well regulated competitive markets is communism or something.
It’s never work in the US because holding private companies accountable for how they spend public money and maintaining well regulated competitive markets is communism or something
It did work in the US for many years. During the 90’s the Internet was regulated like that. Phone lines, t1’s etc were infrastructure that the ilec was required to provide at the same cost to isps they used internally to sell service to consumers.
Then Bush came in and ruled that fiber and cable were immune from those common carrier laws.
Internet in NZ used to work a bit like the US does now with one large ISP that is also the network operator and gave exactly zero shits about quality of connections or internationally competitive pricing, except they got greedy and charged their retail arm half what they charged their competitors. Anti-monopoly folks got very pissy about this and managed to get the largest fine permitted by law, forced them to split their wholesale arm off into a separate company, banned them from tendering on the government-funded fibre network (which cost them literally billions of dollars) and then changed the law so that if they did it again there wouldn’t be a cap on the penalty they could impose.
In 20 years we went from ~35th of the 38 OECD countries in internet speed and accessibility to 9th. Markets only work long-term if you actually regulate them
This is exactly how my local municipal fiber network works. The the county owns, and builds put, the fiber network and maintains it, selling network access to local ISPs who sell to customers.
Only shitty part is that if you want to have a connection built out that isn’t on their plan, you have to fund the fiber run to you from wherever the nearest spot is, and that can be many thousands of dollars.
I imagine if we expanded the program like you’re talking about in the rest of the world, we could actually run it fine, like, we have the ability to… It’s just that the people in power are fucking awful.
Unlimited full fibre here in the rural nothern Highlands of Scotland for £35 per month.
Your internet seems similar to your politicians: useless and expensive.
I normally don’t like to admit this but you’re right. OP needs to move.
OP needs to move.
Unfortunately, most counties don’t want us Americans (and I don’t blame them).
Edit: Unless you’re rich that is.
In all honesty and without any sarcasm that was obviously present in my previous comment, looking in at the US as an outsider, I don’t hold out much hope for America. It’s not just Team Trump, it’s the whole system. The previous lot weren’t much better (and often sometimes worse). Everything seems extremely polarised which will never pan out well. Big corporations seem to control everything (from internet and food to finance and pharma), there’s no free health care (a human right considered by many countries but viewed as communism by America). I could go on and on, but I would only sound unnecessarily negative. A good idea would be to get out and get off an obvious sinking ship. This is probably easier said than done, but there’s always a way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect elsewhere, but I think once the US collapses it’ll be a wake-up call for a lot of countries who will also have to adjust having relied so heavily on America through trade as well as culturally. If too big to fail was a real thing, then we wouldn’t have history books full of empires collapsing. With all sincerity, good luck.
The only hope I have is that the next generation will bring more love. There is a lot of disenfranchisement due to the changes over the last 40 years. The lasting effects of coal and steel work reduction, offshoring of jobs, minority rights improving, immigration changing demographics. All of these have been very strange and alarming for a lot of people my age and older. It’s all normal to my kids though.
You’re right tho. Empires rise and fall. The whole world is fucked if we’ve hit our peak.
Don’t the numbers indicate the opposite is happening. I fear for my children because I know they are loving and caring.
I pay $79 AUD for 250Mb download / 20Mb upload.
that’s one hell of a free burn
Turkey (Asia Minor) reporting, it’s 1 Gbps unlimited for $25.
Hardcore capitalism bangs you hardcore for even human-right level things. Health, education and infrastructure should be the State’s responsibility, subventions doesn’t cut it.
I pay $70 a month for google fiber and it’s legit a thing that keeps me in the city I’m in because better is absolutely fucking rare.
This isn’t me trying to flex, this is me crying because I’d rather be in Scotland.
Weather’s shit a lot of the time here in Scotland.
Recently Highland & Lothian Broadband rolled out full fibre here in the Northern Highlands - the installation of which was government funded. I’m pretty rural so I grabbed the basic package at £35 per month (about $45) and it’s more than enough for my needs. However the top package 2000Mbps (up & down) will set you back £54.99 per month (approx’ $71), although that’s an introductory offer and goes up to £89.99 (approx’ $116) after 24 months. I can’t fault the service. No caps, no limits, router is modern with WiFi 6 although I ethernet most things using my old router as a switch. I also don’t seem to be blocked from any websites. My previous provider, BT Broadband, blocked me from The Pirate Bay requiring me to use a VPN. Not so with Highland Broadband. Straight in, no problems.
Mine is the basic package for the price I’m doing, so your system is still nice.
I’ll honestly take the weather being shit. I live where there is no chance in hell government will fund a thing and that was before the current election. And the weather here is humid as fuck with either 100 degrees F to Below 0 with the humidity being the only predictable thing, maybe a week of spring and fall each. Oh, and tornadoes.
Aye, people criticise the Scottish government but they have short memories. They forget what it was like before devolution and particularly prior to SNP rule. Labour and the Tories never gave a fuck about Scotland. They still don’t. The only sadness is that we never got full independence. Whilst there is indeed a lot to criticise with the SNP there’s also much that they have given us and making sure rural communities get decent internet access is just one of those things. Hell, my broadband is better up here than it was when I lived in the central belt. The National Health Service works better up here too, and free health with free prescriptions has got to be a good thing. Down in England they still have to pay for prescriptions. Honestly, I don’t understand why 55% voted to stay in the UK back in 2014. I guess it’s like people voting Trump - there’s just a lot of fucking dummies out there.
So the US did in fact have a process where the government did give money to get broadband to the rural. But as is the nature with this country, was not a federal workforce, but was a company based one. The companies pocketed the money, got a few people hooked up, sat on their asses, then when people complained at them years later they responded they didn’t have enough money to connect people.
And good lord I’d take English National Health Service over the US “pay an insurance company to argue why they shouldn’t pay for your healthcare”
I do have a question on the independence, over here in the states the conversation was that Scotland stayed because to break from UK would be requiring a separate entry into EU with a lot less benefits because England was one of the special ones. Always figured that Scotland might make another attempt after Brexit, is there something I missed? I admit y’alls politics I don’t quite get. Probably a lot like my talking individual state politics to you guys.
Scotland stayed in the UK because people bought into the fear-mongering being spread by the UK government. There were several fronts the UK targeted us with. Pensions was one (which scared all the old folks), currency was another (even though there was no real reason we couldn’t continue to use the pound). The economy was also targeted under the argument that we were too small a country to sustain ourselves, despite having a similar population size to Norway who survive extremely well as an independent nation. Between oil, tourism, gaming/tech industry, and whisky exports we could have not only survived but thrived. One other argument was that we’d have to reapply for entry into the EU and that staying in the UK guaranteed we’d remain in Europe, only for English voters to vote the UK out of the EU several years later. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU but it didn’t matter as it was a UK wide election, so basically we were told to shut the fuck up and put up. This should have been a significant change in circumstances that would trigger another independence referendum, but such referendums require UK parliament approval and the Tory scum wouldn’t let us hold one. Personally I would have been inclined to declare independence unilaterally, but given how 55% of the population were chicken-shits in 2014, it would be unlikely to happen. There’s also the cultural aspect that stops Scotland becoming independent. A large part of the population are Protestant and have been brainwashed through generations to believe in the laughable antiquated concept of King & Country. Basically Scotland has a long history of being kicked in the teeth by the English ruling class. So much so that many people have absolutely no confidence in self-determination or belief in their own ability to thrive and succeed. If only these people who feel that they need to be looked after would fuck off to the England they love so much, Scotland could move forward into the 21st century as a progressive, forward-thinking nation. Independence supporters always get labelled as rascist and anti-English, but the opposite is the truth. We’re welcoming to everyone who wants to make their home here and contribute to making the country a success - English, African, American, Chinese, whatever.
I really appreciate the dive into the politics there! As I talked with a coworker, to start understanding politics understanding historical context is important and I can keep some understanding with other countries, it’s hard enough to know the nuance of all of our states, figuring out how to get started with other countries is difficult so the primer really helps. Some of this sounds familiar over here on the antiquated thoughts driving politics that should have fallen by the wayside years ago, though I think a few of yours might be older than ours is. Friend visited the UK recently and traveled throughout, like I told him, I intellectually knew how old that area is but realizing that there were places that were historic before our country even existed is still kinda baffling. But I digress.
Having to do a dive into the Tories as I just knew them as your conservatives, it’s interesting that both the UK Conservative party and Scottish Conservatives definitely have a lot that I look at and go “That really does look like (Pre-Trump) Republicans” then every once in a while I see them supporting something that I realize if a Democrat would try to bring forward they’d be shouted down as being a communist. But what’s most fascinating dichotomy between our countries is your conservatives are staunchly fighting to keep the UK together, as you say wouldn’t allow you to hold a referendum after making you all leave the EU. Over in the States our Conservatives have gotten in bed with the US South which constantly yells about and threatens to secede again, and the Republican party is the one where you’re going to find the confederate (not the confederate, flag, Virigina Battle Flag but that’d involve them knowing their own ‘heritage’) flag all over the place so you could argue our conservatives are more seperationists. Growing up with this creates a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to be opposed to splitting, though like with the pulling out of the EU and as you described there’s actually a lot of ability to be successful to sustain yourselves that’s makes sense… vs our guys have the likes of most of our southern states who cry how much they hate the federal government, yet percentage-wise are some of our most reliant on federal funds.
I think you just described the US as a whole.
France reporting, same price and that’s because I’m using the more expensive provider that is the most reliable in my rural area.
Our politicians are completely useless though.
Yeah, but yall are actually cool and bust out the guillotines every once in a while.
And yet here I am in the USA with 8/8 Gbps fiber with no caps. Though I do pay $185 a month. I live in a Red state, and in a metro area, but not near the metro core, in unincorporated county land.
last 30 days stats to prove no caps:
What do you have for network equipment? I have 1G symmetrical unlimited, but anything faster seems to require a jump to much more expensive networking. And even then, most user equipment can’t support that
I have basically a full rack of equipment. Here’s the network side of it all. My desktop is 2 SPF+ fiber connections back to the core switch. Tons of stuff in my rack is all 10gbps or 40gbps.
Dual opnsense firewalls (top 2 slots, dual 40gbps connecting to core switches), though one is inactive until they let me buy static addresses. I run some business stuff on this. Boatloads of homelabbing and self-learning.
If you want to do full IPS/IDS, then yes you need some horsepower. But just connection with basic rules there’s plenty out there that’s not super expensive. Ubiquiti has their dream machine line which even the “cheap” $400 one can do 10gbps (2gbps with ips, or something like that. I dunno, I don’t keep tabs on them).
I didn’t stop any active connections/downloads happening on the network. I very likely had a gig of other stuff going elsewhere on the network.Their “smart-nid” is also a router… so that works too, but I don’t trust it and in my setup it’s in transparent mode.
Edit: Formatting sucked
Cool setup!
I’ve never had caps here in the US, and while my current internet is kinda slow (50/25), it’s because I deliberately chose a lower tier because we don’t actually need more. I could get gigabit (1000/500) for $75/month or 10G for $200/month, and my city is working w/ an org to build out muni fiber, which will probably cut costs a bit (and hopefully improve reliability, ours goes out like once/month for 15 min or so).
nope
The solution is pretty obvious.
- Be rich
- Step 2 is for poor people
- Why do all these poor people want to kill me?
No. And we’re going to have even more tech-illiterate old buffoons in offices where they’ll understand even less technology but they’re great at destroying things. So, they’ll happily line the pockets of ComCast, AT&T, Verizon and they’ll do fuck all to improve customer experience. In fact, if things go their way, they’ll bring back the idea of forcing you to choose whether you want to pay premium for high speed internet including the ridiculous limits already in place. That or they’ll give you the slow-lane subscription while talking down to you about having to pay so little to get so little and their data caps is even more restrictive, never mind how little you’ll be able to actually do on the slow lane.
Isn’t it wonderful?! /s
This is the USA, it’s all a pay-as-you-go country. You will be required to work yourself to death to be able to have anything nice at all. That’s the model. Corporations make the rules, the government will not help us. Economy, corporate profits and giving money to the wealthy are the priorities. Nothing else matters.
Some places have banned data caps, I live in one such place… And I think the FCC was looking for feedback on the hate of data caps… If you want change go out and make it
the FCC was looking for feedback on the hate of data caps
A Republican lead FCC (Ajit Pai or some other smug fuck) will never mobilize the FCC to curb unfair and unreasonable data caps.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t currently looking into it
FCC will now be led by Repubs, who like data caps, more mergers, not treating the Internet as a utility, blocking municipal networks, and ignore listening to public comment, and flood the zone with fake comments on issues that are popular.
The biggest expansion in fiber networks in the US was coming down the pipeline due to Biden’s infrastructure bills. The Republicans will do everything they can to slow and stop this money from its intended purpose.
Any hope of huge improvements in America’s internet infrastructure just went away with the Dem administration in order to improve ISP stock prices, meaning the Internet you are currently unhappy with will only get more expensive with less competition.
As intended, by how Americans voted.
Should be grateful for that and not something like Russia, with that level of political idiocy.
Ziply fiber is awesome. Longshot, but you might want to check.
Not only aren’t we going to get better internet, the internet in the united states you’re using right now, is going to be unrecognizable in the next 12 months, all free services will charge, cost for access will increase, vpn usage will be curtailed, and pirate sites will be blocked. Better? We just re-elected a fascist tyrant who wants to close as many avenues of free speech against him as he possibly can, as well as funnel as much cash to media and tech oligarchs as he can to keep them onside, and now he’s got both the house and senate with which to do just that.
Better? dude.
VPNs and piracy aren’t going anywhere. Unfortunately, data caps won’t be going away either.
VPNs and piracy aren’t going anywhere.
That’s not true at all.
They’ll both be going on my next PC!
It’s totally possible! I live in CO and Comcast had a legal monopoly per state law. Nobody else is allowed to compete with their cable service. But you know what isn’t cable? Fiber! A local broadband company just installed fiber in my neighborhood this spring. I signed up for $89/mo gigabit service, no data cap, no installation fees at all. Between when I signed up and when they turned on service, they upgraded my service to 1.2 gigabit, same monthly price, no cap, no commitment, no upsell (their only other service is rural satellite Internet).
I talked to the technician installing it and he said they aren’t getting any subsidies from anyone. Not the city, state, or fed. It’s simply economically viable to run new gigabit fiber for $89/mo. All it takes is a company that can make the initial infrastructure investment.
Consider WISPs like Verizon/T-Mobile. They absolutely will kick you off for excessive usage, but 1.5 terabytes would not be considered excessive usage.
That’s not a WISP, just fyi. That’s just a cellular hot spot. Cellular hot spots operate on frequencies in the RF spectrum, the same frequencies that your cell phone connects to.
A WISP is an ISP that serves internet over microwave radios, which operate not in RF frequencies but in microwave frequencies. They might use point to multi point radios, where a radio on a mountain top feeds signal to many smaller radios at each subscribers house in a valley below. They might also have fiber to an apartment building, with fiber to each unit, then use a point to point radio as a wireless backhaul to connect another apartment building across a river that can’t have fiber run directly to it. They’ll still have fiber running to each unit in that second building though.
TLDR; cellular providers are not WISPs.
I think your splitting hairs there a bit as a cellular internet service provider is a wireless internet service provider because the thing you put in your window does not connect to anything except for electricity. Also, 2.5 gigahertz and 3.7 gigahertz are both higher frequencies than what your microwave uses to cook your food. The only difference is the power and the range.
I never said anything about a microwave cooking food, I said they used microwave radios.
A hotspot is a cellular modem with a wireless lan radio. It is provided by cellular network operators in order to allow the connection of non-cellular network devices to connect to the cellular network, and thus the internet as a whole.
A WISP is not a cellular network operators, a WISP is a Wireless ISP, who provide internet to customers over wireless microwave radios.
The FCC classifies and regulates these operators as distinct entities. I am not splitting hairs, they are different.
Go to WISPAPALOOZA and tell all the WISP people that cellular operators are WISPs lol.
I guarantee you there’s no cellular network operators who are members of WISPA.
Have you not seen over the last couple of years the proliferation of like the T-Mobile Home Internet, Verizon Home Internet and AT&T Home Internet? They provide you a box that sits in your window and connects you to the cellular network using Wi-Fi for your entire house. It’s not like those little hotspots used to get a couple years ago. Those had limited Wi-Fi range and could generally only be connected to like 10 devices at once, where these are full home internet replacements.
That’s still just a cellular modem stuffed in to a much better router though. It’s a cellular connection. Yea, with 5g it’s a ton better than 3g, but it’s a cellular connection, provided to you by a cellular network operator. Cellular network operators are their own thing, regulated by the FCC as their own thing, whether the cellular connection is happening on your phone or on your cellular company provided router, it’s still connecting to the cellular network.
Look. Starlink is a satellite internet provider right? But you understand that no wires are physically connecting the starlink terminal to the starlink satellites right? It’s “wireless”. Starlink is not a WISP, it’s a satellite internet provider. T-Mobile or Verizon or whoever aren’t WISPs, they are cellular network operators. They are separate and distinct things.
Language has meaning, words have meaning. A WISP isn’t just an ISP using technology that doesn’t need a wire to your house, it’s a specific thing. You’re using it wrong.
Edit - I can put a SIM card in my MikroTik right now, then unplug the Ethernet cable that runs to my ONT box, and have unbroken internet access. That doesn’t suddenly make the cellular network provider a WISP, it makes them a cellular network provider. I’m accessing the cellular network. They’re providing me access to the network over cellular. Idk how else to explain this.
I see what you’re saying, but most people are not going to take that nuance into account. To them, since there is not a wire connecting the device to the network, it is a wireless ISP.
I understand that, but they’re wrong.
To the layperson all internet is Wi-Fi.
I switched to the Tmo 5G internet a few months ago and it has been great. It’s not symmetric, DL is faster than UL, but it almost always matches or beats the 500D/50U cable service I had previously.
Looks like I did hit 1.2 TB one month but am usually half that.
It is definitely very area dependent because I used to live in a super rural area where the wired ISP only gave like 10 down by like one or two up and T-Mobile was doing 70 down by like 20 up. Either way, it was absolutely fast enough and had no issues.
Data caps are insane in 2024
They probably kill off any agency who would protect your consumer rights, anyway. And redefine “broadband” as “you’ve got modem access, so stop whining”. And let the companies keep the subsidies they got for making the former broadband definition happen.
Based on Ajit Pai last time, there will be a significant rollback on consumer rights and protections. You can bet Starlink will get greenlit for anything they want though.
…is starlink an option for you?
Do I have to say it? Starlink is much worse in every metric compared to fiber. It’s a decent option for people that don’t have access to fiber or need internet in remote places.
We got one for our camper. Works really well though we only use it in the summer months. What are your complaints?
Starlink roughly compares to mobile internet. And not particularly favorably on average. It’s good if you live in a place where even cell service doesn’t reach or is super old. But it doesn’t compare to even a cheap/bad wired connection for bandwidth, but especially for latency.
I don’t have complaints, it’s just not a comparable technology. It has much lower bandwidth and way higher latency for a higher price. It’s good for its purpose which is to give access to people that could not get it otherwise.
I pulled down 100mbps and was able to FaceTime just fine. Maybe too much lag for serious online competitive play, but I never measured it.
And no bandwidth caps from what I’ve seen.
Coax used to get faster than 100mbps. We are in an age where 1Gbps is standard in many parts of the world thanks to fiber. Again, starlink is cool but not a direct competitor to cabled internet today.
Sure, but many people in the US have only one option for hardwired internet. Starlink and 5G options are the only other option.
