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Online bandwidth hogs to be cut off at trough?
Written By Tyme on Jun. 25, 2008.
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From the Clip Online bandwidth hogs to be cut off at trough? posted by Tyme:
Industry leaders Comcast and Time Warner Cable have started testing traffic-metering and management techniques that seek to rein in heavy usage, and AT&T says such limits are inevitable for the most extreme users of its network.
There are many ways to legitimately use large amounts of bandwidth (not using P2P). People who upload personal videos (depending on the size) use a lot of bandwidth. So do people who do podcasts regularly. I've used 1GB simply because a lot of programs were updated around the same time (I'd hate to see that happen, people not upgrading to save bandwidth). I'd love to know how much bandwidth I use playing World of Warcraft. If I owned Skype, I would be pissed. I would also be irked if my phone line was VoIP. T-Mobile just released a home land line replacement using VoIP, dependent on an internet connection. When we do a SuperStream how much bandwidth is that?
Comcast called out Dave Winer for all the bandwidth he was using and I think people using excessive amounts should pay. I guess I'd like to know if I'm one of those people. I think they might not realize the impact if people had to decide how to use their bandwidth.
RightOn
Written Jun. 25, 2008 / Report /
They're going to kill a lot of startup businesses with this goal of theirs... why would I go online to a data rich media website to watch their additional media content if I have a surcharge if I use up my bandwidth.
People will end up self rationing their data and websites like YouTube and TV websites that offer downloadable or streaming content will suffer because people won't want to use up their precious internet.
Supporters like to say that it's all in the name of "fairness" to the consumer, use more - pay more but to me it just sounds like the big wigs have decided to milk their avid users.
Tyme
Written Jun. 25, 2008 / Report /
I agree and yes people will start rationing their bandwith. I think bloggers will be impacted too. I have a bunch of feeds I read occasionally. If I have to monitor my usage those will go. People using MySpace and Facebook (movies, pictures, video, etc) can use large amounts of bandwidth as well.
I'm surprised people aren't complaining more about it. How we use the internet will change drastically.
RightOn
Written Jun. 25, 2008 / Report /
It's not widely reported in the standard media from what I can see. The more tech savvy individuals (i.e. those about to be bled for cash) are aware of it, but the MySpace/facebook majority may not be seeing it.
Everyone I've talked to about it that doesn't read a lot of tech news had ZERO clue about it... kinda spooky as it seems like there is a lot of zipped lips in the media about it.
You would think the media would be up in arms as well as it DOES have an effect on them.