The End of Unlimited Internet- it has begun

[Tac]

Another telecom drops unlimited wireless broadband


With wireless broadband as a 'test' market to see if consumers will bend over ... it won't be long before we see cable and dsl services putting a cap on data use.   

[Selino631]

It sucks, that how it is for me right now

[Shuffler]

It's more a sign of who can stay up with demand and who falls to the wayside.

The companies lagging behind will want to limit. The companies in the forefront will keep the lines open.

[Skuzzy]

This is going to happen more and more.

ISP's have to eat the cost for maintaining all the bandwidth needed to carry all those streaming video services thier customers want to use.  This is what is driving the data caps.

Something has to give, somewhere.

[Vulcan]

It's more a sign of who can stay up with demand and who falls to the wayside.

The companies lagging behind will want to limit. The companies in the forefront will keep the lines open.

Not really. It's a sign of cost association. Look at the criticism AT&T got over poor 3G performance with the iphone. The iphone is a very 'fat' client compared to previous mobile devices (like say the palm or blackberry which are 'thin' on bandwidth requirements where they use proxies that knock content down in size ). AT&T clearly had to build more infrastructure to support the newer 'fatter' smartphones (iphone, android, etc) and this is the same with other providers. Someone has to pay for that infrastructure - so either they crank up the prices or they cap.

tbh on my handheld devices (mostly android) I rarely use more than 200Mb a month. That is because at home and at work they jump on wifi, rest of the time push mail and browsing uses bugger all data.

[Perrine]

meh it's not the end of the world
i saw it coming.

those iphones and androids are really stressing cell tower networks.

wanna download those apps and (legal) movie/music  on your iphone/android?
do it at home or at campus by using wi-fi!

[fudgums]

My internet is already capped...

[Perrine]

My internet is already capped...

my wired internet is capped @ 250 gigabytes

[F22RaptorDude]

So normal internet is fine, its just cellular devices? Computers won't be running any slower?

[fudgums]

my wired internet is capped @ 250 gigabytes

MBs 

[RTHolmes]

I dont see what all the fuss is about, we've always had to pay for bandwidth. I need bandwidth and reliability so ive always paid more than most people I know for internet access. whether it was using ISDN when everybody was on POTS modems, or now where I pay more for bandwidth, lower contention ratio, better infrastructure and techies.

otoh I know people who just need it to check their email a coupla times a week and book the odd holiday. should they be subsidising the bandwidth for users like me who saturate their ADSL connections with offsite backups 18h a day?

[DREDIOCK]

Like the environment it'll be cyclic.
It may go that way for a while. then some genius will get the bright idea that "hey if we offer unlimited service. we can attract more customers then the other guy"
And it will come full circle again.


My solution. Stop offering the internet to cell phones. If I had my way. I'd ban it outright.

[bj229r]

Remember back in the 90's when AOL-hell went unlimited? Was rather a moot point, since you could never log in. I'm dreading what the squeakers and their Iphones are gonna do to my Verizon network, and now, unlimited high speed is gonna be gone before I ever graduate from dialup

[trax1]

And another one bites the dust.

[guncrasher]

Remember back in the 90's when AOL-hell went unlimited? Was rather a moot point, since you could never log in. I'm dreading what the squeakers and their Iphones are gonna do to my Verizon network, and now, unlimited high speed is gonna be gone before I ever graduate from dialup

i remember that, there was a class action lawsuit, we got something like 5 bucks back.  I dont remember receiving the check, or a credit.  I was using aol to play ah when i first started 4 years ago, had a solid 25 fps, which increased to mid 40's when i switched to dsl.  I remember the aol lady getting upset because i called to cancel.

anyway, my uneducated guess is that unlimited data is going to be here, but it's gonna cost more to have it.  companies are just looking for an excuse to raise rates since competition is limited.  I live in a large city, but all we have is att dsl, cable and satellite.  satellite sucks, cable would be faster, but I am not gonna give time warner a single penny.  so I am stuck with att.  I live in the only block in the city that doesnt have uverse, fios or verizon dsl, go figure.

I do envy the guys who get over 3

semp