Because of corporate greed and a ridiculous lack of meaningful regulation.
Because fuck you, pay me, that’s why.
— Comcast, probably.
Why is the FCC asking this question instead of already correcting the issue?
They are asking ISPs to lay out their best justification so that they can decide whether it’s valid or not. Judging by their wording, they want a good explanation. It’s good to gain understanding of something before we gut it and who better to ask for the ‘best argument for’ than those who enforce it?
If Ajit Pai were still in charge, he’d say “Woof woof! The telcos can do anything they want!,” and the Verizon CEO who owns him would pat him on the head and give him a Milk-Bone.
It’s ridiculous I have to pay Xfinity $110/mo for my speed and unlimited bandwidth
God damn. In Austria I’m paying 35€ for 250/250, and am still looking over to the Romanians with longing eyes. Data caps are only on mobile - which is still questionable in my eyes.
Data caps on mobile makes more sense to me, simply because mobile data is so much more expensive.
Is it?
To me it seems it’s cheaper to build an antenna to serve 100-1000s of users than to dig and install cables to all of them.
It depends on what you’re trying to do. If you’re just trying to reach them and don’t care about bandwidth, wireless is the way to go. It’s why more developed countries lagged behind developing countries on the transition to wireless phones. But when you’re trying to deploy shear amounts of bandwidth, nothing beats fiber. It’s incredibly fast, has low latency, and doesn’t get interference.
And I suppose I should say that I think unlimited is a bad idea in general. I favor paying for what I use. People who use expensive infrastructure sparingly should pay less than people use it a lot.
Over here, I’m getting the Cox… last bill was $99 a month, now my “promo period” expired, and it is the full $170 a month thanks to “unlimited”. It’s pretty gross, but it is the only plan that gives the “amazing” 30 mbps up. :|
EDIT: This is for home internet, 1000 down/30 up, unlimited data
That’s crazy! I’m paying 18 EUR a month for unlimited 1000 mbps download and 1000 mbps upload and I thought my bill was high. 😲
Oh. You were talking about mobile data. That’s still extremely expensive.
Lack of healthy competition. It’s plain to see from the other side of the ocean where I live… Is it maybe one of those things you can only see from afar?
€20 every 28 days on a PAYG sim for unlimited 5g in Ireland, it’s just boggling to see what folks in the US and Canada pay
OP was about data caps on landlines… yeah, at first glance I too thought it could only be mobile
What’s going to stop the forms being filled out by industry-controlled bots this time?[1] Last time the FCC took public comment, anti-net-neutrality comments were being made under the names of dead people and people who would later claim they never participated in making comments to the FCC.
Otherwise, it’s going to be the same dumb shitshow as last time.
The same dumb shitshow as last time is probably the goal.