Those are more reasonable, though still lacking in quota. In particular, it would be good to add additional quota applying only to off-peak times, to help balance the network load over time and mitigate the peaks.
Business class is meant for businesses. If you aren't a business, you probably don't want it. They usually give you slower speeds and higher prices in exchange for an SLA. An SLA is a contractual agreement on uptime. In other words, you are exchanging money and performance for reliability. A business needs their connection to be 100% reliable, so it's worth it for them to pay more and get a slower speed. A consumer does not need that guaranteed reliability, so getting business-class is stupid.
I pay about $125 a month and it includes 5 static IPs.
I run two servers running on it and my Xbox360 (Netflix streaming).
There are no caps or metering in place. Service includes 4 hour trouble repair and when I call for support I spend no more than 30 seconds reaching a technician.
Their top package is 16/2 @ $270+ per month.
After reviewing my leased server bandwidth needs I found it to be cheaper to buy a server and get the business class cable Internet service. I spend less per month than I did when I leased servers and I'm not even using half of my allotted bandwidth per month. I have battery backup in place as well.
On the subject of metering, yet not so much ISP metering:
The dorm I'm living in next year limits you to 325MB (yes, megabytes) of traffic daily from your room. We are going to have three heavy computer users living in that room, so I will either have to pay off the building's IT guys to remove our caps, or spend a LOT of time at coffeeshops and around campus, abusing the school's own wireless (it has 30k undergrads and is a renowned research institution both in IT and other fields, so they're more than well-off as far as their bandwidth is concerned). Since the latter is the more likely possibility, it's becoming quite possible that my cloistered geek existence is going to force me into extremely social environments on a regular basis. I can honestly say that I thought I'd never see the day.
The dorm I'm living in next year limits you to 325MB (yes, megabytes) of traffic daily from your room. We are going to have three heavy computer users living in that room, so I will either have to pay off the building's IT guys to remove our caps, or spend a LOT of time at coffeeshops and around campus, abusing the school's own wireless (it has 30k undergrads and is a renowned research institution both in IT and other fields, so they're more than well-off as far as their bandwidth is concerned). Since the latter is the more likely possibility, it's becoming quite possible that my cloistered geek existence is going to force me into extremely social environments on a regular basis. I can honestly say that I thought I'd never see the day.
That's actually a good policy. It forces the students to leave their dorm rooms.
I can see how metered internet can be annoying, but I don't understand the severity of the reactions since I've never had an unlimited package. We've always had metered internet since they brought cable internet here (Norman Wells, NWT, Canada) a few years ago. Started at 3GB total transfer a month for $80, went up to 6, and now has tiers of 2, 10, and 20 ($40, $60, and presumably $80). In the first few months, we had three heavy users in our home, and at one point received a bill for around $950. We refused to pay, on grounds that their metering site didn't work properly and that other people who hadn't even been in town for the month had similar levels of use. We never had to pay, and that's when the limit went to 6GB. It's slow, maxing out at about 250kb/s for downloads, unreliable, and if more than two people in a household want separate connections, they make you pay an additional $100 fee on top of installation, which is why I currently have none at home. Unfortunately, there is no competition up here - NorthwesTel is the only provider for dial-up, cable, and satellite internet. In fact, they are also the only landline telephone provider. We only gained the ability to use cellphones here two years ago.
What do some of you typically use per month? Are you all streaming Netflix or something similar? I don't really see how people can consistently go through that much bandwidth.
As long as everything is upfront and easily monitored, then I don't see what's wrong with metering. But then, we here in the UK have many many different ISP's to choose from, unlike in the US, from what I understand.
I use about 60GB monthly (This I know from my Tomato router.), which may be to do with the fact I have a server seeding most hours. I don't have a concrete cap but my ISP (Virgin Media) throttles the hell out of you if you use bittorent between 4pm and 12am so I just set the scheduler on my server and it's all good.
That's actually a good policy. It forces the students to leave their dorm rooms.
Not if its forces them to flood the computer labs.
In this case, it's really not an issue. U of I has the biggest undergrad library system and wireless network of any university in the US, so there are more than enough PCs and connections to go around. Any school-owned building aside from housing levels in the dorms are more or less REQUIRED to have hotspots.
Several sources are reporting that Time Warner is shelving the plan due to public outrage. No word on TWC's website as of yet.
Time Warner Cable said it would make a statement later today.
I'm glad this crashed and burned so hard. I hope that means my ISP, Comcast, won't adopt this policy, but I'm not naive enough to actually believe that. I don't trust Comcast for very much. Another talking point: Eric Massa of New York's 29th district has announced the Broadband Internet Fairness Act, which would prevent this bullshit from happening again. I'm all for it; I hope it goes through.
My friend, who is currently uses Time Warner, sent me this link: stothecap.com. I couldn't read it from work, but I scanned a bit from my phone. The site states that US. Senator Charles E. Schumacher (D-NY) announced that Time Warner Cable will be shelving the plan, as stated previously in above posts.
Hey, the Democrat and Chronical! Wow, that takes me back to the good old days in Rochester.
I'm glad it got shelved. I talked to my mom about it a week ago (she and pop are in one of the few areas in which the metering was planned) and she was annoyed by it, as she and dad get all their video watching entertainment from youtube, hulu, and netflix. She was like "This won't make me buy cable, it will just inconvinience us in our viewing habits." We both think that if it was metered, it should be metered like a utility - no base rate. She will be happy that they put this aside for now.
Edit: A new post on that website, stothecap, shows that the deal might not be off after all. Rats.
Well, the Time Warner guy said that they're shelving the idea for now and will enter into a "customer education" phase. Because, y'know, we're all retarded, and we can't figure out what's really a good deal and what's not.
Maybe I'll cancel my Time Warner service and get Verizon DSL. Anyone have any experience comparing the two?
Maybe I'll cancel my Time Warner service and get Verizon DSL. Anyone have any experience comparing the two?
Verizon DSL will be slow as balls compared to the cable service. There's no technological reason that DSL can't be as fast as cable, but cable companies just seem to crank up the bandwidth while phone companies keep it down. Part of it I think has to do with the fact that they don't want to crank up the power and have any chance of it interfering with actual phone service. Another part of it is that phone lines are really old and kabusted where cable lines are new and shiny by comparison.
Maybe I'll cancel my Time Warner service and get Verizon DSL. Anyone have any experience comparing the two?
Verizon DSL will be slow as balls compared to the cable service. There's no technological reason that DSL can't be as fast as cable, but cable companies just seem to crank up the bandwidth while phone companies keep it down. Part of it I think has to do with the fact that they don't want to crank up the power and have any chance of it interfering with actual phone service. Another part of it is that phone lines are really old and kabusted where cable lines are new and shiny by comparison.
Well, that's what I was worried about, but Verizon has a DSL package that is supposed to be somewhat comparable in speed to my current cable (7.2Mbps down, compared to my current 10), and it's actually slightly cheaper (42/month as opposed to my current 50). I think DSL is supposed to decline in quality the farther you are from the central office, but would it really be that much slower?
In any event, Earthlink offers cable service in my area anyhow.
Maybe I'll cancel my Time Warner service and get Verizon DSL. Anyone have any experience comparing the two?
Verizon DSL will be slow as balls compared to the cable service. There's no technological reason that DSL can't be as fast as cable, but cable companies just seem to crank up the bandwidth while phone companies keep it down. Part of it I think has to do with the fact that they don't want to crank up the power and have any chance of it interfering with actual phone service. Another part of it is that phone lines are really old and kabusted where cable lines are new and shiny by comparison.
It has to do with the differences between twisted pair and coax. DSL is not actually digital, it is analog.
Verizon FIOS is where it is at, much better than AT&T; U-Verse.
Comments
I run two servers running on it and my Xbox360 (Netflix streaming).
There are no caps or metering in place. Service includes 4 hour trouble repair and when I call for support I spend no more than 30 seconds reaching a technician.
Their top package is 16/2 @ $270+ per month.
After reviewing my leased server bandwidth needs I found it to be cheaper to buy a server and get the business class cable Internet service. I spend less per month than I did when I leased servers and I'm not even using half of my allotted bandwidth per month. I have battery backup in place as well.
I'm in the UK, and I pay £25 a month, with that I get 6 to 7 Mbps down, and 512 bps up.
I have a 50GB monthly cap, but I also get uncapped usage between 11PM and 9AM.
My ISP's website also has details of my usage, so I can always check when I'm getting close to the cap, which rarely happens.
The dorm I'm living in next year limits you to 325MB (yes, megabytes) of traffic daily from your room. We are going to have three heavy computer users living in that room, so I will either have to pay off the building's IT guys to remove our caps, or spend a LOT of time at coffeeshops and around campus, abusing the school's own wireless (it has 30k undergrads and is a renowned research institution both in IT and other fields, so they're more than well-off as far as their bandwidth is concerned). Since the latter is the more likely possibility, it's becoming quite possible that my cloistered geek existence is going to force me into extremely social environments on a regular basis. I can honestly say that I thought I'd never see the day.
In the first few months, we had three heavy users in our home, and at one point received a bill for around $950. We refused to pay, on grounds that their metering site didn't work properly and that other people who hadn't even been in town for the month had similar levels of use. We never had to pay, and that's when the limit went to 6GB.
It's slow, maxing out at about 250kb/s for downloads, unreliable, and if more than two people in a household want separate connections, they make you pay an additional $100 fee on top of installation, which is why I currently have none at home.
Unfortunately, there is no competition up here - NorthwesTel is the only provider for dial-up, cable, and satellite internet. In fact, they are also the only landline telephone provider. We only gained the ability to use cellphones here two years ago.
What do some of you typically use per month? Are you all streaming Netflix or something similar? I don't really see how people can consistently go through that much bandwidth.
I'm glad it got shelved. I talked to my mom about it a week ago (she and pop are in one of the few areas in which the metering was planned) and she was annoyed by it, as she and dad get all their video watching entertainment from youtube, hulu, and netflix. She was like "This won't make me buy cable, it will just inconvinience us in our viewing habits." We both think that if it was metered, it should be metered like a utility - no base rate. She will be happy that they put this aside for now.
Edit: A new post on that website, stothecap, shows that the deal might not be off after all. Rats.
Maybe I'll cancel my Time Warner service and get Verizon DSL. Anyone have any experience comparing the two?
In any event, Earthlink offers cable service in my area anyhow.
Verizon FIOS is where it is at, much better than AT&T; U-Verse.
101mbps down and an unknown mbps up for $100/month.
It's expensive, so I wouldn't recommend it for most people. But for a technology person, it's totally awesome.