[jalaziz]

There is nothing reasonable about this. You pay Comcast for bandwidth. It shouldn't matter how much data you're using as long as you're not exceeding that bandwidth. If I pay for 250mbps, I should be able to download 24/7 (assuming I did the math right, that's 83.7 TB). Comcast isn't storing the bits, they're just moving them. This is simply their way of avoiding having to upgrade their peering arrangements (which are already abysmal). Level3 has a great blog post explaining a similar issue (http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-m...).

[Benjamin_Dobell]

Please Google "contention ratios".

[jalaziz]

Well aware of contention ratios. That's the gamble the ISP makes. Now they're trying to pass the risk onto the consumer. That shouldn't be the consumer's problem. That problem also doesn't quite relate to a data cap. Contention ratios are entirely dependent on bandwidth. If everyone in my neighborhood had a 250mbps connection and we all downloaded at full blast at the exact same time, sure we'd face an issue with contention ratios. The amount of data transferred doesn't matter though.

[unprepare]

That has nothing to do with how much total data you use in a month.

It doesnt matter if i download 1 TB or 100TB, it only matters if im trying to use all my bandwidth at the same time as everyone else.

Did you even look it up yourself?

[Benjamin_Dobell]

How can you possibly not see these concepts as fundamentally related?

Yes, you're paying for a 250Mbps max connection speed, if your limit is 1000GB then you can only max out your connection for 9 hours a month, meaning other users have a chance to use the backhaul bandwidth, not just you!

Applying quota limits means less usage and allows for higher contention ratios to be used throughout the network. Which is absolutely the only way ISPs can afford to deliver you an Internet connection without charging thousands of dollars a month.

[jalaziz]

That's not true.

Infrastructure costs money, absolutely. But infrastructure is largely a fixed cost (plus some maintenance cost). After that, it's all peering arrangements. ISPs here in the US can have some pretty ridiculous profit margins (probably exaggerated, but http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/time-warner-cab...).

With gigabit internet slowly becoming standard, ISPs do have to invest quite a bit in upgrading their infrastructure. However, that investment is easily amortized over time.

All that being said, the amount of data is never in play. Only the rate at which you can push data through that infrastructure matters.

Yes, data quotas help ISPs have higher contention ratios, but that's simply cost cutting and it hurts the consumer. Effectively, the same money you're paying now is buying you less.

Last-mile ISPs have a very nasty way of trying to lie to consumers about how the internet works. I highly recommend you read the Level3 blog posts from around the time of the net neutrality discussions. They're very insightful into how the internet actually works. Last-mile ISPs can be and are effectively bullies because they own that last mile.