[Goronmon]

Stop pretending this is some ridiculous amount of bandwidth people are attempting to burn through. 25GB is about a dozen TV shows on Netflix and a couple decent sized game on Steam over the course of an entire month.

Plus, if the ISPs really want usage based pricing, then they should do that instead of this arbitrary download cap stuff that is nothing about usage based pricing.

[ergo98]

Who is pretending anything? What a trollish comment.

Yes, 25GB is an absurdly low cap. Most providers have a basic plan that provides 60GB, with a usually quite inexpensive way to dramatically increase the cap. People keep quoting the $2.50/GB bit which is just shockingly ignorant -- if you know that you'll use more (which not everyone will. The casual user will not and Avg Facebook and Email User has no reason to subsidize the "everything through my internet connection" guy), it's more like $0.12/GB.

This whole discussion is a perfect example of how people can embrace positions wholeheartedly just because they selfishly want them to be true.

[Goronmon]

You're pretending that this argument is about people who want to "stream Netflix 24 hours a day" and that everyone in the country will be doing so.

And even if people tried to stream Netflix 24 hours a day, it makes more sense to throttle the connection then to just toss around ridiculous overage charges as if the problem is the amount of data being downloaded in a month is the problem rather than the amount of bandwidth being consumed at peak times.

Sure, people can increase their cap by buying the "insurance", but with the low level caps, that basically becomes the true price of the connection for anyone who isn't using their internet for trivial uses (from a bandwidth) perspective. It's there in the hopes that you worry about going over your cap and being screwed in charges rather than as some benevolent gesture on the part of the ISPs. If they had any decency, they would just automatically upgrade your connection to the higher level if you go over the initial cap. Why is that such an unreasonable action to take?

[ergo98]

You're pretending

I'm not pretending anything. Quit with the trollish tactics. The service adapts to the market.

Sure, people can increase their cap by buying the "insurance"

You realize that terminology was coined by Teksavvy right? That company has done a brilliant job playing the public like a fiddle, and you're playing just the note they want to hear.

I'm with Cogeco. I have a 60GB cap. I've gone over it once. For $6 more I have a 125GB cap and a higher throughput, so $0.09 per GB. For a few dollars more I would have a 150GB cap. And so on. The same is true at Bell, Rogers, etc.

It's there in the hopes that you worry about going over your cap

ABSOLUTELY! That is, without a doubt or question, exactly why they have caps. They don't want you to come anywhere close to your cap. They would rather Joe Average uses 5GB / month of their 60GB cap. On my cell phone I have a 5GB cap, and in an average month I use about 200MB (always around WiFi).

However every provider warns you as you approach your cap. One whiny complainer was posting a screenshot of how he went over his cap and there was big letters on it explaining exactly what happened and how, asking him to upgrade now.

They do exactly what you ask for. Turns out that some people are just irresponsible.