Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jff 5242 days ago
Yet as another anecdote, even when watching Netflix streaming basically every night, and downloading the occasional Steam game, I have never once passed my 250 GB Comcast limit. Much as I dislike these kind of caps, it is pretty damn hard to go over 250 GB. That's, what, 200 hours of reasonably high-quality streaming video? 300+ Linux ISOs (the only reason you run bittorrent, right?)?

Sadly, I don't think "unlimited" internet is a sustainable model, because generally speaking every bit you send costs the provider money, and the rise of things like Youtube mean that people actually use more bandwidth. However, 250 GB plus a reasonable per-GB charge after that should be reasonable for a very larger percentage of users.
2 comments
X-Istence 5242 days ago
I don't run bittorrent at all (nobody on the home network does), mainly has to do with my current employment. Between my room mate and I we do 200 GB on average, we've had one warning sent out for getting to 245 GB.

Here is our yearly usage chart: http://i.imgur.com/wZbU1.jpg (since the router/gateway was last rebooted). Do note that there is NO illegal downloading at all. NetFlix, Hulu, Pandora, Spotify, Steam, Dropbox, WoW and many others.

link
mikeash 5241 days ago
I see no problem with having the monthly plan include 250GB of data. Where it gets stupid is what happens when you go over. Rather than charge you extra, they give you a warning and then cut off your service entirely.

This completely baffles me. Why pass on the opportunity to collect more cash?

link