We're never going to have better internet in the USA, are we?
I'm an unfortunate captive of the oligopoly of the internet industry in the USA. In many places, you have 2-3 choices of internet, and all of them suck ass. I'm in this situation. All internet providers in my area have a 1-1.5 terabyte data cap. So when I download Call of Duty for 250 gb and it fails and has to update or reinstall, I've wasted 500 gb, and have now reached 50% of my data cap in just 1 day. There are crazy fees, for example, Cox Cable says:
If you go over, we’ll automatically add 50 gigabytes of data for $10 to your next bill. That's enough for about 15 hours of streaming HD video. If you use that 50 gigabytes, we automatically add another 50 gigabytes for $10 and so on until you reach our $100 limit of data overage charges or until your next usage cycle begins.
So your $90 a month internet can easily become $190 a month, which is fuckin criminal, like that is so scummy and asinine how that can even be legal. But it is perfectly legal. The FCC is also looking into these data caps but now that we have a new anti-federal government president elect... This is probably toast.... Nothing will change now that most federal agencies are about to be deleted.
From a technology standpoint too, nothing is really getting better
Comcast is still using Coax instead of Fiber Optic and desperately trying to convince people that somehow, someway coax can be just as good. Do with that info what you will, I have no opinions on it. There was a Federal program started recently to expand rural internet access, which will probably be gutted in 2025 leaving many without suitable internet again. Fiber Optic is fast, but still, not new technology, and doesn't solve a critical issue.... It doesn't matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast. A single download on Steam is like 450 Mbps, Epic Games launcher is horrifically slow. I get like 120 Mbps max when downloading Fortnite updates even with 1500 Mbps internet hard wired to my router with top tier hardware
It's just sad to think about the future of internet in the USA, and knowing we'll be imprisoned by these data caps for the foreseeable future.
I normally don't like to admit this but you're right. OP needs to move.
The only hope I have is that the next generation will bring more love. There is a lot of disenfranchisement due to the changes over the last 40 years. The lasting effects of coal and steel work reduction, offshoring of jobs, minority rights improving, immigration changing demographics. All of these have been very strange and alarming for a lot of people my age and older. It's all normal to my kids though.
You're right tho. Empires rise and fall. The whole world is fucked if we've hit our peak.
Don't the numbers indicate the opposite is happening. I fear for my children because I know they are loving and caring.
Unfortunately, most counties don’t want us Americans (and I don’t blame them).
Edit: Unless you’re rich that is.
France reporting, same price and that's because I'm using the more expensive provider that is the most reliable in my rural area.
Our politicians are completely useless though.
Yeah, but yall are actually cool and bust out the guillotines every once in a while.
Turkey (Asia Minor) reporting, it’s 1 Gbps unlimited for $25.
Hardcore capitalism bangs you hardcore for even human-right level things. Health, education and infrastructure should be the State’s responsibility, subventions doesn’t cut it.
that's one hell of a free burn
I pay $70 a month for google fiber and it's legit a thing that keeps me in the city I'm in because better is absolutely fucking rare.
This isn't me trying to flex, this is me crying because I'd rather be in Scotland.
Mine is the basic package for the price I'm doing, so your system is still nice.
I'll honestly take the weather being shit. I live where there is no chance in hell government will fund a thing and that was before the current election. And the weather here is humid as fuck with either 100 degrees F to Below 0 with the humidity being the only predictable thing, maybe a week of spring and fall each. Oh, and tornadoes.
So the US did in fact have a process where the government did give money to get broadband to the rural. But as is the nature with this country, was not a federal workforce, but was a company based one. The companies pocketed the money, got a few people hooked up, sat on their asses, then when people complained at them years later they responded they didn't have enough money to connect people.
And good lord I'd take English National Health Service over the US "pay an insurance company to argue why they shouldn't pay for your healthcare"
I do have a question on the independence, over here in the states the conversation was that Scotland stayed because to break from UK would be requiring a separate entry into EU with a lot less benefits because England was one of the special ones. Always figured that Scotland might make another attempt after Brexit, is there something I missed? I admit y'alls politics I don't quite get. Probably a lot like my talking individual state politics to you guys.
I really appreciate the dive into the politics there! As I talked with a coworker, to start understanding politics understanding historical context is important and I can keep some understanding with other countries, it's hard enough to know the nuance of all of our states, figuring out how to get started with other countries is difficult so the primer really helps. Some of this sounds familiar over here on the antiquated thoughts driving politics that should have fallen by the wayside years ago, though I think a few of yours might be older than ours is. Friend visited the UK recently and traveled throughout, like I told him, I intellectually knew how old that area is but realizing that there were places that were historic before our country even existed is still kinda baffling. But I digress.
Having to do a dive into the Tories as I just knew them as your conservatives, it's interesting that both the UK Conservative party and Scottish Conservatives definitely have a lot that I look at and go "That really does look like (Pre-Trump) Republicans" then every once in a while I see them supporting something that I realize if a Democrat would try to bring forward they'd be shouted down as being a communist. But what's most fascinating dichotomy between our countries is your conservatives are staunchly fighting to keep the UK together, as you say wouldn't allow you to hold a referendum after making you all leave the EU. Over in the States our Conservatives have gotten in bed with the US South which constantly yells about and threatens to secede again, and the Republican party is the one where you're going to find the confederate (not the confederate, flag, Virigina Battle Flag but that'd involve them knowing their own 'heritage') flag all over the place so you could argue our conservatives are more seperationists. Growing up with this creates a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to be opposed to splitting, though like with the pulling out of the EU and as you described there's actually a lot of ability to be successful to sustain yourselves that's makes sense... vs our guys have the likes of most of our southern states who cry how much they hate the federal government, yet percentage-wise are some of our most reliant on federal funds.
I think you just described the US as a whole.
And yet here I am in the USA with 8/8 Gbps fiber with no caps. Though I do pay $185 a month. I live in a Red state, and in a metro area, but not near the metro core, in unincorporated county land.
last 30 days stats to prove no caps:
I've never had caps here in the US, and while my current internet is kinda slow (50/25), it's because I deliberately chose a lower tier because we don't actually need more. I could get gigabit (1000/500) for $75/month or 10G for $200/month, and my city is working w/ an org to build out muni fiber, which will probably cut costs a bit (and hopefully improve reliability, ours goes out like once/month for 15 min or so).
What do you have for network equipment? I have 1G symmetrical unlimited, but anything faster seems to require a jump to much more expensive networking. And even then, most user equipment can’t support that
I have basically a full rack of equipment. Here's the network side of it all. My desktop is 2 SPF+ fiber connections back to the core switch. Tons of stuff in my rack is all 10gbps or 40gbps.
Dual opnsense firewalls (top 2 slots, dual 40gbps connecting to core switches), though one is inactive until they let me buy static addresses. I run some business stuff on this. Boatloads of homelabbing and self-learning.
If you want to do full IPS/IDS, then yes you need some horsepower. But just connection with basic rules there's plenty out there that's not super expensive. Ubiquiti has their dream machine line which even the "cheap" $400 one can do 10gbps (2gbps with ips, or something like that. I dunno, I don't keep tabs on them).
I didn't stop any active connections/downloads happening on the network. I very likely had a gig of other stuff going elsewhere on the network.
Their "smart-nid" is also a router... so that works too, but I don't trust it and in my setup it's in transparent mode.
Edit: Formatting sucked
Cool setup!
I pay $79 AUD for 250Mb download / 20Mb upload.
Just to point out something, yes, there may not be many services online (except torrents perhaps) that will max out your gigabit connection, but you are looking at it from the perspective of a single user. I'm in a family of four, also with a roommate in the house, and with everyone gaming and streaming and doing their thing, it can easily saturate it. We had to pay extra for no caps though or we'd be toast. They at least did offer that. Dicks.
Anyway the point of a high speed connection is to be able to do many things simultaneously, not really one giant thing by itself.
Yo ho ho.
fr fr
This is the USA, it's all a pay-as-you-go country. You will be required to work yourself to death to be able to have anything nice at all. That's the model. Corporations make the rules, the government will not help us. Economy, corporate profits and giving money to the wealthy are the priorities. Nothing else matters.
Some places have banned data caps, I live in one such place... And I think the FCC was looking for feedback on the hate of data caps... If you want change go out and make it
A Republican lead FCC (Ajit Pai or some other smug fuck) will never mobilize the FCC to curb unfair and unreasonable data caps.
That doesn't mean they aren't currently looking into it
FCC will now be led by Repubs, who like data caps, more mergers, not treating the Internet as a utility, blocking municipal networks, and ignore listening to public comment, and flood the zone with fake comments on issues that are popular.
The biggest expansion in fiber networks in the US was coming down the pipeline due to Biden's infrastructure bills. The Republicans will do everything they can to slow and stop this money from its intended purpose.
Any hope of huge improvements in America's internet infrastructure just went away with the Dem administration in order to improve ISP stock prices, meaning the Internet you are currently unhappy with will only get more expensive with less competition.
As intended, by how Americans voted.
Should be grateful for that and not something like Russia, with that level of political idiocy.
No, once the FTC is gutted, the isps will resume their stronghold. Data caps, overages, slower speeds, etc.
All of our FTC investigations and antitrust suits will disappear.
Also get ready of net neutrality disappearing, and you'll have sites blocked just because of ISPs not liking them.
Good time to invest in VPN companies
Data caps are insane in 2024
Yeah, pretty much. The way the rest of the world deals with it is by splitting the infrastructure maintenance and retail sides to eliminate the profit incentive to not do maintenance.
You have a company who owns a/the fibre network in an area and is obligated by anti-monopoly rules to sell access to the network at the same rate and terms to anyone who wants it. They have a profit incentive to maintain the network to a reasonable standard because having a functioning network is how they make money. In a lot of places this wholesale provider will be at least part government owned given that the government usually pays a good chunk of the cost to build out large national infrastructure projects like fibre networks.
Separately, you have retail ISPs who buy access to the fibre network (or 4g, satellite, ...) and sell it to the public along with value adds like tech support, IP addresses, peering agreement etc.
It's never work in the US because holding private companies accountable for how they spend public money and maintaining well regulated competitive markets is communism or something.
It did work in the US for many years. During the 90's the Internet was regulated like that. Phone lines, t1's etc were infrastructure that the ilec was required to provide at the same cost to isps they used internally to sell service to consumers.
Then Bush came in and ruled that fiber and cable were immune from those common carrier laws.
Internet in NZ used to work a bit like the US does now with one large ISP that is also the network operator and gave exactly zero shits about quality of connections or internationally competitive pricing, except they got greedy and charged their retail arm half what they charged their competitors. Anti-monopoly folks got very pissy about this and managed to get the largest fine permitted by law, forced them to split their wholesale arm off into a separate company, banned them from tendering on the government-funded fibre network (which cost them literally billions of dollars) and then changed the law so that if they did it again there wouldn't be a cap on the penalty they could impose.
In 20 years we went from ~35th of the 38 OECD countries in internet speed and accessibility to 9th. Markets only work long-term if you actually regulate them
This is exactly how my local municipal fiber network works. The the county owns, and builds put, the fiber network and maintains it, selling network access to local ISPs who sell to customers.
Only shitty part is that if you want to have a connection built out that isn't on their plan, you have to fund the fiber run to you from wherever the nearest spot is, and that can be many thousands of dollars.
I imagine if we expanded the program like you're talking about in the rest of the world, we could actually run it fine, like, we have the ability to... It's just that the people in power are fucking awful.
Well, maybe now with a republican FCC
lol, no
I'd be surprised if it even exists a year from now
Oh I expect it to. The FCC censors airwave transmissions
Damn that's a spectre that I hadn't even thought of yet.
The reds want to get rid if any agency that oritects us.
1.5Tb data cap, jeez. I regularly push 6tb of monthly traffic by myself. This feels like mobile internet all over again, but now with wired...
No. And I'm sorry to say, this administration is coming for social media as well. I hate watching the orange potato talk, and I dislike the individual who posted this, but unless you want to sit through a double long "reaction" vid by a youtuber who makes their living "reacting", this is the shortest one.
He wants to gut moderation and make it so it requires a court order to remove any account from social media. There's a lot to unpack here. It's a scripted speech, illustrating the thinkers behind his administration this go. It talks about 1A, says everything in the speech is for 1A, including dumping the Hatch Act (keeps us safe at polling sites and makes buying votes illegal), but you should really listen to what he says about moderation of social media.
To me, it reads as a way of removing any anti-establishment, anti-MAGA spaces to talk without actually removing the spaces.
Echo chambering helps no one folks, I hate hearing him speak too, but you need to hear this one. https://youtu.be/xJfUXVOoFBo?si=pqphBah-_0YwW11V
It's totally possible! I live in CO and Comcast had a legal monopoly per state law. Nobody else is allowed to compete with their cable service. But you know what isn't cable? Fiber! A local broadband company just installed fiber in my neighborhood this spring. I signed up for $89/mo gigabit service, no data cap, no installation fees at all. Between when I signed up and when they turned on service, they upgraded my service to 1.2 gigabit, same monthly price, no cap, no commitment, no upsell (their only other service is rural satellite Internet).
I talked to the technician installing it and he said they aren't getting any subsidies from anyone. Not the city, state, or fed. It's simply economically viable to run new gigabit fiber for $89/mo. All it takes is a company that can make the initial infrastructure investment.
Not only aren't we going to get better internet, the internet in the united states you're using right now, is going to be unrecognizable in the next 12 months, all free services will charge, cost for access will increase, vpn usage will be curtailed, and pirate sites will be blocked. Better? We just re-elected a fascist tyrant who wants to close as many avenues of free speech against him as he possibly can, as well as funnel as much cash to media and tech oligarchs as he can to keep them onside, and now he's got both the house and senate with which to do just that.
Better? dude.
VPNs and piracy aren't going anywhere. Unfortunately, data caps won't be going away either.
That's not true at all.
They'll both be going on my next PC!
This sounds more like the infrastructure in your area just isn't up to delivering those speeds, regardless what the last mile to the home is.
I promise you Steam's CDN absolutely can deliver more than 450Mbps. It regularly maxes out my 1.5 Gbps at home, and I have no doubt that it could potentially go even faster than that if I had a better connection.
Like plugging a 10Gbps network switch into a 100Mbps gateway, it sounds like a fast final link to the home is being choked out by poor infrastructure in the region and can't be fully utilized.
They probably kill off any agency who would protect your consumer rights, anyway. And redefine "broadband" as "you've got modem access, so stop whining". And let the companies keep the subsidies they got for making the former broadband definition happen.
Based on Ajit Pai last time, there will be a significant rollback on consumer rights and protections. You can bet Starlink will get greenlit for anything they want though.
Rural island off the coast of a european country:
10g fiber for $65/mo (I don't even think they cared, I asked for more and I think they made up a number).
House literally down the street from google in silicon valley:
Comcrap $100 for shit cable, I'm paying $250 for actual upload speed.
This country is ruled by the corrupt.
In my country unlimited fiber was $6/mo. Imagine the shock when I moved to the US (also in Mountain View initially). Eventually I got AT&T fiber for "just" $40/month, but now I moved to an area outside their coverage and it's back to Comcast :(
Things are getting better. A new fiber-only network provider is expanding across my region so I got it installed a few months ago. No data caps, 500 Mbps up+down for $50/month.
Speaking of fiber and things that are not fiber, asymmetric connections are one of the most predatory internet practices in existence, only a small distance behind data caps. Oh, you want our super expensive 1gbps plan? How about 3mbps upload?
There used to be very real hardware reasons that upload had much lower bandwidth. I have no idea if there still are.
Probably because they don't need to as we are used to it and also more bandwidth to multiplex for other residens/clients to offer.
Comcast are starting to offer 2Gbps symmetric (same speed up and down) via DOCSIS 4.0 in some areas.
Yep. It’s pretty nuts how much they can push over copper. And remember that just having a coax cable at your house doesn’t mean it’s copper the whole way back to the ISP.
You're right - upstream connections are usually fiber. In fact there's a name for this type of network: HFC (hybrid fiber + coax)
Is it on coax or fiber? And do you still share that bandwidth with your neighbors?
Docsis 4.0 is still cable, idk about other things
The 2Gbps symmetric though Comcast is still cable. In theory, DOCSIS 4.0 supports up to 10Gbps down and 6Gbps up over cable, although real-world speeds are always lower than theoretical speeds.
You share bandwidth with your neighbours regardless of whether it's coax or fiber. A common contention ratio for residential connections is between 40:1 and 50:1, meaning the bandwidth is shared between 40 and 50 people (i.e. 1Gbps of upstream bandwidth per 40-50 people with a 1Gbps connection). This is usually fine as it's very unlikely that every customer will be using the full bandwidth at the same time. Residential usage is usually very spiky with only brief periods of high speed usage.
What about FTTH ?
I have a direct line from the DSLAM (?) to my apparent.
The bandwidth is still shared... It'd be prohibitively expensive to have dedicated bandwidth just for your connection, and most customers don't need anywhere near that. Unlimited, dedicated 1Gbps is around 320TB of data per month.
A business-grade connection has fewer people sharing it, but it's still shared. The only fully-dedicated connections are enterprise-grade connections (like in a data center), and even then it's an upgrade that costs quite a bit. :)
Well it isn't shared before the upstream server, that's what FTTH is.
I'm seriosly interested in information supporting your claims, not because they are wrong (of course we share at a certain level, that's the whole idea of the internet itself is) but because they are quite vague.
BTW for 40€ I get 10Gb/s symmetrical. I'm not in the US.
FTTH just means that there's fiber going into your house.
Most residential fiber internet connections use a technology called PON (GPON for gigabit or XGS-PON for 10Gbps). My understanding is that the fiber from your house goes into a splitter box in the street, which takes fiber connections from many customers (usually either 32 or 64 customers) and multiplexes them into a single fiber by either using different wavelengths of light or by time multiplexing. Upstream from this, bandwidth is shared.
Upstream from this is the internet, so it's no longer shared (it goes wherever it wants to and it is the servers that are "shared" by users). So there might be a bottleneck in the "splitter box" but that's it.
The solution is pretty obvious.
The 18-26 year olds just signed over our country to billionaire fascists. I had hopes for them, but they are collectively idiots. Born into late stage capitalism, spent their formative years growing up in the Age of Hate, and actively chugged down propaganda via YouTube and all social media.
No, we are not.
You can't just blame 18-26 year-olds. This was a failure across all age groups. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/interactive-how-key-groups-of-americans-voted-in-2024-according-to-ap-votecast
And isn't signing over the country to corporations something that's been going on since the 1970s or something? I mean that comment is wrong on any level.
Way earlier than that, sunshine. The earliest example is probably the railways.
Nah, Those were different times. You can't directly compare a time when is was perfectly fine to own people, or have them die in large quantities while working in the mines or building the railroads, to modern day neoliberalism and turbo capitalism. I mean a lot of time has passed since then. And we invented social capitalism, workplace safety in the meantime. We kinda agreed that forced labor is to be frowned upon. That is all connected and has it's roots in industrialization. Yes. But living situations changed massively. The way companies are set up changed. And we're generally not living in the age of industrialization anymore.
I'd say it has happened in the latter half of the 1900s, after WW2. At first there was an economic boom in quite some areas of the world, people got wealthier. Way more educated during the early 19th century. Especially in the USA. Wealth was distributed more evenly. And sometime after, things took a turn for the worse. For example the US disconnected from the rest of the western world with life expectancy. Healthcare was made into a rip-off. Education decreased. Newspapers, access to (neutral) information which flourished at times, became the media landscape it is today...
That all happened within the last 60 years or so.
The younger age brackets broke slightly in favor of Harris. It was the folks between mid-life crisis and retirement that broke hard for Trump.
She somehow managed to perform worse with women than Biden did (53% vs 55%.)
Harris did not out perform Biden in ANY category.
No, the Democratic party ran a candidate that wanted to keep the status quo in a period the whole country needed change.
And during the last 4 years the sitting president was actually sleepy Joe. He should have arrested trump and his co conspirators and throw away the key after a very public trial.
But instead, they did nothing to stem the tide of fascism. If you want to blame people, blame the technocrats Trump was projecting on during his campaign. As if he is a small portion of who he says he is, he will show everyone what the Dems should have done.
Name a time in history that "voting for change" isn't what's "needed". The term has lost all meaning for how overused it is. Just like "think of the children" or "save the whales".
If change is needed every 4 years, then that means 4 years ago you either voted the wrong guy in, or he didn't do what he promised.
I've always been of the belief that campaign promises need to have more importance. If the American people vote for a candidate based on their promises, as they always do, then those promises damn well better happen.
If I campaign, and promise everyone free chocolate pudding. Then by 4 years later, everybody in this country damn well better have chocolate pudding.
Once voted in, it should be a federal crime to stand in the way of delivering campaign promises. So if I contact a pudding company, and they refuse to accept the contract to produce pudding, then the CEO is arrested, and the plant is seized by the government. The staff will be kept on, paid by the government. Anyone who quits will face criminal charges. Long story short, hell or high water, we're delivering that pudding.
Because what happens if I don't? Then on re-election day, not only am I barred from running, I'm also publically humiliated, and executed. Live on tv. Broadcast on every channel.
Which means you can't campaign on vague promises, because then it's easy to argue that you failed. You have to promise cut and dry easy to prove obligations. And if you fail, you die. If anyone stands in your way, it's a federal offense.
The underlying problem with this country is that nothing means anything. Nobody stands for anything. Courts have no consequence. Explain to me how a 34x convicted criminal was even allowed to run for office, much less win? Explain how he's not facing a court date. Explain how he won't be in jail for his court ordered convictions.
The answer is, this all means nothing. Money rules this country. Fuck you. Fuck the citizens. Fuck justice. Fuck equality. Fuck everybody besides the rich. They fuck you. Not the other way around. I am an American, but I am NOT a patriot. I am ashamed of my country. I am embarrassed by my fellow citizens, and my government alike. You can't blame one without the other. The citizens voted for fascism. They wanted this. They're fine with the system being toothless and slanted. I'm just caught up in the crossfire. I'm not the worst affected. I can only feel empathy for those affected. And feel disgust for anyone wearing a red hat with white text.
Change in this case is not, "were doing everything completely different", but more of where the focus of the policy is. And the focus on "the economy" does shit for normal people. I'm sure wrecking the economy will hurt them.. but the simple fact is biden-harris failed to adress the issues facing a looooooot of americans.
And your chocolate pudding example perfectly aligns with the failure to imprison Trump. The Americans don't care about ANY of his crimes because the justice system and the president did not Care.
If it was soooooooo important, he would have been thrown in jail, publicly prosecuted and executed for treason.. and he was not. Instead everyone danced around it, and SHOWED the American people there are zero consequences while saying "he is so dangerous, he is so bad, he is a criminal". Well like you say, talk is cheap. Put up or shut up.. and the American people said the same. All the anti Trump rhetoric was dismissed because if any of it where true he would have been in jail.
The fact Biden is the most pro worker and pro u ion does not mean shit if the whole world saw you use executive power to publicly stop the strike. The fact that he later in backrooms got them ak OK deal.. was done in the limelight.. so that's an own goal. He should have targeted the Corporation at the same time.. but he did not.
So I get what you are saying. And I argue, the Dems fucked themselves.. a lot.. repeatedly..
Nope.
No. And we're going to have even more tech-illiterate old buffoons in offices where they'll understand even less technology but they're great at destroying things. So, they'll happily line the pockets of ComCast, AT&T, Verizon and they'll do fuck all to improve customer experience. In fact, if things go their way, they'll bring back the idea of forcing you to choose whether you want to pay premium for high speed internet including the ridiculous limits already in place. That or they'll give you the slow-lane subscription while talking down to you about having to pay so little to get so little and their data caps is even more restrictive, never mind how little you'll be able to actually do on the slow lane.
Isn't it wonderful?! /s
Pretty sure it depends on where you live. My CenturyLink gigabit internet in Seattle is superb, symmetrical up/down, $75/mo. Haven't had significant problems in 10 or 15 years.
Yeah, it all still depends on how close you are to the fiber, whether pushed over twisted-pair or coax. In some areas, for digital over twisted-pair, it may even still depend on how close you are to a central office. It varies wildly across the country.
I support people who work from home all over the country. People in the boonies are using mobile data and satellite. Those who aren’t suffer terrible DSL connections.
I have coax, and 2 gigabit is an option for me because the fiber Xfinity uses runs right along my neighborhood.
Wait until net neutrality is completely dead. I predict 1.5 years.
Damn, you're an optimist.
I feel your pain, I was stuck with Cox for many years and was paying $170 a month for one gig down, 30 megs up. Unlimited data. But the unlimited data was a lie because they called and threatened me once because I was uploading too much, apparently uploading doesn't count for the unlimited data. Stupid assholes.
I was fortunate enough to move recently to a house that actually had fiber. My fiber provider just raised the price of their lowest plan, which is the one I'm on, 500 Mbps symmetrical for $65 a month. It used to be $50 a month. However, they lowered the price of all their faster plans. If I wanted, I could get 8 gigs symmetrical for $150 a month. That's less than I was paying for Cox just a year ago for 1 gig fake unlimited.
At my current provider, all their plans are truly unlimited, even the lowest tier one like the one I'm on.
$170 is fucking insane for internet. 😡
Ya their top tier plan was $150 for 1 Gig down 30 Mbps up, 1.25 TB data cap. You could pay an extra $20 a month for"unlimited " but they only allowed you to pay for "unlimited" on their top speed plan. Like I said their unlimited was also a straight up lie.
To be fair at that house I had roomates so we were all splitting it 4 ways.
nope
I'm in EU and I have 2 different internet connections without a data cap, because I work from home and don't want to commute to the office if one type is down. Both have bandwith caps tho (that way they are cheaper and it's still good enough for me).
However, I want to suggest you use traffic shaping. In Linux, I used "trickle" many years ago, so I could download things without disturbing my family streaming or video calling. Idk how it works in other OSes, but the idea is to send a big download through a special network filter that slows it down to your configured bandwith, delaying it so much that you don't reach your bandwidth cap. (The dowload will take months.) Also, I think I have seen something like this built into Steam and Filezilla. If I remember correctly Steam also had the option to pause downloads manually, but you have to remember to keep an eye on it, if you do that.
Qbittorrent has the option to set limits for both upstream and downstream bandwidth. I believe this works on any platform. Not sure if Mac or Windows have system level bandwidth settings.
I had to sign up for a business account because of Cox's data cap. Sadly they're my only option and they suck ass.
Not a chance.
Well, we've just crossed into what will be a third-phase Corporatocracy, and a Monopoly gamed service industry.
You have other options now that are not the usual players, but then you're giving money to Starlink.
You have the option of organizing to create a local fiber concern as a public utility, but in a few months they'll pass laws preventing that from ever happening.
Your best option on the Internet between is an unlimited cell plan and a hotspot, and it's not a great option, but the competition is still so heavy that your bill won't change. Higher latency, but probably decent throughput.
It’s definitely not going to happen in the next 4.5 years. Paying the extra for unlimited data is basically a must these days.
To make myself feel better about it, I try to use as much data as possible every month. Not because there’s actually a good reason for the data caps, but because I’m spending the money, so I might as well. My personal best so far is 7TB in a month 😂
So many Linux ISOs 😅 definitely not anything else.
I'm sure you downloaded a few system builder Windows ISOS too you smug bastard 🤭
1.9TB is our high and that’s with 2 adults and 3 data hungry kids. 7TB!? Good lord!
This is just my past month... I have no idea what my record is... but would likely be significantly higher as I slowed down on some stuff recently. I need more harddrive bays/harddrives... Stupid ebay doesn't have what I want.
Edit: here's past 90 days as well
It's just bizzare to me that there's data caps on your internet plans. Especially since you're already paying 5x more than I'm for unlimited connection. I assume there must be some other reasons for this too than just greed. Perhaps the size of your country? I mean even Texas alone is almost as big as entire Europe.
And while the USA are roughly double the area of the European Union, the whole continent of Europe is larger than the US.
Some cities have municipal internet service, which they are able to provide at a much, much lower rate than commercial options. Here's one example of a resident in Lafayette, La. They would on average pay $73.10 annually on the municipal network, versus $690.87 annually on a private network. The same article also shows much lower average rates for commercial networks when they have to compete with public services.
So yeah, it's just greed.
You can't feign growth without suppressing growth first
If you live in a city, then internet speeds are in fact getting faster.
20 years ago I had a 3Mbps line. 10 years ago it was 80. Now I'm getting gigabit speeds and paying less than ever ($60/mo). I know I'm bragging but it feels good to live in an area with competition.
Yeah, you guys are screwed.
Crappy (30-40mbit/sec) but uncapped FTTC here, plus 5G FVA at 300mbit/sec but 1Tb monthly cap here.
Combining both and separating heavy traffic (fucking fortnite and many steam big games) on the crappy uncapoed, and arr'ing too, leaves tons of data for high speed anything.
Total cost? 22€ + 24€ = 46€/month, no surprises. A lot more expensive than having fiber indeed, but I am deep into the woods, so.
Ah, and when i go over my 1Tb data cap on the FVA, I get throttled to 6mbit/sec, nothing extra to pay.
So I’m familiar with the Fiber to the Cabinet/Curb (FTTC), but the only FVA I’m familiar with is an attenuator and I know you’re not talking about checking light levels through fiber. What’s FVA in this context?
I'm guessing here, but the only thing that makes sense in context is Fixed Wireless Access, FWA.
Maybe some error with the initialism snuck in because Shimitar is from Italy. I could see myself doing something similar, since in German we read W as "vee".
Exactly! FWA... My typo ;)
Ah, that would make sense.
Yes, my typo.. FWA ;)
I don't know where you are or what other ISPs are involved, but skimming some discussion online, it looks like these Cox guys -- at least in the several locations I see being discussed, if not everywhere -- have data limits on all of their residential plans, though they have business plans that do not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoxCommunications/comments/hf6zwf/cox_resumes_unnecessary_data_caps/
That particular snippit was four years back, so I suppose prices and speeds might have changed.
So might be worth looking into that in your area if that's what you're after.
I'm not concerned with download speeds. 120Mbps is plenty, you haven't got anything to complain about there.
I want square up/down speeds, unlimited data as standard, or at least offered, and wider availability.
So many places are still relying on DSL or sattelite. It's getting so much better with Starlink, but more options are more better.
I can get 1.2Tbps down (I pay for 300Mbps), but I can't do anything better than 40Mbps up (I get 25Mbps up with my plan with NO option to upgrade). It's ridicoulous as a self hoster, my partner and I saturate the connection by each watching a movie that I host at the same time. I'm pretty sure it's just trying to make sure that, if you have a business, you pay for business internet.
In my situation (Xfinity) I can pay an upcharge of 30 bucks per month for unlimited data, which I do.
Tl;dr: we should focus on wider availability, better upload speeds, and unlimited data, in that order, before anything else.
Comcast guy told me the issue with symmetrical up/down speeds is the frequencies they use. not sure if that is accurate, but my area is getting constant upgrades, I hear about them through my clients. I have 1gb fiber which is amazing.
these caps are weird, I upload almost a TB of data per day sharing files.
Yeah, I've heard about that too. Hopefully they can upgrade that around here, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. I don't even need or want to pay for 1 gig. All I need is like a couple hundred Mbps square.
yeah, I downgraded to 300/300, almost never hit 1gig even when I ran game servers
Idk about data caps, but I used to get 3MB/s and I had to be happy for it. Things are better.
I think because of recent programs new ISPs have popped up all over the USA. The IIJA invested in infrastructure and startups to increase number of servicers to areas with few to no providers.
So I guess it depends on which representatives we send to Congress and the White House.
That's more c/usa tho (politics) and less c/technology.
Yes. This is neither news nor an article. Report it.
Consider WISPs like Verizon/T-Mobile. They absolutely will kick you off for excessive usage, but 1.5 terabytes would not be considered excessive usage.
That’s not a WISP, just fyi. That’s just a cellular hot spot. Cellular hot spots operate on frequencies in the RF spectrum, the same frequencies that your cell phone connects to.
A WISP is an ISP that serves internet over microwave radios, which operate not in RF frequencies but in microwave frequencies. They might use point to multi point radios, where a radio on a mountain top feeds signal to many smaller radios at each subscribers house in a valley below. They might also have fiber to an apartment building, with fiber to each unit, then use a point to point radio as a wireless backhaul to connect another apartment building across a river that can’t have fiber run directly to it. They’ll still have fiber running to each unit in that second building though.
TLDR; cellular providers are not WISPs.
I think your splitting hairs there a bit as a cellular internet service provider is a wireless internet service provider because the thing you put in your window does not connect to anything except for electricity. Also, 2.5 gigahertz and 3.7 gigahertz are both higher frequencies than what your microwave uses to cook your food. The only difference is the power and the range.
I never said anything about a microwave cooking food, I said they used microwave radios.
A hotspot is a cellular modem with a wireless lan radio. It is provided by cellular network operators in order to allow the connection of non-cellular network devices to connect to the cellular network, and thus the internet as a whole.
A WISP is not a cellular network operators, a WISP is a Wireless ISP, who provide internet to customers over wireless microwave radios.
The FCC classifies and regulates these operators as distinct entities. I am not splitting hairs, they are different.
Go to WISPAPALOOZA and tell all the WISP people that cellular operators are WISPs lol.
I guarantee you there’s no cellular network operators who are members of WISPA.
Have you not seen over the last couple of years the proliferation of like the T-Mobile Home Internet, Verizon Home Internet and AT&T Home Internet? They provide you a box that sits in your window and connects you to the cellular network using Wi-Fi for your entire house. It's not like those little hotspots used to get a couple years ago. Those had limited Wi-Fi range and could generally only be connected to like 10 devices at once, where these are full home internet replacements.
That’s still just a cellular modem stuffed in to a much better router though. It’s a cellular connection. Yea, with 5g it’s a ton better than 3g, but it’s a cellular connection, provided to you by a cellular network operator. Cellular network operators are their own thing, regulated by the FCC as their own thing, whether the cellular connection is happening on your phone or on your cellular company provided router, it’s still connecting to the cellular network.
Look. Starlink is a satellite internet provider right? But you understand that no wires are physically connecting the starlink terminal to the starlink satellites right? It’s “wireless”. Starlink is not a WISP, it’s a satellite internet provider. T-Mobile or Verizon or whoever aren’t WISPs, they are cellular network operators. They are separate and distinct things.
Language has meaning, words have meaning. A WISP isn’t just an ISP using technology that doesn’t need a wire to your house, it’s a specific thing. You’re using it wrong.
Edit - I can put a SIM card in my MikroTik right now, then unplug the Ethernet cable that runs to my ONT box, and have unbroken internet access. That doesn’t suddenly make the cellular network provider a WISP, it makes them a cellular network provider. I’m accessing the cellular network. They’re providing me access to the network over cellular. Idk how else to explain this.
I see what you're saying, but most people are not going to take that nuance into account. To them, since there is not a wire connecting the device to the network, it is a wireless ISP.
I understand that, but they’re wrong.
To the layperson all internet is Wi-Fi.
I switched to the Tmo 5G internet a few months ago and it has been great. It’s not symmetric, DL is faster than UL, but it almost always matches or beats the 500D/50U cable service I had previously.
Looks like I did hit 1.2 TB one month but am usually half that.
It is definitely very area dependent because I used to live in a super rural area where the wired ISP only gave like 10 down by like one or two up and T-Mobile was doing 70 down by like 20 up. Either way, it was absolutely fast enough and had no issues.
There is an alternative that I wish I could think of the name of that communities have been using for a number of years now to set up cheap, small-scale satellite internet networks. I looked into it once as an alternative for my neighborhood to dealing with the bullshit that is Comcast and Verizon, and ended up getting an ad for milsec strategic level network infrastructure from Boeing or something. Regardless, it's a known and proven alternative that's cheaper than the big guys and has hit a point where some places have set it up as a part of local government run infrastructure.
starlink is a competitor to rural broadband so they'll be squashing that program immediately. Can't have competition.
starlink is musk, fuck him, don't use starlink.
People should use whatever they're forced to use in my opinion. It's not like their purchasing from musk is going to result in any less government interference than purchasing from Verizon or Comcast. They're just quieter about funneling money to repugnant politicians.
I work for a company constructing telecom networks. In my experience there has been a significant increase in fiber networks in the last few years.
Really, it depends on your area but I'd imagine for a large majority of people on the east coast, they will have access to a fiber network if they don't already in the next decade or so.
So for example, out of Comcast projects I've worked on (hundreds over the last few years) the large projects (new builds, new neighborhoods) were mostly fiber. Coax is mostly relegated to the repairs and relocates.
"I get like 120 Mbps max" Literally 5-10x faster than most internet in the UK, no datacaps here though.
are you sure youre not confusing Mbps and MB/s
Nah the UK uses megabits too, because inflating your percieved speeds eightfold is good marketing everywhere.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-broadband-coverage-and-speeds/
out of 650 uk constituancies, 167 have lower average speeds than 120 mbps. the lowest is 48.1
I have literally never seen internet above 40 mbps, even in the middle of Glasgow. Is this based on actual useable internet speeds or just the connection speed to the nearest relay down the street?
no idea, comes from ofcom but i gave up looking
Lol we have 50 mbps/6MBs down right now with DSL.
In theory we could go higher but the allocation is already exhausted for the provider and we don't feel like changing.
I have quantum fiber. 1 Gb up+down. No data cap. $80/mo "price for life."
The only downside is it's still IPv6 Rapid Deployment.
I only have 1Gb/700Mb (for 30€ a month) :-/
The next tier is 10€ more but I don't think I need that 10Gb/10Gb just yet.
What is this "data cap" you Americans are talking about so frequently, is that some super hero like Data Captain America?
;-)
And no static IP addresses yet... Even though it was supposed to be rolled out Q2.
Interesting. I was told I could purchase a static IP from my technician. But I just decided to use Cloudflare DDNS.
I've been repeatedly told by everyone I talk to over there that it's not ready yet... still... even though it was supposed to be ready by end of Q2 this year.
Calling them today still yielded the same answer for me.
I'm forced to use DDNS and a service to route my emails for me. But email and PBX servers really don't do well on DDNS type stuff.
That's rough. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to cope with these limitations, but so far at least I'm happy with the bandwidth.
Oh for sure, it's boatloads and I love it... but I'm in the market for a /28. I want to hand them like $40 extra a month. LET ME PAY YOU QUANTUM/LUMEN/CENTURYLINK/LEVEL3. It's effectively free money as once it's setup there's nothing that changes or goes down. There's so little maintenance/upkeep cost to it that I just don't understand why they don't want to print free money.
We used to have it terrible in the UK in the 90s and 2000s. Basic ADSL was trialled in 1999 and available in maybe late 2000 I think. But it stagnated for a while.
When it came to fibre, interesting things are happening. As well as the "national" (although privatised) telco installing it, there are many independent companies fitting it. Where I live I have the option of the official telco (1000/110) and a private company (1000/1000). Of course I chose the latter :P
Some people have 3 or more options.
Yeah in the future there might well be a handful of overall winners that vacuum up the losers and carve up the territory. But right now, it's a good time for the normal people... At least for internet.
EDIT: Just to add, some are ISPs and will only sell their own product. Some are wholesale, so even if they're the only company in your area, you can often buy from multiple ISPs through them.
There are places on the US that have a similar thing going on. I can get my fiber from 2 ISPs, same line. I can also turn it off or on when I want and I can pay month to month on either. However, this is super rare here.
The real problem is that the US has allowed corporations to make laws and basically run the infrastructure. We need some serious lobbying overhaul or outright ban and lawmakers and judges to have a damn backbone to those with $. It’s ridiculous.
There is a limited ecosystem of smaller competitors who sometimes rise to this bullshit and offer something better. It really depends where you are. Sonic dug up some streets across town to put in fiber. They don’t serve my neighborhood, but I’m close enough that ad targeting keeps showing me ads for their new fiber service
༼ ༎ຶ ᆺ ༎ຶ༽
No, it's going to get worse with the Trump administration.
The internet has been, broadly speaking, downhill for some time.
Ziply fiber is awesome. Longshot, but you might want to check.
At this point, I wonder why people aren't simply laying down cable between eachothers homes to create communitary networks.
Because thats not the internet, thats LAN
Make a large enough LAN and you get a small internet hub.
That's quite the investment
How much is your average subscription over there?
Probably like $120/month. You can certainly get lower, if you want like 15Mbps.
The infrastructure cost is prohibitively expensive though. Current ISPs have rigged it so the barrier for entry is massive. And making something actually widespread will force you to get permits from local government, which the ISPs lobby.
No, no.
I literaly mean you pull a cable between yours and your neighbors house. Then the next house and so on and so forth.
Like building a record breaking lan party.
Okay so is it your immediate neighbour only because as soon as you go onto public land you need permission, duct acces and consider traffic management.
No one here trusts their neighbors like that lol. It would be awesome though
Well, the idea would be for one of them to get a business class connection, then they all split the price.
People have done this. That was a story I read maybe 6 months ago about a guy that couldn't get FiOS at his location. They kept jerking him around on getting the business class connection then the fiber contractors kept drinking around it's kind of hard to pull this off in a way where the companies don't jack you around.
…is starlink an option for you?
Do I have to say it? Starlink is much worse in every metric compared to fiber. It's a decent option for people that don't have access to fiber or need internet in remote places.
We got one for our camper. Works really well though we only use it in the summer months. What are your complaints?
Starlink roughly compares to mobile internet. And not particularly favorably on average. It's good if you live in a place where even cell service doesn't reach or is super old. But it doesn't compare to even a cheap/bad wired connection for bandwidth, but especially for latency.
I don't have complaints, it's just not a comparable technology. It has much lower bandwidth and way higher latency for a higher price. It's good for its purpose which is to give access to people that could not get it otherwise.
I pulled down 100mbps and was able to FaceTime just fine. Maybe too much lag for serious online competitive play, but I never measured it.
And no bandwidth caps from what I’ve seen.
Coax used to get faster than 100mbps. We are in an age where 1Gbps is standard in many parts of the world thanks to fiber. Again, starlink is cool but not a direct competitor to cabled internet today.
Sure, but many people in the US have only one option for hardwired internet. Starlink and 5G options are the only other option.
Starlink?