You have a water meter, a gas meter, a power meter and an internet bandwidth meter.
An internet bandwidth meter?
- Can you imagine picking your ISP plan based on how much bandwidth you were going to use?
No more unlimited web surfing. - Can you imagine a monthly usage cap of 25GB?
You can go over your cap for $2.00 per gigabyte. - Can you imagine buying bandwidth insurance?
You can get 40GB of additional data for only $4.75 per month (No rollover bytes).
On March 1st, the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission will impliment ‘Usage-Based Billing’ in Canada.
Here’s a before and after look at Canadian DSL rates:
God Bless America.
[via Ars]
Joanna says
Welcome to the life of an internet user in Australia. Imagine a monthly cap of 12 gig that is shared by multiple users. If you use too much your access gets slowed to dial up speed for the rest of the month and you face the wrath of the rest of the household who has to put up with it. Thankfully our cap has been increased a bit but we still have to watch it as unlimited plans are not available in our area
Eric Dye says
Certainly eye opening.
Thank you for sharing your experience from your corner of the world!
Thankfully we have not limit in Italy.
Michael says
i’ve got an idea.
let’s send out discs for aol that give 2,344 hours for $19.99.
Eric Dye says
How about floppies?
Jeremy Roseman says
Although I haven’t personally had to suffer this, I know that Comcast in the U.S. has started or is about to start something similar limiting service to 250 GB a month. Although that said, it’s still better than what your experiencing by far. Although I would love to have some of those upload speeds since I’m limited to 90k.
Eric Dye says
Once you’ve experienced usage without any limits, anything is going to be a huge bummer. That being said, there’s a huge difference between having a 25GB limit and a 250GB limit.
90k?
Yikes!
Ben says
We just got a notice from Cox that our bandwidth was being limited and if we went over we would be automatically upgraded to the next plan. I heard Netflix was going to start charging for bandwidth as well. Is the US starting to tax bandwidth or is it just another way to generate more profit?
Eric Dye says
I think the boom in broadband use is catching-up with companies, so they’re doing this to offset the cost of maintenance and expansion.
James Brooks says
I saw this the other day which gave me some LOLz:
http://celsiusgs.com/images/fun/ssdnet.png
Eric Dye says
Classic.
BenJPickett says
I’ve got a friend who exceeded the 250GB cap that Comcast sets recently. They sent him a very threatening email saying this act has put him in violation of the terms he agreed with when he signed up for service, his first offense was waived, for his second offense he would be billed overage fees. And if he offended a third time his service would be cancelled.
I understand that ISPs are incurring more charges and taxes and fees now, but lets get real for a second. Comcast, in 2010, saw a 22% earnings increase to $5.4 billion. The fact that they are considering passing this increased earnings on to customers by inflating bills is just disturbing. Especially taking new markets into consideration and the growth expected from the buyout/merger with NBC.
Eric Dye says
Whoa. That’s crazy!
Thanks for the info!!!
Phillip Gibb says
wow. Best that I can get in my Country is 15Gb with free usage between 2am and 5am at R799 (including line rental), thats 113 Canadian Dollars.
Eric Dye says
Take-off, eh!
(Where are you at?)
Phillip Gibb says
South Africa
Eric Dye says
I suppose you have a better handle on this being International, then.