There's a really easy solution to all the noise ISPs are making about bandwidth.
If a provider wants to sell me a 384kbps line, they should offer 120 gb per month. If they want to advertise a 20 mbps line, they should sell me 6.3 tb per month. If they can't provide the capacity, sell me a slower line and I'll be happy when I get bursts of speed. Regional monopolies should be compelled to have transparency in pricing.
Isn't that a good thing? I mean, if the ISP can't actually satisfy the demands of every user at a given level of service, then why is it allowed to advertise that level of service at all? Its a bit like a sports stadium saying, "Yeah, we can seat 50,000 people, provided they don't all want to see the same venue."
It's called oversubscription and it's a very common practise. Statistically, not all of the ISP's customers are going to use all of their quota every month, so why should the ISP provide enough bandwidth to allow them to? That just means they're spending far more on infrastructure than is really necessary to service their customers' actual requirements.
Also, why should the quota be tied to the speed? When I want to download a movie, I want to download it as quickly as possible, but that doesn't mean I want to max out my bandwidth continually.
Regulating that ISPs never have congestion regardless of customer demand might be a good idea; I don't know. But if it is a good idea we need some way to phase it in so that customers understand what's going on. We don't want better service to look like worse service.
There seems to be a large misconception about the nature of the internet. It's not a circuit switched network. When you buy "20mbps" - why on earth would you think you were buying 20mbps to EVERYWHERE - that's just not feasible.
There is not enough core bandwidth to maximize every edge connection out there -there never will be. That's the nature of packet switching and shared connections.
Should ISPs have to be more honest, and more flexible about what types of services they offer? Consumer expectations are changing, and ISP offerrings should reflect that.
I think so - net neutrality is important (for the internet as a global community in and of itself - not just for the "consumer"). The internet grew to what it is based on cooperation - lets' not stop now.
To a very close approximation ISP customers do not fully use their bandwidth. It seems silly to change pricing structures to cater to a tiny minority (less than 1%).
More transparency in regard to caps and utilization would be good, but I don't think metered billing would be the end of the world (provided that it generally approximated what people are paying today).
If a provider wants to sell me a 384kbps line, they should offer 120 gb per month. If they want to advertise a 20 mbps line, they should sell me 6.3 tb per month. If they can't provide the capacity, sell me a slower line and I'll be happy when I get bursts of speed. Regional monopolies should be compelled to have transparency in pricing.