5 Reasons ISPs Implement Bandwidth Caps

it doesn’t work that way explaining bandwidth allocation like an eat all you can restaurant.in the first place subscriber has a internet speed based subscription.that’s already capping..sample if have a 1mb subscription you can not and never will have a 5mb internet ,,why because from the beginning your connection is already limited to your based subscription,,so the term capping is just one way of lie,,,they want more subscriber more than what they can handle..there no need to reduce allocated internet speed if the isp has limit there subscriber to what there network can handle…

Assuming that I consume 30 GBPS Per month, a 6 mbps connection with 30 GBPS pricing only at P1000 could solve my rant!

This article is junk.

We should use the internet how we see fit.
If I want 24 hour downloading, I will.
That is not abuse, that is what I pay for.

If I dont like what I see, I go to another provider.

It’s a good thing the NTC did not immediately enforced such capping considering the strong lobbying from telecos. Kudos for NTC in allowing public consultation on this matter. What a pain in the a** if this will be approved agad!

Nag-comment na ako sa ibang thread, pero heto rin in case:

http://www.pinoytechblog.com/archives/ntc-ditched-bandwidth-cap-proposal-whats-next

http://newsbytes.ph/2011/01/10/telco-group-yes-to-broadband-cap-no-to-minimum-speed/

ganito ka kapal ang mukha nila

tubong lugaw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! greedy telco comp!!!

Oh, sorry.. What i means is,

New Price: 1024 Kilobytes per second=P999/month
not the
Old Price: 125 Kilobytes per second=P999/month. :)

In response to the reasons:

1. First, this is absurd. I’m pretty sure the contract for residential connections restrict it’s use commercially.

Second, it doesn’t really matter how a residential subscription is used. 1 computer using the full extent of the line uses the same bandwidth as 100 computers sharing it; you cannot get faster speeds or consume more bandwidth than your plan allows.

2. Spot on. Note that the bottom line for the ISPs is to hit a certain amount of revenue. Overselling does not make them unprofitable, just less profitable than what they could be by taking in as many subscribers as they can regardless of the impact too many subscribers will have on the service as a whole. It’s pure greed.

3. This is an outright fabrication. If you are on an unlimited 1Mbps line, it should not be considered an abuse to maximize it’s use since that is exactly what you paid for.

The concept of “abusive users” is made up to act as the ISP’s scapegoat. The reason the network is strained is because there is just too many subscribers on it. You know there’s something wrong with with the network’s capacity when 2% of it’s subscriber base degrades the whole service.

Instead of making excuses and using these so-called abusive users as an excuse to cap bandwidth, they should upgrade their capacity.

4. This is a reason to cap bandwidth? Seriously? If an area is getting more bandwidth than it’s users can consume, the logical thing to do is to re-appropriate this excess bandwidth to areas that need it, not impose bandwidth caps on everyone.

5. Again, pure greed. They know what their network capacity is. It is obvious from the spotty service that the network is already strained as it is and still they want to add even more subscribers in?

I’ll explain the scenario in a metaphor. It’ll be simplistic and not mathematically accurate but the idea is the same.

ISPs are like eat-all-you-can buffets. For example, they buy 100 crates of food. These 100 crates of food can feed 100 people since the few people who eat more than what they pay for are offset by the vast majority who eat less then what they pay for.

So now, the ISPs have been slowly and steadily letting more people in without buying more crates of food. So they end up making much more money with the same amount of crates of food. Of course, with more people eating, there would be less for everyone so people start complaining.

The ISPs in turn, instead of buying more crates of food to accommodate everyone as what is the proper thing for them to do, they start telling people that some of the customers are abusing their eat-all-you-can buffet so they have to start limiting how much everyone eats. So they effectively advertise as an eat-all-you-can buffet and charge people the premium for that and yet rations the food into servings.

This is essentially what the ISPs want to happen here.

“That means, if they sell you a 1Mbps connection for Php999, they might be actually allocating just 0.25Mbps to that subscriber so they can sell 3 more accounts to fit the actual 1Mbps allocation.”

sounds cheating right? anu paki ko sa income nila..at the very first place sila ang nagsasabi na 1mbps for 999..if they are actually just givin customer 1/4 of the said speed that is a F$%@$&G cheating!!!

There is no valid reason to penalize every consumer for the abuses of some and the inadequacies of the service provider. I agree with the posts above, in a developing country like the Philippines, capping is the way backward. The clear path is to improve the network capacities to support the demand.

I have been a subscriber with PLDT and I have never experienced the advertised speeds. I really feel bad that some people get to exceed their badwidth while I languish with slow speeds. Now with the badwidth cap, all the more frustrating. BOO for supporting this!

[quote]SmartBro, Smart’s wireless broadband service – through its wholly-owned subsidiary Smart Broadband, Inc. – continued to expand as its wireless broadband subscriber base grew 71% to
reach 596,000 as at end-March 2009, 183,000 of which were on SmartBro’s prepaid service.
Wireless broadband revenues grew 40% to P1.3 billion, a significant improvement over the P 919 million recorded in the first quarter of 2008. [/quote]

[quote]Retail DSL continued its strong performance as broadband subscribers grew by over 38,000 to 471,000 at the end of March 2009 from 433,000 at the end of 2008. PLDT DSL generated P1.6 billion in revenues in the first quarter of 2009, up 27% from P1.3 billion in the same period in 2008, accounting for about 50% of the PLDT Group’s broadband and internet revenues for the year. [/quote]

http://www.firstpacific.com/admin/upload/media/press/ep090505.pdf

nalulugi ang smart bro and pldt dsl?

huh? These are pure BS. Don’t ever put the trash of our country in other country’s lawn. Other countries still offering 64kbps dial-up connections and are getting actual 64kbps speed. While our 1mbps connection only get a 10th of the advertised speed. Big difference.
This bandwidth cap only proves that we do not need a better infrastructure just to increase the speed. And the fact that they can implement this right away only means that they have been screwing their subscriber from the very start.

ung pinsan ko nag speedtest 30mbps internet download speed nya… sabi ko niloloko mo lang ako… pero totoo daw. eh itong pldt dsl namin 3mbps lng eh haha

In a third world country like us, it seems network expansion SHOULD be the first thing these telcos must do and capping is way BEHIND of time of cloud computing especially information dissemination is so fast.. Every Filipino netizens @ 24/7 are doing the following (analogy)

1. 4 to 12 hours online in Facebook and other social network sites (even at the office, breaktime, “wee” time, even in your SLEEP time!)
2. “online” status at Yahoo Messenger, Skype and other alike VOIP sevices.
3. “Real time” Twitter status/news updates
4. Legitimate download/upload of games, movies, file transfers, paid subscriptions.
5. Streaming of video or audio (Standard or High Definition)
6. Illegal internet activities

At those internet activities, 1,4, and 5 alone consumes 500 Million bytes to 5 Gigabytes of data per day!

And number 6, more than 100 Gigabytes of data depending on subscription (There are some residential/business accounts seems legitimate in nature but in reality, a syndicated front for illegal internet activities)

But capping the bandwith data, I doubt eradication of “abusive” users can be determined.

i remember before, when ISPs offer trial periods, ang bilis ng connection pag nakasign-up ka na biglang bagal.. tsk.. tsk..

sa mga na-enumerate nyo sir abe, it seems to be more of a TELCO problem than a subscriber problem, lalo na oversubscription, it’s a common problem with them kaya consumer laging talo dito. Yong 3% na abusive users ang liit lang nyan compared to the abuse we receive from the TELCOs.

Before ISPs use to have CIR or committed rate, sana impose yon ng NTC sa kanila, mas matatanggap siguro ng mga tao yong capping if NTC also assures consumers of the quality of service

@Mark Villegas: I think you are confusing “bits” with “bytes”. 1,048,576 bits (or 1 Mbps) is 131,072 bytes per second, thus the maximum download speed you are getting = 125 kilo”bytes” per second is just about right. Basically that 1mbps connection is in terms of “bit”rate.

tumbok na tumbok ni cake! ikasa mo pre!

We need more upgrade on this sh*t!

Daily Jokes

@yuga

I think you should also explain/post regarding the difference kbps vs KBps. Ive been reading some comments and I think some people are not aware of this.

When you subscribe to your ISP’s 1Mbps. You get ~1000 kilo”bits” per second, This is what you usually see in speedtest sites.

when you look at your actual download speed and you see about 100-130KBps, dont be angry, be happy! This is actually normal. 1024 kilo”bits” = 128 kilo”Bytes”. (1 Byte = 8 bits). It means you are actually maximizing your connection!

Back to topic:
Regarding many PCs connecting to one subscription, it is not an excuse! because your 1Mbps supply will cannot magically replicate itself to all connections, it has to share.

the main reason why i disagree to bandwidth capping, slow freaking speeds. dwnload and upload are not equal. download is seriously ‘underpowered’ compared to ACTUAL broadband connections abroad.

1) Subscription Mis-match. Residential subscribers using their connection beyond “residential use” (like for powering their internet cafe businesses).

– Can’t blame them. Especially the small-timers. Why? In your own words:

“(Why? Because a 2Mbps residential subscription is 50% cheaper than a 2Mbps business subscription.)”

Plus it doesn’t matter what if that subscriber wants to share it to 100pc anyway. As what Cake pointed out, a 1Mbps plan is still a 1Mbps plan, it will not go up. The bandwidth will only suffer depending on the usage and the number of user sharing on that same residential plan and will not the entire area (e.g. if I have a 1Mbps plan and 2 of us were sharing, each of us will have a “chance” to have a 50-50 usage depending on how we use our plan or on how it was configured in our router)

Bottomline, this is really lame excuse

2) Over-subscription. ISPs take on more subscribers than they can actually handle. That means, if they sell you a 1Mbps connection for Php999, they might be actually allocating just 0.25Mbps to that subscriber so they can sell 3 more accounts to fit the actual 1Mbps allocation.

If ISPs didn’t allow “over-subscription” on their network, they might need to double the monthly service fees of subscribers just to hit the same annual revenue targets they currently get.

– In the first place, if they want more subscribers then why not upgrade their facilities first? I really hate their excuse of “not feasible because of high expense”. They’ve set-up an Internet provider business so its also their responsibility to upgrade their facilities in order to accommodate more subscribers AND provide them a better service

3) Abusive Users. Subscribers who are downloading files 24×7. That usage pattern can already be considered a business subscription rather than a residential subscription. The term “abusive” is debatable though. It’s the service provider that determines what “abusive” in the same way they’re the ones who defined what is “residential subscription” and “business subscription”.

– Why a business plan if that particular user doesn’t use it to gain profit? There are people out there that buys LEGITIMATE games (i.e. from Steam) and just downloads it directly to their PC because it’s much more cheaper than buying the retail box.

Another one is those who does remote backups/restoration of their PERSONAL data. Do you honestly believe they make profits from that?

Now for users who work remotely and part of their job is they have to download huge audio files, PSD files that they needed in their profession, common guys, most of them has only an average of 5$/hour. Do you think that they can still stay on the game if 1/4 of their income will be going for an Internet business plan?

#4-5

Again, as what I’ve stated on #2 — it is the telco’s responsibility to provide good service for their subscribers. They have the statistical data per area so they are aware which area needs to be upgraded.

@Marcus

Reason #1 is also BS. Even if how many computers they connect, that line is still limited to the speed it’s broadband plan provides.

lok at this pic which compares price per 1mbps around the world for major countries

http://www.billshrink.com/blog/5787/internet-penetration-costs/

unfortunately the big version of the pic is down. my dsl gives me 1 mbps (in fairness 1.3mbps) for 1000 pesos or around $23 a month. That puts me off the scale since the scale only goes up to $20 a month per mbps. #1 is japan with $0.27 per 1 mbps

OK, of the 5 reasons only 1 seems to be right for CAPPING bandwidth, it’s the first 1 when personal use becomes business use (attaching 10 computers and making your own internet shop)

and the other 4 reasons are just B.S.

In response to the reasons:

1. First, this is absurd. I’m pretty sure the contract for residential connections restrict it’s use commercially.

Second, it doesn’t really matter how a residential subscription is used. 1 computer using the full extent of the line uses the same bandwidth as 100 computers sharing it; you cannot get faster speeds or consume more bandwidth than your plan allows.

2. Spot on. Note that the bottom line for the ISPs is to hit a certain amount of revenue. Overselling does not make them unprofitable, just less profitable than what they could be by taking in as many subscribers as they can regardless of the impact too many subscribers will have on the service as a whole. It’s pure greed.

3. This is an outright fabrication. If you are on an unlimited 1Mbps line, it should not be considered an abuse to maximize it’s use since that is exactly what you paid for.

The concept of “abusive users” is made up to act as the ISP’s scapegoat. The reason the network is strained is because there is just too many subscribers on it. You know there’s something wrong with with the network’s capacity when 2% of it’s subscriber base degrades the whole service.

Instead of making excuses and using these so-called abusive users as an excuse to cap bandwidth, they should upgrade their capacity.

4. This is a reason to cap bandwidth? Seriously? If an area is getting more bandwidth than it’s users can consume, the logical thing to do is to re-appropriate this excess bandwidth to areas that need it, not impose bandwidth caps on everyone.

5. Again, pure greed. They know what their network capacity is. It is obvious from the spotty service that the network is already strained as it is and still they want to add even more subscribers in?

I’ll explain the scenario in a metaphor. It’ll be simplistic and not mathematically accurate but the idea is the same.

ISPs are like eat-all-you-can buffets. For example, they buy 100 crates of food. These 100 crates of food can feed 100 people since the few people who eat more than what they pay for are offset by the vast majority who eat less then what they pay for.

So now, the ISPs have been slowly and steadily letting more people in without buying more crates of food. So they end up making much more money with the same amount of crates of food. Of course, with more people eating, there would be less for everyone so people start complaining.

The ISPs in turn, instead of buying more crates of food to accommodate everyone as what is the proper thing for them to do, they start telling people that some of the customers are abusing their eat-all-you-can buffet so they have to start limiting how much everyone eats. So they effectively advertise as an eat-all-you-can buffet and charge people the premium for that and yet rations the food into servings.

This is essentially what the ISPs want to happen here.

siguro ang mali lang talga e ung consumer education at advertisement. the word ” unlimited” is the real culprit here.

other than that, I think the statements above help enlighten some people about the issue. that for once, they can try to look at the ISP’s perspective.

kung kailangan na talaga ng CAP, I hope they can compensate it with the actual “advertised” speed.

I just got it apreciated, ‘The Image Above’ very meaningful image.

Abusive??? Debatable to dahil unlimited nga eh. In the first place why offer unlimited kung hindi kaya ng facilities niyo??? Dapat nilimit ang number ng mga subscribers sa limit ng facilities niyo. Dapat hindi kayo nagooverload ng subscribers. Kumabaga sa sinehan at mga concerts bakit ka magoffer ng mga seats na hindi mo naman kaya iprovide.

booo pa rin…. fine prints should ought to be illegal.

Additional:

1GB = US$20

“In addition, there should also be provision for buying additional download cap if you’re a heavy user similar to what Wi-Tribe is doing, but not at the prices it’s offering which is P200 for 1gb.”

Sort of make wi-tribes 1GB for P200 very reasonable.

@Everyone

What will happen if the limit is already exceeded?for example your limit is 100GB then you are in the middle of the month then you finished the 100GB, will the internet be cutted off imediatley?

This is BS.. I’m paying them monthly for a 1mbps connection but all i get is 100kbps-125kbps max, and now they’ll be putting up usage cap. When I had an internet cafe before, PLDT inspects their subscribers if their using residential lines for internet cafes (I was one that got caught doing that) so had no choice but to change to a business line that doesn’t improve the performance at all.

This would be unfair for those people who uses up their residential lines fairly

I’d rather have a cap (decent cap) than have crappy internet.

the problem I got with PLDT is that when they up the bandwidth offerings of the new plans, the current users don’t get any upgrade, which is very frustrating on the loyal users.

we were a loyal customer of a business line of 2Mbps for 6 years. We pay Php 3,500 for it each month.
and what we got for it are:
1. constantly interrupted connection.
2. we never got the max 2Mbps (even at night) not even a constant 1Mbps.
3. then they offered 3Mbps at the price of Php 3,000

I asked them about any upgrade since lugi kami… they couldn’t answer me.

I hope the bandwidth caps are on a per month basis than per day..

Then they better advertise their service as it is. Do not say unlimited if its not really unlimited (or put an asterisk and a note below their advertisements)

sana nga lang dumating dito yan.

Ang pinakakawawa dito is ung big online games like levelup games and egames sobra lakas kumain ng bandwidth ng mga laro nila ang majority ng mga naglalaro ng games nila ay residential subscribers….. imagine per game ilan milyon na naglalaro kung matutuloy ang capping mawawala ng milyon milyon ang 2 kumpanya na ito…. Sana magisip na muna ang mga nasa NTC…. Ban the free download site kamukha ng ginawa ng US sa Limewire not capping the internet connection. kapag natuloy ito pinapakita nila kamangmangan ng NTC….

there can be tons of reasons to profit ISPs! lmao

UPGRADE THE WHOLE SHIT!