Comments on: The Internet Gas Gauge

By: Truther

Truther — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:28:45 +0000

I use TW and may have to find another ISP. I transfer GIGs of work/gaming/school files that exceed their stated “40G plan” emailed to me. I do not need to be watching when I up/down files for websites that include videos of large sizes. Talking family videos for example.

I think this is a shame. Real bloody shame.

By: xdreamwalker

xdreamwalker — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:09:20 +0000

Okay, my household bandwidth use for the month of June is in. Get ready for it… 70779198.118 KB! Google converts that to 67.5003034 GB
I used PRTG Monitoring in conjunction with my hacked Linksys router. The real killer is that this only accounts for 88% of total traffic. In order for PRTG to work the computer with the capture software as to always be on, and there were some instances when it was off for extended periods of time.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:48:56 +0000

To get back to the original point of the post…

I would love a bandwidth meter. I’ll point out though that at least for me, most of the usage isn’t going to be tracked by installing a program on my Windows desktop. I watch TV shows on Tivo, movies on my Apple TV, watch TV remotely using a slingbox, etc all of which wouldn’t be captured by this windows program, and all of which probably exceed the bandwidth of my windows desktop. At the moment a meter that tied into statistics on my router might be good enough, though that might ignore a small amount of traffic, and it would have to include attack probes and such that the firewall in the router blew off if those are going to be counted by the MSO.

As you say, it really needs to be provided by the MSO. A little tray icon/Vista widget that would keep this number running would be nice.

I’d also want a way to clamp internet off when I hit my limit, which is a feature they should provide. Too bad if I miss some Tivo updates for a few days or whatever.

Glenn

By: matt

matt — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:53:33 +0000

Bandwidth caps are a step back toward the dial up days. Remember when you were limited to so many hours per month.

I have no idea how much I even use and I want to keep it that way.

By: Mari Silbey

Mari Silbey — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:14:33 +0000

I don’t think a 40GB cap will hold up. It should be much, much, much higher. But I have to say I’m not against caps on principle. It would be nice to have unlimited access, but possibly unrealistic.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:13:37 +0000

It’s BS. I’m not opposed to limits, but 40GB is way too low – that threshold needs to be reevaluated. I’d exceed it with video downloads and Mozy backups. Unless that’s their point – use our VOD service, use our backup service, use our VoIP service. Hmmm…

By: Tim A.

Tim A. — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:03:00 +0000

What about all the products that use/rely on the internet? Am I going to have start worrying about how much bandwidth the latest update for my TiVo, Wii, and PS3 consume? How much bandwidth does the TiVo guide download take? What about other embedded devices that “phone home” to get updates or check status? All those RSS feeds suddenly might impact my monthly internet bill.

And what about internet based games? How will World of Warcraft be able to continue if I am worried about my bandwidth usage? It seems to me that many different companies will be severely impacted so they need to come together and push back against this change.

What about emails, and junk email? Who is going to pay for the parts of my monthly usage is being wasted by spammers? I will have to start charging the cable companies for every email they send me, and every cable modem update they push out. What about hackers scanning my home address over the internet? If the cable cos want to rescue some of their bandwidth why aren’t they taking down all those addresses that are scanning for NetBios ports and SSH ports? Or at least build intelligent filters to limit or remove them from wasting my bandwidth.

The result of this will be personal “rationing” of the internet. New services and types of product will be stifled. Innovation will slow down or die.

This is a really bad thing. There is no upside for the customer, unless there is a lower-cost “limited bandwidth” version of the service, while the all-you-can-eat is the same or only slightly more expensive than today.

Maybe this will push the communities, cities, and counties to continue free (or low cost) WiFi/WiMax deployments.

By: Chris B.

Chris B. — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:25:12 +0000

Although I should have learned by now, this move is surprising, even for cable companies. One of the reasons given by Time Warner for the test is to charge appriopriately to finance infrastructure upgrades, which is nonsense. How is surcharging .5% of Internet users going to pay for technology upgrades?

If this is implemented worldwide (and I assume that Comcast will launch something similar shortly), it won’t be long before everyone is paying more for less, otherwise known as business as usual. This completely reeks of cell phone service plans, which should not be emulated.

Ugh…I’m just disgusted.