[HN Gopher] Starlink Sets High-Speed Data Cap at 1TB per Month, ...
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Starlink Sets High-Speed Data Cap at 1TB per Month, Lowers
Advertised Speeds
Author : drewrem11
Score : 63 points
Date : 2022-11-04 21:06 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pcmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pcmag.com)
| paxys wrote:
| ISP data caps are a complete scam.
|
| Xfinity offers gigabit connectivity with a 1TB data cap. Which
| means that if someone was actually using the network at those
| speeds it would take them 2.2 hours to get through their allotted
| monthly usage.
| bombcar wrote:
| ISPs are buying long and selling short or whatever it is
| called. They buy transit at some higher priced and fixed (10
| Gb/s or whatever) and resell it to users at advertised speeds
| that are a major fraction of whatever the local uplink is. If
| you buy at 10 Gb/s and sell at 1 Gb/s you obviously can't sell
| to more than 10 users without somehow limiting something.
|
| So data caps are a way to isolate the harmful effects of those
| who use a lot of bandwidth from those who just use it rarely.
| It's standard market segmentation.
|
| You can pay more and get more, or get a business account.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I mean, you could, but you very much thought you were buying
| that already because your provider put a lot of effort into
| leading you to believe that.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I'd only call it a scam when they advertise unlimited and
| still have caps. Otherwise you are just getting what you
| agreed and paid for. If you want to pay for a dedicated
| gigabit line not shared with anyone else, you can, it costs a
| lot.
| paxys wrote:
| Data caps existing to prevent network congestion is a myth.
| At the beginning of the month everyone has their entire cap
| and can use the service as normal. So why doesn't Xfinity go
| down on the 1st of every month with all that heavy usage,
| before users have hit their caps?
| tbihl wrote:
| I reject 'complete scam', though that example is obviously
| egregious.
|
| My 50Mbps plan should be capped (1280GB in my case.) I don't
| know what the utilization factors are, but that would be a lot
| of traffic on what is not a high powered plan, and I appreciate
| the price I get. Even when I try to go for the cap, I've never
| even made it to 400GB (because I don't know how to use that
| much traffic, mostly.)
|
| As with almost all these broadband provider problems, it's the
| barriers to new entrants that prevent sensible equilibrium.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The scam part is where the limits are all disclosed in the
| small print while the large print on their advertising
| material says "unlimited"; it takes serious pilpul to
| redefine that word.
| selectodude wrote:
| AFAIK there's nowhere on Comcast's site that says unlimited
| bandwidth. I just went to sign up and they were pretty
| clear about data caps.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Right on "Xfinity"'s homepage I see them offering
| "Unlimited". Then in the fine print below it, in a much
| smaller font, it says they'll throttle your connection
| after only 20 GB.
|
| Serious pilpul to call that "Unlimited".
| 1123581321 wrote:
| If you're seeing references to throttling and 20GB,
| you've accidentally gone to Xfinity Mobile, their phone
| service.
| treesknees wrote:
| Indeed, and it's happening while cable providers push more
| offerings to IP-based services. Xfinity will hand you a free
| Xfinity Flex streaming box to watch free shows and content that
| all count against your monthly data cap.
|
| My SO and I both work from home full time now, and we will
| easily hit 600-800GB/month. I can't imagine how homes with
| several kids streaming YouTube videos handles this without
| paying the extra monthly fee for the Xfinity modem just to
| remove their data cap.
| ztgasdf wrote:
| > High-speed
|
| > Data cap
|
| Pick one
| simplotek wrote:
| > High-speed Data cap Pick one
|
| Only if you've been scammed by your service provider, which
| advertised services that they are not able to provide.
|
| I don't recall the last ISP I subscribed to in the past decade
| which was not high-speed or imposed a data cap.
| metadat wrote:
| How about door #3: High price
|
| Even Comcast let's you pay an extra fee for uncapped bandwidth,
| physical realities be damned.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Comcast has uncapped speeds like most other residential ISPs
| in states with stronger consumer protection laws
| blahyawnblah wrote:
| I've really only heard of it in areas that actually have a
| competitor
| [deleted]
| metadat wrote:
| IIRC, they suspended to bandwidth caps around the beginning
| of the pando but a year or so ago reinstituted then.
|
| Edit: Looks like Comcast threatened to reinstitute the
| restrictions, then rescinded the action temporarily, but
| only through the end of 2022 [0].
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/16/22840165/comcast-
| data-ca...
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| They must have capped some people in between "threatening
| to reinstitute" and "rescinding", because I suddenly
| started having to pay more for going over 1TB about a
| year ago, mid-pandemic.
| bombcar wrote:
| They will still have caps _somewhere_ because they have to
| protect against network abuse. It may be in some fine print
| that says something about abuse, or it may just be that
| "all customers in this area share a cap" - you can't make
| an upstream connection go faster than it can go.
| nharada wrote:
| Seems fair to slow data after a certain amount (and 1TB seems
| pretty reasonable right now), but it's definitely shady to
| quietly add it to the terms and conditions and not actually tell
| customers.
| pbreit wrote:
| Top of the 1st inning, everyone. Let's not come to too many rash
| conclusions.
| rglover wrote:
| "Hi, I'm Jerry and I've been assigned as your guide to the
| internet. Here, people are...shall we say...a tad _excitable_.
| "
| ortusdux wrote:
| As I understand the situation, I would guess that they are
| bottlenecked by satellite bandwidth capacity. IIRC, they plan to
| launch ~4k units in 2023, which would double the current
| constellation. They will also switch over to version 2.0 units as
| soon as they can, and those are 9x larger and presumably come
| with considerable improvements.
| ravenstine wrote:
| If you believe your ISP's data is "unlimited", then I've got an
| "all you can eat" buffet to take you to.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Capped data makes sense - brings those few people running endless
| torrents and the like into line. I can easily imagine a few
| customers making up a very substantial chunk of starlink's usage
| that way, and given inherent service limitations that probably
| have to address it :/
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| 1TB is not a lot. Even my unlimited phone contract has a fair
| use clause for 5TB. My monthly home use for a 5 person
| household of which three are children is between 2 and 3TB from
| just streaming and home office.
| petra wrote:
| Limit video to 720P and everything will be fine.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I don't think most devices in this household have even
| controls for this, let alone that family members would use
| that. Particularly the kids. Since we have gigabit speeds
| every app happily picks highest bitrate and resolution.
| bombcar wrote:
| Youtube does, but I don't know if you can force it to
| stick.
|
| A "smart router" that slows down packets for video would
| be amusing, if not easy to setup.
| spockz wrote:
| I suppose that would just be the opposite of QoS. If you
| have fixed addresses it should be relatively easy too
| throttle all traffic from those devices.
| Gigachad wrote:
| 720p video is unwatchable on a TV. There is a very sharp
| decline in quality fro 4k to 1080p but its tolerable. I
| would not want to watch 720p unless it was on a phone
| screen.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Musk fans, see why this service wasn't eligible for the rural
| bandwidth benefit?
| tpmx wrote:
| The explicit 1 TB/month data cap is fairly generous for a
| satellite-based service. Speeds are more important/concerning.
|
| I'd also claim that anyone who didn't see explicit data
| caps/throttling coming for a satellite-based ISP service needs a
| reality check. Ever since Starlink launched I saw a lot of
| arguments being thrown around about how SpaceX would just launch
| more satellites using so that it wouldn't be a problem (e.g. in
| HN threads and particularly in r/spacex and r/starlink).
| [deleted]
| thecrumb wrote:
| What a crock. Why are they rolling service out to RVs and planes
| when they don't even have capacity for existing residential
| users...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Because it has to get worse before it can ever get better. The
| current generation of satellites are too small to ever be
| profitable. So they have to get the next generation up there.
| That requires the rocket to be ready, and lots of money. So
| they need to get people signed up even though it will degrade
| everyone's performance, in order to pay for the upgrade that
| will hopefully enable better performance in the future.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Nice way to do business ? Scam people ?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Or... Why roll out to residential users when there are RVs and
| planes still without service?
|
| Anyway, any residential ISP advertising "unlimited" is almost
| certainly full of shit. They shouldn't be allowed to advertise
| with this sort of language when there are in fact limits
| imposed. Leading people to believe otherwise has always been
| unfair.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| Because the initial selling point was "providing access to
| those living in rural areas without great alternatives" and
| then they tried to get a bunch of government funding for
| providing residential connectivity in those areas (And then
| failed at providing it)?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _(And then failed at providing it)?_
|
| Lol, a datacap of 1TB a month is hardly a failure for the
| very rural users who don't have the choice of signing up
| with the likes of Comcast (who pull this same sort of
| "unlimited*" bullshit too.)
|
| I never met a residential ISP that I felt did business
| honestly, but to call Starlink a _failure_ because of a 1TB
| limit is some serious mental gymnastics. Same old scummy
| ISP practices? Certainly. A failure? Give me a break.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I appreciate you said "almost certainly". My cousin runs a
| WISP and when I asked him about someone maxing their
| bandwidth out 100% of the time, he said they'd make it work,
| not limit the customer.
| RGamma wrote:
| Kessler syndrome should kick in any year now.
| pixard wrote:
| $0.25 per GB... uh no thanks. I've generally been happy with
| Starlink but this throws somewhat of a wrench into things. I
| wonder if it will be US only or worldwide.
| tbihl wrote:
| The vast majority of people probably pay much more per GB than
| that. My family's traffic averages maybe 200GB per month.
| bombcar wrote:
| And even more if you look at your cellphone - compare data
| used last month with your bill and divide it out.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Comcast, Time Warner, ATT, all the mobile providers have been
| doing this in the US for years. It makes sense to me to do this
| for something like Starlink that has actual limitations based on
| spectrum/physical availability of chunks of metal hurtling around
| the planet.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Just because there is a cartel that has been operating for
| decades on these terms, that does not mean that new competitors
| should use the same playbook.
|
| In contrast, Google Fiber does not have data caps.
| remus wrote:
| I think the parents point is that starlink has an actual
| reason to cap usage (because launching satellites into space
| is expensive), much more so than traditional providers
| anyway.
| wtallis wrote:
| Congestion should be managed by throttling heavy users only
| at the point of congestion, during congested times.
| Applying a per-month cap is ridiculously coarse and is more
| about punishing users than discouraging behavior that the
| network cannot reasonably support.
| praxulus wrote:
| I would much prefer an explicit data cap known ahead of
| time to random unexpected throttling.
| Dig1t wrote:
| You're definitely correct, and in the cities where Google
| Fiber operates, conveniently, other providers do not have
| data caps as well. The solution to this problem is to
| encourage more things like Google Fiber and break up the
| horrible monopolistic system we have now.
|
| I just think, if anyone should get some understanding for the
| situation, it should be Starlink, based on the constraints of
| their tech.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| I've been a Starlink user since March 2021 and this is a huge
| disappointment. My service quality took a nosedive in January
| 2022, it's clear they greatly oversold capacity and are
| congested. But all along they've been promising these great
| speeds and no caps. Now they aren't even going to pretend they
| might deliver that level of service. Still going to charge me the
| same though.
| floydnoel wrote:
| I'm also a Starlink user and I'm super disappointed in the
| monthly cap. I only use my dish when my regular internet
| connection is broken, which is usually a few weeks per year. So
| in 11 months I'll use 0 bandwidth, then in one month I will
| need to use it for working (and whatever else the family wants
| after work). So I'm going to hit a cap the one month I really
| need to use it out of the year. It should be an annual cap
| instead.
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