Due to the amount of traffic on the internet, ISPs are now considering limiting the amount of time we spend online.
Now, Internet service providers are starting to limit the availability of dishes that are popular with the big eaters (controlling traffic). They're also considering telling us to stick to two helpings per person (limiting monthly downloads). They might end up doing both.
If this trend continues, you will be limited to so many hours online per month and only able to download so much. Does this make you angry? It does me. For starters, how are you going to enforce this on businesses? Will our public libraries only have internet access for a few hours each month, clogging up already long lines in some places?
The consumer ISPs at the forefront of these trends are cable providers. Comcast Corp. has become the poster case for traffic control by hampering some file sharing, and Time Warner Cable Inc. is testing monthly bandwidth caps.
This is hardly an accident, because congestion is a greater threat to cable companies.
Of course. If you can't get online, then they suggest you watch cable TV instead.
But these solutions [of upgrading] cost money. Stan Schatt, an analyst at ABI Research, estimates that cable providers need to spend $24 billion through 2012 to upgrade their networks.
It's simpler to limit what people can see and then give the profits to the shareholders, isn't it?
Phone companies like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., which operate digital subscriber lines, aren't immune to congestion. But since phone lines aren't shared, bottlenecks for DSL service are deeper in the system, on routers and fiber-optic links that are easier to upgrade.
So you're pretty much screwed no matter which way you go.
It's sad that companies choose profits over service.
Quamp's discount manga/anime fan fiction
The Texas Conventions a Collection of artwork I've collected over various conventions.
