AT&T data caps

Ok, but every year more and more customers are expanding what they use internet for. A year or so ago, netflix was pretty much only streaming to computers now 360s, ps3s, wiis, new tvs, new bluray players have expanded that market well beyond what it was. Essentially i look at it like the ISPs were attempting to cover expanded costs of improving their networks to allow for these newer services by charging the service providers in some form. Since that was a no-go, they are left to either eat the costs of it themselves. (keep in mind for most ISPs they have a limited number of potenial customers based on their service areas and improvements to networks might not really translate into new customers), they can pass those costs along to their customers (something i think is unfavorable IMO), or they can put reasonable limits on the service being provided (which it appears att is doing). However i think its safe to say that the one thing they wont do is allow the cost of upgrading to limit the potenial earnings of their stockholders profit margins.

But really though my local ISP is being paid by me to "Deliver" the content i request from the web, as more and more thing go online, as my options to use the web more and more go up, that will eventually strain a network that wasnt intended or thought out to provide as much bandwidth as is now becoming the norm. Kinda like an LA freeway, 50 years ago when they were built no one expected the boom in cars and population that no clog them up on a daily basis. IMO this is happening now to the internet, and everyone that stands to profit from the internet is standing around looking at the other guy to flip the bill to fix the problem.

Completly, 100%, irrelevant.

If the ISPs cannot supply their advertised services, then that is their fault for overstating their capabilities. Combined with the lack of infrastructure buildout (previously linked, supposedly $250 billion has been given to the telcos since the 1990s ostensibly to fund these buildouts but with zero return on the public's investment with even more billions to come) and they have no one to blame but themselves. Combine THAT with the apparent willingness to stand in the way of municipal buildouts of fiber projects through lawsuits and you have an even bigger blame. Combine THAT with the monopolistic nature of the current ISP landscape for most people and you have zero incentive to upgrade your services. Combine THAT with continually decreasing costs-of-transport and hardware.

Blaming the public for using what they are paying for is disingeneous at best.

Again, irrelevant. Would you expect the money resulting from double-dipping to actually be applied to upgrading infrastructure? Or, more likely, going to pad the bottom lines of the telcos? And you know who would end up footing those costs?

Us.

Either through increased fees on websites, loss of "free" things, or the next Hulu/eBay/Youtube/etc., lost because the operator is unable to pay every ISP in the country a fee. Because no company is going to eat that cost, they will pass it along to the end-customer.

A good read.

DSL is barely a step up from dialup in terms of speed and bandwidth. There's only so much you can do with twisted-pair copper wires.

One thing folks seem to be forgetting, is that an ISP's network doesn't simply continue working on it's own. You have to pay people to maintain it. I work as an Outside Plant Technician for a cable company. I'm one of about 130 people (including the service techs that visit your house when there's a problem and the Inside Plant guys that maintain the lasers for the fiber optic distribution from the hub sites) and we only cover a couple of counties in Jersey.

We're continually upgrading our equipment (amplifiers, nodes, cables as needed, etc) and none of that stuff is cheap, either. The amps we use run about a grand a pop, the fiber optic nodes that translate the light into an RF signal are at least double. Hell, the cable itself is damn expensive. My department always has 3 guys on-call for a week at a time, and we have to have any outage (video or online) back on within 90 mins of being notified.

Point being, you're not just paying for the access to the internet. You're also paying the people that maintain it (Did you know that a simple loose connection could interfere with aircraft, or emergency responders communication, with potentially disastrous results?) and the equipment that makes it work.

Methinks you've forgotten the rather HUGE performance gain of going from 33.6K (56K was a condition only acquired in labs and very VERY new install areas) to 1-3M. Going from 3M to 20M isn't a hugely noticeable difference, save of huge file downloads or multiple smaller downloads.

Try going back to dialup for a bit. Feel a bit of the pain.

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Nope . One of the benefits of working for a cable company is free internet when you live in an area they service

Wasn't actually suggesting you switch to a dialup modem. Merely suggesting that you've forgotten how painful dialup really was if you could say that there's not much difference between DSL and dialup.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Well, depending on your expertise, you could always try clubbing together with neighbors for a bandwidth cooperative.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.