We're never going to have better internet in the USA, are we?
We're never going to have better internet in the USA, are we?
I'm an unfortunate captive of the oligopoly of the internet industry in the USA. In many places, you have 2-3 choices of internet, and all of them suck ass. I'm in this situation. All internet providers in my area have a 1-1.5 terabyte data cap. So when I download Call of Duty for 250 gb and it fails and has to update or reinstall, I've wasted 500 gb, and have now reached 50% of my data cap in just 1 day. There are crazy fees, for example, Cox Cable says:
If you go over, we’ll automatically add 50 gigabytes of data for $10 to your next bill. That's enough for about 15 hours of streaming HD video. If you use that 50 gigabytes, we automatically add another 50 gigabytes for $10 and so on until you reach our $100 limit of data overage charges or until your next usage cycle begins.
So your $90 a month internet can easily become $190 a month, which is fuckin criminal, like that is so scummy and asinine how that can even be legal. But it is perfectly legal. The FCC is also looking into these data caps but now that we have a new anti-federal government president elect... This is probably toast.... Nothing will change now that most federal agencies are about to be deleted.
From a technology standpoint too, nothing is really getting better
Comcast is still using Coax instead of Fiber Optic and desperately trying to convince people that somehow, someway coax can be just as good. Do with that info what you will, I have no opinions on it. There was a Federal program started recently to expand rural internet access, which will probably be gutted in 2025 leaving many without suitable internet again. Fiber Optic is fast, but still, not new technology, and doesn't solve a critical issue.... It doesn't matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast. A single download on Steam is like 450 Mbps, Epic Games launcher is horrifically slow. I get like 120 Mbps max when downloading Fortnite updates even with 1500 Mbps internet hard wired to my router with top tier hardware
It's just sad to think about the future of internet in the USA, and knowing we'll be imprisoned by these data caps for the foreseeable future.
Data caps are insane in 2024
1.5Tb data cap, jeez. I regularly push 6tb of monthly traffic by myself. This feels like mobile internet all over again, but now with wired...
It doesn't matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast.
Just to point out something, yes, there may not be many services online (except torrents perhaps) that will max out your gigabit connection, but you are looking at it from the perspective of a single user. I'm in a family of four, also with a roommate in the house, and with everyone gaming and streaming and doing their thing, it can easily saturate it. We had to pay extra for no caps though or we'd be toast. They at least did offer that. Dicks.
Anyway the point of a high speed connection is to be able to do many things simultaneously, not really one giant thing by itself.
No. And I'm sorry to say, this administration is coming for social media as well. I hate watching the orange potato talk, and I dislike the individual who posted this, but unless you want to sit through a double long "reaction" vid by a youtuber who makes their living "reacting", this is the shortest one.
He wants to gut moderation and make it so it requires a court order to remove any account from social media. There's a lot to unpack here. It's a scripted speech, illustrating the thinkers behind his administration this go. It talks about 1A, says everything in the speech is for 1A, including dumping the Hatch Act (keeps us safe at polling sites and makes buying votes illegal), but you should really listen to what he says about moderation of social media.
To me, it reads as a way of removing any anti-establishment, anti-MAGA spaces to talk without actually removing the spaces.
Echo chambering helps no one folks, I hate hearing him speak too, but you need to hear this one. https://youtu.be/xJfUXVOoFBo?si=pqphBah-_0YwW11V
This is the USA, it's all a pay-as-you-go country. You will be required to work yourself to death to be able to have anything nice at all. That's the model. Corporations make the rules, the government will not help us. Economy, corporate profits and giving money to the wealthy are the priorities. Nothing else matters.
It's totally possible! I live in CO and Comcast had a legal monopoly per state law. Nobody else is allowed to compete with their cable service. But you know what isn't cable? Fiber! A local broadband company just installed fiber in my neighborhood this spring. I signed up for $89/mo gigabit service, no data cap, no installation fees at all. Between when I signed up and when they turned on service, they upgraded my service to 1.2 gigabit, same monthly price, no cap, no commitment, no upsell (their only other service is rural satellite Internet).
I talked to the technician installing it and he said they aren't getting any subsidies from anyone. Not the city, state, or fed. It's simply economically viable to run new gigabit fiber for $89/mo. All it takes is a company that can make the initial infrastructure investment.
The 18-26 year olds just signed over our country to billionaire fascists. I had hopes for them, but they are collectively idiots. Born into late stage capitalism, spent their formative years growing up in the Age of Hate, and actively chugged down propaganda via YouTube and all social media.
No, we are not.
Yeah, pretty much. The way the rest of the world deals with it is by splitting the infrastructure maintenance and retail sides to eliminate the profit incentive to not do maintenance.
You have a company who owns a/the fibre network in an area and is obligated by anti-monopoly rules to sell access to the network at the same rate and terms to anyone who wants it. They have a profit incentive to maintain the network to a reasonable standard because having a functioning network is how they make money. In a lot of places this wholesale provider will be at least part government owned given that the government usually pays a good chunk of the cost to build out large national infrastructure projects like fibre networks.
Separately, you have retail ISPs who buy access to the fibre network (or 4g, satellite, ...) and sell it to the public along with value adds like tech support, IP addresses, peering agreement etc.
It's never work in the US because holding private companies accountable for how they spend public money and maintaining well regulated competitive markets is communism or something.
It doesn't matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast. A single download on Steam is like 450 Mbps
This sounds more like the infrastructure in your area just isn't up to delivering those speeds, regardless what the last mile to the home is.
I promise you Steam's CDN absolutely can deliver more than 450Mbps. It regularly maxes out my 1.5 Gbps at home, and I have no doubt that it could potentially go even faster than that if I had a better connection.
Like plugging a 10Gbps network switch into a 100Mbps gateway, it sounds like a fast final link to the home is being choked out by poor infrastructure in the region and can't be fully utilized.
I feel your pain, I was stuck with Cox for many years and was paying $170 a month for one gig down, 30 megs up. Unlimited data. But the unlimited data was a lie because they called and threatened me once because I was uploading too much, apparently uploading doesn't count for the unlimited data. Stupid assholes.
I was fortunate enough to move recently to a house that actually had fiber. My fiber provider just raised the price of their lowest plan, which is the one I'm on, 500 Mbps symmetrical for $65 a month. It used to be $50 a month. However, they lowered the price of all their faster plans. If I wanted, I could get 8 gigs symmetrical for $150 a month. That's less than I was paying for Cox just a year ago for 1 gig fake unlimited.
At my current provider, all their plans are truly unlimited, even the lowest tier one like the one I'm on.
Nope.
It's just bizzare to me that there's data caps on your internet plans. Especially since you're already paying 5x more than I'm for unlimited connection. I assume there must be some other reasons for this too than just greed. Perhaps the size of your country? I mean even Texas alone is almost as big as entire Europe.
I'm in EU and I have 2 different internet connections without a data cap, because I work from home and don't want to commute to the office if one type is down. Both have bandwith caps tho (that way they are cheaper and it's still good enough for me).
However, I want to suggest you use traffic shaping. In Linux, I used "trickle" many years ago, so I could download things without disturbing my family streaming or video calling. Idk how it works in other OSes, but the idea is to send a big download through a special network filter that slows it down to your configured bandwith, delaying it so much that you don't reach your bandwidth cap. (The dowload will take months.) Also, I think I have seen something like this built into Steam and Filezilla. If I remember correctly Steam also had the option to pause downloads manually, but you have to remember to keep an eye on it, if you do that.
Not a chance.
You can't feign growth without suppressing growth first
I had to sign up for a business account because of Cox's data cap. Sadly they're my only option and they suck ass.
Well, we've just crossed into what will be a third-phase Corporatocracy, and a Monopoly gamed service industry.
You have other options now that are not the usual players, but then you're giving money to Starlink.
You have the option of organizing to create a local fiber concern as a public utility, but in a few months they'll pass laws preventing that from ever happening.
Your best option on the Internet between is an unlimited cell plan and a hotspot, and it's not a great option, but the competition is still so heavy that your bill won't change. Higher latency, but probably decent throughput.
Crappy (30-40mbit/sec) but uncapped FTTC here, plus 5G FVA at 300mbit/sec but 1Tb monthly cap here.
Combining both and separating heavy traffic (fucking fortnite and many steam big games) on the crappy uncapoed, and arr'ing too, leaves tons of data for high speed anything.
Total cost? 22€ + 24€ = 46€/month, no surprises. A lot more expensive than having fiber indeed, but I am deep into the woods, so.
Ah, and when i go over my 1Tb data cap on the FVA, I get throttled to 6mbit/sec, nothing extra to pay.
It’s definitely not going to happen in the next 4.5 years. Paying the extra for unlimited data is basically a must these days.
To make myself feel better about it, I try to use as much data as possible every month. Not because there’s actually a good reason for the data caps, but because I’m spending the money, so I might as well. My personal best so far is 7TB in a month 😂
No, it's going to get worse with the Trump administration.
At this point, I wonder why people aren't simply laying down cable between eachothers homes to create communitary networks.
There is an alternative that I wish I could think of the name of that communities have been using for a number of years now to set up cheap, small-scale satellite internet networks. I looked into it once as an alternative for my neighborhood to dealing with the bullshit that is Comcast and Verizon, and ended up getting an ad for milsec strategic level network infrastructure from Boeing or something. Regardless, it's a known and proven alternative that's cheaper than the big guys and has hit a point where some places have set it up as a part of local government run infrastructure.
Idk about data caps, but I used to get 3MB/s and I had to be happy for it. Things are better.
I think because of recent programs new ISPs have popped up all over the USA. The IIJA invested in infrastructure and startups to increase number of servicers to areas with few to no providers.
So I guess it depends on which representatives we send to Congress and the White House.
We used to have it terrible in the UK in the 90s and 2000s. Basic ADSL was trialled in 1999 and available in maybe late 2000 I think. But it stagnated for a while.
When it came to fibre, interesting things are happening. As well as the "national" (although privatised) telco installing it, there are many independent companies fitting it. Where I live I have the option of the official telco (1000/110) and a private company (1000/1000). Of course I chose the latter :P
Some people have 3 or more options.
Yeah in the future there might well be a handful of overall winners that vacuum up the losers and carve up the territory. But right now, it's a good time for the normal people... At least for internet.
EDIT: Just to add, some are ISPs and will only sell their own product. Some are wholesale, so even if they're the only company in your area, you can often buy from multiple ISPs through them.
Ziply fiber is awesome. Longshot, but you might want to check.
Starlink?