Re: Notice to Comcast users!

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Bill Garber <willy46pa@comcast.net> wrote:

> "Steven Lichter" <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> wrote in message
> news:eXtAk.587$D32.0@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com...
> > Bill Garber wrote:
> >> 
> >> "Greg Buchner" <null@none.invalid> wrote in message 
> >> null-59E463.07251418092008@newsgroups.comcast.net">news:null-59E463.07251418092008@newsgroups.comcast.net...
> >>> In article 
> >>> <6b62270b-b0f2-4069-a50b-6fef80dafb67@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> >>> willy46pa <garberstreet@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Sep 17, 8:23 am, Greg Buchner <n...@none.invalid> wrote:
> >>> No, I assume they'd like to charge for all downloads. Sort of like my
> >>> electric bill. I pay some base fees/charges, then everything else is
> >>> billed via how much I use.
> >>>
> >>> It probably won't happen, but I'm sure they'd like that.
> >> 
> >> I am sure, too, but it would cause them more problems than it's worth
> >> trying to legally prove how much we actually 'did' download each month.
> >> Unlike electric, which uses a meter to show our actual usage.  ;-)
> >> Sure it does.  8=O 
> > 
> > It is very simple to tell your usage, the system records any usage when
> > you are logged onto the server, just like a meter on your other 
> > utilities i, much like your minutes on yout phone.
> 
> Oh great!, and they would probably measure it by megabyte, so, 
> one byte over a full megabyte and they charge you for the next 
> full megabyte.  :-( 

That is precisely how Internet pricing works for many broadband plans in
New Zealand, and I expect in many other countries.

250 GB per month and then you start getting usage charges? You were
lucky.

(At current exchange rates, NZ$1 is about US$0.65.)

In my case, I have a cable modem supplied by TelstraClear. Ignoring the
"triple service discount" for TV and phone, I'm paying NZ$70 a month to
get 20 GB of traffic at the cable's maximum speed of 10 Mbps down, 2
Mbps up. They offer base plans ranging from about 1 GB up to 80 GB per
month.

They send me an e-mail when I get to the 80% mark. When I go one byte
over, I get charged NZ$2.95 and I have another 1 GB of traffic. This
repeats each time I cross into another 1 GB (the size of the extra units
varies depending on your base plan). They e-mail me again soon after
I've gone into the over-usage zone, but the connection is fast enough
that I might not get that e-mail until I'm into the second extra
gigabyte (which happened two days ago while I was downloading all of the
latest Mac OS X 10.5.5 updates).

The ISP has a web page which I can visit to monitor my usage during the
month. It has some nice graphs showing total usage for the month, daily
usage (separated into upload and download), and can go down to hourly
usage, including a CSV file I can download with detailed hourly figures.
It isn't detailed enough to record the type of traffic or where it came
from/to. Some other ISPs at least break it down into major categories
(web, mail, other).

TelstraClear cable is one of the best broadband services in New Zealand,
but it is only available in Wellington and Christchurch. The prevalent
ADSL service (nationwide) is run by Telecom NZ, and it has a similar
charging scheme at the high end of the scale, but it is slower for
uploads, and the cheaper plans have the upload speed capped at 128 kbps.
Various wireless broadband systems are available, with similar pricing
to ADSL.

Some broadband plans in New Zealand use different schemes. The major
variant is to slow down your connection to roughly dial-up speeds (64
kbps up and down) once your monthly limit is reached. You return to
normal speed once into your new billing cycle.

One ISP operates on the same principle but with a twice daily cycle
instead of a monthly cycle.

The main reason we have to pay so much for broadband is low population
density and long distances. In particular, connection to the rest of the
world is via long undersea cables, which have high charges that are
effectively passed on to all Internet users in New Zealand.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz