There is no bandwidth crisis. At our highest usage, we are using less than 50% of the available bandwidth worldwide. WORLDWIDE.
So why is it we need usage caps in the first place? Presumably, according to the telcos and cable companies, we are quickly using up available bandwidth and when it’s gone it’s gone. That’s what they are telling us.
But even at the current growth rate, we won’t use up the world’s available bandwidth for many years. And simple infrastructure upgrades will continue to make more bandwidth available over time, always keeping us well ahead of the game.
I wish there was a way to call the telcos and cable companies on their blatent lying about bandwidth capability, and the fact that they are using that argument to apply caps to people’s usage. Boycotts are all well and good but sometimes you don’t have any choice in provider and have to take what is handed to you. How do we communicate to the telcos and cable companies, call their bluff, and make them change their tune and being to serve the customer?
And, I’m still looking for a bandwidth meter…if anyone knows of a good one, I need to see what kind of traffic we’re using here in my house.
We have a democrat in office. While it’s not enough for an assumed ability to make change in these areas, bandwidth and for that matter the future of the internet and how it’s owned and utilized, it is far more likely to be a time in which we even have a chance at any of that. The important thing is for people to be organized and do something.
Why should the telco invest in upgrading their networks? It’s more profitable to them to split up the current offering and offer smaller and smaller bits so they can develop a multitude of price points to accommodate the consumer’s willingness to pay for a slightly larger size of an “old pie”. While other countries invest in networks like they would invest in roadways, here in “the market rules, america”, it will be up to the market to decided when it will be profitable to offer higher speeds and at what price.
As is pointed out elsewhere, Comcast as a cable-TV company has a direct interest in in preventing unlimited high-speed, since as time continue, you’ll be more and more able to download DVD or HD-quality movies over the net — and comcast wants a piece of that action — since it is direct competition to what they are offering (pay-on-demand shows…movies, etc).
It’s a business — why shouldn’t it be able to charge as much as the market will bare? That IS the conservative, Republican, market driven view. The strong will exploit the weak. Americans vote the fools into office to allow unbridled incompetence to populate the government and ‘guard’ consumers…ha!
If you have a Linksys router, you can install DD-WRT, which has a pretty spiffy bandwidth monitoring feature.