Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If it took you a while to figure that out, you do not deserve to know your bandwidth usage. use Google Chrome
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Fixed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
ISPs only need a limit on peak hour bandwidth. I'm guessing the difference between a heavy user and light user is off-peak.
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Yup, and Shaw seems to do a pretty decent job of provisioning so that the peak bandwidth is sufficient to serve everyone at or close to the maximum, at least in every place I've lived in in Calgary and area. Personally I enjoy having full speed at all hours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
My "Netflix doesn't count" proposal was just one solution. Another would be leaving things as they are (Shaw/Telus/Rogers/Bell share prices tell me it does work). Another would be bandwidth limits for peak hour use only. Another would be splitting Shaw the ISP from Shaw the content provider.
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Bandwidth limits for peak hours makes good sense, as you mention later cell phone providers do something similar with free evenings and weekends.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
And your comparisons to natural gas and cellphone plans don't work. For natural gas, it doesn't work because natural gas can be stored. Unused bandwidth cannot. For cellphone plans, it doesn't work because tons of plans offer unlimited off-peak usage, and others simply offer unlimited service, and it also doesn't work because cellphones aren't really a competitive market either.
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No comparison is perfect, but they can be helpful, as in the off-peak usage suggestion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
And for me, having an Internet service that theoretically throttles when it's at max capacity makes a lot more sense having to throttle myself all the time (including when Shaw's network is under light loads), even if there's no such thing as "unlimited bandwidth".
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I'm sure it's a balance, throttling when you hit a limit would require hardware and software throughout the network to work properly, they already do it to some extent when you buy a specific account level, but it'd have to be automated. Increase in customer service calls as well with people asking what happened.
I'm sure these kinds of solutions come up at whatever meetings there are at these places, it'd be interesting to know why they are rejected.