Technology

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.

Pretty sure it depends on where you live. My CenturyLink gigabit internet in Seattle is superb, symmetrical up/down, $75/mo. Haven't had significant problems in 10 or 15 years.

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.

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 😂

Yeah, you guys are screwed.

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.

You can't feign growth without suppressing growth first

I don't know where you are or what other ISPs are involved, but skimming some discussion online, it looks like these Cox guys -- at least in the several locations I see being discussed, if not everywhere -- have data limits on all of their residential plans, though they have business plans that do not.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoxCommunications/comments/hf6zwf/cox_resumes_unnecessary_data_caps/

I get 200 down and 20 up for $85. I came from $100 for 3Mbps DSL, so this is winning for me. I use 4 or 5 TB a month without a problem on Cox.

That particular snippit was four years back, so I suppose prices and speeds might have changed.

So might be worth looking into that in your area if that's what you're after.

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.

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.