There has recently been a plethora of propagandist articles released by big media corporation spin doctors and their lobbyist lawyers in an attempt to regulate how much bandwidth the average user should have access to as they believe that it promotes piracy.

I’m going to nip this fallacy in the bud.

First of all, uncapped Internet is no more an enabler of piracy than the computer I use to access the Internet or the electricity that it runs off. Are these lobbyists going to try regulate my electricity usage and computer usage as well?

A recent MyBroadband article also pointed out that countries with the most unlimited broadband were the least likely to pirate, and the countries with the most restrictive Internet usage tend to pirate the most.

This does not mean more restrictive Internet usage means more piracy. If anything, it implies that countries with poor pricing or distribution methods for their media are more likely to pirate.
Uncapped Internet

Now back to the matter at hand. What does uncapped Internet mean to me? Having just been lucky enough to recently obtain an uncapped Internet connection and since obtaining it… a whole new wide world of the Internet has opened up to me. All of it legal and it has nothing to do with piracy.
I use iTunes to follow all my news and information shows. My iTunes downloads several BBC documentaries and news shows, numerous CNN shows such as Anderson Coopers 360 degrees and CNN Politics daily. I also use iTunes to download audio-only shows such as HBO`s Bill Maher and the Mail & Guardians weekly podcast. Most of the video shows are distributed in HD and so are large in size.

I visit YouTube daily to watch miscellaneous shows which are also increasingly being released in HD. I listen to several streaming audio stations like 702, Highveld Radio and 5FM.

When I am bored in the evenings or on weekends I load a couple of paid-for Internet games such as Battlefield 2, Heroes of Newerth and World of Warcraft. If I want to keep in touch with my friends and family in South Africa or abroad I often make use of Skype for audio and video calls.

I am also able to access and utilize the Internet and Web2.0 without feeling guilty or worrying about how much usage keeping up to date with friends and family is going to cost me.

Without even touching a single illegal byte of the Internet, my Internet usage is several Gigabytes a day.
Internet Evolution
The Internet is changing the way we view media that interests us. Instead of subscribing to overpriced television networks that force content and advertising that we don’t need or want to watch, we now get to choose what we want to watch, when we want to watch it.

I think that’s why the quickly fossilizing media corporations want to regulate our Internet usage. They can no longer tell us what to watch or force their advertising on us and this is hurting their revenue streams. Shame.

I predict that in the future, uncapped Internet will become a necessity, not a privileged service only offered to fortunate few.