Broadband caps: How much data is enough?

I say 50 GB cap is more than enough for the average home user. If u want more u pay more. Simple. Also people wo exceed the cap should be hard capped and offered a per gb purchase. That would seem to be the most fair way to share the internet.

The reality is you have a small number of users who abuse the system (Yes abuse). If you had a car with an advertised speed of 220 km/hr dont give u the right to drive it at that speed 24/7. Same goes for the internet.
 
MightyMuffinMan said:
If you had a car with an advertised speed of 220 km/hr dont give u the right to drive it at that speed 24/7. Same goes for the internet.
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Actually a bad example. Lets keep it within the law and say 120Km/h

So you are saying, when driving on the highway you don't go 120 in 120 zones? But instead go like 10km/h? Because that's more or less the ratio of how you have to limit your speed on the 4MB/s line for the month.
 
The more I have the more I need(want), so lets say 10GB this month, then 1% more each following month, at a fixed low price off course.

5 minutes later: Lets make that 100GB growing at 1 % per month rather ...
 
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BrendanD said:
99% of the people who use P2P don't try to leach everything they can get their hands on. They will keep up to date with the occasional series and movie or game.

I think a 100gig cap would be more than enough for most users and allow even moderately high users to have more than they need without bringing the whole network down.
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Having had uncapped since mweb launched their offering, I agree. 100GB seems to be a good spot.
 
NeoZA said:
this Goldstuck guy is Fing mad. lets all put money together and hire a hitman and shoot stupid people that say stuff like that
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The only one that should be getting a cap in their ass is you...

He is saying that uncapped is the way to go, but he knows how Telkom thinks so he's suggesting a 10 to 50GB cap instead of 1 to 3GB for their little Telkom brains to be able to compute.
 
oh and one more thing. it was said in earlier articles that the average bandwidth consumption of people in SA was 1-3 gigs per month. this is utter bullocks. how can you confidently say people use 1-3 gigs per month if thats how much bandwidth they are given every month!??!
thats like saying, people in SA who earn R1000 - R3000 a month, spend between R1000 - R3000 a month...gee, really!?
 
There should be no limit , plain and simple! If browsing pron is your thing , great go have fun , if torrents is your thing , great go ahead have fun . What about the rest of the people who use it for studying , for work , for fun like you tube , game and software updates ? Too long have we been held by the balls and forced to submit to the yolk of telkom! If you can do 100 gigs a month , good for you! You must have the hard drive space for it , and time to watch it all or play it all . Yet to set the standard based on what old age folk might use it for to read emails and maybe skype with their kids 5 gig will be more than enough .... for a start . Eventually the internet users are exposed to more and more content , and yes this content will consume more and more or their bandwidth .

Eventually once even the older folker become more and more exposed to the web and more active on it they will need more bandwidth , it is the natural evolution of things. Having said that, telkom should for the rest of its life be the first place champion on darwin awards! Please if you would , think of the internet as a world wide libruary with everything in it. From Dads old hustler and playboy mags to moms cosmopolitan, but this libruary does not have office hours it is open 24/7 and has something for everyone. If we can change the perception of how telkom sees the internet it might help.
Even the public needs to be told more about it , those who are not informed think that it is all just pron and illegal software. It is more than that , telkom just does not see it that way , they only see money.

Thanks to mweb for freeing the web and removing this milstone from around our necks !

/end rant
 
i use 3 to 5 gig a week and that is not even downloads, telkom has lost the plot signing up with mweb.
 
There is no magic "enough" number.
I think each user will use whats needed.
Everyone should be uncapped and price should scale with usage and line speed.
I for one wouldn't mind paying a bit more for uncapped and not get throttled.
I use less than 100 gigs a month.

But why bring common sense to the arena - esp with a discussion on Telkom.
The government should sell its shares in Telkom and let the competition take off.
 
whatwhat said:
Also remember that most people in the world get series shown on their televisions when they are due to air - they do not need to download everything since they dont have DSTV/Mnet that show things that are old. Movies is a different thing, but movies are usually far and few between series updates.
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+1, and +1 to everyone else not pro-cap ;)

I use 100-200Gb per month myself. 50Gb would be a slow month, but then again, I am not an "average" user.
 
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MightyMuffinMan said:
I say 50 GB cap is more than enough for the average home user. If u want more u pay more. Simple. Also people wo exceed the cap should be hard capped and offered a per gb purchase. That would seem to be the most fair way to share the internet.

The reality is you have a small number of users who abuse the system (Yes abuse). If you had a car with an advertised speed of 220 km/hr dont give u the right to drive it at that speed 24/7. Same goes for the internet.
Click to expand...

It's kind of fun that the question of caps is back on the table; it's been years since the cap debate raged full on.

The difference is that now no one can argue a shortage of bandwidth as the reason to cap and shape. There is no reason anymore.

Your car example is a fail because the speed issue is about safety and practicality. You can run your internet connection 24/7 without endangering anyone and it's not like you have to switch it off when you need a bathroom break.

5 years ago when I had a 192k line and Telkom let you get 30GB from a 3GB, 30GB was damn near perfect for me. I don't have ADSL at the moment but I suspect that on a 4MB line even 50MB wouldn't always be sufficient if ever.

People are going to use what they use and I don't think any one users usage should be affecting any others anymore. None of us know or should even care what someone else is using their internet connection for, let alone deciding what the average cap should be.

ISP's will bitch and moan because they are the only ones affected now. But why should the consumer give a crap?
 
Internet should be uncapped 24/7.

Users who use massive amounts of data consistently every month should have to pay a small surcharge.
 
The internet today just requires a lot more bandwidth than it did in 2002 or when ever Telkom did the last round if data upgrades. When I got ADSL the first time I had a 3GB cap and I could go crazy with it, but today with Windows and AV updates on more than one computer on my home network, just a few youtube videos, PS3 firmware downloads and normal email and browsing I easily go way past 4GB. That is without downloading one single big thing like a movie or music. That is just normal important updates and normal browsing. So I agree 100% with the article that even if ISPs dont want to go uncapped, the standard cap sizes should be increased 10 fold to around 5 to 10GB being the new minimum.
 
Garyvdh said:
Internet should be uncapped 24/7.

Users who use massive amounts of data consistently every month should have to pay a small surcharge.
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+1

I use anything btw 10GB to 80-90GB a month. Just depends on my usage needs at the time. In all honesty, the 1GB-3GB packages REALLY have to go now. All ISPs should x10 for their current bundles and be done with it. Maybe even add a 10% bump in their pricing to be fair. Since what the bloke on the street doesn't realise, is that selling a subscription for under R200 a month, is not profitable in an operational sense, regardless of how much data is in the bundle.
 
BrendanD said:
99% of the people who use P2P don't try to leach everything they can get their hands on. They will keep up to date with the occasional series and movie or game.

I think a 100gig cap would be more than enough for most users and allow even moderately high users to have more than they need without bringing the whole network down.
Click to expand...

now here we are being realistic. +++1
 
Soon we will have so much bandwidth available - but we won't be able to use it as Telkom spends more time trying to defend caps and not enough on upgrading their infrastructure. Caps should only be applicable to people with 20 meg + lines, and then in the reigon of 500GB or more.
 
Simple. Speed of line x 24 hours x no. of days in a month = cap. That's fair. If I want to stream HD YouTube all day everyday, I should be allowed to on the internet I'm paying for.
 
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