I thought data caps for home internet were a thing of the past…
I’ve somewhat recently moved back to a very rural area of the Midwest. Small town. No stop lights. Biggest businesses other than the bars are Casey’s, Subway, and Dollar General.
And we have one ISP (not counting DSL) — Mediacom. When we first signed up, I had to go with the second service tier. But not because of speeds, but so I could have a reasonable 1 TB/mo data cap.
Lucky me, they increased the cap to 1.5 TB. 🙄
I hope that in my lifetime I can see ISPs regulated as a public utility.
Yikes. I pay $80 a month for 1Gbps up and down with no data cap. It’s amazing what happens when one company doesn’t have a monopoly in an area. Prices go down and quality of service goes up.
In Germany we pay lots of money for 5G data volume. For me I got 20 Gigs for about 40 bucks, this is mostly Not a thing in the rest of Europe. But data plans on landlines are really dumb.
Pretty sure europe doesn’t have caps on landlines because of European wide regulation. If you really think about it, caps on mobile data are also fairly stupid
While it’s stupid that ISPs are using their monopolies to screw consumers, the concept of data caps is not as stupid as you might think.
You’re not just paying for the connection between you and the ISP, but also all the other data links that get your internet traffic to its destination. For example, those cables across the ocean are owned third parties and they charge money for every byte that goes through. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for ISPs to pass that cost to users.
Furthermore, most links are overprovisioned in order to keep costs down. For example, if you assume that users only use 10% of their bandwidth on average, that means you can fit 10x as many people on a connection (or maybe 8x to account for peaks). This does mean that users should be discouraged from using their full bandwidth for long durations, otherwise the network operators can’t overprovision as much and have to invest more in infrastructure.
Agreed. In the past you would pay for calling and text messages and data was often unlimited at the higher tiers, but since nobody pays extra for calling and texting anymore, they’re now charging for data. Luckily they can’t charge extra for EU roaming anymore.
Data caps on landlines is something that I haven’t seen for a very long time in my EU country. The last time I had a subscription with a data cap must have been with a 56k modem, if at all. Cable and DSL might have had fair use policies back in the day (or maybe they still do, who knows), but no hard cap. Or at least not that I can remember.
Internet nowadays is way too important to have data caps, especially at home. 5G should definitely be next. Differentiate in speed all you want, but ditch the caps.
The only time I remember caps on landlines was when 56k modem were still the norm. Once ADSL was rolled out there was pretty much no caps anymore.
I think the fact that we had some healthy competition for landlines from the get go in my country meant the ISPs couldn’t get that much greedy and put caps in place. So it never ended being common where I live.
And when it was old school modems, well you were already paying for the phone communications anyway when connected to the internet so it wasn’t really unlimited anyway.
Well, I’m in portugal, which does NOT have a lot of healthy competition in the communication space, and as far as I remember there haven’t been data caps (I’m 18, so last 10 years is what I reasonably remember regarding being online), so I’ve always assumed it had to be some European level law
If you really think about it, caps on mobile data are also fairly stupid
Mobile is a shared medium and can only support a certain amount of bandwidth per phone mast (in a certain area). A mobile phone network heavily relies on most users not using their data plans most of the time.
Data caps do exist in Europe, but they’re generally reserved for ultra cheap data plans. Something like €5 for 100mbit speeds. So you get a decent connection, but limited in traffic instead. Which makes sense.
Well mobile data is very different. With fibre optic you can generally keep provisioning more cables and a single cable already carries a huge amount already.
Radio has an absolute efficiency limit for the bandwidth of a signal and we’re pretty damn close to that now.
5g uses wider bandwidth channels, with more cells closer together and uses things like beamforming. But there’s still always going to be an upper limit that is considerably lower than fibre.
This is why they likely want to discourage 5g becoming a full alternative to wired, because there’s just not the capacity to do it on the same scale.
In Denmark, I pay ~19€ (~$21) for 1000GB of mobile data (they call it ‘unlimited’, but the small text says they may cut you off at 1000GB). Of course, I rarely use more than 50GB a month on my phone.
This is what I am talking about … Most countries in Europe just gives you kinda unlimited data plans… look at this crap
I rarely need mobile data because I work from home but if my landline has an interruption I can barely work 1 or 2 days with that if I tweak data consumption on my work laptop.
In the Netherlands we complain a lot about gas prizes, costs of groceries. et cetera.
But regarding internet we have come a long way. Fiber is available to approximately 50% of the households currently (and they are expanding fast)
Mobile data is really seen as a commodity. 5G with unlimited data is €25/€30 a month (depending on the carrier). Although 5G in the Netherlands is not yet up to speed (3,5GHz will become available soon), the realistic speeds achieved are more then decent. (Benefit of having a crowded, flat country)
In the Netherlands we complain a lot about gas prizes, costs of groceries. et cetera.
Sorry, moest ik even fixen :)
On topic, I’m in NZ and we tend to be behind in things, but Internet here is awesome. NZ$95 for unlimited 900/500mbps.
They are starting to roll out 2.5 gbps.
I’d be so screwed on that plan. According to my router, I’ve downloaded 5311 GB in the last 30 days, and uploaded 399 GB. Sure doesn’t feel like it in hindsight, but some family members are on YouTube all day every day, others constantly downloading new games on Steam, and my Plex media Server and *arr apps just chews through data.
Data caps are everywhere, I’m not sure why you’d think they’re a thing of the past. I believe the scenario is more like “you’re lucky if your plan doesn’t have caps” instead.
1.5T/month is uncomfortable though. One of my VPN services has a 1T/month softcap (speed drastically reduces after that) and it’s usually fine for my household, but one person going crazy on YouTube rabbit holes or us binging something on Netflix, pushes that limit fast.
Terrible scenario, but unfortunately I think there’s too much money involved for the right thing to be done and this kind of service getting the treatment it should have.
The problem with the US is even if we had a consumer lobby, which I don’t think we do, we would be overrun by the big corporate lobbies in a matter of seconds.
The only people that get listened to by our government are those who have the big money to control members of congress. We are supposed to have a government for the people by the people but instead we have a government for the rich by the rich.
Those of us that don’t have billions of dollars don’t have a voice, even though they claim to listen, they don’t unless you can line their pockets with a few $100,000 thousand dollars a month.
Our government official don’t care about us, they care about money and how to get more of it.
Sorry if this is nitpicking but as far as I know, there is no such thing as unlimited mobile data plans.
In most contracts they will say that you have to use reasonably the data plan and you cannot for example constantly max out your connection. Like 24/7 constant max bandwidth used.
In most case it doesn’t really matter but I really don’t like the fact that ISPs get to say it’s unlimited when it definitely isn’t.
I don’t know where you live, but here in Austria you can get truly unlimited ones. People also use them instead of landline connections without any issues.
And depending where you live that might or might not work out well for you. If too many people in your neighbourhood use too much mobile data at the same time as you, speeds will decrease and unlimited data plans in particular will be throttled.
Never got into it that deep myself, I just know other people who never had issues. Prime-time streaming in full hd etc.
But I’m also pretty sure you can sue them, if they can’t keep up the advertised speeds over longer time. Obv only when the infrastructure is actually available.
You can sue anyone for anything, but no one is advertising any guaranteed speeds for mobile broadband, so your chances will be fairly limited. Best you can do is withdrawing from your contract.
For unlimited data contracts you can usually pay different amounts for different speeds. They actively advertise with those maximum speeds and if you can never reach them, even tho they are available at your location, you can report them to a federal agency and take legally warranty claims.
TF you smoking? I pay 25€/ mo. For gigabit connection with no data caps. The US is getting hosed because it’s a corporatocracy and the ISPs have acted like robber barons for the past three decades. Don’t normalize this blatantly anti consumer bullshit.
That’s rough… No idea how I’d cope with that. I don’t think I’ve ever had a datacap on any residential connection here in the Netherlands. Currently got 1gbps fiber up and down for 50 euros I think.
TV however is still a huge scam. I just want to watch football but have to have a billion other channels too I think. (Ima see if I can change this now lol)
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I pay about $80/mo and have a 1200 GB cap.
It used to be $50 a month with no cap. But “that plan is no longer available” in my area.
Yikes. I pay $80 a month for 1Gbps up and down with no data cap. It’s amazing what happens when one company doesn’t have a monopoly in an area. Prices go down and quality of service goes up.
*edit: replied to wrong comment
In Germany we pay lots of money for 5G data volume. For me I got 20 Gigs for about 40 bucks, this is mostly Not a thing in the rest of Europe. But data plans on landlines are really dumb.
Check out Vodafone if you’re younger than 28. I’m paying 22€/month with their Gigakombi for unlimited 5G.
Way beyond that ;)
Pretty sure europe doesn’t have caps on landlines because of European wide regulation. If you really think about it, caps on mobile data are also fairly stupid
While it’s stupid that ISPs are using their monopolies to screw consumers, the concept of data caps is not as stupid as you might think.
You’re not just paying for the connection between you and the ISP, but also all the other data links that get your internet traffic to its destination. For example, those cables across the ocean are owned third parties and they charge money for every byte that goes through. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for ISPs to pass that cost to users.
Furthermore, most links are overprovisioned in order to keep costs down. For example, if you assume that users only use 10% of their bandwidth on average, that means you can fit 10x as many people on a connection (or maybe 8x to account for peaks). This does mean that users should be discouraged from using their full bandwidth for long durations, otherwise the network operators can’t overprovision as much and have to invest more in infrastructure.
Agreed. In the past you would pay for calling and text messages and data was often unlimited at the higher tiers, but since nobody pays extra for calling and texting anymore, they’re now charging for data. Luckily they can’t charge extra for EU roaming anymore.
Data caps on landlines is something that I haven’t seen for a very long time in my EU country. The last time I had a subscription with a data cap must have been with a 56k modem, if at all. Cable and DSL might have had fair use policies back in the day (or maybe they still do, who knows), but no hard cap. Or at least not that I can remember.
Internet nowadays is way too important to have data caps, especially at home. 5G should definitely be next. Differentiate in speed all you want, but ditch the caps.
There are still plans with data caps in Belgium, this is limited to the “cheapest” plans though at about 30 EUR a month
Belgium has them
Belgium also has free parking I’ve heard.
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In France at least I doubt it.
The only time I remember caps on landlines was when 56k modem were still the norm. Once ADSL was rolled out there was pretty much no caps anymore.
I think the fact that we had some healthy competition for landlines from the get go in my country meant the ISPs couldn’t get that much greedy and put caps in place. So it never ended being common where I live.
And when it was old school modems, well you were already paying for the phone communications anyway when connected to the internet so it wasn’t really unlimited anyway.
Well, I’m in portugal, which does NOT have a lot of healthy competition in the communication space, and as far as I remember there haven’t been data caps (I’m 18, so last 10 years is what I reasonably remember regarding being online), so I’ve always assumed it had to be some European level law
Mobile is a shared medium and can only support a certain amount of bandwidth per phone mast (in a certain area). A mobile phone network heavily relies on most users not using their data plans most of the time.
Data caps do exist in Europe, but they’re generally reserved for ultra cheap data plans. Something like €5 for 100mbit speeds. So you get a decent connection, but limited in traffic instead. Which makes sense.
Well mobile data is very different. With fibre optic you can generally keep provisioning more cables and a single cable already carries a huge amount already.
Radio has an absolute efficiency limit for the bandwidth of a signal and we’re pretty damn close to that now.
5g uses wider bandwidth channels, with more cells closer together and uses things like beamforming. But there’s still always going to be an upper limit that is considerably lower than fibre.
This is why they likely want to discourage 5g becoming a full alternative to wired, because there’s just not the capacity to do it on the same scale.
Pretty much a thing in NL and afaik also BE.
source: am Dutch.
T mobile NL, 5G capped at 22GB. Cost: 20 euro.
35 euro in NL wl give you t mobile unlimited which is capped at 15 GB per day. Other providers charge more or less the same.
@home internet 1up/down GB fiber 45 euro. No datacap.
In Denmark, I pay ~19€ (~$21) for 1000GB of mobile data (they call it ‘unlimited’, but the small text says they may cut you off at 1000GB). Of course, I rarely use more than 50GB a month on my phone.
This is what I am talking about … Most countries in Europe just gives you kinda unlimited data plans… look at this crap
I rarely need mobile data because I work from home but if my landline has an interruption I can barely work 1 or 2 days with that if I tweak data consumption on my work laptop.
weint auf deutsch
I’m moving to another provider next month to increase from 8GB@€30 to 15GB€25… Those are per month…
25€ for 15G is also way too much. I now pay 5,99 for 7GB. (Also germany, monthly cancellable, sim.de [No advertisement])
You should look here for good prices.
Vielen Dank!, The problem is I need the Telekom Network otherwise I pay for nothing as the other ones won’t have reception :(
You can untick the other providers. I found this one for example.
In the Netherlands we complain a lot about gas prizes, costs of groceries. et cetera.
But regarding internet we have come a long way. Fiber is available to approximately 50% of the households currently (and they are expanding fast)
Mobile data is really seen as a commodity. 5G with unlimited data is €25/€30 a month (depending on the carrier). Although 5G in the Netherlands is not yet up to speed (3,5GHz will become available soon), the realistic speeds achieved are more then decent. (Benefit of having a crowded, flat country)
Sorry, moest ik even fixen :)
On topic, I’m in NZ and we tend to be behind in things, but Internet here is awesome. NZ$95 for unlimited 900/500mbps. They are starting to roll out 2.5 gbps.
Funny, because it’s true
Why not starlink? At that point I think it would be a nice investment.
It’s datacapped at 1TB before you get throttled, and the performance is always degrading, and you have to buy from an asshole.
I’d do it if I was desperate, but it’d essentially have to be the only option available.
I’d be so screwed on that plan. According to my router, I’ve downloaded 5311 GB in the last 30 days, and uploaded 399 GB. Sure doesn’t feel like it in hindsight, but some family members are on YouTube all day every day, others constantly downloading new games on Steam, and my Plex media Server and *arr apps just chews through data.
Data caps are everywhere, I’m not sure why you’d think they’re a thing of the past. I believe the scenario is more like “you’re lucky if your plan doesn’t have caps” instead.
1.5T/month is uncomfortable though. One of my VPN services has a 1T/month softcap (speed drastically reduces after that) and it’s usually fine for my household, but one person going crazy on YouTube rabbit holes or us binging something on Netflix, pushes that limit fast.
Terrible scenario, but unfortunately I think there’s too much money involved for the right thing to be done and this kind of service getting the treatment it should have.
No Datacaps for landline in Europe yeah… In many EU countries you can also buy a mobile flat without caps for like 40€.
The US just doesn’t have a good consumer lobby.
The problem with the US is even if we had a consumer lobby, which I don’t think we do, we would be overrun by the big corporate lobbies in a matter of seconds.
The only people that get listened to by our government are those who have the big money to control members of congress. We are supposed to have a government for the people by the people but instead we have a government for the rich by the rich.
Those of us that don’t have billions of dollars don’t have a voice, even though they claim to listen, they don’t unless you can line their pockets with a few $100,000 thousand dollars a month.
Our government official don’t care about us, they care about money and how to get more of it.
Sorry if this is nitpicking but as far as I know, there is no such thing as unlimited mobile data plans.
In most contracts they will say that you have to use reasonably the data plan and you cannot for example constantly max out your connection. Like 24/7 constant max bandwidth used.
In most case it doesn’t really matter but I really don’t like the fact that ISPs get to say it’s unlimited when it definitely isn’t.
It’s unlimited*
I don’t know where you live, but here in Austria you can get truly unlimited ones. People also use them instead of landline connections without any issues.
And depending where you live that might or might not work out well for you. If too many people in your neighbourhood use too much mobile data at the same time as you, speeds will decrease and unlimited data plans in particular will be throttled.
Never got into it that deep myself, I just know other people who never had issues. Prime-time streaming in full hd etc.
But I’m also pretty sure you can sue them, if they can’t keep up the advertised speeds over longer time. Obv only when the infrastructure is actually available.
You can sue anyone for anything, but no one is advertising any guaranteed speeds for mobile broadband, so your chances will be fairly limited. Best you can do is withdrawing from your contract.
For unlimited data contracts you can usually pay different amounts for different speeds. They actively advertise with those maximum speeds and if you can never reach them, even tho they are available at your location, you can report them to a federal agency and take legally warranty claims.
TF you smoking? I pay 25€/ mo. For gigabit connection with no data caps. The US is getting hosed because it’s a corporatocracy and the ISPs have acted like robber barons for the past three decades. Don’t normalize this blatantly anti consumer bullshit.
I’m paying 12$ a month for 300 mbps symmetric in India… Though not fair to directly convert into dollars
Edit: no caps on bandwidth
Meanwhile I’m paying $150 for less than that.
That’s rough… No idea how I’d cope with that. I don’t think I’ve ever had a datacap on any residential connection here in the Netherlands. Currently got 1gbps fiber up and down for 50 euros I think.
TV however is still a huge scam. I just want to watch football but have to have a billion other channels too I think. (Ima see if I can change this now lol)
Northeast US here. Fairly healthy competition in my area, the fiber at my home is about $50/mo
Man, the US is weird sometimes. I don’t think I’ve ever had a data cap on my home internet.
Comcast (no other ISPs thanks to local legislation). Suburbs of the 2nd largest city in my state (Michigan).
$84/month for 200/10Mbps with a 1.2TB cap.
You have it great.
300Mbps symmetric, no cap, for $55.32 (Northern California).
What are you, bragging?