The data rich world that we now live in allows us to stream
music and video easily and regularly. This
causes a lot of data to be streamed or downloaded to the user. For a long time cellular providers and ISPs
allowed there to be no data cap. Fairly
quickly cellular provides realized that they were able to set data caps, or
limits, on how much data you could use a month.
At the time they were created the data caps were palatable, but now with
the improvement of cellphones, 4G/LTE, and video and music streaming these caps
are easily hit-able within a day without being careful. The plans have severely limited users of the
service in what they can do with their devices and what they pay for.
Cellular providers knew that data consumption on mobile was
gaining in popularity, so to take advantage of this they created the worst of
all evil, data caps. These creations
have forced numerous early adopters to change how they used their device. It was all the way back in 2010 and 2011 that
both Verizon and AT&T began rolling out their tiered data services. The normal plan for many users was 2GB for
~$25-30 a month. This was a stark change
compared to their previous plans that allowed for unlimited data in the same
price tier. Around the same time in 2011
when Verizon create their tiered data plans their LTE roll out was hitting full
swing with the release of their first LTE phone users would be able to take
full advantage of the speed boost that LTE has over 3G. Creating this cap was very lucrative for
Verizon, users would be able to hitting data caps faster within a month, allowing
them to charge exorbitant amount of money for data overages. These same level caps are still in place,
even though technology has advanced to make cellular data transmission
cheaper. Especially with the rise of
Netflix and YouTube cellular providers are making it tougher and tougher on
users. The data limits are not likely to
increase even though LTE-A is become a more solidified wireless transmission
protocol, with speeds as fast as 300Mbps in real use.
Video streaming is one this that major ISPs and cable
providers fear, usually the same company offers both services. Conglomerate companies such as Comcast have
had data caps in place on customers for a fair bit of time. With TV packages become less lucrative since
many people stream video instead many cable providers have decided to have
their internet service to have tiered data caps themselves. Comcast has minimally increased their cap
from 250GB/mo to 300GB/mo. This cap is
insanely easy to hit if you have household members who watch Netflix or Youtube
regularly. Based on HD, 720p, an hour of
Netflix will consume 2.2GB and Youtube will consume 1.1GB. If you have three people in a household,
streaming 3 hours of Netflix and 3 hours of Youtube on an average day you will consume
297GB of data in a month. This is all
fine if you want to stream at 720p but now 1080p has become the norm for
streaming you will easily hit and go over a 300GB cap. Which makes it extremely lucrative to them because
it will either force you to upgrade to a higher speed rate to increase the data
cap or shell out $10 per 50GB of data you are over. ISPs squeezing you like a rock for blood coincides
with the fact that data transmission of ISPs has become much cheaper while they
still have these small data caps. With
50 to 100 Mbps becoming more of a norm and top tier plans pushing into the
gigabit range it will become extremely easy for these data limits to forever
hinder how we use the internet and stagnate the advances in technology.
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