So Internet Service Providers (ISP's) I guess will hold a monopoly indefinitely in the United States of America and we can't do anything about them and will have to pay for data caps?

Why can't we just get our government to do something? Why aren't people taking this issue up against the Internet Service Providers (ISP's) and telling them that they already pay too much money every month for internet or cable and internet?

Some people around the world who have no data caps are just lucky.

http://www.maximumpc.com/comcast-ceo-on-data-caps-use-more-pay-more-but-dont-call-it-a-cap/

Internet plans here in Canada svck!

Aren't monopolies/oligopolies great?

I pay $73/month for 30MB down, and we just recently went from 1.5MB up, to 5MB up (After years of people complaining their upload speeds were terrible compared to the rest of the world.) with a 300GB data cap.

I looked to switch to a small provider with no data caps but due to my ISP claiming they owned the modem I had bought from them years earlier the little guy could not use it for their service. My ISP has since written off the modem and I own it officially now. But now, the little guy says they can not service my residence at all...even though they use "the last mile" of my current providers lines...kinda feels like they got strong armed and are now "afraid" to set up service here. (I could be wrong, but it is how it feels!)

My current ISPs only saving grace is they, at this time, do not charge for overages. What they do is bump you up to the next plan in the tier after repeated, significant overages. I've been over by 30+GB recently and and as high as 120GB (Once) but have not had any requests to be bumped up. (I'm very vocal on their forums, and wonder if they know it's just better not to "poke the bear". )

Yup, ISP's in Canada svck big time!

dslreports.com

I use for most of my news.
Right now in my neighborhood Google is laying down conduit, probably a month or so before they lay it down on my street

That's odd because we've definitely gone over our cap and we've never been charged for it while on Shaw, nor does it seem we've had our service throttled. They've "strongly recommended" we upgrade our service. Canadian service svcks with the poor speeds, even in cities unless you're willing to pay big money.

Because we live in an era / polictical climate that says "Gov't Regulation Bad! Behold the glory of Unfettered Capitalism!" (as bridges crumble, deregulation causes all sorts of service disruptions & price increases, and the financial markets collapse the economy while running a giant casino.)

The odds of broadband being labeled/regulated as a public utility any time soon is vanishingly small.

Because I don't want my government regulating anything related to internet, especially when it's going to be packaged like SOPA and after reading the PNAC. *That* document is scary and includes "America must control cyberspace" as part of its agenda, so no thanks. ><

Considering that Comcast already likes to slam your bill with mysterious charges, even ADDING features you did not ask for, this doesn't surprise me.

But long time comcast costumers know, a data cap is really not fair when you consider what I said above. I mean the base plan is already 89.99..that's without internet. And their customer service is STILL the worst on the planet(if you live in the south >_>)

British broadband is great as long as you pay for it. It's like our internet exists in an alternate universe from the rest of our stuff where we're competent and world-leading.

Comcast almost bought out my cable provider. Thankfully, that never fell through. I NEED unlimited internet. I have 1.7TB (yes that is Terabytes) of Steam games. If I had to re-download my games due to hard drive failure or what-not I would hate to juggle around and manage my bandwidth for MONTHS to download my library again.

Which cable provider? I remember reading about it months ago, but I forgot the name.

I remember reading that the U.S. Government stopped Comcast from purchasing it because it would turn into a bigger monopoly than it already is.

It's Time Warner.

I agree to a point, except for the "no regulation at all" part. No regulation at all = ISP regulation = consumers get screwed from every conceivable direction. There isn't enough competition in the market space for it to self-regulate.

I wish google fiber would come to the puget sound area, but unless they are setting up in redmond or bellvue I don't see it happening at all. They can't in seattle because of the laws the city has about utility polls.

I have Uverse. I don't even know if they have a data cap or not. I buy maybe 2 games a year to download, and play mostly MMOs, which really don't use a lot of data to play, and I just download them when I get a new comp every few years.

I find it rather mindboggling that ISPs have data caps. It's the norm here for mobile phone operators, but no ISP do it and they never have as far as I know.

Probably to distract us from how crap everything else is.

There will be if government stepped up to prevent more near monopolies.

Comcast buying up everyone, etc is not regulation aimed at ISPs.

We shouldn't be paying for monthly data caps for internet either.

If ISPs were restaurants they would serve moldy bread and runoff sewage water while charging for Fillet Mignon, Beluga Caviar, and bottle of Dom Perignon with a 45% gratuity tacked on.

Yeah its nice not living in the US huh?

They do it here because its an excuse to get more money.. I mean its really easy to go over the caps on they know this.