In the news 16/5/06...

[Inventive Software]

...Doom9 mentions about internet companies in America and Canada banning Skype because of the free calls to landline phones. Apparantly, it increases the bandwidth humongously and ends up collapsing the pipe because it can't handle that amount of bandwidth for so long. My question is this: why do internet companies (especially in the US) advertise their service as unrestricted, yet they don't have the bandwidth pipes to support the heavy users? I believe this was one reason Doom9 had internet problems in April, because he is quite a heavy user (what with maintaining a busy forum and updating a news page every day), and the ISP restricted him to the point of him changing to a more lenient supplier.

Personally I can't wait till I go to university, where I'll be able to have 100 Mbit access through the university's stable (hopefully) pipeline. And all for a one-off connection fee, which I have no idea how much it is!

[Doom9]

Overbooking isn't a local problem.. it basically happens everywhere. I guess the situation is best in countries that have 100mbit links - I suspect anybody who has such an huge pipe will make use of it... and even if it's only using a couple percent of what the line can give, it will create a nice baseline traffic. Since there's no such things for your average < 8 mbit Link, providers will claim that using only a fraction of what you paid for is excessive usage.

I'll gladly pay a couple dozen bucks more for a guaranteed bandwith (at wholesale prices of course.. ), but around here, a guaranteed bandwidth 1mbit link literally costs a fortune, even though the cost of fiber links aren't anywhere close to justify the premium.

The whole unlimited thing is a marketing scheme.. most ISPs don't dare to even hint they can't provide anywhere near what they sell so they keep up the charade.

[unmei]

I really can't complain in that respect..
Since i switched to another company and cable about 4 years ago, my upload constantly maxes out close to my nominal bandwidth and they never said a single word or put on the brakes.
However this is, in mid-european comparision, a rather slower line. Maybe that is the point - they label it around what they actually can provide, while others can provide the same but label it 3x higher ;)

[mpucoder]

Over-subscription is a normal business practice for many resources, not just internet bandwidth and makes sense since most do not use the maximum all the time. It would not be economical otherwise. But my DSL provider (verizon) has two types of service, both with the same bandwidth. The difference is the usage cap, residential customers pay less and have a cap, business customers pay a little more ($10/mo) to remove the cap AND get higher priority.

[Doobie]

I don't know of any ISPs that advertise "unlimited" usage. And, if any did, you can bet there's an asterisk that points to "terms subject to change without notice", which is probably found in every ISP agreement.

I have no objection to ISPs controlling bandwith abuse. For a simplified example, if 1% of users use 50% of the bandwidth, cutting them off would allow the ISP to double the caps. So, my 3mb connection could become a 6mb connection. I'm all for that.

The high bandwidth users should pay more.

Skype adds the issue of competing against core services of the ISP providers.

[siddharthagandhi]

"I don't know of any ISPs that advertise "unlimited" usage. And, if any did, you can bet there's an asterisk that points to "terms subject to change without notice", which is probably found in every ISP agreement."

My ISP, Verizon, advertises just that.