"How are ISPs charging you?"

[Conrad Pinto]

Anyone can tell me on what basis does your ISP decide the connection.
What I am trying to say is do they charge on the basis of speed provided or data downloadable?

In India we dont have 'true' high speed plans. If it is high then they always put a data cap. Example average unlimited plan is 1Mbps while high speed plans are 5-10Mbps with a 10-25Gb data limit after which the speed is throttled.

My ISP started providing me a 5Mbps plan for $13(approx). He claims there is no fair usage policy but how is he going to get charged from the actual providers?

As far as my calculation goes 5Mbps equals 1500GB of data downloadable in a month (30days), using max speed for every second of the month. But how can the provider give 1.48TB of data to each user? How do they decide?

Anyone can clear my doubt?

P.S. I could search this on the net but I'm at work and sites are blocked. At home, net is for gaming & leeching

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Here in NZ, it depends on what connection type.

Generally ADSL/VDSL are at max line speed (mostly 10+, up to about 25Mb/s for ADSL, anywhere up to 70Mb/s if you've got a very good VDSL line). Fibre and cable are speed capped.

Almost all connections have a total data limit. Usually starting around 30GB for entry-level plans, with more than a TB for high-end ones. Some ISPs provide 'unlimited' plans, but there's usually a fair use policy and they limit torrents and international traffic.

There are very very few people who manage to max out a line 24/7.

 

[Cons29]

it depends on the ISP, fair usage policy (or whatever they call it) is common.

it's not really 1.48TB, because it is highly unlikely that you can use your 100% 5mbps 100% of the time. if you do that you won't be able to browse properly. and besides, there are a lot of other factors, like server traffic.

how do they decide? well it depends on the ISP really, it is of course business.

if there is really no data cap, then theorecically you can download that much.

 

[Conrad Pinto]

Well on my old connection of 1Mbps (yes we have bad net in India), I could theoretically download 308GB a month (30 days). But I used to manage to download nearly 150GB and browsing data would take up another 10-15GB.
This may be less but I never faced slow downloads, blocked sites. My ISP had never called complained about my excessive downloading (considering the plans speed).
My fear is he might limit me on a 5Mbps/$13 plan (This is a very rare plan in Mumbai). Mr.'Someone Somewhere' the 1TB limit will be on what kind of plans? 50Mbps+?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

You buy extra data addons. I'm on a standard ADSL plan, and get 50GB included with it (added another 100GB/month). I can add a 1TB pack for extra.

However, it depends on the ISP.

I'm with Snap. Yeah, the prices are pretty high. But remember that our internet goes over a redundant undersea cable that's about 10,000km long. That's not cheap to build.

 

[Conrad Pinto]

You buy extra data addons. I'm on a standard ADSL plan, and get 50GB included with it (added another 100GB/month). I can add a 1TB pack for extra.

However, it depends on the ISP.

I'm with Snap. Yeah, the prices are pretty high. But remember that our internet goes over a redundant undersea cable that's about 10,000km long. That's not cheap to build.

Whoa! Data Addons? First time hearing of such a thing! Well truth be told most ISPs in Bombay are illegal. Unlicensed. I gather that most ISPs charge for data. So it is possible that I can get 24/7 data @5Mbps. Thank you for your time.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

That depends on your ISP. Chances are that they won't be able to do anything to you if you use it 24/7.

 

[Kewlx25]

Then you have companies like Sonic.Net that openly claim that they don't care how much an individual uses bandwidth, because the average usage is low across the customer base. They don't need to make money on every customer, they just want to make money on average.

Even then, wholesale bandwidth is purchased symmetrically. A large residential ISP sets their bandwidth costs from downloading because that's the most common direction of usage. This means their upload bandwidth is hugely under-utilized. For many residential ISPs, upload bandwidth is generally considered "free".

An ISP may need to purchase 10gb of bandwidth to handle the downloading that customers do during peak hours, which means they also have 10gb of upload. They may be sitting around 500mb of upload, then a customer comes along and starts doing P2P and is uploading an additional 500mb. Yes, they doubled their upload bandwidth from 500mb to 1gb, but their download is still near 10gb, meaning they have 9gb of upload bandwidth to go.

 

[Conrad Pinto]

Then you have companies like Sonic.Net that openly claim that they don't care how much an individual uses bandwidth, because the average usage is low across the customer base. They don't need to make money on every customer, they just want to make money on average.

Even then, wholesale bandwidth is purchased symmetrically. A large residential ISP sets their bandwidth costs from downloading because that's the most common direction of usage. This means their upload bandwidth is hugely under-utilized. For many residential ISPs, upload bandwidth is generally considered "free".

An ISP may need to purchase 10gb of bandwidth to handle the downloading that customers do during peak hours, which means they also have 10gb of upload. They may be sitting around 500mb of upload, then a customer comes along and starts doing P2P and is uploading an additional 500mb. Yes, they doubled their upload bandwidth from 500mb to 1gb, but their download is still near 10gb, meaning they have 9gb of upload bandwidth to go.

Thanks Kewlx25. That really helped. So ISPs purchase the bandwidth in GBs or TBs. Well a major portion of my ISP's users mostly browse the net. Very few downloaders. I guess I can get lucky!