Talk:Data cap

message: I've been cleaning this small article up, and I'm wondering if the following from the original version is a bit biased:
"Many broadband Internet Service Providers in the United States and Europe have begun to introduce bandwidth caps. The same practice has been in place in Australia and South Africa since the release of broadband."
It's a conspicuous statement, seeing as a link to an 'Anti-cap' organization directly follows. Also, living in the United States, I never heard of a bandwidth cap before reading this article; the phrase "Many broadband Internet Service Providers in the United States" seems exaggerated.
I can verify that in Australia and New Zealand such caps are the norm - indeed, uncapped plans are expensive and not many ISPs offer them. Although here they are known as 'download limits' or 'download quotas' and the process of implemeting them is known as 'shaping'. I can't comment on the U.S. situation.
Actually, as far as i know, all CableTV Internet highspeed providers are capping their speeds. If i'm not mistaken DOCSIS (the protocol for cableTV internet-highspeed) v1.1 allows up to 27 Mbit downstream speed and up to 7 Mbit upstream speeds. Most Cable-internet users are "restricted" to 3-6 Mbit downstream and 128-512 kbit upstream - whereas the upstream rate is generally 256-368kbits in average. which isnt really that much if you're playing multiplayer onlinegames w. more than one computer in a household. But since backbone bandwith isnt cheap, you get what you pay for. Archangel Michael 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: Are there any providers or areas where it is common to charge a line fee and then a per MB charge for access, rather than a fixed price per user?  That seems like it would allow providers to offer high speed and reduce waste from P2P apps and such.  74.79.174.201 01:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Models of access

message: See Wikipedia policies:
;Policies
* Wikipedia:Verifiability
* Wikipedia:Reliable sources
* Wikipedia:Citing sources
KarenAnn 13:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  You need to reference the material in this article 

message: I don't think this article should be merged with Download quota once they refer to different concepts. One refers to a limit in the speed of your connection (measured in bytes/sec) while the other refers to a total limit of downloads in a certain time period (tipically a calendar month) and is measured in bytes.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodrigobelo (talk • contribs) 18:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  About merging with [[Download quota]] 

message: I think a section about the technical details of how capping is implemented would fit well. --CyHawk (talk) 08:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Implementation details 

message: Usage based billing also applies to plain old telephone calls still where long distance charges are still applied by the minute. Usage based billing also applies to many cell phone plans when you buy by the minute. The system calculates how much use is being made and stores the records. If the term Usage Based Billing is redirected here, there needs to be some considerable discussion in this regard. I could type in a lot of stuff on this subject but it is from personal experience working in the industry, so is not suitable. And another issue with this is that there are very few books or public articles on the subject as the various systems are quite proprietary. But there has to be something out there to describe how it works. In any case, there needs to be something on cell and POTs (plain old telephone) usage based billing. It was here WAY before internet related usage based billing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theshowmecanuck (talk • contribs) 03:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage Based Billing Is NOT Just Internet Related 

message: *
 Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Academic paper 

message: I cut content from the article. All of this information is without citation. I did this in response to the problem templates on the article. After cutting this content, I removed the problem templates.
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One type of bandwidth cap, administered by an Internet service provider (ISP), simply limits the bitrate or speed of data transfer on a broadband Internet connection. The purpose of bandwidth capping is to prevent individual users from consuming the entire transmission capacity of the cable, a shared resource. However, critics argue that it is a method to charge consumers more by introducing tiered bandwidth caps. 
Capping might be handled by the user's cable modem. Knowledge of capping has led to attempts at uncapping, though this is considered by ISPs to be a theft of service. When uncapping succeeds, the resulting data transfer rate is supposed to be extremely fast, but users who are caught are said to be banned permanently by broadband ISPs.
Sophistication is possible, and even required in limiting bandwidth. The simplest approach simply limits the data rate. The problem with the simplest approach is, a very active user could consume the maximum bandwidth continuously, theoretically imposing an excess burden on the ISP and possibly reducing the performance of other users.
Channel capacity is a finite resource, and using huge amounts of it can be deemed an abuse in countries with poor communications infrastructure. Dial-up ISPs often published policies that tried to clarify the difference between "unmetered" and "unlimited".
A more sophisticated approach is called "bursting", the administrator would specify a "peak rate limit", a lower "sustained rate limit", and a "credit limit". If one were to continuously saturate their connection, they would only get the sustained rate.  While they are idle or use less than the sustained rate, they accumulate a credit, in bytes, up to some limit. If they try to saturate their connection after idling, they will get the peak rate until their credit runs out, at which point they will again be running at the sustained rate limit. The transition from peak rate to sustained rate could be abrupt, gradual, or even an arbitrarily designed curve.  If they alternately idle and saturate, their long-term average data rate will never exceed the sustained rate limit, and their short-term data rate will never exceed the peak rate limit. This is known as a Token bucket.
Other schemes or models are possible to regulate bursting. Running at the peak rate could accumulate a debt. Once the debt reaches a limit, the user is held to the sustained rate limit and the debt does not change. Only running below the sustained limit (or idle time) pays back the debt. The behavior is similar.
;Lowered cap
Another type of capping refers to the reported phenomenon of an ISP reducing an individual user's bandwidth cap, without notifying that user, as a defensive measure and/or as a punishment for heavy use, especially for upstream traffic.  "Servers" tend to use upstream bandwidth heavily, and violate most service agreements. (Cable and other broadband services tend to be asymmetrical, making upstream capacity scarcer than downstream.) Somehow the ISP detects that the user is an offender — perhaps by analyzing traffic to detect the activity of a server, or perhaps by comparing the user's long-term data rate against an unpublished limit.  If a user gets tagged as an offender, then the ISP imposes a lower bandwidth cap upon that user, and/or restricts other services.  e.g. NTT Communications in Japan imposes a 30GB/day upload cap with a warning for a first violation and disconnection for repeat offenders.
The implementation of a sustained rate limit might appear as a reduced cap.  If the data rate improves automatically after idle time, this would confirm the operation of a sustained rate limit.
Reports claim that the intervention of an administrator is required to remove a lowered cap.
A number of broadband Internet Service Providers in North America and Europe introduced bandwidth caps in the early 2000s. The same practice has been in place in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia (All others except ADSL broadband) and South Africa since the release of broadband. Data caps on internet in New Zealand result from many popular websites being hosted in the United States, hence local ISPs must lease international capacity; a proponent of a  second international cable to the United States claims that cheaper international capacity will result in ISPs raising their data caps.
;Download quota
A download quota is a restriction fixed by ISPs (Internet Service Provider) to limit the volume of data downloaded by the end user during a fixed period, usually a month. Once a fixed download cap (e.g. 250 gigabytes/month) has been reached by the end user, the speed at which they access the internet is usually throttled to a slower speed, cut off,  or they are charged for excess data usage.
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 Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut content 

message: This article contains no information on criticism of bandwidth caps. In particular, it is missing the assertion that these caps are not related to network performance, and are mainly intended to help boost the ISPs bottom lines (particularly in the U.S.) ViperSnake151  Talk   15:35, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contrasting viewpoints missing 

message: This article is too U.S. centric. A number of foreign countries have had or have bandwidth caps in place including Canada and Australia, for example. We need to update the article to include info in the use of bandwidth caps in countries outside the U.S. and current status on the use of them currently if at all in those countries. I would include sections on major countries that either have at one time or still have bandwidth caps in place. I would also mention countries/jurisdictions that ban such caps such as the E.U.
--Notcharliechaplin (talk) 15:43, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Worldview on bandwidth caps