[ NNSquad ] Fractional connections / duty cycles / usage caps

[Wes Felter <wesley@felter.org>]

I'd like to distinguish between three cases:

A) You buy a connection with X% duty cycle and the ISP prevents you from 
sending/receiving more than that. Your bill is the same every month.

B) You buy a connection with Y GB/month usage cap, but the ISP allows 
you to exceed it and then charges you (a lot) more money.

C) You buy a connection with Y GB/month usage cap, but the ISP allows 
you to exceed it and then cancels your account if you do.

(I assume the reader understands that a duty cycle and a usage cap are 
the same thing, just expressed in different ways.)

I think A is good but B and C are bad. (I think all three options should 
be legal, but I'm not talking about legalities in this message.) I 
*want* a bursty Internet connection because my usage is bursty, but I 
also want some kind of "safety valve" that keeps my bill under control. 
In summary, usage caps are good *when implemented properly*, but 
*virtually all broadband ISPs are implementing usage caps wrong*. When 
an ISP says "your bill will be somewhere between $50 and $150" the 
resulting customer outrage is entirely predictable and IMO justified.

Wes Felter