I thought data caps for home internet were a thing of the past…

I’ve somewhat recently moved back to a very rural area of the Midwest. Small town. No stop lights. Biggest businesses other than the bars are Casey’s, Subway, and Dollar General.

And we have one ISP (not counting DSL) — Mediacom. When we first signed up, I had to go with the second service tier. But not because of speeds, but so I could have a reasonable 1 TB/mo data cap.

Lucky me, they increased the cap to 1.5 TB. 🙄

I hope that in my lifetime I can see ISPs regulated as a public utility.

      • Steeve@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Somewhat OK internet on the infrastructure our taxes paid for and the government handed over to Bell and Rogers, but don’t worry, they’ll stop all the other evil corporations from coming in and giving us cheaper internet.

  • Dettweiler@lemmyonline.comEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    Home internet data caps WERE a thing of the past when Obama appointed Tom Wheeler as FCC chairman, who then pushed rulings to classify ISPs as a public utility and started enforcing net neutrality. Companies that didn’t play ball started getting fined until they fell in line. Being a former executive for a major ISP, he was very familiar with the anti-competitive practices and underhanded tricks those companies had been using for years; and he used those practices against them to finally make some pro-consumer progress for internet access in the US.

    Then, Trump came in and put Ajit Pai in charge of the FCC (no joke, my phone kept auto correcting his name to Shit Pie). Anyways, Shit Pie tore down those rulings and undid all those years of progress as part of the Trump administration’s anti-Obama initiative. Even though it was proven time and again that what he did was directly against public opinion, and that ISPs were flooding the public commentary with bot posts(some even made by dead people); Shit Pie continued to meme about himself and drink from an obnoxiously large Reese’s coffee mug while doing so. At this point, every provider of internet services has added back data caps in the US, and they have continued to increase their prices to maintain that 99.9% profit margin. They’ve also locked down more areas to prevent municipal broadband services from forming, and they’re even pushing for legislation to prevent them from ever happening.

    The current administration has done absolutely nothing. In fact, they’ve been so unremarkable, I have no idea who is in charge of the FCC, and I don’t feel like looking it up.

  • Remmy@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    I am very thankful that I do not live in the United States. Even in Canada where telecommunications services are notoriously expensive, data caps on cellphone plans are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Carriers like Freedom Mobile will simply throttle your speed instead of charging you a boatload of money once you pass your monthly data “limit”.

  • dan@upvote.au
    1·
    2 years ago

    I get unlimited 10Gbps symmetric fiber for $40/month. One of the only affordable things in the San Francisco Bay Area, lol

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    AP WiFi Access Point
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    IP Internet Protocol
    IoT Internet of Things for device controllers
    Plex Brand of media server package
    VPN Virtual Private Network

    6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.

    [Thread #68 for this sub, first seen 19th Aug 2023, 15:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • buzz@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    I had the 1.25 TB a month cap all the time till earlier this year when all of a sudden they ran a symmetric fiber here. Eastern us, not rural at all. I went with 500mbps/50$ a month - dont really need more for myself, but the lack of a cap is just amazing as I ran against the limit so many times before.

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      It’s ok. Compeition will drive down prices! I have so many options with internet such as Comcast and Company that pretends to compete with Comcast.

  • Ryan@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    In Thailand I’m getting 400Mbps upload and download with unlimited data.

    It costs about 300฿/mo ≈ $8.7/mo

  • rizoid@midwest.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I was very close to closing on a house in rural midwest but I checked isp’s and every one available had caps so I just stayed away.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.worldEnglish
      01·
      2 years ago

      It’s why you just get a business line, usually just slightly more expensive, and you get 99.9% SLA uptime and unlimited cap.

      • theoc@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        You shouldn’t need a business line to get reliable, fast, unlimited internet.