The FCC is still taking comments from the public about how much data you really use and what your experience with data caps is like.

The Federal Communications Commission is officially looking into broadband data caps and their impact on consumers. On Tuesday, the FCC approved a notice of inquiry to examine whether data caps harm consumers and competition, as well as why data caps persist “despite increased broadband needs” and the “technical ability to offer unlimited data plans, as spotted earlier by Engadget.

Many internet plans come with a data cap that limits how much bandwidth you can use each month. If you go over the data cap, internet service providers will typically charge an extra fee or slow down your service. The FCC first started inviting consumers to comment on broadband data caps last June, hundreds of which you can now read on the agency’s website.

You can still share your experience with broadband data caps with the FCC through this form, which will ask for details about the name of your ISP, usage limits, and any challenges you’ve encountered due to the cap.

  • EchEnglish
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    and why they still exist

    Does that really require inquiry? It’s for more money, fucking obviously.

    • Samvega
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      “We spent six years investigating why a business would want to overcharge customers in order to make more money. What we found shocked us, because businesses were spending that money on finding way to make the world worse.

  • MyOpinion
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    They exist so that companies can extract additional dollars from each data line.

      • bobs_monkey
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        More like one charge to have access to the show, and an additional charge for having the audacity to actually watch it.

  • Justin
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    Biden’s FCC has been killing it, really nice to see them crack down on data caps with this and the standardized billing info

  • Alexstarfire
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    Money.

    When something isn’t about money or power, then you can actually phrase it like it’s a surprise.

    • Samvega
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      Ah, so I can be surprised about the reason why I like pooping in the morning. At least until I get paid for doing it. Or elected.

      • msage
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        My boss makes a dollar

        while I make a dime

        That’s why I shit

        on company time

  • solrize
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    I want to know why upstream bandwidth is so limited too. I have about 300gb of data at home, not much at all by hoarder standards. But there is no decent way for me to back it up to a remote server, because of low upload speed.

    • bamboo
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      On cable it’s because they allocate significantly more bandwidth towards download than upload. They could allocate them equally but most customers that are mostly just streaming or playing games care only about the download since it means they can stream/download things faster.

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      If you use something like borg backup the first upload will take you forever but after that all you have to upload is the data that changed. I had the same problem as you and that’s how I solved it.

      • solrize
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        Yeah it would take multiple days and the connection usually doesn’t stay up that long. Any idea how well Borg deals with random disconnects and reconnects during a backup?

        I do use Borg and like it in general.

        • superglueEnglish
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          Not sure, I used rclone to upload the archive. Took days for me as well but it worked.

    • DominusOfMegadeus
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      I got FIOS gigabit recently, and was very surprised to find that I now regularly get 300&400mb upload speeds

      • solrize
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        This is decades later and most of that stuff has been replaced multiple times by now.

        • catloafEnglish
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          And only in the past couple years have we been hitting that limit. Maintaining backwards compliance has been more important for cable service. Anyone who had a real need would have used T-carrier service, fiber, or multiple bonded lines, depending on year and budget.

  • Dagnet
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    Internet providers tried to implement data caps in my country but it got shot down, its sad you guys have to put up with that nonsense

    • Sir_KevinEnglish
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      What’s more disgusting is that cell providers have data caps on tethering. Why the fuck it should matter if I’m using one device via another or how that’s even their business is beyond me. If I’m paying for data, just give me what I’m paying for. It shouldn’t matter how it’s distributed on my own private network/devices.

      AT&T and T-Mobile both lost hundreds/thousands of dollars from me because I canceled due to this nonsense.

  • Dem BosainEnglish
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    I actually have competition where I live. No data caps.

  • HorreC
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    this is being brought up from MSFS 2024, lot of nerds in planes were about to get hit with that limit and the FCC is like its time to shine!!