Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

[Gotmadskillzson]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/02/27/verizon-wants-to-charge-gamers-more-for-their-bandwidth.aspx#.Uw_LeCRe7jY.twitter

Gamers are starting to get used to change. Our games aren’t always complete products anymore, as some publishers are more often viewing them as services. Those of us in the United States have grown accustomed to to flat-rate internet, but even that could be headed for a shift.

IGD News Service reports that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam wants heavy users to pay more. This would include those streaming high definition video and downloading video games. "It's only natural that the heavy users help contribute to the investment to keep the Web healthy," he said. "That is the most important concept of net neutrality."

[trobinson97]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

Link not working properly.

[Steven78]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/27/that-steam-account-may-cost-you-verizon-wants-to-charge-gamers-extra-for-eating-up-bandwidth/

[aukevin]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

If Verizon ever takes away my unlimited data, they lose me as a customer.

[LingeringRegime]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

Good thing I don't play mobile games.

EDIT: Sorry, misread post. This sucks.

[p_rushing]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

AT&T caps in place now and it cost $10 per 50GBs over that, they just don't enforce them, check your TOS if you have them

Comcast has caps in place now, not sure if they charge you or just slow your speed if you go over

Its not really new and all internet providers have thought about this, they just don't have enough heavy users to make it worth it. If you put limits, then shouldn't you charge low usage people less?

This will be a big reason that gaming digital games and streaming will fail unless something changes. A family with Netflix and a gaming machine or 2 could easily hit the 250GB if they stream a bunch of stuff.

[Burns11]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

AT&T caps in place now and it cost $10 per 50GBs over that, they just don't enforce them, check your TOS if you have them

AT&T, with Uverse anyway, physically can't monitor internet only traffic, internet and TV is indistinguishable on the network.

[ubernoob]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

Comcast has caps in place now, not sure if they charge you or just slow your speed if you go over

Comcast's caps are suspended.

This is a low usage month for us (like... 2/3 of what we normally use if not a bit less.) If they ever bring them back, I'm telling them exactly where they can stick it.

[p_rushing]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

AT&T, with Uverse anyway, physically can't monitor internet only traffic, internet and TV is indistinguishable on the network.

yeah which is why they aren't enforcing it, they can tell the difference, its just that the reporting of it can't .. they know the IPs of where the TV comes from

[DanH35]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

yeah which is why they aren't enforcing it, they can tell the difference, its just that the reporting of it can't .. they know the IPs of where the TV comes from

They're enforcing it on DSL, I've had to pay extra a couple times already.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LambertandHam]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

This line gets me:

This would include those streaming high definition video and downloading video games.

Then why offer higher speed tiers? Games are getting bigger, along with decently sized PC patches(not to mention mods and DLC). You can easily hit the 250GB Comcast cap without using things like torrents.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

Who it is going to effect the most are the people who stream on Twitch everyday for multiple hours a day. Same thing with people who upload Youtube videos a lot, like Youtubers who do Youtube for a living. They will hit that cap in 1 day.

[Majingir]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

lol, you Americans are so lucky you have it so good when it comes to things like that.

Option of unlimited data on internet isn't as available in Canada as it is in USA.In Canada,people have to pay $80 a month just to get 150GB of usage. It's the reason things like Netflix aren't as popular in Canada.

It's just sad/pathetic how outdated so many of these things are in Canada, I wish we had the options USA has. Canada is dominated by only 2 companies,and if people aren't happy about those companies,they're forced to settle for a lesser company or stay with their current company and deal with it, while people in USA if they're not happy,can switch to another company of equal quality.

[allBthere]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

Comcast's caps are suspended.

This is a low usage month for us (like... 2/3 of what we normally use if not a bit less.) If they ever bring them back, I'm telling them exactly where they can stick it.

HOLY SMOKES!!!!

you BE DOWNNNNLOAAAADIN' SON!!!!!! lol

[mattsb84]

Re: Verizon going to charge Gamers more money for their bandwidth

HOLY SMOKES!!!!

you BE DOWNNNNLOAAAADIN' SON!!!!!! lol

Yeah, that would be the type of person ISPs are targetting. That is a lot of data usage in a month (i dont think you can argue otherwise). I downloaded my entire steam library in a month and it totaled well over 500gb. I was certainly abusing their bandwidth and if they had throttled me, I'd have been fine with that..for the remainder of the month. Month to month, my normal usage is well under 100GB. I'm not a heavy user though. If 500gb is a normal usage for you, I have to assume you have multiple users in one house hold streaming video and/or doing some serious downloading. If thats just you..wtf are you doing?!

So what are possible solutions?
a) Allow multiple modems per house (usually frowned upon)
b) require a user to log in and then log usage per user (seems annoying/intrusive).
Or
c) force cable companys to upgrade thier infrastructure with all the money they're making so there dont need to be caps (requires investment of infrastructure, not cheap).

Personally, I favor C.