You probably guessed from the title of this piece that this would be a rant about the evils of the Internet Service Provider (ISP). Now, I know I'm not a terribly technical fellow...not well versed in the language of binary and assembly, but I can still tell when I am being ripped off.
In the beginning, there was a cable...this was the transACT network. From it's humble beginnings being rolled out into my suburb back when I was in year 11, to its astounding ability to amuse and entertain. Yes, Fibre optics had come to town.
"Fibre optics" you say? Yes, the technology has been around for sometime, however they have still been attempting to weed out teething problems. Most of which have to do with exchange errors and the likes, but the biggest error (and one which persists even still today) is that of the ISPs on the network.
You're probably thinking that I'm rambling now, well I am...but hey, i'm angry and I'm procrastinating and not studying for a materials test tomorrow.
The ISP: Currently we pay a whopping $99 for a meagre 4GB limit on our internet. And when you think about it, Nemesis is constantly downloading 4GB (or more) a month on his lowly 56Kb modem at home...now up the speeds a little. 256kb/s connections...possibly 512kb/s now its starting to become apparent that the capacity to exceed ones limit is very easy.
To put it in perspective, if I had a constant download rate of 20kb/s and I left it downloading a really big file...by the end of the month I would have downloaded something in the order of 51840000 Kbs of data, or 50625 mbs of data, or 49.5 GB of data. Now compare that to the limit assigned to our connection: 4GB. Thats a whopping 45.5GB of difference. Now ISPs in general have pretty stringent rules about going over the limit: Every GB over you d/l, you pay roughly $130 or $120 (if they're generous) ... now had i managed to actually leave my computer on 24/7 for a month whilst it downloaded the entire contents of my HDD from a remote connection, I would have to pay $5900 for this misadventure. Think about it...what would you do with ~6k? Spend it on 45GB of downloads? I don't think so! Luckily for me, in June we only went just under 4 GB over the limit...and thus it was only 400 or so dollars we ended up paying *oops*.
Anyway, I could'nt really be bothered going on...so I'll leave in saying this: Once the contract for this current ISP is over with, we are going to be moving to another ISP with a much better deal $100/mo for unlimited downloads. Compared to the ISP i currently have (and most ISPs on the transact network) it is exceptional just looking at the costs. The question still burns in my mind: "Whats the service like?"
With a very light wallet, I bid you adeau.
Comments
*points and laughs*
Hehehe I can download more than you, and it costs me less to do so :P
(also pointing and laughing at the people at Fenner Hall, who pay per MB downloaded :P)
With the unlimited download ISP, I'd almost be willing to put money on it that the service would be poor. And by service, I mean download speed.
Think about it this way:
- ISP buys a pipe of a fixed bandwidth (say, 20Mbps) off TransACT.
- ISP offers unlimited downloads for around $100/month.
Question: How many people would be willing to pay $100/month for internet; not including TransACT's line rental, etc?
Answer: Only someone who was serious about getting online.
Consequence: Hardcore internet junkies sign up for 1mbps connections and start downloading ISOs and kiddie-porn.
Result: The ISP's 20mbps pipe quickly gets used up. Hence, you may even experience download speeds similar to what I'm experiencing now :P
And considering Australia only has a total bandwidth of around 150mbps to the US, you start seeing that Broadband in Australia is FAR FAR away. 150 script kiddies (eg. Boxofrox) packeting some site in the US would chew up the entire of australia's pipe.
Don't worry, Peter is just stuck in the old days...and still think they use a tin can and string for bandwidth trans-pacific to US. If it was THAT low, it would definately had been blown a long time ago...but the fact that large submarine cables still have 'dark' threads (i.e. Unused fibre optic threads) suggests that there isn't such a great demand.
Besides, if you really wanted to disturb the cable connections to the rest of the world...go chomp on the physical cables itself. Most trans pacific cables hit Aus near sydney...
further more, submarine cables such as southern cross cable has a bandwidth capacity of 240 Gbps...this is the raw load of the cable (telephone, internet etc...) Now according to projections, the amount of usage by the cable will be at about 60% in 2003. This leave plenty of bandwidth over for them to lease to other phone companies (such as Primus who in 2001 leased 500mbps of bandwidth) I don't really know what has happened to the rest of it, but i'm willing to be most of the unused bandwidth will remain as dark threads waiting for the bandwidth to fill up. AAAAANYWAY...im tired. I'm considering majoring in telecommunications, that sounds good.
P.S. anyone know the address to the website that was hosting pics from the 1st yr engineering party last semester?