As the father of a teenager I'm relieved to know that Netflix had my back. As it is she often uses about 22 GB of our 30 GB monthly plan as it is. How much would she have used without Netflix doing the throttling? AT&T management can skip the outrage when they make streaming services more affordable on their network. Free calls and texting my on their plans aren't an incentive. The world is using data which is easier to provision on the LTE networks and much more efficient. The high monthly fees are ridiculous now that they've updated most of their system and moving to the next level is almost all software. Adding $15 per GB is robbery. My daughter can use that in two days. This month if I didn't shut her down and she continued at the same rate of usage it would double the cost of my monthly bill which has 4 smartphones on it if we used 15 more GB's. Half of what we have on our plan.
I can't ignore this post.
Why are they using so much data? - Do you not have WiFi? - Do you not explain to your child how to use WiFi at other locations? - Why exactly is your teenager spending so much time in locations, where ostensibly there is NO WiFi, doing consuming tasks on their device? Does your child literally walk out into the woods every day and use their phone for consumption tasks?
There really is no excuse for this. When your teen is at home, they should be on WiFi. When they are at school, they should be using their phone. When they are at their friend's house, they should be on WiFi. When they are at the mall dicking around, they should be on WiFi. When they are driving around in the car, they shouldn't be watching fucking Netflix.
Please, oh please, try to justify how your child is blowing through data. Because I doubt you can.
The funniest thing about this is all the people defending Netflix are largely the same crowd that was calling T-Mobile's Binge On! feature a violation of net neutrality. LOL
-kp
this isn't a violation of net neutrality. Servers can throttle their own service with no violation. I'm pretty sure that I would expect Netflix or any streaming service to downgrade if the wifi is bad, or if on 3G. And with 4G a warning.
I often turn wifi off on the train because the train's wifi sucks. Then I forget that I am on 3G. Particularly on sites like this (despite my wifi being 100M/s text is text)
the bbc iplayer warns me. That's all that's needed here.
Not that I'm defending them, but why would anyone really need to watch higher resolution than 480p on a 3.5-4" device, which is going to account for the majority of Apple devices streaming video over cellular services? Maybe in the last two years after the introduction of the 6 Plus, higher res makes a difference, and even then I'm not convinced. But this has been going on for at least 5 years. Moreover, why would anyone choose HD video quality on such a small screen, over a cellular connection? Even under ideal cellular circumstances, that's a huge amount of unecessary bandwidth resulting in playback issues, buffering and the like.
What makes me laugh is that these people were actually convinced they were seeing a higher res, less compressed image : the power of the mind.
AT&T and Verizon are guilty for charging ridiculous penalties for going over your cap. Pure evil. There should be a law if companies charge massive fines for OVERUSE the customer should get massive refunds for UNDER USE.
What, you mean customers should pay for what they use and nothing more? That's a totally unheard of concept.
The funny thing is people advocating that will be the first to btch when they see how much they pay actually go up if this happens. The low bandwidth users would likely pay a few bucks less (because bandwidth is not the only reason you pay those prices) and the high bandwidth users would pay much much more.
Also it kind of forgets that even if someone is using a low bandwidth, they're still using the same infrastructure as the high bandwidth users. That's why they mostly pay the price they pay, not the bandwidth they use.
Netflix for not informing customers what they are doing. This is like McDonalds giving you only one beef patty in your BigMac because they are trying to 'protect' their customers from heart disease. Give me a break. Netlfix throttled streaming because it SAVED THEM MONEY. PERIOD.
AT&T and Verizon are guilty for charging ridiculous penalties for going over your cap. Pure evil. There should be a law if companies charge massive fines for OVERUSE the customer should get massive refunds for UNDER USE.
Solution? Get T-mobile.
Both are guilty. Agreed.
Netflix should have made people aware they were doing this and given them an option to disable the throttling - like they are about to do now. But throttling didn't save them any money. They don't pay for the bandwidth that they use to transfer video to your device - you do.
And for all the people complaining that NetFlix didn't deliver what you paid for - they only throttled over 2 of the mobile networks - if you used Netflix while on Wi-Fi or from your TV, Computer, DVD or game system - using your home internet - you did get exactly what they advertised.
I think that the number of people that watch Netflix EXCLUSIVELY using 3G/LTE data AND that NOTICED they were receiving a lower quality image is dwarfed by the number of people that Netflix saved from nasty AT&T overages. If you did use Netflix exclusively over AT&T or Verizon LTE AND you noticed a difference in quality - you have a right to be upset - and I hope that you call Netflix and have them give you a free month - especially because there aren't very many of you.
This policy helped far more people than it hurt - but having said that - Netflix was wrong in not announcing that it would be throttling on these 2 networks - but I am soooo glad that they kept large amounts of overage money out of AT&T coffers!!!
As the father of a teenager I'm relieved to know that Netflix had my back. As it is she often uses about 22 GB of our 30 GB monthly plan as it is. How much would she have used without Netflix doing the throttling? AT&T management can skip the outrage when they make streaming services more affordable on their network. Free calls and texting my on their plans aren't an incentive. The world is using data which is easier to provision on the LTE networks and much more efficient. The high monthly fees are ridiculous now that they've updated most of their system and moving to the next level is almost all software. Adding $15 per GB is robbery. My daughter can use that in two days. This month if I didn't shut her down and she continued at the same rate of usage it would double the cost of my monthly bill which has 4 smartphones on it if we used 15 more GB's. Half of what we have on our plan.
I can't ignore this post.
Why are they using so much data? - Do you not have WiFi? - Do you not explain to your child how to use WiFi at other locations? - Why exactly is your teenager spending so much time in locations, where ostensibly there is NO WiFi, doing consuming tasks on their device? Does your child literally walk out into the woods every day and use their phone for consumption tasks?
There really is no excuse for this. When your teen is at home, they should be on WiFi. When they are at school, they should be using their phone. When they are at their friend's house, they should be on WiFi. When they are at the mall dicking around, they should be on WiFi. When they are driving around in the car, they shouldn't be watching fucking Netflix.
Please, oh please, try to justify how your child is blowing through data. Because I doubt you can.
Wow. You've got a lot of thoughts on what other people SHOULD be doing. Arrogant, judgemental and rude in my eyes.
Most of the questions you've asked can be answered by a single word - "convenience".
They and their children do not need to answer to you or justify anything to you!
Worry about the way you live your own life and lay off of applying your values and lifestyles on other people.
Netflix should have made people aware they were doing this and given them an option to disable the throttling - like they are about to do now. But throttling didn't save them any money. They don't pay for the bandwidth that they use to transfer video to your device - you do.
That is not entirely correct. Netflix pays their provider to put the stream ONTO the Internet. You are paying your provider for access TO the Internet. You are only paying for your access (upload/download speeds and cap, if applicable to you and your ISP). Which is why it is crazy to see last-mile ISPs trying to charge Netflix saying they get free bandwidth. They absolutely DO NOT.
Why are people in the comments defending Netflix? So I paid full price for a service which you didn't deliver and people are applauding them for this? I'll worry about my data cap myself. Just deliver my HD content at the quality I paid for without a ridiculous amount of buffering and I'm happy. It's not your concern what my data charges are.
I agree that customers should get to decide, but just for example, once I watched netflix for just 20 minutes, and it used up 2 months worth of my data! I was so lucky - since it was near the beginning of the month, that 20 minutes only cost me $35 in overage fees. Had it happened at the end of the month, it would have cost me $250 !!! For one TV show! So obviously, here's a case where it's impossible for me to use netflix without data throttling.
Even if I paid for a 50GB/month plan, that would only cover a few hours of video a month, so IMO, it's just not practical over a phone without compression. Even using Apple Radio in the car every day is about 2x my monthly limit, so I can't even do that regularly.
Honestly, I'm surprised there's anyone in a position to do high fidelity video on a phone plan.
I guess the bottom line is IMO they were more "protecting" their business. Else 95% of customers simply couldn't watch netflix on their phone, because just one show would blow their monthly data plan.
In the end we need an alternative to the entire Comcast and AT&T et al cartel in the USA. They are like highwaymen on the road between providers and end users. Admittedly they built the highway in this case. If you take that analogy all the way, then it seems logical that we the tax payers need to pay for our own roads and not drive (unless we want to) on the roads with toll booths. I hope there are technologies out there that will make the concept of a free public internet distribution system extensible, extremely fast and inexpensive to operate. Then, one day in the future, we can sit back and reminisce about the 'bad old days' when we had to pay exorbitant tolls to send and access data.
Why are people in the comments defending Netflix? So I paid full price for a service which you didn't deliver and people are applauding them for this? I'll worry about my data cap myself. Just deliver my HD content at the quality I paid for without a ridiculous amount of buffering and I'm happy. It's not your concern what my data charges are.
I agree that customers should get to decide, but just for example, once I watched netflix for just 20 minutes, and it used up 2 months worth of my data! I was so lucky - since it was near the beginning of the month, that 20 minutes only cost me $35 in overage fees. Had it happened at the end of the month, it would have cost me $250 !!! For one TV show! So obviously, here's a case where it's impossible for me to use netflix without data throttling.
Even if I paid for a 50GB/month plan, that would only cover a few hours of video a month, so IMO, it's just not practical over a phone without compression. Even using Apple Radio in the car every day is about 2x my monthly limit, so I can't even do that regularly.
Honestly, I'm surprised there's anyone in a position to do high fidelity video on a phone plan.
Your right and that's why in an early post in this thread I actually said I think Netflix is correct on this one, with a caveat. If you analyze what you said carefully Netflix was actually protecting millions of users against just that, happening daily. Those against this can scream and yell all they want but to be blunt that are demanding that they have the right to get massive overage charges. Easy to say when you didn't but I wonder how many would be happy with hundreds if not thousands of dollars in fees they didn't see coming. I suspect those same people would be arguing Netflix could have reduced the quality somewhat when they were on cellular and probably be claiming Netflix were in cahoots with AT&T and Verizon or whoever.
My only caveat is there should be an option to or not made very clear. As in ... check box each time you watch or 'don't ask me again' type interface ... 'Click here if you are grandfathered in with free data OR want to pay lots of extra money (possibly a hell of a lot of extra money) or click here for a more affordable data rate while watching Netflix'.
What, you mean customers should pay for what they use and nothing more? That's a totally unheard of concept.
Not really. T-mobile follows that concept.
If you go over your data cap they don't charge crazy fees but just slow down your data speeds. That is fair. You have been abused by AT&T and Verizon for so long you don't realize what decent customer service is.
Maybe I should have added the /s sarcasm tag. 99% of what I buy is charged by what I use: gasoline, electricity, food, natural gas, water, clothing, shoes, etc. (granted I have a fixed fee to account for infrastructure, customer overhead, maintenance, and the like for utility providers) Phone service and cable TV are the only ones I can think of where I purchase a big block of the service, hope that I don't need a bigger package for that month and don't exceed that amount, and then at the end of the billing period realize I underutilized it and essentially paid for nothing.
I haven't subscribed to the fruit of the month club where they send me a huge amount of fruit that I usually can't eat in its entirety. Fortunately there's a competitor I can go to where I can purchase exactly what I need -- a single orange. They don't offer only a 20 pound bag of oranges that I won't finish unless I have a lot of guests. Any amount that goes over gets charged at the same flat rate because there are no "brackets" or plans to exceed.
Why can't a cell provider charge me some sort of fixed fee to cover their costs of giving me service plus a reasonable markup for profit (something like $15/month) and charge me a flat rate of $4/GB? I could have a truly unlimited data plan if I want to pay for it and I can also be frugal if I'm a data miser. It seems the only thing standing in the way of such radical ideas is greed.
Is this really a scandal? Youre on a 5 inch phone. The fact nobody said anything about this and is now claiming they didn't get their moneys worth is funny shit. You went years without noticing, why? Because you're on a 5 inch phone!! Netflix is saving you and themselves some money and its not a huge deal.
Should they have more clarity and offer features? Sure. Its just a non story. You pay a company $10 a month, the price of 2 starbucks lattes to give you a metric digital ton of movies and shows that probably support every device down to the Nintendo 64. Give them a break.
If you go over your data cap they don't charge crazy fees but just slow down your data speeds. That is fair. You have been abused by AT&T and Verizon for so long you don't realize what decent customer service is.
Maybe I should have added the /s sarcasm tag. 99% of what I buy is charged by what I use: gasoline, electricity, food, natural gas, water, clothing, shoes, etc. (granted I have a fixed fee to account for infrastructure, customer overhead, maintenance, and the like for utility providers) Phone service and cable TV are the only ones I can think of where I purchase a big block of the service, hope that I don't need a bigger package for that month and don't exceed that amount, and then at the end of the billing period realize I underutilized it and essentially paid for nothing.
I haven't subscribed to the fruit of the month club where they send me a huge amount of fruit that I usually can't eat in its entirety. Fortunately there's a competitor I can go to where I can purchase exactly what I need -- a single orange. They don't offer only a 20 pound bag of oranges that I won't finish unless I have a lot of guests. Any amount that goes over gets charged at the same flat rate because there are no "brackets" or plans to exceed.
Why can't a cell provider charge me some sort of fixed fee to cover their costs of giving me service plus a reasonable markup for profit (something like $15/month) and charge me a flat rate of $4/GB? I could have a truly unlimited data plan if I want to pay for it and I can also be frugal if I'm a data miser. It seems the only thing standing in the way of such radical ideas is greed.
Let's explore just some of what you said. You asked for a billing system more like the utilities - where you pay a fixed cost for delivery, maintenance, exploration, debt-reduction, etc - and then you are charged for what you use.... I don't know where you live - but those "fixed charges" for my electric bill amount to 90% of the monthly amount. Through being frugal or gluttonous, I can somewhat control up to 10% of my monthly bill. It might as well be a flat rate as far as I'm concerned. Water and Gas are similar.
BUT - there's a significant difference between your home utilities and your internet service - Electricity, Water and Gas all cost money to generate/supply. Gigabytes do not. If your ISP were to bill you for their costs, plus a reasonable profit - that would cover everything! There would be no reason to charge anybody per/gigabyte. They would have to maintain enough capacity to provide service to everyone during the peak times. The rest of the day, all that excess capacity goes to waste. A small fraction of it is consumed by those with larger plans or bigger data appetites - but the capacity is there whether someone uses and pays for it or not.
Rather than thinking of your internet connection as a consumption based utility - like your ISP wants you to - it would be more accurate to think of it like a public (non-toll) road, a school, street lights or a public park. These are things that our governments provides to all of us via tax revenues. It doesn't matter how much or how little you use those services. Everybody pays a little towards then and everybody has the right to use them as much or as little as they like. This needs to happen with the Internet as well if you ever want to see fair pricing.
One other difference between your internet service and other services is that your ISP charges your more for a higher data speed but they only provide "best effort" towards delivering data at that speed - and the really crazy part is that if they fall short and can't deliver data at the speed you are paying for - do they offer a partial refund? Do they apologize for not having built enough capacity into their system to deliver what they are charging you for? No! They tell you that your neighbor is a data hog and so its HIS fault that your ISP can't give you what you paid them for....!!! And they've got us trained/conditioned to believe that and accept it and to focus our anger on our neighbor - instead of the organization that made us the promise when they took our money! It's not your neighbors fault. It's your ISP's fault. The intent should operate like the public road system in front of your house! It's there for you all day every day. You can use it whenever you want - for as long as you want. We don't pay extra for a higher speed limit - and if all of our neighbors want to use the roads as much as we do and traffic slows down because of it - they build more lanes!
ISPs and Mobile phone service providers are greedy, sleazy and evil. Challenge everything they tell you - because there's a 99% chance that they're lying to you or manipulating you. Forget about what other people are or are not doing. Your deal is with the ISP.
We should all pay a low flat rate and there should be enough capacity available so that we can all be connected 24/7. Imagine the savings the ISP's would enjoy if that were true. They could get rid of their entire sailed and marketing departments since they wouldn't have to find clever and evil ways to skin things so that they can charge you more. They could drastically reduce their accounting group and they cut cut back on the number of programmers they need to figure out how to bill everybody on their 200 different plans and packages. Customer service could be drastically reduced as well since people would have nothing left to complain about.
ARGH!!! THat whole industry is sooooook corrupt and evil it makes me want to scream!!!
BUT - there's a significant difference between your home utilities and your internet service - Electricity, Water and Gas all cost money to generate/supply. Gigabytes do not. If your ISP were to bill you for their costs, plus a reasonable profit - that would cover everything! There would be no reason to charge anybody per/gigabyte. They would have to maintain enough capacity to provide service to everyone during the peak times. The rest of the day, all that excess capacity goes to waste. A small fraction of it is consumed by those with larger plans or bigger data appetites - but the capacity is there whether someone uses and pays for it or not.
I'll have to disagree on this point. ISPs including cell providers have built their infrastructure on a case where they can handle most of the traffic most of the time. During peak periods customers experience slowdowns, dropouts, or worse. If everyone were to get online at the same time and request their maximum throughput they certainly would not achieve what they were promised by their ISPs. If they built their systems to handle that worst case scenario then yes, a data hog would cost an ISP about the same as a frugal user. But instead they have built their networks based on typical usage and data hogs are part of their problem.
I can't say that I blame ISPs for building their infrastructure for typical use cases. They shouldn't have to put in a 100Gb/s line where a 10Gb/s line has been 99.9% capable in meeting throughput over the last year just because my street wants Netflix at HD simultaneously at 09:00 today. Wireless providers are even more challenged because of radio spectrum limitations.
I would be more than willing to accept a rate where I am billed per GB instead of tiers. A lot of people are being data hogs just because they can or have been prodded into a higher capacity tier to avoid ridiculous overage charges. They would reduce their usage too. One of my buddies was on AT&T's wireless unlimited plan and one of his daughters was using about 30 GB/month. He wanted to reduce his bill and asked his daughter if she needed that much -- her answer was no, she was just using it because she could without any consequences. That family of four went to something like a 15GB/month plan and it worked just fine.
Almost everyone with a cell phone in the USA is getting gouged by the carriers. Other countries enjoy much more favorable rates. It's amazing that competition hasn't forced the market into some sort of correction yet.
Electricity, Water and Gas all cost money to generate/supply. Gigabytes do not. If your ISP were to bill you for their costs, plus a reasonable profit - that would cover everything!
I'll have to disagree on this point. ISPs including cell providers have built their infrastructure on a case where they can handle most of the traffic most of the time. During peak periods customers experience slowdowns, dropouts, or worse. If everyone were to get online at the same time and request their maximum throughput they certainly would not achieve what they were promised by their ISPs. If they built their systems to handle that worst case scenario then yes, a data hog would cost an ISP about the same as a frugal user. But instead they have built their networks based on typical usage and data hogs are part of their problem.
I can't say that I blame ISPs for building their infrastructure for typical use cases. They shouldn't have to put in a 100Gb/s line where a 10Gb/s line has been 99.9% capable in meeting throughput over the last year just because my street wants Netflix at HD simultaneously at 09:00 today. Wireless providers are even more challenged because of radio spectrum limitations.
I would be more than willing to accept a rate where I am billed per GB instead of tiers. A lot of people are being data hogs just because they can or have been prodded into a higher capacity tier to avoid ridiculous overage charges. They would reduce their usage too. One of my buddies was on AT&T's wireless unlimited plan and one of his daughters was using about 30 GB/month. He wanted to reduce his bill and asked his daughter if she needed that much -- her answer was no, she was just using it because she could without any consequences. That family of four went to something like a 15GB/month plan and it worked just fine.
Almost everyone with a cell phone in the USA is getting gouged by the carriers. Other countries enjoy much more favorable rates. It's amazing that competition hasn't forced the market into some sort of correction yet.
I usually snip out extraneous portions of quotes, but there's nothing to cut out... You are exactly right on every point. I'd prefer everyone pay per gigabyte as well, which would force customers to make choices about what's worth paying for and what isn't.
Your friend's daughter reminds me of people who consciously choose to abuse rental cars because they can.
Comments
Why are they using so much data?
- Do you not have WiFi?
- Do you not explain to your child how to use WiFi at other locations?
- Why exactly is your teenager spending so much time in locations, where ostensibly there is NO WiFi, doing consuming tasks on their device? Does your child literally walk out into the woods every day and use their phone for consumption tasks?
There really is no excuse for this. When your teen is at home, they should be on WiFi. When they are at school, they should be using their phone. When they are at their friend's house, they should be on WiFi. When they are at the mall dicking around, they should be on WiFi. When they are driving around in the car, they shouldn't be watching fucking Netflix.
Please, oh please, try to justify how your child is blowing through data. Because I doubt you can.
I often turn wifi off on the train because the train's wifi sucks. Then I forget that I am on 3G. Particularly on sites like this (despite my wifi being 100M/s text is text)
the bbc iplayer warns me. That's all that's needed here.
The low bandwidth users would likely pay a few bucks less (because bandwidth is not the only reason you pay those prices) and the high bandwidth users would pay much much more.
Also it kind of forgets that even if someone is using a low bandwidth, they're still using the same infrastructure as the high bandwidth users.
That's why they mostly pay the price they pay, not the bandwidth they use.
Netflix should have made people aware they were doing this and given them an option to disable the throttling - like they are about to do now. But throttling didn't save them any money. They don't pay for the bandwidth that they use to transfer video to your device - you do.
And for all the people complaining that NetFlix didn't deliver what you paid for - they only throttled over 2 of the mobile networks - if you used Netflix while on Wi-Fi or from your TV, Computer, DVD or game system - using your home internet - you did get exactly what they advertised.
I think that the number of people that watch Netflix EXCLUSIVELY using 3G/LTE data AND that NOTICED they were receiving a lower quality image is dwarfed by the number of people that Netflix saved from nasty AT&T overages. If you did use Netflix exclusively over AT&T or Verizon LTE AND you noticed a difference in quality - you have a right to be upset - and I hope that you call Netflix and have them give you a free month - especially because there aren't very many of you.
This policy helped far more people than it hurt - but having said that - Netflix was wrong in not announcing that it would be throttling on these 2 networks - but I am soooo glad that they kept large amounts of overage money out of AT&T coffers!!!
Most of the questions you've asked can be answered by a single word - "convenience".
They and their children do not need to answer to you or justify anything to you!
Worry about the way you live your own life and lay off of applying your values and lifestyles on other people.
So rude...
and lol at AT&T being infuriated that Netflix cost them so much money.
Oh Apple when are you going to provide these services? These companies are clowns.
My only caveat is there should be an option to or not made very clear. As in ... check box each time you watch or 'don't ask me again' type interface ... 'Click here if you are grandfathered in with free data OR want to pay lots of extra money (possibly a hell of a lot of extra money) or click here for a more affordable data rate while watching Netflix'.
I haven't subscribed to the fruit of the month club where they send me a huge amount of fruit that I usually can't eat in its entirety. Fortunately there's a competitor I can go to where I can purchase exactly what I need -- a single orange. They don't offer only a 20 pound bag of oranges that I won't finish unless I have a lot of guests. Any amount that goes over gets charged at the same flat rate because there are no "brackets" or plans to exceed.
Why can't a cell provider charge me some sort of fixed fee to cover their costs of giving me service plus a reasonable markup for profit (something like $15/month) and charge me a flat rate of $4/GB? I could have a truly unlimited data plan if I want to pay for it and I can also be frugal if I'm a data miser. It seems the only thing standing in the way of such radical ideas is greed.
Should they have more clarity and offer features? Sure. Its just a non story. You pay a company $10 a month, the price of 2 starbucks lattes to give you a metric digital ton of movies and shows that probably support every device down to the Nintendo 64. Give them a break.
BUT - there's a significant difference between your home utilities and your internet service - Electricity, Water and Gas all cost money to generate/supply. Gigabytes do not. If your ISP were to bill you for their costs, plus a reasonable profit - that would cover everything! There would be no reason to charge anybody per/gigabyte. They would have to maintain enough capacity to provide service to everyone during the peak times. The rest of the day, all that excess capacity goes to waste. A small fraction of it is consumed by those with larger plans or bigger data appetites - but the capacity is there whether someone uses and pays for it or not.
Rather than thinking of your internet connection as a consumption based utility - like your ISP wants you to - it would be more accurate to think of it like a public (non-toll) road, a school, street lights or a public park. These are things that our governments provides to all of us via tax revenues. It doesn't matter how much or how little you use those services. Everybody pays a little towards then and everybody has the right to use them as much or as little as they like. This needs to happen with the Internet as well if you ever want to see fair pricing.
One other difference between your internet service and other services is that your ISP charges your more for a higher data speed but they only provide "best effort" towards delivering data at that speed - and the really crazy part is that if they fall short and can't deliver data at the speed you are paying for - do they offer a partial refund? Do they apologize for not having built enough capacity into their system to deliver what they are charging you for? No! They tell you that your neighbor is a data hog and so its HIS fault that your ISP can't give you what you paid them for....!!! And they've got us trained/conditioned to believe that and accept it and to focus our anger on our neighbor - instead of the organization that made us the promise when they took our money! It's not your neighbors fault. It's your ISP's fault. The intent should operate like the public road system in front of your house! It's there for you all day every day. You can use it whenever you want - for as long as you want. We don't pay extra for a higher speed limit - and if all of our neighbors want to use the roads as much as we do and traffic slows down because of it - they build more lanes!
ISPs and Mobile phone service providers are greedy, sleazy and evil. Challenge everything they tell you - because there's a 99% chance that they're lying to you or manipulating you. Forget about what other people are or are not doing. Your deal is with the ISP.
We should all pay a low flat rate and there should be enough capacity available so that we can all be connected 24/7. Imagine the savings the ISP's would enjoy if that were true. They could get rid of their entire sailed and marketing departments since they wouldn't have to find clever and evil ways to skin things so that they can charge you more. They could drastically reduce their accounting group and they cut cut back on the number of programmers they need to figure out how to bill everybody on their 200 different plans and packages. Customer service could be drastically reduced as well since people would have nothing left to complain about.
ARGH!!! THat whole industry is sooooook corrupt and evil it makes me want to scream!!!
I can't say that I blame ISPs for building their infrastructure for typical use cases. They shouldn't have to put in a 100Gb/s line where a 10Gb/s line has been 99.9% capable in meeting throughput over the last year just because my street wants Netflix at HD simultaneously at 09:00 today. Wireless providers are even more challenged because of radio spectrum limitations.
I would be more than willing to accept a rate where I am billed per GB instead of tiers. A lot of people are being data hogs just because they can or have been prodded into a higher capacity tier to avoid ridiculous overage charges. They would reduce their usage too. One of my buddies was on AT&T's wireless unlimited plan and one of his daughters was using about 30 GB/month. He wanted to reduce his bill and asked his daughter if she needed that much -- her answer was no, she was just using it because she could without any consequences. That family of four went to something like a 15GB/month plan and it worked just fine.
Almost everyone with a cell phone in the USA is getting gouged by the carriers. Other countries enjoy much more favorable rates. It's amazing that competition hasn't forced the market into some sort of correction yet.
Your friend's daughter reminds me of people who consciously choose to abuse rental cars because they can.