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Frontier ISP toys with 5 GB usage cap

By Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews

August 25, 2008, 12:38 PM

Small regional ISP Frontier Communications has now joined Time Warner Cable in floating the idea of instituting monthly user caps even for subscribers who don't use much bandwidth, anyway.

Although Frontier has not yet decided about potential charges for monthly usage above 5 GB, the Rochester, NY-based DSL provider has now revised its usage policy for residential customers to set 5 GB as "a reasonable amount of usage [for] combined upload and download consumption," according to information on the company's Web site.

More ominously, perhaps, the revised policy also states that "customers must comply with all Frontier network, bandwidth, data storage and usage limitations," adding that Frontier "may suspend, terminate or apply additional charges to the Service if such usage exceeds reasonable usage."

Ironically, Time Warner -- Frontier's only competitor in the Rochester, NY market -- is now testing usage caps in Beaumont, Texas. In Beaumont, users are given a choice of two different programs. One of these provides a paltry 768 Kbps downstream and 1 GB per month. The higher-priced plan offers 15 Mbps downstream with a 40 GB per month limit. Charges are $1 per GB above that.

Comcast, a major ISP which is reportedly contemplating 250 GB monthly usage caps, has also been conducting tests in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and Warrenton, Virginia around a method of controlling traffic problems that slows file transfer speeds for individual heavy users during peak times of Internet use.

Meanwhile, at least two wireless providers -- AT&T and Sprint -- have already instituted 5 GB monthly usage caps. Yet these apply only to AT&T's LaptopConnect and Sprint's EV-DO.

Meanwhile, some analysts are now foreseeing increasing consolidation on the wireline side, with larger ISPs with more bandwidth access gobbling up regional ISPs that would need to invest in upgrading their networks to keep up. For instance, Michael Nelson, an analyst at the Stanford Group, has predicted that Frontier could be a likely acquisition target for Windstream Communications.

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By spongefreddie

posted Sep 17, 2008 - 12:51 AM

Dr. A$$hole...

You're a little too smug about the needless removal of our freedom(s)... perhaps we should snicker just as loudly when the not-too-distant future provides you with your own reasons to kvetch and carp. Do you really think that our wired-in world will provide *more* freedoms as time goes by? The ugly truth is that the elite will eventually control every aspect of our lives, due to our sheep-like consumerism.

And you, poor mr. a-hole, will suffer equally with the rest of us, regardless of any pithy comments you fool yourself into thinking anyone wants to hear, in this forum or elsewhere.

Score: 0

By DrA$$HoleJr.

posted Aug 30, 2008 - 5:01 PM

Well living in the boons will do that for ya. If your so up to date and hip then move your sorry self to the big city. Its called dial up. not one of you fools were b****ing then huh?

Score: 0

By Meltd0wn

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 7:25 PM

Imposing a 5GB per month cap means that you and your family can't even rent an online movie twice per month and have it streamed to you. DrA$$Hole, learn what you're talking about before you lower your IQ 2 points every time you attempt to sound informed. You've already set yourself back into the stone age so stop while you're ahead. Lowering an IQ that's only double digits to begin with is a bad idea. The whole idea of having broadband is so that everyone in the house can use it at the same time with multiple computers. If you subscribe to DrNeanderthal's flash of candle light, everyone who has broadband is a movie pirating, bandwidth hog. There are too many reasons to list why a subscriber could go through 5GB in a day, easily and legitimately. I'm located where neither DSL or Cable is offered so I use Hughesnet satellite service. It's $60/month and speeds are capped at 1 to 1.2 mbit/sec download but between 3am and 6am, total bandwidth restrictions are lifted. It's a terrible time of the day to offer unlimited bandwidth but of course it's their off-peak time. I can get updates for everything I want and can usually grab about 1.4 GB of data in that 3 hour time span each day. That's far more bandwidth offered by a satellite ISP than Frontier offers to DSL subscribers and more worth the $60 the way it is now. I can grab 175 MB every 4 hours during off peak time periods. Verizon keeps threatening to run fiber optic down my road, time will tell. I'm anxiously awaiting that day.

Score: 0

By DrA$$HoleJr.

posted Aug 30, 2008 - 5:11 PM

Everyone loves a thief. Specially one who whines, and is getting everything they want for 60 bucks a month. I wonder if they tally up all the stuff you download how much it would come to a month??

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 30, 2008 - 5:04 PM

I don't care whine to someone else. If the thought of verizon makes your day, the industry has your soul. You have shown how much of a little thief you are.

Score: 0

By fatray

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 10:29 AM

How much bandwidth does my Vonage VOIP use? Wife is on the phone at least 2 hours a day minimum.

Score: 0

By Aires

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 6:33 AM

Since I've moved house and I'm not using the pc like I used to, I've used 8.5gb just doing next to nothing. 5gb is a waste of space and you will lose customers for sure with such a low cap.

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 12:32 PM

5 gb a month is more than generous. All you that complain are either downloading porn, movies, or software. All of which is illegal!! When you really think about it 5 gigs is too much for you little thieves. You deserve no more than 2 gigs. After that there should be a 100 fee per gig over. This would be paid upfront so you little niggs wont be dishonest and not pay your bill. This will cut piracy by 500% the first month alone.

Score: 0

By dasgnome

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 5:41 PM

well, my aptly named friend DrA$$hole, would you mind offering up enough personal account information that you can be blocked from all VOIP, from netflix, hulu, youtube, all news sites that include video or audio streaming of any kind, including facebook and myspace, since you claim none of those sites exist, and therefore that their services do not consume bandwidth? If you feel everyone should have to do without those services, it's only fair that you go first.

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 29, 2008 - 11:05 PM

First and foremost I have no myspace, I dont use netflix, I don't do you tube, nor do i use voip services. Call me old fashioned but i read the paper every morning and when thats not enough I watch the news on my tv. So what else would you like to know, humm i send some pics every now and again so lets go really insane and call that 1 gig. Ohh and I email text so lits go really insane and call that 1 gig.. WOW 2 gigs at the most. I would defy you to prove with my usage that I come close to my proposed 5 gig a month cap.

Score: 0

By roj

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 4:29 PM

That is the most ridiculous and fatuous nonsense I have ever heard. Either you don't use the Internet much or you're a plant by the ISPs to champion their cause.

Up here in Canada we have caps of late and it's always blatantly obvious who the ISP shills are in the Broadband forums because they are the only ones championing that idea (and their IPs are traced back tot he Bell and Rogers organizational pool).

Bandwidth is CHEAP. Dirt stinking cheap. I have been responsible for oversight on bandwidth usage for a government department and the cost ain't commensurate with what the ISPs would like to GOUGE.

Furthermore, who are you to tell people what they can and cannot do with the service they pay for and who are you to stereotype anyone based on their bandwidth usage?

As I said, we have caps up here. Everyone resents them. We put up with it because we are a captive audience with very few ISP choices - we're locked in. I urge Americans to not be stupid enough to let this nonsense become yet another consumer cash gouge there as we unfortunately have. You have the variety of ISPs to prevent this that we do not - don't waste this opportunity to slam dunk the garbage into /dev/null where it belongs.

This is one that you can get in on the ground floor and stop before it starts, shills notwithstanding.

BTW, the extra charge is up to a maximum of $25 a month. I simply told my wife to budget an extra $300 a year to cope with the gouging. With that in mind, I'd say that in the case of small ISPs imposing a cap, they'll be out of business real fast.

And they should be.

Save the mucky morals for a chirch picnic.

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 29, 2008 - 11:17 PM

LOL I don't work for the isp's any more than donald duck does, I just understand their point and need to stop all you little pirates out there. I like the idea of Sandvine and other p2p packet blocking software. Give the little brainless morons an inch of slack and you go and hang yourselves with it.

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 2:18 PM

"All you that complain are either downloading porn, movies, or software. All of which is illegal!!"

So downloading software from this website is illegal... Considering the source, you do have the right username. No wonder you've been living up to your name.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 1:17 PM

All you that complain are either downloading porn, movies, or software.

Got all that from your Crystal Ball, did ya?

Back to Slashdot with you.

Score: 0

By Banquo

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 12:52 AM

5GB a month would make the service absolutely useless. Enjoy losing your customers morons.

Score: 0

By darkfire79

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 5:21 PM

BECAUSE THEY'RE LAME!! ;o)

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 4:46 PM

5 GIG? You got to be kidding me. Thats nothing. Just ridiculous.

Score: 0

By zzGUY46

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 4:34 PM

This proves that we don't live in a free country anymore. This is all about greed. You agree to a long term commitment, when it's time to renew, the price is always higher. Why does a company always have to make more money than last year? Can't a company earn enough money to take care of its employees with a liveable wage? What is really embarrassing, the US is among the slowest internet speeds in the world. Something is REALLY WRONG with this picture. I am disabled and live in a rural area where Frontier is my only choice for high speed internet. It sounds like a good opportunity for satellite internet to get a good start. GREED GREED GREED !!!

Score: 0

By Aires

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 6:34 AM

ISPs are businesses - not charities.

Score: 0

By roj

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 6:14 PM

...and they're making a HANDSOME profit as it is.

Cry me a river for them.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 6:06 PM

"Why does a company always have to make more money than last year?"

Shareholders.

I've always disagreed with shareholding. It's a farce.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 11:36 AM

So how would making less each year be OK...with or without shareholders?

Really...

Does that really make sense to you?

Score: 0

By BlackAle

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 1:03 AM

I suppose you're happy earning the same year after year, despite inflation.

Score: 0

By oc-athlonxp.com

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 2:31 PM

I had Frontier DSL and as soon as I heard about the cap, I ditched them and went with RCN cable. My wife works @ home as a Medical Transcriptionist and she depends on voice streaming to do her job. A bandwidth cap wasn't an option to me.

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 12:36 PM

you are full of crap, her job would use no where close to 5 gigs. How about looking at the porn you download, movies you take like a black thug in the night, or at all the software you download and have downloaded. Prove me wrong, lets see what you really download. Nothing is worse than a low down dirty thief than a dirty dishonest liar like yourself.

Score: 0

By _jaz_

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 2:22 PM

How can they even believe their words that less than 5GB (up and down summed up) a month is normal usage? that's 170MB each day (in a 30days' month).

They may not know that people nowadays watch youtube, send videos attached in e-mails, listen to radiostations or even watch internet tv's... And what about Windows Update?! Or online games, that update each time you connect?
I don't know what's the profile of the common internet user, but if they think that *everyone* (that's what a cap is, after all) should be like "I put some comments in my blog and go to sleep", they should really consider what business are they in.

The 250GB/month mentioned is more logical, although I'm not sure if that's a good number. That is equivalent of downloading at 100KB/s 24hours a day, the whole month.

Score: 0

By KingMotley

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 2:34 PM

The updates for some of my online games would put me over that. Heck I've downloaded game demos larger than that in one day. Never mind the video on demand from netflix, emails, youtube, etc that I go through in a month.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 1:20 PM

In our area, their competition is Quest and Charter.

When we lived in that area, we dumped them after a month and switched to charter. Their service was spotty at best, and this was over unshared DSL.

Got Comcast now that we've moved a few blocks north and love it. Never goes down, always get the throughput (unless the site I am on doesn't provide it), and have yet to receive a cap notice or be throttled.

FYI: I download 20GB a month from 1 service and use P2P for linux distros and WoW updates.

If they have a cap, it's a hell of a lot higher than 20GB. Frontier is going to sink on this one.

Score: 0

By roj

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 4:39 PM

My cap with Rogers is 95Gb and with five active users in the house doing Gpd, the Universe and everything, especially downloading TV shows (the Olympic closing ceremonies are a 2Gb download, for example), we sail through it without even trying. there is a cost per Gb for overage up to a maximum of $25. The top end after that is unlimited.

I b****ed but I pay and because of that, I definitely go out of my way to get my money's worth now (I'm on 10Mbit cable).

Rogers and Bell collude on everything and if one announces a package, within 72 hours the other follows suit. The CRTC is very fond of saying "we don't regulate the Internet" and are perfectly prepared to roll over and spread for the two ISPs who own all.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 27, 2008 - 9:03 AM

Rogers and Bell collude on everything and if one announces a package, within 72 hours the other follows suit.

Collusion, eh? I wouldn't know, as I am not familliar with either company, but I have witnessed just such a thing damn near every week here.

The SuperAmerica on the corner drops or raises it's price a few cents, and within mere hours, the Kwik Trip across the street does ...

*gasp*

...the SAME thing!

Must be collusion.

(Some folks call it competition, but they're apparently inbred hicks who don't know anything...)

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 6:08 PM

Ah the wonders of living on a small island. Pretty much every company supplies ADSL to anywhere. Only one does fibre optic, but it's run by bas****s.

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 4:49 PM

I have to choose from Brighthouse Networks (formerly Time Warner) and ATT/Bellsouth. Brighthouse is just a joke with their extreme unreliability. And ATT/Bellsouth is just not very fast even at their highest plans.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Aug 25, 2008 - 1:15 PM

Standard capitalism. If I were a competing ISP, I might be considering capitalizing on this "feature."

Score: 0

By roj

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 6:17 PM

...which is why pure capitalism doesn't work.

It gouges. Eventually people revolt. Then there's chaos. The government has to step in. Then people complain there's too much regulation. It's a no-win situation.

Greed Bad.

Pure Capitalism Bad.

A Happy Medium needs to be found.

Score: 0

By phpdev

edited Aug 25, 2008 - 4:35 PM

I work for an ISP with about 10,000 DSL customers, bandwidth is a real concern. Everyone wants something for free. Are ISPs just supposed to take it up the behind? The fact of the matter is that there are real costs to bandwidth that people don't seem to understand. We can't give it away for free. Despite what people may whine and conject about, there aren't gobs of profit being an ISP -- end of story. Here are real numbers -- 95% of our users use less than 10GB per month and 90% use less than 5GB.

If you want 500 gigs a month for $25, complain to the upstream backbone providers. They essentially set the the pricing, you buy from us and we buy from them.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 12:43 PM

I won't give specific figures, but we pay for business class fiber with an SLA and guaranteed uptime, and it is less than $800/month for 20/20 with burstable to 1 Gbps during offpeak.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 1:16 PM

Less than $800?

We're paying over a grand for basically the same deal!

Where are you?

(BTW: These speeds still suck, the folks here would die of boredom if forced to route all their traffic through this kind of pipe)

Score: 0

By kristy34c

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 6:01 AM

I agree with Phpdev, I grew up in a world of paying over $100 a month for 128kbps ISDN there is only so much bandwidth avail and I don't think many high school/college kids really understand how expensive it is to run fiber nationwide. digging up roads, enviroment permits etc.. just to give you an idea

for those of you who "want high quality, high speed service with 99.99% uptime" for $60 a month.. good luck.. $60 is nothing.. here are the typical prices telco charge.

T-1 1.544mbps cost $250.-$500 a month
T-3 43.232mbps $4,000.-$16,000 a month
OC3 155mbps $20,000.-$45,000 a month
OC48 2.4Gbps $374,000 -$500,000 a month

obviously this is dedicated -vs- cable which is shared. the solution here is to implement 100mbps or 1Gbps to the home (yahoo japan currently offers). so downloading HDTV content is very fast. along with some type of monthly quota (we all would like it to be higher but probably 20gb-100gb for non business accounts)

then Quality of Service (QOS) my VOIP Calls (especially 911) take priority over your online WOW gaming.. even if that means stalling your game.. me downloading a 60mb file is going to download faster then somebody transfering a 100GB time of day.. 2am in the morning you get better results then during the business day etc. yes you can host a website or VPN to your home. a few thousand hits to your website nobody cares.. if it spikes to over 1 million expect your ISP to start charging you more.

the goal here is to offer a flat monthly fee for 90% of the people to check email, download a few files etc.. I would like to see a 150mbps/5mbps cable service for $20 a month with a 5GB limit another plan for $40 with a 20gb etc. instead of what comcast does now charges for download speed.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 11:42 AM

But everybody *wants* dedicated. They somehow believe that is what they were promised and have been getting all along.

Sure, they are wrong, but they don't care about that.

Welcome, Kristy, to the Age of Entitlement.

Talking sense into these "gimmie-gimmies" is like trying dig to china. You mean well, and I wish you the best of luck, but... I don't see any hope for it.

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 10:39 AM

Now that's a username I like!

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 12:38 PM

you do like c*** dont you, now get lost fanboy

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 1:13 PM

Really chomping at the bit to get your a** banned, eh?

Score: 0

By DrA$$Hole

posted Aug 29, 2008 - 10:58 PM

free speech but in time you will see my points are all valid.

Score: 0

By spongefreddie

edited Sep 17, 2008 - 12:47 AM

See above.

Score: 0

By kungfubeer

edited Aug 25, 2008 - 7:59 PM

I have Time Warner, which I pay for RR Extreme, but have spent the last month contacting support because of constant service outages. They can't even maintain a service, why should I have to pay more to download what I can't even get most of the time now?

Basic internet service is $49.95 a month, and extreme is $69.95 per month. With that cost, and most of the support services outsourced..I'd say bandwidth cost issues are not an acceptable excuse.

I want what I pay for, and that is a steady, high stream service without any caps. This is why there are lower cost services, for those who don't need it.

Remember when SBC used to provide 5 static IP addresses when you got DSL, but the modem would only support one IP....talk about waste!

Score: 0

By Vegitable

edited Aug 25, 2008 - 5:34 PM

So tell me, DSL isn't new, right? How old is it? How did they manage to give it away for "free" (as you claim) for so long?

Besides that, $30 a month is significant when multiplied by those very same 10000 customers, don't you think? Especially when you consider how much "outsourcing" to other countries you ISPs do....greedy bas****s...

This is bs and I hope people quit these ISPs as they popup because they are being frivolous.

my .02

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 11:48 AM

When did anyone claim DSL was given away for free?

Are you having trouble reading?


Besides that, $30 a month is significant when multiplied by those very same 10000 customers, don't you think?

Do you honestly think 3 Million is going to even make a dent in a nationwide fiber network? Really? You apparently have no idea what the costs involved are. Those cables cut in the ocean not to long ago? Billions.

That cost doesn't just disappear. It gets passed back down to the folks at Cogent and Level3, who then pass it on to Comcast, Quest and the like, who then pass it on to you, obviously at a greatly reduced rate.

You want unlimited? Get a T1. Sure, it'll cost you $2500 to get it installed and run you $250 a month (at least), but then you'd actually be paying for what you are expecting from a shared service. (I'm sure you've never heard of such a thing...)

Score: 0

By Vegitable

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 2:31 PM

Get real...

Do you believe that the internet backbone is soley funded by Cogent, Level3 and what not? Ever heard of government (aka: tax payer money)?

10,000 was a number spit out by phpdev - my post was direct reply to him. I'm sure the customer base is much larger than that (but you already knew that but will go to no end to get your point accross.....whatever)

A cap is bs and you know it. I guess the "outsourcing" failed them and now they need to look at "other" methods for filling their wallets.

But let's step back and look at what you just said, "Get a T1" and "shared service".

So, I get a T1 from ? umm Cogent? nah, has to come from Comcast or Quest or a LEC, right?

So, I get a T1, different than DSL but pulling bandwidth from the very same folks that can provide T1 (T3, OC1, OC3, etc, etc) which get it from Cognet and the like, yet on it I can have unlimited bandwidth?

You're a Tool. (I'm sure you've never heard of such a thing...)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Aug 26, 2008 - 2:56 PM

Right, you're emotionally invested in playing the victim. So much so, you cannot think rationally.

If you think, for even a second, that $30 a month pays for the infrastructure, maintenance and lighting the network to your door, your problems with this stretch far beyond anything a simple forum post could possibly fix. It's hard to argue facts with someone who's entire opinion is based on what he "thinks" it's worth.

You're a Tool. (I'm sure you've never heard of such a thing...)

No, first time. Really.

Score: 0

By Vegitable

posted Aug 26, 2008 - 3:48 PM

"emotionally invested in playing the victim"... hmm let me think about that....

Um..PC_Tool...I wasn't the one that set the price ($30) for the service.....least I don't think so...

But wth, I'll play along...
How much is "enough" and how long should I pay this amount? Over time does the amount get lower? Does it get higher?

Is "enough" affected by a contract awarded to a provider that requires the provider to "improve" their infrastructure?

On and on...fun game...but the bottom line;

A CAP as described here is "milking the cow" because WE ALL KNOW that those amounts = more revenue for service providers. Those numbers WILL BE exceeded. They're "banking" on it!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 27, 2008 - 9:00 AM

Over time does the amount get lower? Does it get higher?

Depends, do you want the service to continue, do you want it to get better, to "keep up" with demand?

While I agree the "cap" is low, and I myself would go over it in about 2 days, that wasn't the point I was arguing. :)

Score: 0

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