I thought data caps for home internet were a thing of the past…

I’ve somewhat recently moved back to a very rural area of the Midwest. Small town. No stop lights. Biggest businesses other than the bars are Casey’s, Subway, and Dollar General.

And we have one ISP (not counting DSL) — Mediacom. When we first signed up, I had to go with the second service tier. But not because of speeds, but so I could have a reasonable 1 TB/mo data cap.

Lucky me, they increased the cap to 1.5 TB. 🙄

I hope that in my lifetime I can see ISPs regulated as a public utility.

  • SirMaple_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    761·
    1 year ago

    Data caps on home internet services should be illegal. They should also be much higher on mobile, but that’s a whole other topic.

    I have 940/940 Unlimited FTTH for $93.45(Canadian).

      • Awwab@kbin.social
        26·
        1 year ago

        What average consumer has hardware that’s actually capable of using more than 1Gbps?

        • oktoberpaard@feddit.nlEnglish
          7·
          1 year ago

          Average none, though 2.5 Gbps is getting more and more common and WiFi is catching up too. You could max out multiple slower devices at the same time without hitting the limit of your uplink. I don’t have a use case for that, so I’d only upgrade from my current 1 Gbps to higher speeds if the price is comparable. That doesn’t mean that others don’t have a use case for it.

        • theoc@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Most decent to higher end desktops have at least 2.5 Gbps. Even a laptop/desktop that doesn’t can get a 2.5 Gbps usb-c to ethernet dongle for like $30-$40.

          Higher end access points also have 2.5 Gbps. I have no issue maxing out my 1.5 Gbps (ISP over provisions the lines so I get 1.7 gbps) on Steam. Also keep in mind that when you have a faster connection with multiple devices/people, each device/person might be able to pull 1 Gbps. As in if you have 2 Gbps internet service even 2 older computers that only have a gigabit internet connection, each could get the full gigabit to them.

          If you’re the type of person that only uses wifi, you won’t see a difference between gigabit and multigigabit connections but plenty of people have ethernet throughout their homes and they make use of faster than gigabit connections.

        • uis@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          2.5GbE and 5GbE is now in average consumer hardware. Also 10GbE router costs about 100$.

    • theoc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      You’re way overpaying. I pay $40 for 1.5 Gbps with Bell FTTH. Give them a call and say it’s too expensive and see what they can do for you. Or tell them Rogers (if they’re in your area) offered you 1.5gbps for $60 and ask if they can beat that.

      As for mobile, you should look at new plans. $39 gets you 20 GB $50 gets you 40 GB. Seems like plenty of data imo https://www.koodomobile.com/en/rate-plans?INTCMP=KM_HDD_2023_Plans_RatePlans_40gbfor45_ROC_MBSK

      Best time to get a mobile plan is Black Friday, should be even better deals by then.