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.

    • kristoff@infosec.pubEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Australia looks like an interesting case. Iknow that in some countries, ISPs have to provide service to both urban and rural customers at the same price, which means that urban customers actually subsidize people living in rural areas. In some other cases, the gouvernements help pay for this.

      Isn’t there a project in Australia that the federal gouvernement is subsidizing the role-out of fibre?

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I have no idea, but that idea didn’t work out all that well in the US. The gov provided funding for expansion to the countryside for all the major telecoms…and they just pocketed without actually implementing anything.

      • scarilog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Idk but pricing in Australia is fucked. The fibre network isn’t that large to begin with afaik, and even if you do have fibre you have to pay an arm and a leg for good speeds.

        E.g. I pay like $70 USD a month for 100/40.

        Symmetric gigabit costs several hundred a month, they’re not intended for residential customers.