ISP's frustrate me sometimes. I was playing around with some numbers in order to gain some perspective.

Crude Number Crunching

Average days in a month is days in year divided by months equals average days in month.

365 / 12 = 30.416

avg days in month divided by 24 hrs in a day
30.416 * 24 = 729.984 (hrs in a month)
729.984 * 60 = 43,799.04 (minutes in month)
43,799.04 * 60 = 2,627,942.4 (seconds in a month)

Total monthly transfer cap equals 75 Gb at 5Mbit (downstream) connection

75 * 1000 = 75,000 Mb
75,000 * 1000 = 75,000,000 Kb
75,000,000 * 1000 = 75,000,000,000 bytes
75,000,000,000 * 8 = 600,000,000,000 bits

Bits of data per month divided by average number of seconds per month
600,000,000,000 / 2,627,942.4 = 228,315.5064 Bits per second

Converted back to MBits sec
228,315.5064 / 1000 = 228.3155064 KBits sec
228.3155064 / 1000 = 0.2283155064 MBits sec

Actual Mbit per sec cap is equal to 0.228 Mbit/s

So you would need to be transferring data all day every day for the entire month at a minimum of 0.228Mbits a sec and at no point in time
could you ever drop below that transfer speed. Only then would you reach the 75Gb monthly cap.

I pay for $50 month for up to 5Mbit connection speed as it is advertised. But technically speaking my connection speed is 0.228 Mbit/s if I want to remain within the 75Gb
monthly transfer cap.

Or to put it another way somebody with a really good dial up connection at 28.53Kb/s could reach the 75 Gb transfer cap.

My argument is that my ISP is providing a huge transfer speed but then turning around and restricting how much data can actually be transferred. Thus negating the transfer speed
all together.

The actual monthly transfer cap if you use the 5Mbit/s advertised speed is as fallows

Bits per sec transfer speed multiplied by 2,627,942.4 seconds in a month

5,000,000 * 2,627,942.4 = 13,139,712,000,000 Bits
13,139,712,000,000 / 8 = 1,642,464,000,000 Bytes
1,642,464,000,000 / 1000 = 1,642,464,000 Kb
1,642,464,000 / 1000 = 1,642,464 Mb
1,642,464 / 1000 = 1,642.464 Gb

1,642.464 Gb potential data per month transferred. Assuming that you were able to transfer at the advertised speed of 5Mbit/s and at no point in time
could you ever drop below that transfer speed for the entire month.

1,642.464 / 75 = 21.89952 That's over 21 times the actual monthly cap of 75Gb of monthly transfer.

Retarded policies and plans

Basically the whole idea of ISP's putting a monthly transfer cap on customers internet traffic is ridiculous in my opinion. For example given what I laid out above my transfer cap is 1,642.464Gb assuming that I can download at 5Mbit/s and at no point in time could I ever drop below that transfer speed for the entire month.Which is impossible because 5Mbit's that my isp offers is just a "potential" download speed the actual speed is slower.

So by putting a cap on the speed at which I can transfer data they are all ready putting a cap on how much I can transfer per month.

A traffic monitoring that has never worked

My current cable isp (CityWest) took over another cable isp (Monarch) that had been operating in the area. The CityWest used the exact same software Monarch used for customers to log into and check there internet usage, create and manage there email etc. There has only been one slight problem that seems to have persisted for the last 10 years from the old isp Monarch to the current isp CityWest. The traffic usage page has never fucking worked and has never worked for the last 10 years. All you ever get is a 404 or cgi error page.  Hmmm isn't that interesting.

I left my original isp (Monarch) and moved over to a different company that offered dsl (Telus). I made the move because at the time I was playing a lot of Counter Strike: Source and I was getting bad latency times. After moving over to telus my latency times went way down. Then up to about 2 years ago I left telus because they were claiming I was going over there monthly traffic limits by a lot. Like 2-3 times over the limit. There traffic usage website was reporting some very suspect numbers that was totally wonky. After they cut my internet connection a few times and fighting with them to get it turned back on, guess what had happened.

Somehow telus managed to lose my account in a move over to a new system. I was still operating under the old system so my traffic usage was fucked up. What I was seeing on the telus website was different then what the operator was seeing on there end.

Now by this time Monarch had been bought out by CityWest and after the aggravation with telus I said fuck it I'm going back to cable internet. So I signed on with CityWest. It didn't take long for me to figure out that CityWest simply inherited the old Monarch systems. As soon as I logged in to the customer service page I saw that it was the exact same page Monarch was using and hey hey guess what! After 7 years the internet traffic usage page was still returning a 404/cgi error page.

Sigh.

Flip Flops. Suspect = NetFlix

A few months ago my ISP (CityWest) sent me a letter that they will be starting to charge people who go over there monthly plan. As if to suggest they were not charging people who went over there monthly limit in the first place even thought they claimed they would. Then after a few months passed there was no updates on there website. Then they made a news post ...

"In November, we sent letters to our customers to point out that there are usage limits on our Internet plans, and that we planned to begin charging for over usage in March. 

Since then we have decided to delay billing for over usage so that we can provide better information to our customers.  CityWest customers will not be billed for any usage over their plan limits until further notice. 

As we work towards this transition, we will be providing more information to our customers."

As it turns out just after they made the initial announcement that they would be charging people that go over there monthly usage Netflix came to Canada! Netflix in recent years now claims the largest overall internet traffic in north America.

Coincidence I think not. "Netflix Lowers Data Usage By 2/3 For Members In Canada" The blog title says it all. Not long after netflix came to canada they reduced there data streaming for canadien customers so us poor little Canadians would not go over our traffic limits. Again only more proof of how behind the times canada is getting in terms of what our isp's have to offer.

I am a dedicated netflix user. I watch 1-3 shows a day somtimes more. I don't own a tv and I stopped watching tv years ago. So netflix streaming movies is ideal for me.

Conclusion

As with a lot of things, I started writing this a while ago but have not gotten around to finishing it until now. The power of the internet as a communications platform has exploded onto the world and within two very short decades has changed the course of human history forever. It has led to the devastation of countless industries. From classified newspaper ads, music, movies, tv, gaming, crowd sourcing, basically anything involving the transfer of information.

The internet and access to it is becoming as important to society as the very air we breath.