Since you are defending this kind of practices, I must ask you: Can you name a single other service or product in the world that include such restrictions, and "up to X" quantity?
If I only got 50% of the actually contracted time of an rented apartment (say they wrote "up to 1 month"), I would sue. If the fine print said apartment had restrictions such as only 10 enter/exits, no commercial activities inside it like programming, no more than 2 visiting friends per month, and only allowed using the apartment for 12hrs per day, I would sue.
Why do we still allow this for Internet connectivity when we wouldn't for any other kind of utility service?
Your analogy doesn't hold up very well. There are rentals that are restricted much more than your average apartment, they are called hotel rooms.
There are different options available, because there is demand for it.
The same applies to ISP service. In general residential service is over subscribed. This allows the company to discount the service in return for restrictions on how it can be used.
There are also dedicated bandwidth options, which are much more expensive. But you can use it pretty much however you want.
Most rentals have some agreement for the tenants , terms that forbid business use , redecorating or changing furniture are fairly standard. Also in houses with multiple tenants you have to agree to share communal facilities.
Technically, commercial activities in a rented apartment ARE generally restricted, either by zoning ordinances or lease terms.
Residentially zoned areas generally do not allow 'business' to be conducted out of a home. Those ordinances are worded differently everywhere, so sometimes 'coding', where you don't have lots of foot traffic or visitors, is 'ok', and other times it's not allowed anyway.
Just because it's unenforceable doesn't mean it's not against the law...
To be clear, I'm not defending most of it. I'm only defending 'ISP's can charge less to home users in exchange for them agreeing not to do specific things'.
I'm not defending the anti-competitive nature of laws in the USA. I'm not defending overzealous use of 'home/business' seperation. And I'm not defending overselling backhaul
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In your example, you use an rented apartment. This is a perfect example, a rented apartment is like the 20x20 MetroE line I described above, you can do whatever you want, you paid for the whole thing.
A timeshare is what your looking for -- a timeshare also a rented apartment (or house, ect), but you dont get all the time, you only get a piece of it (say 'up to 1 month per year'). You get a significantly lower rate (in theory) on a timeshare, because you only get a part of a time.
Timeshares are cheaper than a full apartment lease. You got the cheaper rate because you agreed to the restrictions.
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Even ownership doesn't absolve you of these restrictions. For example, if you buy a condominium, you usually agree to the condo boards rules (many of which include things like "no guests for more than 7 days" or "no commercial / industry / business / trade activity") http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-12-08/business/02120...
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If you want me to name 'other services or products that include these restrictions', I can name a bunch :
- Hotel Rooms (limits on number of people present, not allowed to use it for commercial activities, ect)
- Electricity (limit to how much you can use at residential rates, if you exceed this, your price usually jumps.)
- Commercial Libraries, e.g. Universities (time limits on checked out books, if you exceed them, you pay late fees. Not allowed to re-lend-out books you've borrowed from the library. Not allowed to make copies of books you've borrowed from the library. Ect.)
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EDIT : Full disclosure, I'm trying to start an new Internet Service Provider that isn't evil, from scratch, using our own network. (Not re-selling DSL / Cable). It's really really difficult.
I'm as pro-user pro-net-neutrality pro-open-internet anti-censorship pro-EFF as they come. But from a mathematical standpoint, the numbers don't work out. There's no way to cover expenses selling dedicated 50x50mbps uncapped, completely unrestricted internet connections for $30-60/month (unless your Google, and can subsidize the whole thing).
Normal home users are fine. People who just want burst fast speeds, but push some number less than 300-600GB total each month, no problem. I don't care if your running some webcams / Minecraft servers / web servers / SSH / VPN / programming for your business / accepting orders / selling ETSY stuff / ect.
But "power users" who want to host small data centers on their $30/month residential plan, or are seeding terrabytes of Torrent data each month, or are trying to resell that connection -- it can't happen today. Your making your friends and neighbors pay more for your crazy high usage. You need to be on a business plan, and pay for dedicated internet.
Remember, 600GB is a huge amount of bandwidth for a home user. That's enough to stream 25 days straight of tv-quality video (or 214 hours of HD Netflix)
I have no problem with heavy bandwidth users. But I do have a problem with heavy bandwidth users who insist they pay only the bare minimum rates because of their flawed interpretation of 'network neutrality'.
600GB is not huge. It it tiny. That is half my steam library. A quarter of my backblaze backup. A crash event and I will have to wait half an year to recover my stuff.
I see your math problem. And it has some solutions:
1. Nightly speeds - this was used in my country by the ISP-s when all caps on speed were removed after 1am to 6am with QoS on 80/443
2. Non guaranteed top speeds - you allow people to go up to some speed if your network is underutilized.
3. Metered - I think that is the best approach if the pricing is right - a person cost me 20$/month just to be connected to my network (fixed costs). You ask him for 30. A terabyte moving in/out of my network costs me 2$ - you ask him for 3$. If you have 1 TB - it is 33$/month, if you want to seed a lot - be my guest. You get your margins on the traffic. And you are transparent to your customers. (yeah I know decision fatigue, but it could be solved with prepaying and just allowing access to payment sites when the prepayed traffic is over).
That's half your steam library. As in, you could re-download literally 50% of every Steam game you've ever purchased in your entire life.
It's also not a hard cap. It's just a warning light. If you go over 600GB, police do not show up at your house and cut off your internet service. It's simply an goodwill indicator. If your routinely jumping over 600GB use, you ought to be paying for a higher tier plan, like a 'power user home plan'. (If you restore your entire backblaze and steam library every single month -- something is wrong)
But otherwise, I agree with you on many of these points.
- Nightly Speeds : If the lines aren't saturated, your free to use as much as you please. (ISP's have to pay for that connection 24/7, so if it's not in heavy use, your free to run wild. Won't bother me any). This is done already.
- Non-guaranteed top speeds : This is also already done. Plans are advertised with separate dedicated and bursting speeds. Just because Comcast is deceptive on advertising, doesn't mean all ISP's are.
- Metered : I personally am fine with metered billing, if the price is right. However, literally no regular person is ok with this. Unless your super technical, you won't know how much bandwidth your using, and won't sign on for this plan. (especially now that Verizon / Sprint / AT&T charge $15 per gigabyte, people are conditioned to flinch whenever they hear anything remotely similar to 'metered billing').
In each of your example, people still get the amount they buy. If you go and buy a timeshare for "up to 1 month per year", and was only allowed 15 days, you still be angry. the 1 month is in the contract, not 15 days.
Same goes for hotels. If I got kicked out of my hotel in the middle of the night because they overbooked, I would again be angry. Its my room for that night, not "up to 1 night".
As for rentaled/leased cars, as other has said in above, those don't normally comes with restrictions. Those that do, have such restrictions clearly advertised, and do not use words like unlimited mileage. They also don't restrict number of passengers or where you are allowed to drive.
Then Google just has to remove the "Up to 1GB upload & download - no data caps" part of their advertising [1]. And just put a cap on the upload they find acceptable.
600GB is a pretty good number, but I'm amused by that example. "It's almost enough to leave a single TV tuned to a standard-definition channel and do nothing else."
But "power users" who want to host small data centers on their $30/month residential plan, or are seeding terrabytes of Torrent data each month, or are trying to resell that connection -- it can't happen today._
Thanks for your full disclosure; good to hear from the horse's mouth, so to say.
But I still don't get it. If you are going to provide X amount of bandwidth to your users then you should factor that they will use that bandwidth! How they use the bandwidth should be entirely up to them. If it doesn't work out for you then, stop providing that service at that price point. (That is, if you do actually care about net neturality).
If I only got 50% of the actually contracted time of an rented apartment (say they wrote "up to 1 month"), I would sue. If the fine print said apartment had restrictions such as only 10 enter/exits, no commercial activities inside it like programming, no more than 2 visiting friends per month, and only allowed using the apartment for 12hrs per day, I would sue.
Why do we still allow this for Internet connectivity when we wouldn't for any other kind of utility service?