Unlike some of the people above who only think torrenting is the sole cause of high use, or that ad-blockers actually stop bandwidth usage, I actually use lots of bandwidth, legitimately. We Americans already pay high fees. And the broadband providers invest little to upgrade and improve their existing infrastructure. I am certain the additional fees would only be pocketed, and not reinvested.

The average user will get nowhere near 250GB/mo, unless they’re actively archiving illegal materials. Just as an indicator, a season of House (20+ episodes) is about 8GB. 40 mins per episode, *20 = 800 minutes, about 13 hours of entertainment. Lets assume you have 13 hours a day free to watch TV, and you download all of your shows illegally. That’s 8 GB / day for 30 days per month, or 240GB per month. That still leaves about 10 GB to screw around with for your joe-shmo internet usage, like e-mail, browsing /., and chatting.

If you were streaming the shows instead, you can bet they’d be at a lower resolution than the downloaded version, so you would not be using 8GB/day just by streaming junk on Hulu.

I myself tend to download random linux distributions, panick and reinstall WoW (which is a big download since I don’t have the CDs) a couple times a month, chat a lot, try out software and game demos (about 1GB a pop), and do many other very nerdy bandwidth-consuming things on the internet.

I think a 250GB cap is good. It’s the kind of holy-crap-how-would-I-ever-use-that-much cap that penalizes none but the SUPER heavy users, the kinds that have bittorrent running 24/7/365. Also, like it or not, piracy IS illegal, so you can’t exactly use that as a reason for why there shouldn’t be bandwidth caps.

The important thing is that someone monitors these caps and sets them at appropriate levels. Time Warner’s caps scare me a little, some as low as 5GB/month, with heavy over-use fees.

Point being: these companies have every right to prevent the top 0.1% of bandwidth abusers from screwing over the quality of service for the other 99.9%. Limits just need to be set very high so that people still FEEL like they have unlimited, like they’re not being affected. With the advent of cloud computing, off-site backups, and other heavy bandwidth-consumption services, it’s important that THEIR businesses are protected as well.

Oh; and if you want to block ads get firefox, adblock plus, and flashblock. Currently ads comprise about 66% of website traffic, and if limits are set too low we’re going to find ourselves struggling with some scary new pay-models for websites that survive on ads, or lose those sites altogether.

Whereas only one company such as Comcast might be the only game in town that provides broadband can likely be legally construed as a monopoly in some areas.

These proposed controls (via monthly caps) affect what one could see, listen to, and more importantly what one could purchase, rent, subscribe to and these “caps” affect commerce and free trade.

Now we are in a different ballgame now, its not just a simple matter if some company wants to restrict bandwith and enact caps.

That company is restricting free trade and domestic and international commerce and also
can seriously affect development of new forms of avenues for entertainment from TV programs, movies, digital music downloads, podcasting such as “Coast to Coast” which people pay about $60 a year for a subscription.

The issue is not that Comcast will upset subscribers (which it does). The issue pits Comcast against a huge digital online industry which includes Hollywood, The Recording Industry, Movie Rentals, TV shows ,Netflix, I-Tunes, Rhapsody, Napster.

As far as the FCC looking into this, I predict the Justice Department and all the major entertainment companies will be looking into this, as it will ultimately affect “thier” bottom line.

Come to Australia. See if you can get any ISP to provide you with a 250GB download limit every month. If you can, you will pay hugely more than you will in the US.

I get 10Gb/month for $50 on a DSL connection that averages around 2-3Mbs, when theoretically it should be up to 24Mbs. That is the best bang-for-buck I can find in my region, because I live outside of a major city. AND it is very generous compared to the only other fast DSL provider available to me.

Such treats like bit-torrent etc are things I have learned to do without, because of my download limit, and the speed of my connection.

All I can say is be thankful for what you have, because the reality is that most of the world would envy what you are decrying as woeful.
Otherwise you give off the impression of a rich, spoilt, greedy brat!