Talk:Data cap

Cleanup
I've been cleaning this small article up, and I'm wondering if the following from the original version is a bit biased:

"Many broadband Internet Service Providers in the United States and Europe have begun to introduce bandwidth caps. The same practice has been in place in Australia and South Africa since the release of broadband."

It's a conspicuous statement, seeing as a link to an 'Anti-cap' organization directly follows. Also, living in the United States, I never heard of a bandwidth cap before reading this article; the phrase "Many broadband Internet Service Providers in the United States" seems exaggerated.

I can verify that in Australia and New Zealand such caps are the norm - indeed, uncapped plans are expensive and not many ISPs offer them. Although here they are known as 'download limits' or 'download quotas' and the process of implemeting them is known as 'shaping'. I can't comment on the U.S. situation.

Actually, as far as i know, all CableTV Internet highspeed providers are capping their speeds. If i'm not mistaken DOCSIS (the protocol for cableTV internet-highspeed) v1.1 allows up to 27 Mbit downstream speed and up to 7 Mbit upstream speeds. Most Cable-internet users are "restricted" to 3-6 Mbit downstream and 128-512 kbit upstream - whereas the upstream rate is generally 256-368kbits in average. which isnt really that much if you're playing multiplayer onlinegames w. more than one computer in a household. But since backbone bandwith isnt cheap, you get what you pay for. Archangel Michael 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

This is not what a bandwidth cap is. A bandwidth cap is where you have a limited amount of total data you are allowed to use. For example AT&T has some plans that offer 50MB/s down with somewhere around 12MB/s up, with a 1TB cap. Once you have used a total of 1TB, (suggesting there is a finite amount of total data) your down and up bandwidth is usually reduced/throttled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.75.63.186 (talk) 19:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Models of access
Are there any providers or areas where it is common to charge a line fee and then a per MB charge for access, rather than a fixed price per user? That seems like it would allow providers to offer high speed and reduce waste from P2P apps and such. 74.79.174.201 01:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

You need to reference the material in this article
See Wikipedia policies:
 * Policies
 * Verifiability
 * Reliable sources
 * Citing sources

KarenAnn 13:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion these people are not very different than common delincuents, thieves.

If a bank, which operates under the same basic principles, refused to give your money back on demand, the fed will shut it down.

If an ISP oversubscribes based on the capping they do on the bandwidth they sell to you, it is not the users fault, is the ISP.

On a time where video, white board, VOIP, P2P and other bandwidth intensive applications are the reason people subscribe to broadband, the capping reflects a very poor business model.

If I pay for a bandwidth allocation based on the tier system an ISP bases its business model, I expect to be able to use it, not to be restricted because the ISP wants to resell my iddle bandwidth and allocate most of if to apps that are not bandwidth intensive. This defeat the very purpose I pay for bandwidth.

This article is biased and basically an apology of the thievering practices of the ISPs who cap and throttle the bandwidth the users pay for.

About merging with Download quota
I don't think this article should be merged with Download quota once they refer to different concepts. One refers to a limit in the speed of your connection (measured in bytes/sec) while the other refers to a total limit of downloads in a certain time period (tipically a calendar month) and is measured in bytes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodrigobelo (talk • contribs) 18:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this should be merged with download cap. The bandwidth cap is clearly not what this article is about. This article is about the counting of data tranfer over a connection. Bandwith caps are about connectivity capacity not actual usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silverwing (talk • contribs) 06:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at your own ISP....do they use the term 'bandwidth cap'? Rather, they will likely use the term 'usage'. Bandwidth ≠ Data usage. This article seems to be mostly about download/upload quotas. A usage limit of 25GB means that is the total amount of data you can transfer (up and down) in a month. A 'bandwidth cap' would be limiting your connection to 5mbps. Interestica (talk) 05:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC) interestica

Implementation details
I think a section about the technical details of how capping is implemented would fit well. --CyHawk (talk) 08:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Usage Based Billing Is NOT Just Internet Related
Usage based billing also applies to plain old telephone calls still where long distance charges are still applied by the minute. Usage based billing also applies to many cell phone plans when you buy by the minute. The system calculates how much use is being made and stores the records. If the term Usage Based Billing is redirected here, there needs to be some considerable discussion in this regard. I could type in a lot of stuff on this subject but it is from personal experience working in the industry, so is not suitable. And another issue with this is that there are very few books or public articles on the subject as the various systems are quite proprietary. But there has to be something out there to describe how it works. In any case, there needs to be something on cell and POTs (plain old telephone) usage based billing. It was here WAY before internet related usage based billing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theshowmecanuck (talk • contribs) 03:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Academic paper


 Blue Rasberry  (talk)  18:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Cut content
I cut content from the article. All of this information is without citation. I did this in response to the problem templates on the article. After cutting this content, I removed the problem templates. - One type of bandwidth cap, administered by an Internet service provider (ISP), simply limits the bitrate or speed of data transfer on a broadband Internet connection. The purpose of bandwidth capping is to prevent individual users from consuming the entire transmission capacity of the cable, a shared resource. However, critics argue that it is a method to charge consumers more by introducing tiered bandwidth caps.

Capping might be handled by the user's cable modem. Knowledge of capping has led to attempts at uncapping, though this is considered by ISPs to be a theft of service. When uncapping succeeds, the resulting data transfer rate is supposed to be extremely fast, but users who are caught are said to be banned permanently by broadband ISPs.

Sophistication is possible, and even required in limiting bandwidth. The simplest approach simply limits the data rate. The problem with the simplest approach is, a very active user could consume the maximum bandwidth continuously, theoretically imposing an excess burden on the ISP and possibly reducing the performance of other users.

Channel capacity is a finite resource, and using huge amounts of it can be deemed an abuse in countries with poor communications infrastructure. Dial-up ISPs often published policies that tried to clarify the difference between "unmetered" and "unlimited".

A more sophisticated approach is called "bursting", the administrator would specify a "peak rate limit", a lower "sustained rate limit", and a "credit limit". If one were to continuously saturate their connection, they would only get the sustained rate. While they are idle or use less than the sustained rate, they accumulate a credit, in bytes, up to some limit. If they try to saturate their connection after idling, they will get the peak rate until their credit runs out, at which point they will again be running at the sustained rate limit. The transition from peak rate to sustained rate could be abrupt, gradual, or even an arbitrarily designed curve. If they alternately idle and saturate, their long-term average data rate will never exceed the sustained rate limit, and their short-term data rate will never exceed the peak rate limit. This is known as a Token bucket.

Other schemes or models are possible to regulate bursting. Running at the peak rate could accumulate a debt. Once the debt reaches a limit, the user is held to the sustained rate limit and the debt does not change. Only running below the sustained limit (or idle time) pays back the debt. The behavior is similar.


 * Lowered cap

Another type of capping refers to the reported phenomenon of an ISP reducing an individual user's bandwidth cap, without notifying that user, as a defensive measure and/or as a punishment for heavy use, especially for upstream traffic. "Servers" tend to use upstream bandwidth heavily, and violate most service agreements. (Cable and other broadband services tend to be asymmetrical, making upstream capacity scarcer than downstream.) Somehow the ISP detects that the user is an offender — perhaps by analyzing traffic to detect the activity of a server, or perhaps by comparing the user's long-term data rate against an unpublished limit. If a user gets tagged as an offender, then the ISP imposes a lower bandwidth cap upon that user, and/or restricts other services. e.g. NTT Communications in Japan imposes a 30GB/day upload cap with a warning for a first violation and disconnection for repeat offenders.

The implementation of a sustained rate limit might appear as a reduced cap. If the data rate improves automatically after idle time, this would confirm the operation of a sustained rate limit.

Reports claim that the intervention of an administrator is required to remove a lowered cap.

A number of broadband Internet Service Providers in North America and Europe introduced bandwidth caps in the early 2000s. The same practice has been in place in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia (All others except ADSL broadband) and South Africa since the release of broadband. Data caps on internet in New Zealand result from many popular websites being hosted in the United States, hence local ISPs must lease international capacity; a proponent of a second international cable to the United States claims that cheaper international capacity will result in ISPs raising their data caps.

A download quota is a restriction fixed by ISPs (Internet Service Provider) to limit the volume of data downloaded by the end user during a fixed period, usually a month. Once a fixed download cap (e.g. 250 gigabytes/month) has been reached by the end user, the speed at which they access the internet is usually throttled to a slower speed, cut off, or they are charged for excess data usage.
 * Download quota

---  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  19:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Contrasting viewpoints missing
This article contains no information on criticism of bandwidth caps. In particular, it is missing the assertion that these caps are not related to network performance, and are mainly intended to help boost the ISPs bottom lines (particularly in the U.S.)  ViperSnake151   Talk  15:35, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Worldview on bandwidth caps
This article is too U.S. centric. A number of foreign countries have had or have bandwidth caps in place including Canada and Australia, for example. We need to update the article to include info in the use of bandwidth caps in countries outside the U.S. and current status on the use of them currently if at all in those countries. I would include sections on major countries that either have at one time or still have bandwidth caps in place. I would also mention countries/jurisdictions that ban such caps such as the E.U. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 15:43, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 6 June 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 11:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Bandwidth cap → Data cap – The article itself states that although the common term "bandwidth cap" is the most commonly used term, it is by nature incorrect as bandwidth is not throttled, but total data capped. I believe that the article should be moved to a more correct term, with a redirect there from the common colloquial phrase. PapaMichael (talk) 05:28, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. I actually think "Data cap" is the WP:CommonName. It's also more accurate and more precise. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Support agree on it probably being the common name, 9000 results for it vs 2000 for bandwidth cap (in quotes) in google books, sources in the article mostly use data cap. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:37, 13 June 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

i hate having this
i live in rural california and u.s. cellular has a 200 gigabyte data cap on me, i can't download any games over 20 gigabytes lest i wait one entire month with internet so bad it takes a minute to load 5 seconds of any 144p youtube video until they finally reset my cap. it's a 4g network, and u.s. cellular says they throttle me so 4g can stay fast on mobile devices using cellular data, but i know that's complete bull since i called one time about installing rainbow 6 and they said they would freeze my cap until i finished installing it. if the cap was actually necessary, they wouldn't have let me done that at all.