🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 
<HisRoyalRadioHigness-70941C.18541818062008@news.announcetech.com>,
 John Higdon <HisRoyalRadioHigness@kome.com> wrote:

> In article <g3cbt4$j0k$1@blue.rahul.net>,
>  spope33@speedymail.org (Steve Pope) wrote:
> 
> > I see 100 megabytes since this morning, from one computer
> > engaging in mild web usage.   I do not know what I could
> > do to reliably get under a 5 gig monthly cap.  All I am running
> > is putty and Internet Explorer.  5 gigs/month seems way low to me.
> 
> Of course it's low. A single web page with all of its 
> graphical/video/whirly-twirly bling can amount to many megabytes. My 
> EVDO app gives a usage report. I only use the service when out of town 
> to basically stay in touch. 
> 
> The week I spent at the NAB convention in April racked up over 2 GB of 
> usage. That's using the computer in the hotel room in the morning and 
> late in the evening since I didn't take it with me to the convention 
> center. It was all from web activity (mainly checking on orders and 
> products I was investigating at the convention), email, Usenet, and some 
> home network administration. That's it.
> 
> Cap primary connections at 5GB/month? A lot of people are going to be 
> hurting, big time.

It's a bit like charging cellphone users for incoming calls. I can't 
tell who "Private Call" is; I can answer it, and it may be a junk call, 
or it may be a family member trying to get in touch with me urgently.

Likewise, many sites cannot be navigated without accepting lots of audio 
and video. There is no disincentive to them, except (maybe) lost 
customers, but there's no way I can force Amazon not to have lots of 
graphics that eat up bandwidth. This is not just retail sites; many B2B 
sites are laden with Flash content.

I maintain that the thing that makes the Internet what the vast majority 
want is the freely available use of bandwidth to access data on a whim. 
Break that, and we're back to the state of data telecommunications in 
the days of per-minute metering--only used sparingly, and not by most.

Steve

-- 
steve <at> w0x0f <dot> com
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, chip shot in the other, body thoroughly
used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
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