Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

Customers hate bandwidth caps, Verizon's market research shows, so "No Bandwidth Caps. Period!" is the highlight of their latest DSL ad campaign. There's no technical or cost reason a cap is needed on any large, wireline network; it's a way to block competitive video and efficiently raise prices.

Internet transit is down to $2/megabit at major peering points and costs of deploying broadband continue to drop steadily. Bandwidth growth continues, which Bill Smith of AT&T tells an FCC workshop has slightly raised his cost per customer. That's important information for DSL Prime readers whose job is to manage network costs, but I'd estimate any increase in the last year is less than 1% of the price of the service. The usual industry figure is the total bandwidth cost is about $1/month, 2-4% of the price charged.

Congressman Eric Massa became a hero to voters by fighting a Time Warner bandwidth cap. Fighting caps – and unreasonable prices – is a natural move for politicians and regulators worldwide who want public support. There's nothing immoral or even fattening about a cap that's reasonably related to costs. Iheard from my consumer-favoring friends for writing about a reasonable one, http://fastnetnews.com/docsisreport/163-c/53-comcasts-fair-250-gig-bandwidth-cap . But it turns out so few people are affected by the Comcast cap it saves very little money.