[aklug] Re: Last days of unlimited?

From: Scott A. Johnson <scott.a.johnson@gmail.com>
Date: Mon Jun 21 2010 - 11:42:39 AKDT

This has been a back and forth issue for as long as I can remember broadband
being commercially available in Alaska. I consider myself a power user, and
when I've had unmetered service I regularly transfered hundreds of gigabytes
per billing cycle. That being said, I've found the most stable and upfront
broadband provider to be GCI. This is coming from a guy who at one point
got his service suspended from GCI's corporate security officer because he
didn't like that fact I was hosting the website gcisucks.com off my cable
modem at home. The providers that offer "unlimited" service may not (or
they may and cite abuse of services in their TOS) bill you for the data
transfer, but you usually will pay for it with network performance and
stability. Since Day 1 with GCI launching their 128KB cable modems in
Anchorage during the late '90s - back when you had to buy your cable modem
at CompUSA - they have always had a bandwidth cap. However, they've been
upfront about said cap and and made it relatively easy to check where you
stood (although the current usage system is a step back from the old Cold
Fusion scripts IMHO). Not the perfect system if you want to go crazy and do
50GB+ in a month, but you do get what you pay for. If you're in the valley,
I would recommend GCI's cable modem platform. My $0.02.
Scott

On 2010-06-21, WH Bouterse <bill@bouterse.com> wrote:
>
> Returning to Alaska after 4 years away I find that while there are more
> online
> activities require greater bandwidth usage, there are in fact fewer
> and fewer monthly options for "non-capped-pay-once-and-forget".
> I had seen the nationwide reports for some time but happened to be an area
> where
> for the time being it was not an issue.
>
> Now MTA has even eliminated their residential uncapped service
> which used to offer a pricey but at least available 140$ a month plan.
>
> How do you high-bandwidth users and mirror offerers deal with this?
>
> A recent case; a local family found their bill with MTA rose to $500 when
> they subscribed
> to DTS and began watching HD movies and regular netflix-streaming.
> This is a couple with 4 kids and home-schooling so the bandwidth is gonna
> get used.
>
> It seems that folks are now getting hit with not only the media fees but
> the fees for usage of the media as well!?
>
> Just curious as I find myself looking over my shoulder now with my 3mb 20gb
> cap
>
> Is there anyone working for MTA on this list who could maybe respond
> off-list if necessary?
>
> Working for free with various non-profits and trying to do some development
> work with various distros
> and helping a private school in NC by working on a WINE implementation of
> Donor Perfect,
> a M$ Fox Pro DataBase I feel somewhat irritated and constrained at the same
> time.
>
> Maybe its just me and if so please excuse my ramblings. AKlug has always
> been a great resource
> over the years and much appreciated.
>
> BTW The familly mentioned is now leaving Alaska as they said it was the
> final straw when not only did
> they get the unexpected bill but were told "this is Alaska if you don't
> like it go somewhere else".
>
> Thanks again for your patience, I'll try not to ramble so much next time.
>
> WH Bill Bouterse
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-- 
Scott A. Johnson
scott.a.johnson@gmail.com
http://scojo.us
mobile: +1.907.240.2483
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Received on Mon Jun 21 11:42:49 2010

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