[aklug] Re: Last days of unlimited?

Isn't deregulation great?
Someone here did a traceroute a few weeks ago from an MTA network and guess
what ... GCI is their backbone.

Likely GCI arm twisted them to throw them out of business or exploited the
fact that they own the backbone and could charge whatever they want for
usage. It is no different than AT&T and Verizon. How many mom and pop ISPs
are left outside of Alaska? None. They big boys threw them out as soon as
they were deregulated. Now AT&T is capping as well as soon as the
competition was eliminated.

GCI was the one who invested in the lines because no one wanted to invest in
Alaska so they win. You bet they want to oay $500 a month for Netlfix as
most people are stupid and would rather pay than complain or get politically
involved. We could take a lesson from Asia and Europe who laugh at this
situation because of regulation. You can get a whole fiber connection for
$30 a month.

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 11:42 AM, Scott A. Johnson <
scott.a.johnson@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> > ---------
> > To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
> > with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Scott A. Johnson
> scott.a.johnson@gmail.com
> http://scojo.us
> mobile: +1.907.240.2483
>
>
> ---------
> To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
> with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
>
>

---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
Received on Mon Jun 21 13:33:17 2010