Data caps should be a thing of the past

Many ISP's are often setting data caps, specifying how much you may download/upload in a certain ammount of time. These caps are more and more slowing down the increas in usefulness of the internet, as the web takes over many of the tasks that we used to perform locally.

The network can handle the load.

Often ISP's will claim that the caps are set to manage the load on their network, so that the excessive load that one person puts on a network, dos not degrade the user experience for other users. But the truth is, that the network should be able to handle traffic ammounts, higher than the caps that ISP's ae creating. ISP's usually don't give adequate information about why their imposing a certain data cap, their just putting the cap there, without backing up their moves with data. You notice that as soon as people start asking questions about the reasons for data caps ISP's start contradicting their own statements. As this article by Public Knowledge shows. The example they give is comcast, and a story of Andre Vignaud. His internet was blocked for a year because he exceeded the cap twice.

The internet is becoming our desktop.

The reason Andre's internet usage was so high, was because of the data he uploaded. Wanting to keep his pictures and other data safe, he created a backup vortex, relying heavily on data stored, in different losless forms, causing him to upload a lot of data. But the internet is also starting to become a place for multimedia entertainment. Flash games have been around for ages, but the last couple of years, we've started to watch HD video on Netflix Instant watch, listened to streaming movies on spotify,... And then there's our still growing quest for finding information online. Not only through google, but also services that send more than just a text query to the cloud, like siri, which sends surprising ammounts of data to North Carolina.

They just can't keep up

Ju@st like the music industry complayning about copyright infringements, and Television companies refusing to let netflix stream their content, their just not adapting their data models to the evolving technology. If people can't access the data they want in the way they want via your service, they will find another way wether you like it or not.

Instead of imposing crazy limits, and running to the government asking for laws, like a bullied kid running to the teacher, these businesses should act like adults, dealing with the situation in a way that is beneficial to as many people as possible, for as long as possible.