1550
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
1550 points (99.6% liked)
Technology
59219 readers
3230 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The problem ISPs ask to pay BOTH for bandwidth and for packets. Which is double payment.
Kind of. They’re asking you to pay for maximum possible bandwidth but make no claims about how long you can use that max bandwidth. Packets are only a convenient way to measure a percentage of max bandwidth use over time.
The way this works in the server world is "95th percentile" billing. They track your bandwidth usage over the course of the month (probably in 5 minute intervals), strike off the 5% highest peaks, and your bill for the month is based on the highest usage remaining.
That's considerably more honest than charging you based solely on the highest usage you could theoretically use at any time point in a 24 hour period (which is how ISPs define the "max bandwidth") and then charging you again or cutting off your service if you use more than a certain amount they won't even put in writing.
"You maybe will be able to use advertised bandwidth. As long as we want. Or maybe not."