Data caps are on all plans.

Nonsense. There are lots of plans without caps. Maybe not where you live, but at most that means caps should be banned where you live. IMHO it makes much more sense to require offering a cappless plan, rather than banning capped.

Edit: Googling for “capless internet usa” gives as the first result https://broadbandnow.com/guides/no-data-caps, listing several providers.

Indeed two companies is not really competition. So why not focus on that, instead of reducing choice, which may lead to even less competition by making differentiation harder?

If there is no reason for caps, why wouldn’t one of these companies simply remove them, giving them a competitive advantage, and making them more money? Why would one company reject making more?

Maybe capless actually costs them more due to bad infrastructure, and they don’t see consumer demand for it? Forcing them to go capless would in that case result in higher prices.

Maybe they form a cartel and have collectively decided to keep caps. But why, if it doesn’t actually cost them more to remove the caps? And if it does, then prices would again rise if forced to go capless.

Comcast would be quite unhappy with me as I’m arguing against monopolies, and for consumer choice.

Consider two companies, A and B.

A offers capless at e.g. $50/mo, and B offers capped at $40/mo.

Now B can no longer offer capped, and they have to raise prices to $55 to invest in better networking. A is cheaper, and pushes B out of the market. Now A is alone, and due to it’s monopoly position raises prices to $60.

End result: Your capless connection now costs $10/mo more, and some people even end up paying $20/mo more for internet.

Yay?

Reducing competition helps the ISPs, not consumers, yet somehow I’m the shill?

I reiterate what I’ve written elsewhere: protect consumers by forcing companies to add choice, instead of forcing them to remove it.

The solution to lack of choice is even less choice?

Fight monopolies by adding choice, not just accepting that monopolies/cartels are natural and just the way things have to be.

I’m curious, where can I find an ISP capable of delivering 100Gbps networking to a residential building for a reasonable price. I’m serious. Has the technolgy truly reached the level that we can guarantee 1Gbps connection to each appartment in a 100 unit building?

I would like to know how you figure that load of horseshit. The average customer never even hits the data cap, so it’s not like it’s just cutting people off so others can get on.

Well no, of course not. That would upset people. What it does is make people afraid of hitting the limit, which makes them concious of data use and reduces it, even if it does not actually hit the cap.

Very few places have any choice about what service they get.

Most of the country has no choice, so remove choice from those that do, to make it even? Shouldn’t we rather make it even by giving everyone choice? How about instead e.g. forcing ISPs to offer capless plans, while still allowing for capped, but cheaper, plans for those that prefer it?

I’m confused where you believe consumers are given choice here.

I’m confused by you being confused. Consumers can pick a subscription with a data cap, or they can pick one without. Maybe you can clarify what you are confused about?

Clearly this is a marketing issue, not a technical one.

Why not both? Marketing can be a great way to work around technical issues, e.g. by steering consumer behaviour in a way that avoids the technical issues.

Also, just because one network has sufficient spare capacity to not steer users to reduce data usage does not mean that every network does that. In fact this is where choice comes in: I can pick a provider which spends more money on the network, resulting in a higher costs, but also higher caps. Or I can pick a provider that spends less on networks, resulting in lower costs, but needing caps to make sure the limited bandwidth is sufficient for all customers.

The industry has grown up since then, technically speaking, and there is no cause for data caps except to line the pockets of ISPs.

You mean except the reason I gave, and you ignored?

limiting how much I can use in total is bullshit. It’s not like it can run out.

There isn’t a limit because it “runs out” of data, but because of statistics, and the fact that bandwidth is limited.

Adding data caps reduces the total data volume, which in turn statistically reduces the average bandwidth used by all subscribers together (or whatever subset shares a connection).

Another approach would of course be to reduce the speed of each individual subscriber, but it may well be that subscribers prefer e.g. to be able to watch 10h of 4K video, vs 100h of 1080p video, despite the former being a lower volume of data.

Essentially it comes down to whether you want lots of data, but slowly, or less data but quickly (assuming the same price).

It seems weird to ban consumer choice here.

A related, but different, question is if the consumer truly has a choice in the US. But to me it would make more sense to solve the competition question instead of even further restrict consumer choices for those that do have a choice.

What do you mean by “screen grab”?