The growing trend for bandwidth caps may have the result of turning people into administrators and cops for internet use without them even noticing. If bandwidth becomes a limited commodity, you can be sure that people will try their best to secure and guard it. People, who download movies, music and file share, or even those who share their connection with a full household, may hit their limits on a semi-regular basis. A little investigation might reveal that their usage has, in fact, gone through the roof.
This kind of excessive usage is not so easily explained away. With the cost of breaching a cap, it could very quickly become expensive. There is nothing like the threat of punitive costs to motivate people to act on an issue.
A big problem for a lot of people is that when they are hit with a charge for going over their limit, or hit their cap within a couple of days, it could well be down to their wireless router being unsecured and not protected with either a WPA or WPA2. Unprotected wireless hubs are a magnet for hijacker’s intent on sneaking on to the system and gobbling up the network owner’s data allowance.
However, there may be other explanations. Busy households can include users downloading all sorts of video or music using torrents, and perhaps extras like the best vpn for torrenting in order to help make these downloads as quick as possible, or using file-sharing sites such as Limewire. These downloads can sometimes keep running in the background for up to a week, quietly chewing up a data allowance.
One system in particular, called Frostwire, searches for ultra-peers (computers with fast connections), which it adopts as a super-node to share the largest number of files possible. These programs can often appear to be closed on the desktop but remain running in the background.
The result, therefore, of outsiders piggybacking on a Wi-Fi signal, or members of the household sucking up an allowance, or programs quietly working away in the background, is that bandwidth caps can quickly become a precious resource to be guarded closely. With ISPs now threatening limits around the world, be they cable providers by zip code, or any other, this may become a common attitude.
Users will become more interested in their home usage and make them long for the days of unlimited access. To meet this demand, there are a number of websites that offer a meter system to help users work out how low or how high they need the cap to be set and which cable providers by zip code they should plump for.
However, once the network is established, these caps will mean that users will have to monitor every bit of data flowing through their network, which could mean keeping tabs on various desktops, a handful of laptops and a tablet here and there, not to mention Smartphone’s.
There are a number of enforcement or management steps that can be taken to keep an eye on your usage. Obviously, you must secure your Wi-Fi to avoid hijackers and check your data usage rates regularly.
If this still doesn’t work, try turning off automated software updates, steering clear of HD videos and limiting the amount of VOIP videos you use. As was suggested earlier, be careful when using torrents. These will upload at the same time as downloading and will seed the file once complete, which can chew up a lot of bandwidth.
Ultimately, if limits and caps become the norm, the ISPs will not be able to police your personal usage, so it will be down to each household, business and user. If there is a limited resource of anything, whether it is internet access, petrol or water, people quickly become very protective over what they have, with the result that the commodity becomes more valuable. Guard it well!
About the Author: Blake Sanders is editor of internet providers comparison site www.broadbandexpert.com and can be followed on Google Plus.
Instead of treating bandwidth as a scarce resource, to be conserved and guarded, we should be concentrating on making it fast,open and free. Just imagine the technology and businesses that will sprout once we get to that level.
I like how Google is investing in renewable energy, with the goal of creating an unlimited supply of electricity…..no longer a need to conserve it.
Gary,
I agree and in this day and age we should have no restrictions or caps from a bandwidth perspective.
I totally agree with the two comments. Providers should focus on improving the technology instead of restricting it.
”Unprotected wireless hubs are a magnet for hijacker’s intent on sneaking on to the system and gobbling up the network owner’s data allowance.” I also agree with this statement.