The Internet minus Broadband
or How to Survive on 10 GB a Month
I ran out of internet today.
At least that’s what it feels like when I’ve hit my monthly bandwidth limit. If that leaves you scratching your head picturing AOL startup discs, you’re not alone.
Some backstory. I moved away from the city in 2006 and went back to the small Texas town I grew up in. I knew what I was getting into, no pizza delivery, no quick runs to the store, no corner coffee shop. What I didn’t know, was that the house I bought lived in an area that isn’t serviced by the local telephone co-op. The same co-op who ran fiber to all of their customers just a few years before. No, I happened to buy a house that was just outside of the border into AT&T’s domain. And guess who didn’t run fiber to their rural customers a few years before.
Faced with the option of dial-up or nothing, I decided to look elsewhere for my internet connection. Before the fiber lines were installed, my parents had a satellite internet provider. It wasn’t very good. For instance, when it rains or just gets cloudy, you lose your service. But that was a few years back, surely it’s improved over the years. It had not. I signed a two-year contract and began paying nearly $60 a month for 500k download and even less upload. It was less than ideal. The best part about it? Satellite providers have what is known as the Fair Usage Policy (also Fair Access Policy, Fair Bandwidth Policy, and Data Allowance Policy). This is basically the amount of bandwidth you have per month. Why is it called the Fair Usage Policy? To quote my provider: …to ensure that all customers get a fair amount of access to the Internet over our network.
What it really means is that I cannot use more than 10 GB (combination upload/download) in one month. Now, the 10 GB is the plan I have chosen. They do offer plans with more and less bandwidth, but none are unlimited. Originally this limit was tabulated in a rolling 30 day period. What happens if you go over? That’s where the fun begins. If you use more than your ‘share’ of bandwidth, you are throttled down to dial-up speeds. Now think about how much data you download in a given 30 day period? Imagine once you’ve hit 10 gig your speed is slowed to dial-up for 30 days. That means from the moment you go over, you have 30 days of dial-up until the speed is reset. Remember, the max speed I could get at the time was 500k download. That’s… slow.
A couple years back, my provider came out with a new service. It boasted faster speeds, 12 Mbps down & 2 Mbps up. Fiber speed from a satellite? I signed up as soon as I could. You know what that really means though? That I hit my limit faster in the month. The good news is the Fair (I really can’t call it that anymore) Usage Policy changed. Now your bandwidth limit is based on a calendar month. So no matter when you go over the limit, it will be reset on the 1st of the next month. Great if you can make it until the end of the month. Between my wife, kids and I, we have four computers, three phones, an iPod, and an iPad. Now throw in other devices that want to connect to the internet: gaming consoles, TVs, Blu-ray players, the satellite box (the only way we can get TV channels), and you see how it adds up.
I should point out that the (Un)Fair Usage Policy does have a block of time for unrestricted use. Internet time that doesn’t count against your monthly total. Between the hours of midnight and 5 am local. I’m not in my 20's anymore. I am rarely up past midnight and I’m most certainly never up before 5.
In 2010 the National Broadband Plan was released by the FCC. It outlines… well a bunch of stuff, but notably, it defines broadband internet. Basically, they consider anything faster than dial-up is broadband. To me—and I would think the rest of the world that doesn’t work at the FCC—broadband is not only measured by the speed, but also it’s unrestricted nature. That’s not what I have. I have narrowband internet. I have internet in the way the Amish have rapid transportation.
OK, so what is living with narrowband internet like?
Streaming
Just pretend this doesn’t exist. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu and the like. They are essentially banned from my house. These are the big culprits. Just watching one HD movie would take up nearly 60% of my monthly allowance. (Netflix claims 3 GB per hour for HD).
I see funny clips and trailers posted on Facebook or Twitter and I want to watch them. Some short ones I do, but then I realize I’ve already watched several this month, could this 2 minute YouTube clip of a dog refusing to go outside put me over the FU Policy? Is it worth the risk? Netflix recommends setting the quality to Low if at all. Have you ever watched Netflix at low quality?
Let’s say I deem it worth the risk. Maybe we had some leftover bandwidth towards the end of the month. How does streaming fair? If you want to watch anything but the buffering icon, don’t bother.
Do you know how much data you use just loading Facebook? Now think about how often you visit a day. For my wife and I, it’s a lot. Also, Facebook has a weird bug where it loads, then immediately refreshes. So now double the original estimate.
Retina and the new web
I design and develop for the web all day. It’s my day job. If you do the same, or if you’re just in the know, you are aware that retina screens have enabled us to use higher definition photos online. This, of course, means larger file sizes which means, of course, more bandwidth.
Updates
I have desktop computers that haven’t been updated in over a year. All of our aforementioned computers are Apple, and I still have not figured out a way to schedule updates to only take place between the hours of 12 and 5. If you know a way, I’d love to hear it. My main computer is a MacBook Pro and I take it to the office with me, so it’s always up to date. My kids each have an older iMac that I retired. I don’t even know which OS they are on. I’d be surprised if it were 10.9 or higher though. I know I could run these after midnight, but again, the house is generally asleep by 11.
Games
Having kids, this one really sucks. We have a console and nearly every game we get requires a system update. A very large update. The kids got several new games over Christmas and we were already on dial-up speed. Guess what they didn’t get to play until after New Years? Nearly every desktop game I have requires a broadband connection, even if you are playing a single player campaign. Battle Net, Steam, they all require updates before I can play locally.
Other Devices
Now think about how many devices have access to your internet? Blu-ray players, TVs, etc. These are always going out and keeping themselves updated. On-Demand movies through the TV satellite require broadband. Nope, those are out.
I can hear some of you now: just move! My family and I are perfectly happy living out away from the noise and drama of a city. We love it, but most importantly, our kids love it. We aren’t moving.
Will satellite internet get any better? Maybe. Hard to say since the lag time between earth and outerspace isn’t going to improve, I’ll always have latency issues. Until they figure out this speed of light thing, that will just be. What would really help would be for providers to remove their FU Policy altogether. They claim it’s so everyone can have access, yet they aren’t restricting speeds, only total bandwidth. How does that help everyone?
Well I need to go, it looks like rain outside.
