unlimited data and 'hogging' of the network

[taylor7787]

A thread got me thinking more about unlimited data. Someone said they didnt want unlimited data because it gets abused and slows it down for everyone else. I live in the country and recently got the telus LTE hub for my home internet. For those who dont know what it is its a wireless router that connects to the cellular network and provides internet. Similar to tethering your phone to your laptop. My plan has 500 GB of data per month and is 75 dollars per month. I am curious how hogging the network or 'abusing' of potential unlimited plans has any adverse effects on everyone else's network speed when I can consume 500 GB of data on the network and I know all my neighbors have the same setup.

I did a speed test on my laptop across the house from my router and was getting 57 MBPS down and around 15 UP

[sheytoon]

I'm going to slightly disagree with the concensus here and say that wireless internet can run into congestion. Just look at Xplornet, who is having some trouble with their wireless LTE to the home service in rural areas of Canada.

I think Telus only offers this type of service in their native RAN footprint (i.e. BC and AB mostly). They would never offer this in Eastern Canada.

In LTE, there's a certain amount of Resource Blocks (RBs) that are shared on the air interface between all users. More spectrum = more RBs, but if the resources are all being simultaneously used, speeds will slow down dramatically and congestion will occur. There's no way to predict when this will happen. So wireless operators will offer certain amount of GBs per month, in hopes that it will deter people from downloading too much AT THE SAME TIME, which is what really causes congestion.

Can operators increase caps and still avoid congestion? It's possible, though I can't comment on that too much 😞

[taylor7787]

Since all the hub needs for data is an LTE connection and power (although it does come with a backup battery that lasts a few hours) i have taken it with me on small road trips so my boy can watch netflix and it works just as it would at home

[taylor7787]

how did I get the 500GB LTE hub plan? its an interesting thing but telus only offers it to clients with rural addresses as far as I am aware and I see that according to the link below the price may have gone up or it is differently priced depending on the area

https://www.telus.com/en/ab/internet/new/smart-hub

[srlawren]

Holy cow, @will13am!!!  That's a lotta bits.  

A couple of months ago, I upgraded my home internet plan from an ancient one I'd been on for ages to the current second-from-the-top tier offered by Shaw cable.  It gives me 75Mbps down (though it routinely test about 10Mbps over that) and up to 7.5Mbps down (+1 or so), and 500GB a month "cap".  (Shaw uses a soft cap and isn't known for charging overages or even warning anyone unless they really go over by a LOT).  But as this was a big bump up from my previous 150GB cap, I tried really hard to use as much data as I could the first month just to see how close I could get.  I streamed quite a bit of Netflix (at full quality 1080p), I worked from home several days, I downloaded updates, uploaded photos, watched lots of Youtube (again 1080P) on both my laptop and phone, and try as I might, I believe I barely broke 100GB.  I can't even imagine using 40 times that amount of data.... it's just insane.

[Luddite]

@taylor7787 How did you purchase that plan? I cannot find it on the Telus website and have a friend outside Gravenhurst who needs your plan! 

[will13am]

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@Michael77 wrote:

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@will13am wrote:

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@Michael77 wrote:

@taylor7787,

Very true.

At home I use between 400 and 500 gigs. I have unlimited data. Nothing slows down. My Rogers internet speed is very good.

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My record month reached almost 4tb.  The only time I notice a slowdown is when I do a speed test.  

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@will13am,

That's amazing. 4tb. 🙂

I have unlimited usage, lol.  I download the internet every night because I can.  TBH, it's not that much.  My Chromecast consumes a few gig per day just displaying scenery.

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[Michael77]

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@will13am wrote:

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@Michael77 wrote:

@taylor7787,

Very true.

At home I use between 400 and 500 gigs. I have unlimited data. Nothing slows down. My Rogers internet speed is very good.

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My record month reached almost 4tb.  The only time I notice a slowdown is when I do a speed test.  

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@will13am,

That's amazing. 4tb. 🙂

[will13am]

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@Michael77 wrote:

@taylor7787,

Very true.

At home I use between 400 and 500 gigs. I have unlimited data. Nothing slows down. My Rogers internet speed is very good.

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My record month reached almost 4tb.  The only time I notice a slowdown is when I do a speed test.  

[Michael77]

@R47,

The cell phone carriers love to charge us as much as they can. It's all about big profits.

[will13am]

Bandwidth is cheap.  The errant commentary come from carrier apologists that drank too much of their coolaid.  

[R47]

I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, but I think Telus only offers LTE hubs in rural areas because there isnt wired internet access there. As well, the rural towers aren't congested at all, as the density of people is low, so it can handle high bandwidth. In urban areas, that isn't the case. Carriers have a limited amount of spectrum, and there are alot of people on the towers. So if everyone was doing high bandwidth transfers like video streaming, it would slow down the network. Now, if urban congestion is actually an issue, I don't know. Lots of American carriers offer unlimited, and there doesn't seem to be issues, and with things like carrier aggregation, networks should be able to handle alot more traffic. I think a bigger problem is that cell companies love to charge people a ton for data usage.

[Michael77]

@taylor7787,

Very true.

At home I use between 400 and 500 gigs. I have unlimited data. Nothing slows down. My Rogers internet speed is very good.