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Comment on Please ban data caps, Internet users tell FCC

Consumers can pick a subscription with a data cap, or they can pick one without.

I am in a major metropolitan area and I do not have an option to have no data caps. Even the slow internet plans have them. I don’t think you realize the stranglehold telecoms have on consumers.

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spoonbill@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
The solution to lack of choice is even less choice?

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- Vodulas@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  WHAT CHOICE!? Data caps are on all plans. What options are there? Lay out what you think the choices are.
  
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  - spoonbill@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
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    Vodulas@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Do you live outside the US? The way the US works is far less centralized than other countries. Most of this time this kind of stuff is left up to state regulations or even city regulations and contracts. The truth is that capless plans exist, but that is not the reality for large swaths of the US. You’re taking a broad approach to a specific problem. Ending data caps ends at the Federal level ends the problem and does away with the mess of state BS. Anyway, I am done talking to a brick wall. Have a good one
    
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spoonbill@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
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 actuall cost them more to remove the caps? And if it does, then prices would again rise if forced to go capless.

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- Vodulas@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Around here they charge for going over your cap, so easy profit with no regulation would be the likely culprit. Also, you keep talking about competition, but there are 2 whole broadband companies in my area, and one does not have fiber/gigabit in my area. That is not what anybody would call healthy competition.
  
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  - spoonbill@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Indeed two companies is not really competition. So why not focus on that, instead of reducing choice, which may lead to even less competition?
    
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    Vodulas@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    You act like I work at the FCC. The reality is the city has tried focusing on that in the past and failed because the contracts set up with the ISPs were renewed by the centrist city government. I think you are thinking of an ideal situation where one does not exist.
    
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