In countries where there is actual competition between ISPs, such as Sweden, and other parts of Europe, there are no caps. And our ISPs don't seem to suffer for it. I'm sure they'd love to have caps, but the first one to do it will just start bleeding customers, and none of them can afford that since the market is saturated.
I have a throttle cap on my mobile internet though, I can use as much internet as I like on my iPhone for a flat fee, but if I go over 5GB in a month, they may throttle my speed for the next month. That's pretty fair, I guess, but they're building out 4G now with even faster mobile internet, so those caps are probably going to disappear slowly as people move over to newer technology with more bandwidth than the current 3G/EDGE systems.
Where I am, I can choose between nine different ADSL providers, one cable provider, and about six different mobile broadband providers. All of them want me to switch to them, and they differ slightly in pricing, bundling, triple-play, customer service, speed, etc.
That's not what I'm asking. I have multiple providers of DSL internet, cable, and mobile providers, all with varying services, pricing, etc. Each one applies caps.
Where you are, are their lies that affect providers in that area? Or is it all pure competition?
Did those 9 ADSL providers all lay their own line, or is their laws in effect that make those providers lease their lines out to other providers?
The copper network is owned by TeliaSonera, the former state telephone monopoly, but they were forced to open that up to competitors so anyone could install DSLAMs in the phone stations, etc. There's competing national fiber networks as well, so no ISP has a stranglehold on the DSL market.
There's no competition and choice for cable though, you have the cable company you have, and that's it.
For GSM networks, there's three separate, and two or three 3G networks, so there's competition there as well.
In a few months my house is gonna be hooked up to the city fiber network, at which point I can choose from another bunch of ISPs.
I have a throttle cap on my mobile internet though, I can use as much internet as I like on my iPhone for a flat fee, but if I go over 5GB in a month, they may throttle my speed for the next month. That's pretty fair, I guess, but they're building out 4G now with even faster mobile internet, so those caps are probably going to disappear slowly as people move over to newer technology with more bandwidth than the current 3G/EDGE systems.
Stop being an apologist.