Binge On! - get your umbrellas out, stuff's hitting the fan.

Sat Jan 9 18:33:16 UTC 2016

In article <1725530149.7756.1452359589375.JavaMail.mhammett at ThunderFuck> you write:
>Bytes uploaded and\or downloaded. That's all that should matter. Initiated by you or not. 

As should be obvious to people on NANOG, of all places, mobile
networks and fixed networks are different.  On a mobile network, every
bit of infrastructure you use other than your phone is shared and
tends to be heavily used.  Metered usage makes economic sense,
although it's well documented that users hate it and would rather pay
for a fixed bundle even if on average metered would be cheaper.

On fixed networks, a significant chunk is unshared (such as the wire
to your house) and while there may be hotspots, there tends to be a
lot of slack capacity within the network.  That means that fixed
network traffic outside of peak times literally costs the network
nothing.

>I have never seen or heard of any utility meters being replaced or calibrated. I suppose they should upon
>reasonable demand, but I've never seen it regularly done anywhere. 

Now you have.  When I was municipal water commissioner, one of our
annual tasks was to buy new meters to swap for the oldest ones.  Water
meters have a lot of moving parts and when they get old, they tend to
underreport usage.

R's,
John