Why do some ISP's have bandwidth quotas?

Sat Oct 6 10:56:25 UTC 2007

ISPs offering 200Mb plans on ADSL2+ here in Australia, then charging HUGE
amounts for excess - usually with no notification (at around the $12AU/Gb
rate) may well find themselves in an interesting legal position. Under
Australian law, the 'Bait and Switch' protection is very strict.

With things such as Windows Updates, Virus definition updates, anti-spyware
updates, etc etc etc on a monthly basis, this would easily eat up the 200Mb
allowed by the ISP - leaving ANY usage by the users to be billed at a very
expensive rate.

I've thought for a while that it's only a matter of time before someone sues
an ISP under the 'bait and switch' rules arguing that the ISP knew of these
facts and charged them a premium rate for all their normal surfing - or
offer to switch them to a more expensive, higher quota plan.

Out of interest, has anyone heard of this happening elsewhere on the planet?

--
Steven Haigh

Email: netwiz at crc.id.au
Web: http://www.crc.id.au
Phone: (03) 9001 6090 - 0412 935 897

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of
Roland Perry
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 6:01 PM
To: nanog at merit.edu
Subject: Re: Why do some ISP's have bandwidth quotas?

In article 
<31566c420710041452h30303dd1v6e11e67aa4b23a03 at mail.gmail.com>, Vassili 
Tchersky <vt at phear.org> writes
>In Europe, the only ISPs where i've seen bandwith quotas was some
>cables operators

Almost all ADSL operators in the UK operate bandwidth quotas.

eg: Currently my ISP is selling 50/20/5/0.5 GB a month options.

There are many reasons, the most powerful being price competition - the 
cheapest domestic ADSL is $18 a month (inc tax), ranging up to $50 a 
month for the highest quotas.

-- 
Roland Perry