I thought data caps for home internet were a thing of the past…

I’ve somewhat recently moved back to a very rural area of the Midwest. Small town. No stop lights. Biggest businesses other than the bars are Casey’s, Subway, and Dollar General.

And we have one ISP (not counting DSL) — Mediacom. When we first signed up, I had to go with the second service tier. But not because of speeds, but so I could have a reasonable 1 TB/mo data cap.

Lucky me, they increased the cap to 1.5 TB. 🙄

I hope that in my lifetime I can see ISPs regulated as a public utility.

      • Steeve@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Somewhat OK internet on the infrastructure our taxes paid for and the government handed over to Bell and Rogers, but don’t worry, they’ll stop all the other evil corporations from coming in and giving us cheaper internet.

  • rizoid@midwest.socialEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I was very close to closing on a house in rural midwest but I checked isp’s and every one available had caps so I just stayed away.

  • Username@feddit.nlEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    In the Netherlands we complain a lot about gas prizes, costs of groceries. et cetera.

    But regarding internet we have come a long way. Fiber is available to approximately 50% of the households currently (and they are expanding fast)

    Mobile data is really seen as a commodity. 5G with unlimited data is €25/€30 a month (depending on the carrier). Although 5G in the Netherlands is not yet up to speed (3,5GHz will become available soon), the realistic speeds achieved are more then decent. (Benefit of having a crowded, flat country)

  • vojel@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    In Germany we pay lots of money for 5G data volume. For me I got 20 Gigs for about 40 bucks, this is mostly Not a thing in the rest of Europe. But data plans on landlines are really dumb.

  • X3I@lemmy.x3i.techEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Holy fucking shit dude… Sorry for you but in a weird way I’m a bit relieved to see this being the case in the US as well. The village I grew up in (Germany) still has a price of ~50€ for speeds of 50-100MBit/s However, there is at least no data cap in that case. My 1000 Mbit/s contract was capped to 1TB/month as well until four years ago (40€/month). I really hope this improves for all of us soon!

  • Remmy@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    I am very thankful that I do not live in the United States. Even in Canada where telecommunications services are notoriously expensive, data caps on cellphone plans are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Carriers like Freedom Mobile will simply throttle your speed instead of charging you a boatload of money once you pass your monthly data “limit”.

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      It’s ok. Compeition will drive down prices! I have so many options with internet such as Comcast and Company that pretends to compete with Comcast.

  • Xusontha@ls.buckodr.inkEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Where I am, there was only one provider of internet for a long time, and I was paying for a plan that’s more or less what you have right now. Then another company came in and laid fiber, and both companies slashed prices and now I get over double my download speed, no data cap, and something crazy like 50x the old upload speed all for like 20 dollars less a month! Before I switched to the fiber company, the first company even increased my download speeds without increasing the price! Anyone who says competition doesn’t change things is crazy.