I always think by law any ISP that advertises speed and a has a cap must express the cap in terms of the advertised speed.

So telcos can advertise "Up to 200Mbps" for their package.

But then if they have a 2GB cap, they also need to say, "Caps at 80 seconds of usage".

Because that's what you're paying for at that speed, 80 seconds of usage per month.

Sure, you're not always (or indeed never) doing 200Mbps, but then you're not getting the speed you paid for.

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throawayonthe 3 hours ago | parent [-]

i don't think that makes sense, most connections you make never reach 200Mbps because they don't need to

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eterm 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That's kind of my point, ISPs use that max speed in their advertising when it isn't really relevant, especially if it hits your cap in a minute or two.

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bscphil an hour ago | parent [-]

It is relevant, though. I have 1.2 Gbps down with a 2 TB monthly cap. I've never hit the monthly cap even once, but by your standard I have "1.2 Gbps down for 3 hours, 42 minutes".

But that doesn't change the reality that it matters to me that a 20 GB video that a friend took at my wedding downloads in just 2 minutes rather than the ~30 minutes it would take if I had a 100 Mbps connection.

	▲	eterm 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Right, but 3+ hours of top speed per month is a lot, 80 seconds isn't. Your cap is over 150 times that equivalent. If you had an 80 second hard cap, you couldn't even download that 20GB video.