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On a consumer, not high-tier plan? It's a standard in close to every country. Where is that not the case? (I assume cable here as "any non mobile" rather than actual cable tv internet provider)

You can find a non-capped (at least in theory) plan everywhere if you pay enough of course.



I cannot find a single capped broadband package here in Ireland (only mobile or satellite has a cap). I've also travelled throughout the EU and have not encountered anyone with a broadband data cap. You can get consumer 1 gbps for 25-55€/month in many towns in Ireland, at that point there's hardly any need for differentiating between high and low tier.


In EU (the Netherlands) you can get 4G unlimited for phone for about 20$. I live with my friend hosts his own server for backups and home cinema.

For movies/tv shows/games we probably spend few TB a month.

I had never heard about such thing until now, it's ridiculous to have cap and I'm so glad that I don't have to live in such a place.


It is actually unlimited? Several companies in the United States offer "unlimited data" but throttle speeds after you use 50 GB~ so much that it is basically unusable.


Unlimited has to be unlimited by law. After 10gb of usage a day, you need to text a number (for free) to get a few more gb, and so on. That's just there to prevent flooding the network too much.


From what I have heard it depends on the mobile provider. Some have daily limit around 10+ GB. But that seems quite reasonable. I have monthly 10GB 4G for my phone and I have never hit it. I've heard stories after a screw up the mobile provider gave unlimited 4G for a year and the guy used it as his internet at his home.


I think in Europe there are caps for the lower tiers in the UK and Germany, but definitely those are the exception.


Did not have them in czech republic (used 2 different providers) or UK (3 providers)


In France, there are caps on the speed but not on the amount of data.


a cap on speed translates to a data cap per month. could you give an example of say your speed cap?

lets say a month is 30 days, a day 24 hours, an hour 3600 seconds, then a month is 2.592 Ms.

so an "unlimited" plan at say 1Gbps is actually always upper limited at 2592 Tb (bit) per month or 324 TB (byte) per month

I think governments should ban the "unlimited" names and force the ISP's to simply state actual limits or variable limit calculations if dependent on congestion. Here in belgium we have instead some vague "reasonable usage" policy...


> a cap on speed translates to a data cap per month

There's one fundamental difference: there's no risk of exceeding that implied "data cap" derived from the speed cap.


as if risk is a desirable trait for contracts and agreements?


None of the major ISPs in Switzerland have data caps, I have 1Gbps for 65$/month.


I've never had a capped plan in several different countries.




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