Cookies help us display personalized product recommendations and ensure you have great shopping experience.

By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    data analytics and truck accident claims
    How Data Analytics Reduces Truck Accidents and Speeds Up Claims
    7 Min Read
    predictive analytics for interior designers
    Interior Designers Boost Profits with Predictive Analytics
    8 Min Read
    image fx (67)
    Improving LinkedIn Ad Strategies with Data Analytics
    9 Min Read
    big data and remote work
    Data Helps Speech-Language Pathologists Deliver Better Results
    6 Min Read
    data driven insights
    How Data-Driven Insights Are Addressing Gaps in Patient Communication and Equity
    8 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: How You’re Going to Pass Your Data Cap in 2016
Share
Notification
Font ResizerAa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Data Management > How You’re Going to Pass Your Data Cap in 2016
Data Management

How You’re Going to Pass Your Data Cap in 2016

briggpatten
briggpatten
6 Min Read
SHARE

Broadband Internet service has improved considerably since the first cable modems were introduced back in the mid 1990s. With optical fiber installations being rolled out across the nation, cable modem manufacturers are eagerly awaiting new specifications and new hardware to help them compete. Gigabit network speeds (roughly one thousand megabits per second) are expected to be the norm when these new technologies are introduced. This is going to make it difficult for many companies and individuals to avoid going over their data caps.

Broadband Internet service has improved considerably since the first cable modems were introduced back in the mid 1990s. With optical fiber installations being rolled out across the nation, cable modem manufacturers are eagerly awaiting new specifications and new hardware to help them compete. Gigabit network speeds (roughly one thousand megabits per second) are expected to be the norm when these new technologies are introduced. This is going to make it difficult for many companies and individuals to avoid going over their data caps.

What is a Data Cap?

More Read

The Elephant and the Cheetah: Episode 2 in the “Potholes of BI” Series
Strategies to Make Better Profits for CPAs During Tax Season
How to Accomplish Data Monetization?
Guns, States, and Death (Illustrated Comments on Aurora)
Deep Learning Would Be Crucial Under Sanders’s Medicare for All System

Every byte of information that is transmitted to or from a particular IP address can be tracked and tallied by the ISP (Internet Service Provider). A data cap either throttles (slows down) or stops service if the number of bytes exceeds a certain limit. Most residential Internet connections never get anywhere near their limit, but this could change.

New Services, New Opportunities

Chief among any set of new services made available by faster network speeds is enhanced streaming video. Cable television has always had the capacity to make high quality video available to its customers, but the new services will make it possible for ultra-high-resolution signals like 4K (4000-pixel horizontal resolution or greater) television possible on a packet network like the Internet. While this might seem like just an upgrade of an existing service, the reality is a data-network video signal can do things a standard cable-transmitted television signal can’t. For example, a data-network signal can integrate social media on the same screen with almost no additional infrastructure. To do the same on a cable transmission would require an enormous amount of effort, none of which would guarantee the service would match what the Internet already provides.

The Data Problem

A 4k television signal can be compressed, but even with the most efficient software and hardware now available the signal still requires up to 15 Mbps of bandwidth. If a residential account has a 250 GB cap, this means they will get roughly 35-40 hours of television before their data cap is exhausted. It gets even worse if there are two televisions watching two different shows, or if the network connection is being used for other services or Internet access.

This presents a major problem, because without the ability to fully utilize their connection or their expensive 4k hardware, individuals are not going to be eager to spend heavily on a gigabit-quality network connection or the hardware required to make it work.

How to Avoid the Cap

First and foremost, businesses and individuals need a precise way to measure their network usage. Whether it is provided by the ISP or made possible through the use of a local application or inside-the-network server, monitoring and analyzing network usage is crucial.

Secondly, making everyone who uses the network aware of what kinds of data are likeliest to cause a usage spike is vitally important. Turning on a video stream (or three) and just leaving it running is not going to help keep costs down.

Third, and probably most important, anyone using the network should be made aware of the recommended alternatives to running the biggest, fastest and highest-consumption applications and services on the network (some form of company training will be needed here, nothing too heavy but a training and delivery method must be in place to minimize confusion). Chances are a simple HD signal, for example, is more than enough video fidelity for the average viewer. Watching CNN in 4k might be amusing, but it’s likely too expensive to turn into a habit.

Solutions?

Contrary to popular opinion, data is not scarce, nor is the hardware required to get it from one place to the next. With technologies like DOCSIS 3.1 and fiber-optic cabling, not only are network speeds exceeding 1 Gbps possible, but they should be expected. The reality of the situation is that there are no technology-based reasons why everyone can’t have all the data they need. Ultimately, it boils down to how big the pipe is and how many people need to use it. Granted, not everyone is going to be watching 4k TV 24 hours a day, but there’s nothing stopping an ISP from making that possible either.

Share This Article
Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

data analytics and truck accident claims
How Data Analytics Reduces Truck Accidents and Speeds Up Claims
Analytics Big Data Exclusive
predictive analytics for interior designers
Interior Designers Boost Profits with Predictive Analytics
Analytics Exclusive Predictive Analytics
big data and cybercrime
Stopping Lateral Movement in a Data-Heavy, Edge-First World
Big Data Exclusive
AI and data mining
What the Rise of AI Web Scrapers Means for Data Teams
Artificial Intelligence Big Data Exclusive

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
33.7kFollowersFollow
222FollowersPin

You Might also Like

Time is Money: Milliseconds Matter [INFOGRAPHIC]

1 Min Read
data recovery for adobe illustrator
Data Management

Data Restoration Tips for Recovering Illustrator Files

7 Min Read
big data and business growth
Big Data

Effective Data Management Is the Overlooked Key to Business Growth

8 Min Read

Big Data Success in Government

5 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

ai in ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence for eCommerce: A Closer Look
Artificial Intelligence
ai chatbot
The Art of Conversation: Enhancing Chatbots with Advanced AI Prompts
Chatbots

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?