The Immanent Bandwidth Cap Wars
As internet service providers offer faster speeds, a new area of competition has begun. At first, there was a race to provide internet service at the fastest possible speed. Of late however the speed race has outpaced the capabilities of users’ hardware. This has created a new factor for internet service provider. The bandwidth cap is fast becoming the new battlefields over which companies must compete.
There are cost limitations on monthly bandwidth. While customers may sometimes feel that there is a big business conspiracy preventing them from getting the bandwidth they want at a comfortable cost, there are massive hardware costs involved in getting data from the internet to your computer at blinding speeds. On the bright side, though, prices are typically determined by the cost a customer is willing to spend on a product. Currently, the costs being charged by most internet service providers seem to be acceptable. However, one change in user behavior looms on the horizon that inevitability threatens to destroy the present comfortable footing on which service providers design their business models. The normal consumer will eventually want to watch on-demand high definition TV content on their computers. This will be the death knell of the cable television station.
While cable companies certianly have an interest in preventing this by limiting monthly bandwidth, they will be unable to force this price control on the market forever. Wireless internet will soon be available all over major population centers at blinding speeds. This will make it nearly impossible for this media transition to be prevented by any commercial means.
This is wonderful news for the consumer. As companies begin to boast that they provide more bandwidth for your money, these caps will increase very quickly due to market pressure. Companies that offer hardware to internet service providers will have to lower their prices in turn. This is of course simply how the market works.
With all of the various methods of transferring data, there needs to be a huge focus on quality. For the consumer that plans to view high quality content, this will represent a dramatic improvement on the current online experience. High quality content inevitably means higher bandwidth demands.
Bandwidth limits will also affecthave an impact on the quality of content made. For example, most current media files need to be compressed to meet bandwidth limits. If it’s possible to transfer more data faster, these limitations would disappear. This may result in new advancements in music storage software. Why not increase the size of music files if they can be transferred very quickly? It’s the same for video files and any other content that people may attempt to share online. If providers can deliver bigger files, then movie files should be available in better quality. Over time this will allow for massive growth in the quality of audio and video files.
Online games will benefit from this boom too. As data transfer rates explode, you can count on game developers to take full advantage of the newly available bandwidth. Online games may never require as much bandwidth as streaming video or music, but it would be a mistake to ignore the demands of the online gaming market.
There is an exciting future for online content. While many complain about the current bandwidth caps, the future holds a race between providers to deliver the increased bandwidth at lower costs. In the long run, this will mean great things for the consumers of high quality online content.
Geek Choice knows that consumers enjoy high quality media. As a nationwide computer repair company, we work very hard to help people enjoy the experience with their PCs.