I’ll just make it official that — unlike other people of my age — I’m not taking any exams — except for one, algebra. I won’t become a civil engineer, because engineering is dull and programming is what I’m born to do. Now, while it’s cold outside and everyone else is out to work or school — or bashing books into their heads, the only thing I can do is hang around some series of tubes.
Now, while I was rather enjoying Zero Punctuation — whose voice I don’t have in my head while writing this post, I suddenly got a Telenet page instead of a video. That page told me that I was at 95% of my limit. Now, a limit might strike you as a little odd if you’re not a Belgie. The thing is, my ISP — like every other Belgian ISP — puts a limit on the amount of stuff I can download.
Now, this wouldn’t be too disturbing if there was an account with a higher limit than my (dad’s) current account and if I — my dad — didn’t have to pay more than 60 euros already, just to find that these days 35 gigabytes isn’t all that much. For example, if you (legally) buy The Orange Box from Steam, you already lost a few gigs. If you watch a few streaming videos a day, you’ll head steadily for that limit.
What especially bothers me is that in these days of global communication, our Internet Service Providers are somehow incapable to conversate with our neighbouring countries to see how they get along without limits. Maybe the others aren’t such greedy rich liberal (as in laissez faire1) bastards the Flemish — whom I belong to — are. They assure that you’ll have to pay a lot of money in order to enjoy yourself, which isn’t really joyful. So, joy and payment cancel each other out and render life dull, unless you’re the same rich puppeteer as them.
Maybe I’m just ranting because I live a little too close the Dutch border. Accuse me of wanting everything for cheap, if you want. It’s probably better than the dumb Flandrians who just don’t want to take an example out of anyone. It’s funny — in a dark way — how politicians on the far right keep on rambling about our Flemish heritage when there is none, except for a stupid song about some bloody lion, they might as well sing the Power Puff Girls theme song. They talk about Flanders as if we were war heroes, while we were just lucky to have the English on our side. And then there’s this other 1302 battle we won against the French because we were too stupid to realise that we would lose the war. In reality, Flanders was weak and always dominated, and shaped by multiple cultures. I see it as our duty to copy others when that is indeed the right way to go.
Anyway, stereotypes aside, to make a long story short. I’m sick and tired of these limits and I won’t take no for an answer. It’s about time our ISPs scrap the limits, so we can move on and watch videos or download service packs.
1 in other words: exploitation and extortion
Sucks about your internet, ISPs are just about to start doing that here. It is so stupid, luckily, I think they are about to install fiber here, and the company uses the fiber doesn’t limit yet. Hopefully I’ll be getting 20mps up and down soon :)
— jjb123 · 307 days ago · #
They’re about to start doing that? In other words: they’re taking away the service they gave you before? That sucks.
— Roel · 306 days ago · #