Rolling FAP was an increase in bandwidth

[davidjneff]

OK, with the new FAP its kind of old news, but as I was drifting off to sleep last night it dawned on my the 30 day rolling FAP was actually an increase in bandwidth vs. the monthly FAP. Basically, 30 times 12 is 360, but there are 365 days a year ... Here is the math.

Monthly FAP
Monthly 22
months 12
Daily average 0.723287671
Annual Total 264

Rolling FAP
30 day cap 22
Daily Average 0.733333333
Annual Total 267.6666667

The rolling FAP in theory gave us 3 more gigs a year! So, obviously somebody at WildBlue, no doubt also while drifing off to sleep, realized this side effect of the rolling bandwidth, and thereby realized they had to lower the FAP

[tiny]

And this 3 gig gain was cancelled out in a big way by the lowered fap limits.
Wildblue giveth and Wildblue taketh away!

Originally Posted by davidjneff

OK, with the new FAP its kind of old news, but as I was drifting off to sleep last night it dawned on my the 30 day rolling FAP was actually an increase in bandwidth vs. the monthly FAP. Basically, 30 times 12 is 360, but there are 365 days a year ... Here is the math.

Monthly FAP
Monthly 22
months 12
Daily average 0.723287671
Annual Total 264

Rolling FAP
30 day cap 22
Daily Average 0.733333333
Annual Total 267.6666667

The rolling FAP in theory gave us 3 more gigs a year! So, obviously somebody at WildBlue, no doubt also while drifing off to sleep, realized this side effect of the rolling bandwidth, and thereby realized they had to lower the FAP

[davidjneff]

Originally Posted by tiny

And this 3 gig gain was cancelled out in a big way by the lowered fap limits.
Wildblue giveth and Wildblue taketh away!

Actually, I thought the 30 month rolling approach was an improvement, as it would tend to even out people's use. I'm sure that was their big motivation. I must confess on one friday night, end of the first month I had WildBlue, my teenage stepdaughter and I spent a couple hours watching music video feeds from the net. As others have pointed out, making it monthly from date of service rather than calendar month could have done the same thing, but monthly billing cycles are usually easiest for companies to deal with.

I do suspect the 30 day FAP does have the psychological side though of people wanting to keep a few gigs below their cap "just in case" the need to do something big comes up. At least thats how I tend to think about it. So, although the mathematics show in theory we (briefly) got a bit more bandwidth with the rolling fap, the psychology of it would elminate monthly binges and probably reduce their bandwidth overall (not to mention end of month bandwidth buldges, which were I think the real thing they were trying to stop). Heck, pegging it at the end of the month is no big deal when its reset. But pegging it today when I'm not sure what I will neeed to do tomorrow is something I wont do.

[tiny]

In honesty, I could have lived easily with the rolling fap thing. It makes it harder to figure out how to use the bandwidth amount you pay for, but it would have been sorted out and everyone, including myself would have went on and adjusted.
But when they added the lower limits of use without giving us a cost reduction, this was too much. It does not seem as usable as it did originally. I'm still thinking on what is my best choice, and most cost effective ( I'm looking at options like verizon wireless and other things). I've downgraded my service today to value level and am just using it to browse and check email like I did with my dial up account. WB is faster for loading graphic heavy sites and faster to get say a windows update but otherwise pretty much like a dial up account as far as use now. It's roughly the same price as an extra phone line and dial up fees (not counting install costs).Maybe after a couple months I'll see how to use the reduced bandwidth I now have and things won't seem so bad. I am trying to be open minded about the use of this service compared to the cost. I guess at worse if WB does not degrade the service further, I can look at it as a fancy dial up with very limited but fast downloading.
But I can never be open minded enough to be accepting of the fact I no longer have the easy to calculate service at the usable bandwidth levels that originally spurred me to sign on. I am also very concerned that these new issues are the writing on the wall that things will continue to spiral down wards with future service reductions for the money and how well the service performs as they load it up with new customers. We shall see I guess. Dealing with satellite companies feels like playing craps except you seem to have worse odds you'll be a winner.

Originally Posted by davidjneff

Actually, I thought the 30 month rolling approach was an improvement, as it would tend to even out people's use. I'm sure that was their big motivation. I must confess on one friday night, end of the first month I had WildBlue, my teenage stepdaughter and I spent a couple hours watching music video feeds from the net. As others have pointed out, making it monthly from date of service rather than calendar month could have done the same thing, but monthly billing cycles are usually easiest for companies to deal with.

I do suspect the 30 day FAP does have the psychological side though of people wanting to keep a few gigs below their cap "just in case" the need to do something big comes up. At least thats how I tend to think about it. So, although the mathematics show in theory we (briefly) got a bit more bandwidth with the rolling fap, the psychology of it would elminate monthly binges and probably reduce their bandwidth overall (not to mention end of month bandwidth buldges, which were I think the real thing they were trying to stop). Heck, pegging it at the end of the month is no big deal when its reset. But pegging it today when I'm not sure what I will neeed to do tomorrow is something I wont do.

[otter5555]

"I do suspect the 30 day FAP does have the psychological side though of people wanting to keep a few gigs below their cap "just in case" the need to do something big comes up."

my admintool has shown 13+ gigs since 1-2-06

it has not varied 300meg since then

i thought it was supposed to go down every day based upon the previous months usage but even though i dl'd normally in dec 05 (daily dls of .5 gig and up) i am not gaining anything

otter5555

[News]

Originally Posted by davidjneff

The rolling FAP in theory gave us 3 more gigs a year!

Thanks for the insight....now, has anyone heard if there will be some Crow being served at WB.CC this weekend?