> I mean, in this universe we live in everything is limited somehow.
replyYes, indeed, most relevant in this case probably "time" and "bandwidth", put together, even if you saturate the line for a month, they won't throttle you, so for all intents and purposes, the "data cap" is unlimited (or more precise; there is no data cap).
In almost all services this tends to get an asterisk that says "unless your usage interferes with other users" which in itself is poorly defined. But typically means once their system gets closer to its usage limit, you're the first to get booted off the service.
replyNo ISP I've had in my adult life had such conditions, it truly is "Whatever you manage to do with the bandwidth we give you". I've done hundreds of TBs for months without any impact to my bandwidth (transferring ML datasets among other things), and I'm pretty sure a ISP in my country would break some law if they'd limit a typical broadband home connection based on data transfer quotas.
replyWhat? You are capped by bandwidth and time is its own limit. You are capped at the max bandwidth in your service contract multiplied by the length of the contract. A bandwidth cap has an implied data cap
replyThe point is that you have access to a 100Mb/s connection, and your access to that connection is unlimited. It doesn't become a 10Mb/s connection at some point, and your access isn't cut off - there are no limits on your access.
replyOf course there are practical limits as you can't make your 100Mb/s connection into a gigabit one (ignoring that you can buy burstable in a datacenter, etc, etc).
Where unlimited falls down is when it refers to a endlessly consumable resource, like storage.
I’ll be honest I think “unlimited” should just be banned from advertising. The literal definition a layman would understand is never what’s in the fine print. Every good or service has some kind of limit, whether it’s artificially put in place by the seller or a law of physics. Any way you can interpret “unlimited” to where it means “unlimited, except those limits” is false advertising.
replyOf course. You're always capped by rate. But you're not capped by the cumulative amount (other than as a function of rate and time).
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