No such thing as a “bandwidth” hog, finally proof!

Since the advent of broadband speed internet that was available to the consumer, we’ve all heard of the term ‘bandwidth hog’. The term always was used by your ISP to describe ‘evil’ consumers that ‘hogged’ wayyyy too much bandwidth for themselves, and thereby choking or reducing the speeds of everyone around them.

I was always overly anal with these accusations (being an IT person and having some understanding of the underlying infrastructure), I would point out to friends and anyone that brought up the issue that in fact is was just an advertising / business tactic, that the business that supplied ADSL would say, Cable was slow due to ‘hogs’. While Cable would dispute the ADSL company by saying it wasn’t true, and that in fact the hogs were just as bad on the ADSL lines (which they attributed to ‘old telephone wires’ not having the support).

Anyway, jump forward many years and finally someone has written a great article about this ‘bandwidth hog’ myth:

You might recall that back in 2009, we mentioned a piece claiming that the “bandwidth hog,” a term used ceaselessly by industry executives to justify rate hikes, net neutrality infractions, and pretty much everything else — was a myth. The piece was penned by Yankee analyst Benoit Felten and Herman Wagter, who knows a little something about consumption — as he’s the man largely responsible for Amsterdam’s FTTH efforts. The problem wasn’t bandwidth hogs, argued Wagter, the problem was poorly designed networks built by people more interested in cutting corners than offering quality product.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Bandwidth-Hog-is-a-Myth-117230

Enjoy, and leave a comment how you’ve encountered the bandwidth hog in your internet usage. Have you been hit with rate hikes due to ‘bandwidth hogs’?