Why do we pay ISPs for internet speed, but mobile network operators for the amount of transferred data?
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A lot of home ISPs also used to charge based on amount of transferred data.
It’s just a business decision, based on how oversubscribed their connection upstream of you is. Networks are oversubscribed as in, maybe 500 customers get sold a 100Mbps package each, but there’re all wired into the same cabinet. That cabinet has a 5,000Mbps connection to a data center that connects to 100 cabinets, and the data center has a 50,000Mbps connection. Obviously not everyone can use their 100Mbps all at once.
They usually choose how to price it, based on how likely it is that everyone will use it at the same time and get slowed down. If it’s going to work at full speed most of the time, they may just sell it as 100Mbps unlimited. Most people won’t use the whole 100Mbps all the time. Some people will, but not enough to cause a problem. But if there’s even less total bandwidth, and it is more likely that people won’t get their full speed, they might add a monthly limit as well. Or they can make each connection slower – maybe they can get away with selling unlimited 50Mbps connections, instead of limited 100Mbps connections – but 1000Mbps* ^^fine ^^print looks better than 50Mbps.
Mobile networks are generally slower than cabled networks, so they’re making this transition later than cabled ISPs did.
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