Comcast Slightly Clarifies High Speed Extreme Use Policy

Alien54 writes "Comcast has finally clarified what 'excessive use' is when it comes to their cable internet service. A customer is exceeding their use limit if they: download the equivalent of 30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures or 13 million emails in a month. '[A Comcast spokesperson] said that Comcast's actions to cut ties with excessive users is a "great benefit to games and helps protect gamers and their game experience" due to their overuse of the network and thus "degrading the experience."'" Maybe they could put that limit in terms other than 'email' or 'songs'?

Re:Abuse Definition v2

[wizardforce]

well according to wikipedia the LOC :

is the largest by shelf space and one of the most important libraries in the world. Its collections include more than 30 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 58 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America, including a Gutenberg Bible (one of only four perfect vellum copies known to exist); over 1 million US Government publications; 1 million issues of world newspapers spanning the past three centuries; 33,000 bound newspaper volumes; 500,000 microfilm reels; over 6,000 comic book[3] titles; the world's largest collection of legal materials; films; 4.8 million maps; sheet music; and 2.7 million sound recordings.

rough estimation of its data storage: ~90 million total*5 megs ave guess= 450 terabytes. comcast's limit was supposed to be about 300 gigs [if you download really fantastic songs] so 300gigs/450 terabytes= 1/1500 LOC. in short, the LOC is MASSIVE

spam zombies

[tepples]

250,000 images is about 1 every 10 seconds constantly throughout the month.

Which means somebody is going to have to lower the pixel size for the remote security camera.

13 million emails is about 5 emails PER SECOND the entire month.

Or a fraction of the throughput of the average pwned Windows machine.

Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli

[Idaho]

the equivalent of 30,000 songs

I'm also guessing that at ca. 3 MB a song that would round up to ca. 100 GB a month, or 3 GB a day.

Well, to be honest that limit is not *that* ridiculous, you could download (and watch) two movies a day at 1.5 GB each, or ca. 4-5 hours of video at decent (DivX, not HD) quality. Or downloading and testing at least 2-3 Linux distributions a day.

What is ridiculous however, is that Comcast just won't state there is a 100 GB limit - even if it were in the small print in the TOS. Most people wouldn't have a clue what it means anyway, but those who care would at least be able to find it.

However they could probably get sued for false advertising if they publicly admit that there is a fixed limit (they are advertising unlimited use I'm sure). I think this is why they refuse to state this in terms that leave no uncertainty whatsoever.

It is not as bad as you think...

[tgatliff]

I spoke with a comcast friend of mine who is at the executive level about two weeks ago on this... He said that the reason they do not want ot specify the exactly amount is that most of the time they do not care because they have plenty of throughput. Meaning, because their network is mostly shared (unlike the telcos) bottelnecks do occur from time to time. He saids that most of their subnets are fine (over 90% in fact), but occasionally they get a couple areas where he says they constantly have problems with getting their digital services to work well and they almost always find that it is because of huge amounts of p2p traffic. He also said that in an ideal world this would be handled at the network level, but that their p2p limiting ability does not work at this point for balancing balancing the traffic. He said he had no clue what routers they are using, though... He said that the worst part is that in some cases, if they upgrade their "uplink" (my word, not his) to fix the issue, it just means that more traffic, and the problem still is there. In short, the end result is that when they have allot of customers call in saying they are having problems with their service in a particular area, they first try to upgrade their "uplink", then if that does not work, they tell the particular customers to please stop it, and in the few cases where this does not work then they finally just pull the plug on the problematic customer. He mentioned that it rarely happens, though, which is why they are completely baffled internally on why the press is so against on them right now...

Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli

[tepples]

However they could probably get sued for false advertising if they publicly admit that there is a fixed limit (they are advertising unlimited use I'm sure).

I don't think Comcast advertises "unlimited use" anymore. The ads I've seen talk about the following features of Comcast High-Speed Internet:

1. "Always on", which in practice means upwards of 90 percent uptime compared to dial-up Internet access's sub-10 percent uptime.
2. Faster completion of common downloads than DSL or dial-up, especially with the new "PowerBoost" feature that increases the modem's speed for the first few megabytes of a large download.

Re:lets do the math!

[Seumas]

A song is 3mb? What crappy bitrate do they think people encode to? A decent quality rip is going to be around 7mb. Possibly more.

They need to get off it and stop being so cryptic. They also need to realize that "excessive use" can be easily exceeded by completely reasonable means.

Today, I downloaded some demos on XBOX. That was about 10gb. I downloaded some video/demo/subscription content via both XBOX and PS3 this past month, too. So that's another 10gb (all of the TGS content from Microsoft via XBL alone is about 3gb).

I downloaded my weekly podcasts (video and audio). That was about 3gb.

I am 1500 miles from my home town, so I stream the local radio station (256kbps) all day every day (about 30gb/mo, probably).

My roommate also streams his favorite radio station most of the day. Another 20gb or so per month.

I streamed several movies from a pay service (like vongo) this week. Figure that's another 15gb/mo.

My roommate watched a few movies the same way. Another 5gb.

I downloaded three linux ISOs via torrent and seeded them to 100%. That's another 5gb.

I uploaded about 20gb of MP3s to my mp3tunes account.

This doesn't count surfing or watching youtube style content or FTPing to my remote server or connecting to my machine in the office via VNC and VPN. With completely reasonable uses, I've just accounted for 118gb between two people on one residential account. I presume the use would be higher if there were more people. Say, a four or five person family, for example.

And of course, the biggest issue here is that they've simply avoided answering the question altogether. The title of this submission is inaccurate. They didn't answer anything, yet offered a response that can be turned against any user by simply adjusting how big these pictures and emails supposedly are supposed to be for this calculation.

Even stupider, they show just how far behind the times they are by measuring things in "emails, songs and pictures". Welcome to 1998, friends.

How many shots?

[tepples]

250,000 pictures = 1 feature length film!

With motion pictures, you count shots, not individual frames. Video codecs store the differences between successive frames in a shot in an efficient format [wikipedia.org] (with an upper bound on shot length).

Re:Do the math

[Seumas]

There are several problems with your comment.

+ I doubt they are considering songs to be 6mb. I assume they're talking 128kbps (not that anyone even uses such a low bitrate anymore -- not even many decent radio streams).

+ Where in the hell do you live that you get comcast internet service for only $30/mo?! I pay $60/mo, before fees and taxes.

+ I don't care how cheap it is for the amount of bandwidth provided. If I can't get as much bandwidth as I *want*, then it's useless. If I want to drive to the next state, but you will only sell me one gallon of gas, the affordability of that one gallon of gas is meaningless. In other words, if I can get 200gb for $60/mo, then sell me $400gb for $120/mo. If I'm willing to pay for more, GIVE ME MORE. Don't just threaten to ban me for a year, simply because I use more than all the grandmas in this zip code who use it just to email their grandchildren once a year.

Re:It is not as bad as you think...

[QuietLagoon]

I spoke with a comcast friend of mine who is at the executive level about two weeks ago on this... He said ... then if that does not work, they tell the particular customers to please stop it, and in the few cases where this does not work then they finally just pull the plug on the problematic customer.

Hmmm.... all the reports I have read about Comcast shutting down their customers have indicated that the first step your friend mentioned ("telling the customer to stop it") does not exist, that Comcast goes directly and without notice to pulling the plug.

So it appears that your executive friend is either misinformed of what it really occurring out in the wilds of Comcastland, or he is being less than honest.

Re:Not really clear enough

[Dark_Nova]

The duopoly on submarine telecoms cables in Australia is mainly just due to the insanely high costs of laying and maintaining them. The only companies that are willing to invest in this sort of infrastructure are those that can justify an investment that won't pay-off for decades.

Luckily, there is a third cable being laid at present. A group of Australian telecoms companies have come up with the idea to lay a cable to Guam, which can then peer with US cables there. This should introduce some more competition into the market, and will hopefully drive down prices significantly.

Re:Song of 4:10 times 128 kbps = 4 MB

[Jeremy Erwin]

One of their ads for powerboost reads

Imagine you're downloading a 20 Megabyte file with 5 MP3 songs. It would take almost 3.5 minutes with a 768 kbs DSL connection. Compare that to just about 20 seconds with Comcast High-Speed Internet with Powerboost.

This comparison isn't meant for the high bandwidth user. It's meant for people who have trouble understanding why anyone would download anything as large as a linux distribution.

Re:It is not as bad as you think...

[westlake]

Why are they baffled? They use the word "unlimited". To most people that means "without limit". They like the sound of the word in their advertising. They just don't like to have to live up to that definition.

As much as the Geek would like to have it otherwise, "unlimited" residential broadband has never meant anything more than "always-on" access at a flat monthly rate.

As opposed to the $8-12 an hour you paid for dial-up in the Compuserve era.

Sustained use, here and abroad

[mbone]

The guesses I have seen are that the Comcast limit is about 145 GBytes per month. That works out to close to 500 Kbits / second, full time. So, you could watch a 1 Mbps video channel. such as the end bit rate ones from AmericaFree.TV channels, for 8 hours per day, every day, and (supposedly) not run into trouble, but you better not leave it on full time (like some bars I know).

As a data point, 100 Mbps residential fast ethernet costs $ 36 per month [networkworld.com] now Japan. Somehow I don't think that there they cap the service at 0.5 Mbps sustained use.

Re:Not really clear enough

[Anonymous Coward]

@calidoscope:

Some ISPs do make that distinction, yes. One of the major ISPs in Australia is bigpond, which is a subsidiary of the country's major telecommunications provider, Telstra.

IIRC, bigpond's plans give you unlimited downloads of data hosted on their own (Australian) servers, such as games, music, video and so on. They only count downloads from non-bigpond servers (including overseas ones).

according to comcast staff, this news is false

[elislider]

i had to create an account on /. finally after years of just reading.
I recently moved to a house near my campus (instead of living in the dorms, shitty) and we can only get comcast cable internet (not fios like i have at my real home). i had been following comcast in the news about this nondisclosure, because on fios i routinely download 600+gb a month just on newsgroups, not to mention the occasional torrent, web streaming, and all my other traffic.
here is the transcript of my comcast online chat i just had with a decently rude chat associate named Shawn:

user Eliot has entered room
Eliot(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:56:31 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) what is the transfer cap for high speed internet from comcast?
analyst Shawn has entered room
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:56:39 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) Hello Eliot, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Shawn. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:56:42 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) Good evening.
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 21:57:14 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) hi
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:57:06 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) I am unsure of what you are asking, can you rephrase that for me?
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:57:09 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) Please?
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 21:58:09 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) What is the limit or cap on cable internet transfer/downloading from comcast?
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 21:58:28 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) ie. how many GB
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 21:58:34 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) per month
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 21:58:44 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) if such a limit exists
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:58:35 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) Ah, not unless you are using newsgroups.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:58:58 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) There should be no cap otherwise.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 00:59:01 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) Why do you ask?
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 21:59:30 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) what is the limit if i am using newsgroups
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:00:36 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) hello?
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:01:59 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) ?
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:01:46 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) that would depend on who you are signed up with. Comcast newsgroups have a limit of 2Gb
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:01:55 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) Sorry, I was doing some research.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:02:18 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) I do not know what other sites limit theirs to.
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:02:59 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) i am not asking about a limit imposed by a newsgroups service
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:03:24 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) i am wondering if there is a limit on the amount of data transfer for the cable internet service
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:03:38 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) regardless of what it is used for
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:03:49 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) a limit on the connection itself
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:03:32 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) I am merely informing you that would be the only limit that you should run into.
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:04:03 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) "should" or "will" ?
Eliot(Sun Sep 16 2007 22:04:57 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) because i have been seeing comcast in the news lately that limits may exist that are not disclosed to account holders
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:04:47 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) That is the information I have. We do not place limits on the connection for any reason except newsgroups.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:04:59 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) The news is incorrect.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:05:13 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)) There are no limits regarding th connection alone.
Shawn(Mon Sep 17 2007 01:05

Re:Not really clear enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Domestic links aren't cheap either, Telstra (our local telecoms monopoly) charge through the nose for them. Domestic connections are certainly cheaper than international ones, but they are still more than ten times the price of similar connections in the US.

However, some downloads are unmetered. For example, many ISPs who peer with the PIPE network give free downloads ISPs who do the same. Also, downloads within each ISP's network are usually free. Most ISPs have large download mirrors so that users can take advantage of this.