Comcast Slightly Clarifies High Speed Extreme Use Policy 618
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'?
Check your math (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:2, Interesting)
--rf
Or maybe they should... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:2, Interesting)
In fact, CW is even more restrictive (at least in my market) because you don't benefit as much from PowerBoost (a bandwidth surge during the first 10MB of any transfer in which residential users may temporarily get as much as 24Mbits/sec).
Not really clear enough (Score:5, Interesting)
While nobody in Australia really likes the download quotas, our ISPs at least spell out the limits in detail, and allow users to check their current usage in real-time. A variety of Internet plan options are available, so heavy users can opt to pay extra to have a higher download quota (e.g. see iiNet's plans [whirlpool.net.au] and Internode's plans [whirlpool.net.au]).
Comcast seem to be introducing quotas without really going all the way. I guess they view this as being more "gentle" than actually imposing hard limits, but I'd say that it's just more confusing. Users need to know what their quotas are and how much they have downloaded, otherwise, the whole system just seems arbitrary.
I can see how US ISPs might want to impose some usage limits on their customers. Data connectivity is cheap there, but it isn't free... and people are getting ever-faster home connections. However, if they are going to do this sort of thing, they need to spell out exactly what the limits are, and what the consequences are for going over those limits. Vague statements like "30,000 songs" don't really help anyone.
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:3, Interesting)
30,000 x 5MB == 150,000MB ~= 145GB
15KB for the average email:
13,000,000 x 15KB == 195,000,000KB ~= 186GB
600KB for the average picture:
600KB x 250,000 == 150,000,000KB ~= 143GB
So if you stay under 125GB / month you're probably safe. Not quite unlimited if you ask me!
Re:It is not as bad as you think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Notice that in the second situation -- which is the reality of what they do -- they don't offer any information on what "stop it" means. I actually had to deal with comcast on this a few months ago. I told the person on the phone that I definitely don't want to cause problems for anyone else on the service, so I would like to know how much I should reduce my usage by. How many gigabytes? What percentage of the previous month's usage? They wouldn't tell me. So I just got a vague "stop doing that". Gee, how fucking helpful.
And of course, they have no way to sell me additional services, either. If I use too much, I'd gladly buy a second account. If I'm willing to pay for two spots on the node, why not give them to me?! I thought they were a corporation that was all about the capitalist ideal and not the one-size-fits-all socialism style solution? What's appropriate for the elderly couple down the street may not be appropriate for my needs. That doesn't make me a bad person or a bad customer. It makes me someone looking for a service. And since my taxes and government help allow you to own a monopoly in this region -- this preventing competition for me to turn to so I can FIND those services that do fit me -- I feel there is some degree of obligation to expand those service options.
It is not as unlimited as you think... (Score:0, Interesting)
To those who believe a dictionary is a viable substitute for common sense, I can see that.
"They like the sound of the word in their advertising. They just don't like to have to live up to that definition."
In that case, I'm not certain who's dumber? The ISP for using that word, or a forum of people who are so intelligent they call the general public "stupid"? Believing that the laws of physics have been repealed just for them, and any physical connection can be "unlimited". Let alone the fact that they are incapable of reading the TOS BEFORE signing up.
Of course they gave the limit = 1.25GB (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone knows A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Assuming English, we have the "...estimated average word length of five..." [wikipedia.org] for a simple calculation:
250,000 X 1000 X 5 = 1,250,000,000 bytes.
Of course all your words would be mushed together and that wouldn't be a pretty word picture, so using the Wikipedia tip of assuming 5 letters plus a space, per word, we get:
250,000 X 1000 X 6 = 1,500,000,000 bytes.
Of course, you could use Unicode characters and double all the byte counts. (And I am not even going to mention the 1024 vs 1000 debate.)
Finally, some think the "picture : 1000 words" ratio is off by a factor of 10 [fullerton.edu]. If we use that, then we get 30GB (assuming UTF-16)
So there you have it - Comcast only wants you to use about 100 kbps of bandwidth (1GB/day).
We can also thank them for a new constant - A song is worth 8.3 pictures
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:5, Interesting)
When one of my friends who was on said Extreme service got pissed off about paying ~$80/month for unlimited and getting suddenly capped to 100GB, I looked around to check out what sorts of alternatives were available in my area - something I had not done in years. From what I have seen, there are dozens of DSL resellers who are offering a choice between 100GB/month low-latency or unlimited low-priority traffic for only $30/month at 5000/800 speeds. (Well, with DSL, mileage may vary - even more so with third-party service that may be routed through auxiliary networks between the DSLAM and global internet.)
Since my current service contract costs $40/month for only 30GB/month, I will soon start sampling DSL service in my area until my contract expires - the ridiculously low limits make the extra speed seem superfluous... I have about four months left to pick my new ISP and there are about 40 (mostly ADSL) to choose from.
I am guessing Canada must have a law/rule requiring ISPs to declare limits since all ISPs I have seen do state the limits somewhere on their product pages... though sometimes they are a little obfuscated such as being written in an expandable page section that is collapsed by default made to look like a simple paragraph separator line until you pay close attention to it and notice the '+' sign at one end. I suppose this means the law/rule, if any, omitted to state how visible/accessible data on those limits must be.
My current ISP might be too expensive for the ridiculous limits it has on my package but at least I have always known what the limits were... if I were a Comcast customer, I would go for a class-action suit to force full disclosure of this mysterious limit and the methods behind it - customers should not have to guess what the ToS are no matter what lame excuse Comcast may have.
Re:It is not as bad as you think... (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell him that the Mattel toys he buys for his toddler are *rarely* painted with lead paint, and that the Metz Fresh's spinach he ate for dinner is *rarely* infected with E. coli. And ask him how he feels about that.
However rare it may be, each customer is going to hear it as a direct threat of getting cut off. People are particularly disturbed by the threat because they are being denied any "safe zone". People would be far more comfortable with an explicit "You are guaranteed safe at X, we may let you slide up to Y, but we could cut you off at X".
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30,000 songs, huh? Good thing I download FLACs (Score:5, Interesting)
Now some people are claiming things like "Gee, that works out to x number of DVD's per month," are missing the crucial point. The quality* of the stuff we download constantly gets better. Years ago, it was incredibly rare to find any mp3's better than 128kb/s or video files that were above 320kb/s. These days, we're pushing HD-DVD iso's and Bluray iso's over the same infrastructures. Suddenly those 42 DVD's have shrunk down to around 7 HD-DVD discs. In addition, we're also trying to get proper streaming media formats in decent quality. How much streaming HD video do you think you could watch before your quota is filled up? Then tack on all of the data that you download whenever you use Google Earth or World Wind. If you live on your own and spend most of your day at work, then you're probably not terribly concerned about having "only" 180GB/mo. However, if you live in a house with more people and each person does their own thing, that number only shrinks. Suddenly, you only have a claim to 60GB/mo because your two roommates have used up their quotas. Good luck finding an average /. user that is able to get by with only 60GB/mo.
Re:Well think about it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The same approach works here. There is a general notice which you should be aware of if you're anywhere near crossing that threshold. They're not required to kick you off for exceeding it, and instead reserve the right to manage traffic by isolating egregious offenders as they see fit to preserve the smooth, safe, and efficient flow of vehicles (or data packets).
Bright line rules are extremely rare. It's absurd that Slashdotters expect a hard limit here, where everwhere else they complain about how black-and-white rules don't take circumstances into account. Here's the moral of the story: situational and relative rules are unclear by definition!
If they provided a rule that said, 150GB monthly limit, period, there'd be an equal amount of bitching. Since Comcast is run with regional franchises, and each community has different infrastructure limits and customer loads, it doesn't make sense to force a hard limit. You'll get cut off if you're causing a problem for other users. You'll be notified if that occurs. What is unfair about that?
Re:It is not as bad as you think... (Score:2, Interesting)
The large print giveth, and the small print taketh (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:lets do the math! (Score:3, Interesting)
They'll also let you setup your reverse DNS and host whatever servers you like. They still don't do IPv6 though
The "Freebox" embedded systems run Linux and stream TV using VLC, so you can watch it on your computers. And they can host a number of other applications.
A fairly decent ISP all in all (especially when compared to US offers).
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:3, Interesting)
comcast reading slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
Sincerely,
your other kind of customer
Re:They still don't give the exact byte downloadli (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm from the BBSes and Tape-swapping era myself... But I like where we are now much better. All those smileys and widgets that you lament about were the products of people experimenting with the new medium. They had to get past the learning curve and now things have improved (at least a little). If it makes you feel better, think of rotating-widgets and animated-smileys as the shag carpeting and avocado green of the internet age.
If it wasn't for the commercial success of the internet, we would not have fast access at home and we wouldn't have the fast backbone either. So be grateful for that at least. No one would spend money for telnet, ftp and gopher access. It's the http and flash video that makes the money. ISPs know this.
Comcast knows that it's the downloading of MP3s and video that generates the demand for their service. Hell, Comcast advertises how fast their network connection is, do you think that we would only use that connection for email? Of course, Comcast would prefer that you get all that content from their servers...
I think the problem we have is that people (especially slashdotters) expect more than can be accommodated. If you give some enough bandwidth to download 2 months worth of media, they will download 3 months worth...
The best thing for Comcast (All ISPs) to do is to guarantee a certain level of service for its customers, and throttle down people who are taking more than their fair share. Face it - we can't be trusted with the occasional speed boost from off-peak usage, so we need to have our bandwidth rationed to us 24/7.
We wouldn't mind this throttling if it made for a more consistent connection. I paid for unlimited access at 6Mb download speed give me that. If you don't have the resources to allocate 6Mb to me then stop advertising it. If they just throttle me down to 3 Mb during peak times and give me up to 6Mb during off-peak by all means be up front about it. I think what upsets people is the fact that Comcast can't be up front and rather use access rights rather than traffic shaping as a cheaper way of guarantee overall service in a market area.