Broadband Providers' Hidden Bandwidth Limits 443
An anonymous reader sends us to the Boston Globe for a story that will come as a surprise to few here: broadband suppliers will cut you off if you download too many bits. It tells the stories of several Comcast users who were warned — without specifics — that they were using "too much" bandwidth, then had their accounts summarily cancelled. Looking into the future: "...even if only a tiny fraction of customers are downloading enough to trigger the policy, that will probably change as more entertainment moves to the Internet."
Uh huh. Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me that they're way overselling their lines. SBC DSL doesnt care how much you use, nor should they. (We had them for 2 years and kept 60% up and down utilized on average).
These cable bastards need to be raked over the coals for this. Or at leat, lose a bunch of profits.
Re:Uh huh. Yeah right. (Score:5, Funny)
We had them for 2 years and kept 60% up and down utilized on average
Can I leech your porn collection? Please?
Re:Uh huh. Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Shaw (Cable) clearly advise how much bandwidth is permitted with each connection type - High Speed light - 10 GB/month data transfer
- High Speed - 60 GB/month data transfer
- High Speed Extreme - 100 GB/month data transfer
- High Speed Nitro - 150 GB/month data transfer25 Mb download speed
http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Interne
Telus (DSL) offer you 10GB, 30GB, 60GB and 60GB for their 4 different speed packages.
http://www.mytelus.com/internet/highspeed/prices.
Note that Cable offers higher speed and an equal or greater bandwidth in all cases.
Re:Uh huh. Yeah right. (Score:4, Informative)
Plans start at 300 meg / month (yes meg a month) with a charge of $150 per MEG if you go over. That's one of the REALLY stupid ones from Telstra.
Then we have various 1, 5, 10, 20, maybe 50 GB plans, each of which will be "shaped" back to 64kb, and because you aren't actually charged for what you can suck out of 64 k, they have the cheek to call "unlimited".
Some people have access to ADSL2, but most of us are limited to 1500/256, or if we're REALLY lucky, 8000/512!
AFAIK, there is no such thing as a truly unlimited plan, and the few that go close have a caveat that if you're in the top 3% of downloaders, you'll be shaped.
Cable, where available, has similar limits, BTW.
Isolated Aussies (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the relatively limited bandwidth going in and out of Australia, and that 99% of the world's websites are at the wrong end of that, there is arguably some justification for this. Still inconvenient though.
</devilsadvocate>
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uh huh. Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
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While Shaw has higher limits in their advertising, they enforce them as soon as you go over: I had phone calls, disconnections, etc.
Meanwhile Telus advertises a limit of 30 GB on regular high speed, and i have download well over 150 without incident.
Shaw employee i'd guess? Because if you've used both, you'd realize who has the higher enforced limit
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Which can equate to "we can cut you off whenever we feel like it". Which could well be rather dodgy if you have already paid them and they don't refund your money PDQ.
Hate to tell you both, but nearly every ISPs' TOS/AUP states quite clearly that they reserve the right to cut you off at their discretion, change the rules without notice to you, and absolve themselves of any responsibility for your connections' speed or bandwidth performan
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Welcome to the rest of the world (Score:4, Interesting)
Here in Australia, all broadband is limited by a quota. The same is true of much of the rest of the world, outside the US.
A big reason for this (as it was explained to me) is that apparently the US (or US networks) charges other countries for data transmitted from the US (though that didn't stop local AU providers from charging us equally for Australian content, or even content cached locally by the ISP). I'd be interested to hear someone confirm or deny this theory.
As for limiting a cable user's volume, remember that unlike other transmission methods, their bandwidth is shared with other cable users on the local loop, so they *can't* all get full line capacity. If one user tries to max out the cable continually, it's hardly fair on his neighbours.
I certainly agree that the cable bastards could be much more upfront about these implied limits in their contracts however.
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As to pricing from the US, there are three modes, pay for peek megabit delivered on 95 percentile basis, megabyte delivered or statement free. 95th is the most common as it's generally a bett
Re:Welcome to the rest of the world NOT (Score:4, Insightful)
It makes *perfect* sense to have one or more plans which are not, infact, unlimited. But when you do, you should have the guts to openly say so, and state up-front what exactly the limits are.
It's fine to sell "2Mbps broadband, will be throttled to 64Kbps if you use more than 100GB/month", and then enforce that.
It's NOT fine to sell "2Mbps broadband, unlimited flat-rate", and then subsequently warn and disconnect users for using "too much" bandwith.
It's ok to have limits. Just be honest about it. Saying one thing in the comersials and another thing to customers who use a lot of bandwith is fraud, plain and simple. If you claim to be selling an unlimited plan -- you better actually *do* that.
Everyone is missing a huge critical point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cable, unlike DSL, is a shared medium. In other words, if some selfish jerk wants to trade torrents 24/7 and max the bandwidth then that can very well impact every other user on that line.
If their advertisement of "unlimited bandwidth" is several hundred of gigs each month then that is effectively "unlimited."
In my opinion, it is completely reasonable to threaten to terminate service to people who are, in effect, diminishing the service of others
Re:Everyone is missing a huge critical point. (Score:4, Interesting)
Never been hit for any extra charges, probablly do a couple hundred Gigs of data transfer a month on average up and down.
No torrents here.. way to slow.
Way back when suprnova was up, I grabbed a torrent of some new game to try out. I left it running overnight for the download only to find that, after I got home from work the next day, I had transfered over 1Tb in the space of about 10 hours. (I have to order all my games via amazon so for me, testing before waiting a week or so to receive something I might not ever play again is worth the risk).
Anyways, bandwidth isn't a problem here in Japan...
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Isn't that statement a little dishonest? GDP is a measurement of good&services produced by a country. Saying 4% of that was spent on defense isn't accurate; the federal government doesn't have the entire GDP available to spend, they only have the federal budget available to spend. And I don't believe the federal budget is included in GDP calc
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Isn't that statement a little dishonest? GDP is a measurement of good&services produced by a country.
Although that would generally be accepted as a correct definition, it is important to note that the GDP implies slightly more. It is a very good measure of the size of an economy. GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports - imports) (thanks, wikipedia). You did acknowledge that I was talking about this ratio being "X% of the economy put towards defense", but the math does still
DSL is shared too in a way (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DSL is shared too in a way (Score:4, Informative)
Over here in the UK, companies advertise contention ratios (usually 50:1 or 33:1) with their broadband. That means in effect that if everyone is downloading all at once on your DSLAM in the exchange, your 8Mbps line is suddenly only 242Kbps. This rarely happens, but it's something to bear in mind.
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ADSL is not shared at all. The network upstream might be oversubscribed (and by might, I mean that everyone does it). That is not a shared medium. That is an oversubscribed upsream connection. From the central point of connection to the user, cable is shared and DSL is not shared. What happens above that is a business decision, not the technical constraints of the delivery method.
Net Neutrality... (Score:2)
Re:Net Neutrality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, wait. That would cut off a source of income. Without net neutrality, they'd have a distinct profit motive to never upgrade.
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Yeah, until a few homegrown ISPs come along and offer unrestricted access and properly upgrade their networks to keep up with demand. Sure, such a co
Instead of focusing on speed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not to mention the telcos are common carrier, and immune to the real Mand in the Middle lawsuit attacks.
Like I said before (FP
Re:Instead of focusing on speed (Score:4, Informative)
Not on your DSL line they aren't. They specifically petitioned the FCC to have DSL declared a data service instead of a communications service because the costs of maintaining the common carrier standards on the DSL lines were making it too hard to compete with the cable companies.
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Hmm... So what would it be declared if you ran Asterisk on your DSL circuit? Better yet, what about fractional T?
Some of this phone stuff and lingo blows my mind... (and thats not easy to do)
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It isn't all roses with DSL.
Currently I have a ticket in with Verizon because for the first month of service on my 3Mbps line, I've never exceeded 35K/s. That's a factor of about 10 slower than I was sold on--they're "looking into it".
I've had Verison DSL in the past however and not heard a peep from them for 3 years, so likely it is noticeably nicer than the disgusting cable cartel tactics.
Optimum Online in NY caps uploads (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had this happen with them before, and it seems like there is no way out except to call, and you only get 3 strikes before you're out I've heard.
It's very frustrating, I pay for a fast internet connection and should be allowed to use it within reason. I purposefully capped my torrent uploads at 40KBytes, that's not too much, I shouldn't be capped.
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Well I have been slapped by comcast with a digital-millenium-rights email saying blahblah owner of a movie is aware I am giving their movies away. And I am violating their services. The problem is that I did torrent for like 2 weeks only.
So you're saying you did violate a law that is currently in place, and then go on to try to deflect it? I mean come on, if the RIAA or MPAA came knocking on my door, I'd HAVE to hang my head regardless of how much or how little I may or may not have downloaded.
Re:Optimum Online in NY caps uploads (Score:4, Informative)
You have almost 3000 comments, and your number is lower than mine, so I know you're not new around here. That letter from your ISP is a precursor to being sued by the RIAA/MPAA. It means they've subpoenaed your ISP for your name and address based on your IP address. Your ISP is doing you a solid by letting you know they've give up your name. (I don't believe they're legally required to do so.) Expect more unfriendly mail in the near future. Best of luck to you.
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On the other hand, Outside his dumass attack by admiting to it in public, he said he was using a torrent and if it did go past the here is you letter stage, He could fight it on that. I remeber a case a while back were the MPAA didn't have any proof outside you were conected to a server that has access to content being distribu
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unless the just passed some law in a state or did something specific with copyright law in the last 2 months or so, It isn't illegal in the US. There is no law on th books making it illegal. At best, you are treading into recieving stolen property but seeing how that involves you knowing it was
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Yes they do, Comcast will gladly give away the customer names and information to anyone that asks. They are some of the biggest contributors to the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA fight against piracy (They are "partners" with microsoft and several media companies) and actually pride themselves in turning in their own customers. I sat there with my mouth open in disbelief during that teleconference.
Why do you think the media companies and software giants are "partnering" with lots of the connectivity companies and bu
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The problem is that the internet providers NEVER charge what it's actually worth. Their business model works on overselling. I have a town with 100 customers. They all get at least 1.5 mbps connection. We supply this town with a 10 mbps connection and it works fine. If we had to provide 150mbps for this town, they'd never have service. Also, if you put 10 guys here that download 24/7.. we're going to have real problems.
Wit
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"Those Cox-uckers!" (Score:5, Informative)
-uso.
Re:over-bandwidth notices (Score:5, Interesting)
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After which your DSL provider's technical support people informed you that your Linux box is not supported.
Reading som
Re:"Those Cox-uckers!" (Score:5, Funny)
really (Score:2, Insightful)
Since when does this make it onto slashdot???
Now.....TRUE unlimited speeds/bw....that would be a story.
I'd sign up.....five days ago.
How many? (Score:5, Interesting)
ONLY 1,150 customers are at risk of being cut off?
Comcast has an interesting definition of "common carrier". I wonder if the courts will agree with it...
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Apparently a large percentage of them are here on Slashdot.
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No, you have an interesting definition of "common carrier", since Comcast and other cable companies are not, in fact, common carriers. They are excluded from that piece of legislation, just like xDSL services. You have to rent a BRI or PRI to get common carrier privileges.
--
*Art
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Re:How many? (Score:4, Informative)
Do you work for Verizon?
Thi is new how? (Score:2)
Re:Thi is new how? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, it's strange. It's as if they were told they had unlimited internet access.
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It would be good to test this as one of those "ask a hundred people what X means" things. I'd be willing to bet most of them would say 'unlimited internet' means, "ummm, you can use it as much as you want?"
"Reserve the right to terminate at any time..." (Score:4, Insightful)
That's how this works. That's the only way this works. They can advertise whatever they want, but as long as their contracts have that little clause in them, it really doesn't matter WHAT they advertise.
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Uuuh? You serious?
Say verizon advertises an ADSL2 24 / 1 Mbps unlimited service, but the fine print actually says "we'll send a kitten to pick up any packets you print out on wedensday afternnon". Would that be cool?
It does matter what they're advertising. If the service isn't unlimited, they should advertise it as "up to unlimited" (similar to "up to 256kbps" c
Re:"Reserve the right to terminate at any time..." (Score:5, Insightful)
There are rights you cannot make people sign away. "Reserve the right to terminate at any time..." does NOT equal "Reserve the right to terminate for any reason..". False advertising is a violation of law and cannot be gotten out of, no matter how fancy your contract is worded.
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Are you kidding me? Even if they could terminate them at any time, there is no reason to believe the company didn't commit fraud by advertising their service as "unlimited bandwidth" and then termating his contract for bandwidth overage!
All symptoms of a larger problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
250 GB/month is not going to sound excessive when we start rolling out movie downloads in HD (that's 12 movies), or Steam-like solutions take off, or people start using things like Skype. Nowadays, your game console, your HD-DVD player, and your DVR/cable box want Internet access to get patches or content, and these massive numbers are getting more and more reasonable. This shouldn't be a sign to Comcast that users should download less, it should be a sign that they need to upgrade their networks drastically and fast.
No cap for iTunes I'll bet (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're downloading gigabytes of movies and music from a service that the RIAA or MPAA approves of then suddenly bandwidth caps will cease to be an issue.
I doubt that anyone will ever get a takedown notice from their ISP for excessive iTunes usage.
Re:No cap for iTunes I'll bet (Score:5, Funny)
I mean...I don't do that sort of thing. Why are you looking at me like that?
Trying to weed out least profitable customers (Score:5, Insightful)
DSL has more local bandwith then cable (Score:2)
With cable you are shearing the bandwidth to the HEAD-END where the bigger links come with a lot of other people. Some areas are more split up then others so that is way there is no fixed cap as it is based on local use and capacity.
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sucks to be on Comcast (Score:2, Interesting)
Asshatery (Score:2, Informative)
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The solution... (Score:4, Funny)
Ya, I've been saving that line for a long time....
And this is yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cable line has been "exceeded". They then hijack your other 2 services for leverage.
It's free, until you use it.
it has to be said (Score:5, Funny)
So get a better ISP (Score:2)
Comcast Free and Loving It (Score:2)
I finally cancelled both the net and the T
I always wonder when I am going to be shut off (Score:2)
However, on any given day I could be legally downloading an HD movie (via xbox or similar services), downloading legally a gig or 2 of pron (I pay $10/month for a service that provides DVD quality rips), and downloading a TV show or two (legal, if you consider timeshifting to be a valid defense). So just by using legal services I'm doing a gig or two a day.
It would be nice to know what a good sa
I really don't have a problem with the policy, (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't feel TOO sorry for these peple (Score:2, Interesting)
On a 6 Mbps/s connections, if you did nothing but download all the time, you'd be downloading a little less than 2 Tb a month, roughly 4 for 5 hard drives worth (at today's hard drive sizes). That a over 200 double-layer (9G) DVD, 450 regular DVD's, 3,000 audio CD, hundred for thousands of DVD's. You could download ever
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Comcast has had plenty of time and plenty of money to deal with the issue of bandwidth. Instead of cutting these users off they should be using them as test cases to figure out how they are going to c
Bandwidth is not precious (Score:2)
An artificial shortage.
The standard comcast service is capable of >50Mbps. They just don't give it to you because they want to charge more for "business" service.
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The *local* network in a cablemodem network could run at 50Mbps, if they were using DOCSIS 2.0 modems and CMTSs.
But, once again, you are ignoring the fact that it's the INTERNET BANDWIDTH that counts. And that isn't cheap.
Do you really think that your cable provider can afford enough bandwidth to GUARANTEE that all of their users have 10Mb/second of bandwidth available to them at all times? Well, they can't. And honestly, even if they COULD afford all that bandwidth, most servers on the Inte
Welcome to the real world... (Score:5, Informative)
Since Comcast disconnected me in january, I've found dozens of people who have been disconnected across the country. What's amusing is Comcast is untilling to disclose what "Acceptable Use" is. They only point to their AUP/TOS on their web site and tell you to read it and follow it. Cox Communications and other reputable providers will tell you what Acceptable is in real numbers (50 Gigs a month, 80 Gigs and so on). Comcast will ONLY tell you an example of what Abuse is.
They say an abuser downloads 256,000 photos or 30,000 sounds or 13 million (that's right, million) emails a month. So on my blog I posted what Comcast is saying in english. Abusers of their system are downloasing around 200-250 Gigs a month which is 100 times more than their "average" user. So the average user is only downloading about 1 - 2 Gigs a month. Hardly using the service in my book. Not really streaming video, purchasing movies from Amazon.com Unbox or anything. If you purchase 2 HD-DVD videos from Amazon and download them then you are already violating AUP/TOS with Comcast. Tonight I've updated my blog to include stories of other's who are providing videos for download online.
I've posted my story on the web at my blog [blogspot.com]. I'm hoping to get the word out and have people look at fiber networks such as Utopia [utopianet.org]. Their fiber infrastructure provides choices. If a company (such as Comcast) is abusing customers, they can choose another. Of course having a 1 gig pipe to the house is also faster than anything Cable can provide. Must be why Verizon is rolling out FiOS.
Anyway, Major Kudos to Carolyn at the Boston Globe!
Bandwidth tariffs to explain ambiguity? (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is, I do 90% of this downloading between 11pm and 7am, using timed download managers and just starting P2P software before I go to bed. It seems logical (to me at least) that the ISP is internally using come kind of tariff system to downplay the effect of my broadband usage at off-peak times when I'm basically not affecting contention ratios or anything else. If such a system were being used in this case it could also explain why the ISP is unable/unwilling to provide a hard limit on bandwidth. There must be dozens of people on
exponentially? (Score:3, Funny)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Just to put this all in perspective... (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm, let's see. A typical T1 line delivers data at the rate of 1536 Kbps (don't bother about the extra 8Kbps, OK?). So, that's 1536000 / 8 / 1024 ^ -2, or a whopping
That's over 474 Tera-frickin-bytes with a capital B every month. On a single T1.
Now, back in the day (mid 90's), a top-tier provider T1 Internet access port cost, what--say, 1500 USD/mo including the local loop? For the math-inclined but time-challenged, that's about
I think the cost structures of a company like Comcast might offer them some economies of scale, but hey, let's be generous here and give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's say Comcast has to get all of it's backbone bandwidth from T1's, and they have to pay another provider for it. Let's say that the average Comcast Internet customer pays about 52 USD/mo for the dubious privilege (which is about what they actually charge here in New Jersey, the last time I looked). We'll take that 52 bucks and give up half in administrative overhead. So, our 26 USD/mo buys us 86.666 GB of data each and every month.
Now, Comcast would have us believe that their average user consumes according to the estimates here, about 1% of the data that so-called abusers consume. Comcast admits that these abusers make up approximately
So, Comcast's revenues from all of this total 299,000,000 USD/mo when, if those "abusers" were paying for their rightful share, Comcast would be making (and here, let's make the abusers pay triple to cover it all) 299,059,800 USD/mo. Is Comcast really going to whine over a loss of revenue of 59,800 USD/mo over a 300 million dollar a month revenue stream? It would appear so!
Now, what was I saying about the cost of backbone bandwidth? Ah, yes...Comcast, having to provide a total of 996,789,334.1 GB of bandwidth a month, needs to install 2100 T1 lines to cover it all. Let's go nuts here and suggest that Comcast actually needs double that to really cover it. So, Comcast pays out 4200*1500, or 6,300,000 USD/mo to cover their backbone (though, of course, not all the traffic actually leaves Comcast's network).
Ergo, in our hypothetical situation here, Comcast is making 292,700,000 USD/mo from their Internet services, while their users are leaving the backbone network at 50% utilization.
And they're complaining about 1150 users losing them 60 grand a month?
Anyone who knows even the slightest little bit about how the Internet works and is paid for can see how patently ridiculous all of this is. Yes, the numbers I'm using here are widly skewed, but mostly in favor of Comcast. Even if you double the costs and halved the revenue here, Comcast would still be making an fscking
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And that 26 USD/mo actually buys 8226.31679 GB worth of the T1's bandwidth every month, not 86.666 GB. Not sure how that happened, but hey, I should be sleeping...
You still get the idea.
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The "abusers" are still only using up 230,000 GB of bandwidth, but they're paying for 9,460,264 GB, and change.
The normal users are paying for 94,589,540,100 GB worth of bandwidth, but only actually using up 22,997,700 GB.
So, Comcast needs to provide a total of 23,227,700 GB of bandwidth every month, which would take about 48 T1's worth of bandwidth.
But the customers are paying for 94,599,000,364 GB of bandwidth, so even if Comcast had to cover the whole kit and kaboodle at a 1:1 ratio, it
Well, it's THEIR network. (Score:3, Insightful)
You look at it and see there's some two to three people in the neighborhood or a college dorm . . . and what they're doing is impairing the customer experience for the rest of the people off that node," Davis said. "Then it's a business decision: Do you alienate a small percentage of customers to make your other customers happy?"
If you have 25 customers pissed off because their $50/month broadband service is constantly slow, and 1 or 2 other people are constantly downloaded 300GB worth of data per month, what would you do? The problem, I am sure is that the situation was not handled with tact and reason. It was probably handled by some schmo customer rep who was like, "naaa, you just download too much, we just can't have that." If a nice polite person got on the phone and explained it just as the guy in the article, then people might be a little more understanding, and if not, tell them to go buy their own T3 line.
Re:A /. dupe, what else is new (Score:5, Interesting)
They disconnect you for unspeakable limits. That is called FRAUD. No ifs ands or buts.
If they cant maintain profitability on selling those lines for whatever they do, too bad. Not my problem. if they can only sell 512Kbps sync and keep it truthful and honest, all the better.
If the telcos DSL circuits can do it, why not the "Pig"?
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Re:A /. dupe, what else is new (Score:5, Interesting)
I then replied that I didn't install the software because I don't want your stuff on my computer. And the other time, I simply reply, your installer loaded the software and clicked on everything. Did he agree to something On your behalf?
both times, the issues were taken care of with the asumption that I knew better now. But you sound a lot like the guy who asumed I clicked on something.
Now verizon, they specificly told me one thing to take their service out and then told me another afterwards. I specificly asked them on the service's uptime because I was going to run a server on it. I specificly asked them if there was a problem with that and they said no and asured me they had good uptime. I also have this on recording. Now when I got my pachage to install the service, there was a letter with my DSL contract in it. It says in the contract that I'm not allowed to run any server of any kind on the conection. I called and asked about it, They said it was the standard agreement and wouldn't do anything about the server because we had spoken directly about it. Of course i recorded this too.
So, I am waiting for someone to say something this time and I will just take them to taks for it. Although, My service with verizon has been better then with Time Warner and the uptime has been better (for my area). No complsints so far (from me or them).
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Basically another Bittorrent user gets pissed that Comcast doesn't want them pulling down a terabyte every month ...
And why shouldn't they? Most ISP's advertise their service as "unlimited" yet they aren't. So why shouldnt the customer be pissed off?
Nobody can say the customer should download "reasonable" ammount of bytes, because that leaves too much open as to who believes how much "reasonable" really is.
The bext thing the ISPs should do is outline exactly how much the customer can download before offering the service or explicitly outlining how much they allow.
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So if the speed was capped, it would be not out of line. But they're pulling the plug for going over a limit that they won't state.
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waspleg
What part of (Score:2)
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In a court of law, when you don't specify how long you can go full speed ahead, there is no limit to how long you can go full speed ahead.
It absolutely, positively has to be spelled out, in black and white.
Cable modem providers, in this corporate statist Republican administration, are getting away with being anomalous in this regard. This party will come to an end for them when the liberal
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So, uhh, yeah, fuck off and die.
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From the ISP's POV, not at all the same as a lot of movies. Not all content moves across the 'net in a similar manner.
Those ISOs are relatively light-weight in terms of xfer overhead. You can pull them down all day and not get any attention, but if you start anything that even barely reeks of streaming or multi-media, you'll trigger a flag that puts you in line for being throttled back.
Try it and see
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From the ISP's POV, not at all the same as a lot of movies. Not all content moves across the 'net in a similar manner.
Those ISOs are relatively light-weight in terms of xfer overhead. You can pull them down all day and not get any attention, but if you start anything that even barely reeks of streaming or multi-media, you'll trigger a flag that puts you in line for being throttled back.
I call shenanigans. I've worked for an ISP on more than one occasion and the method you speak of consists of analyzing every single byte of every single user in real time and that's simply not going to happen.
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(And let me again post my objection to