Comcast's Throttling Plan Has 'Disconnect User' Option 299
newtley writes "Comcast's new people, not protocols scheme may mean high speed for some, but by no means all. It's also created a draconian 'disconnect' option for use against anyone who fails to toe the Comcast line. But, says Robb Topolski, the Net protocol expert who originally uncovered Comcast's blatant efforts to control its customers, the plan does offer key take-aways, telling P2P users on Comcast how to do what they do without the risk of corporate interference."
Slow News Day (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Slow News Day (Score:5, Insightful)
there's more to it than the cumulative cap. they also have an elaborate throttling scheme based on how much you're currently downloading:
The issue will be their strange throttling scheme, which puts users in a "penalty box" for using more than 70% of available bandwidth in any 15 minute window and releases them from the box when their activity drops below 50%.
It has the net effect of decreasing the effective sustained bandwidth. I don't have Comcast, and I think the cumulative limits are fair, but this strikes me as unfair. What if I don't come close to the monthly limits, but I'm streaming/DLing something that will take longer than 15min? If congestion isn't an issue, why not let someone DL at the capabilities of their connection?
Re:Slow News Day (Score:4, Insightful)
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It has the net effect of decreasing the effective sustained bandwidth. I don't have Comcast, and I think the cumulative limits are fair, but this strikes me as unfair. What if I don't come close to the monthly limits, but I'm streaming/DLing something that will take longer than 15min? If congestion isn't an issue, why not let someone DL at the capabilities of their connection?
to make it even more interesting, since Concast doesn't tell us how much we're using (it's up to us they say), what if our metering t
And (Score:5, Informative)
If you want/need more, you can get a business class account. I've had business class Internet for many years now. Currently it's with Cox cable, but I've used Speakeasy and Qwest in the past. Business class accounts get you a number of things, like static IPs and such, but one of them is no bandwidth cap. Whatever speed you pay for, you are free to use as much as you like and you'll hear not a peep out of them.
However, you are going to pay more for it. Where a normal cable account might be $50/month, expect to pay over $100/month for a business account. However, if you are the kind of person who needs lots and lots of bandwidth, it seems only fair you should pay more for it.
You have to remember that consumer connections are something like a big LAN. Everyone gets to have nice fast access, but only if people are nice and share it. You use your fast speed when you need it, let others have it. For example I work for a university. We have a nice fast network, I've got gig to my desktop. We've got plenty of upstream too. I've gotten things like 100+mbit download speeds on Linux ISOs and so on. Wonderful, however everyone on campus can't do that 24/7 full bore. If we did, well there's be maybe 300kbps of bandwidth for each of us. It is fast and cheap because we all share.
Same deal on your consumer grade cable modem. If you want a nice cheap price and a fast link, you need to be willing to share with others and that means not running it at full capacity all the time. Otherwise you either have to settle for less bandwidth, or greater costs. Me, I choose the greater cost option and then do as I please.
Re:And (Score:5, Informative)
My Comcast business account is only $5/mo more than my "home" service. And for 10 bucks on top of that I get 5 IPs. Sure only the upstream is a boost over my residential (384Kbps to 1Mbps) but I don't pay for satellite or cable TV, which is how I justified the extra cost.
Although I note my torrent speeds are still poo (I'm trying to download Intrepid Ibex Alpha 6 and I'm gettin' 25-30K). I have Googled around and found nothing about if they're screwing with P2P on their biz accounts.
Business Class service depends... (Score:2, Informative)
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Comcast goes wrong from the start. My set up experience was I called a number and they took my number and cal
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In my area, comcast is the only non-dialup option. Business class is not available. The best I can get is 8 d / 1 up for $60 a month, but the best I have ever seen is about 300 kb down / 70 kb up ( i get about 700 kb d / 200 kb u for 10 seconds, then it falls quickly to 10 kb for both and slowly goes up to 2-300 kb). I am sure that many people (probably a material percentage of comcast users) are in the same boat.
I don't have a problem with paying a higher cost, I will just offset it by canceling my comcast
Plant (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it really funny how every time this comes up, rather than fulfill the contractual obligations they originally signed with people, Comcrap has a bunch of its plants hop onto Slashdot screaming "pay us more money."
However, if you are the kind of person who needs lots and lots of bandwidth, it seems only fair you should pay more for it.
I'm not the person who needs "lots and lots of bandwidth." I expect that, rather than be let get away with this crap, Comcrap and the other telcos be required to live up to their contractual obligations.
They've screwed the customer, committed an amazing number of breaches of contract, and now want to have a do-over and get off scot free. I don't think we, the people, should let them.
Re:And (Score:5, Interesting)
How about instead Comcast actually do what they were supposed to do and build capable infrastructure that has enough bandwidth for everyone to do anything?
Personally, I would love for the General Accounting Office to take a nice, close look at Comcast's finances to find out exactly where that taxpayer money went to. Looks more like it went into Comcast's advertising budget so that they could oversell their capacity instead of putting it into the hardware that could have prevented all of this in the first place.
Verizon has millions of miles of dark fibre and have said numerous times that they have plenty of bandwidth as it is. What's Comcast's excuse?
Re:And (Score:4, Informative)
That's presuming they'll sell you a business account in a residential area, which they won't always do.
Ok fine (Score:5, Interesting)
But then no bitching if all you can buy is 256kbps. Bandwidth isn't free and the larger the links get, the more pricey they are. You can see this with LAN hardware. It is damn near impossible to get 10mbit switches anymore, 100mbit is the minimum and those are cheap as hell. However gigabit goes up a good deal in cost. A 24-port 100mbite switch might run you $100. A 24-port gigabit switch from the same vendor is over $400. Ok well then 10gbit goes waaaay up. Now you are talking thousands of dollars to get a gigabit switch with even a couple 10gbit ports, and then several hundred per port to get the transceivers.
Now suppose you want to design a network for 500 computers on 5 floors (100 per floor) that gives 100mbit to the desktop. So you get a bunch of 24-port switches and hook them together. Turns out you need about 31 of them. 1 central switch, 5 floor switches and 25 access switches. Those are about $100 each so $3100 total. Ok great.
However you then decide you want everyone to always get their full 100mbit. So now you still connect the computers with 24-port 10/100 switches. However those switches need to have at least 2 gigabit ports (channeled together) on them for uplink, assuming you hook 20 PCs to each. So you now need 25 access switches, but each now costs $180. That's $4500 for for the access switches. Now on each floor, your floor switch has to be able to take 10 1gbit connections in and so a 10gbit connection out. For that you are talking about $2500 per switch for the switch and transceiver. So $12,500 for those. Then for your core switch, you need something with 5 10gbit ports. That is getting extremely high end, and is nearly $10,000 for the switch and transceivers. So for this solution you are talking $27,000.
Well that's a difference of $6/computer and $54/computer. Costs a hell of a lot more to do guaranteed bandwidth. Also this is just a small scale example. Now suppose you have 10 buildings that need connection, then 20 cities with 10 building complexes, and so on. Gets amazingly expensive if you have this "Everyone must have dedicated bandwidth" idea.
What's more, you'd find that for less than that, you could do something that's better overall. If you ran gigabit to the desktop, gig to the floor switches and then gig or maybe 2 gig to the core you'd find that in real usage, everyone would have faster transfers, and you'd pay a less than the dedicated 100mbit solution. Yes, it can get overloaded, however so long as people share it'll actually be faster for everyone.
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Re:And (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that Comcast is overselling their network in some areas. It would prefer to attack it's own customers (sound familiar RIAA) than upgrade the product.
That's the crux of the issue, and the problem. Comcast, like ALL ISP's, does not have the network capacity to serve EVERY user going at full blast all the time. And you know what? Most people, even on Slashdot, don't really expect them to.
The issue is though, that if you do this you HAVE to build enough capacity so that when normal usage as a CUMULATIVE value across your subscribers is taken into account, you still have sufficient bandwidth. Comcast and most ISP's are NOT doing this, and that's the problem.
Essentially, (numbers for example and not accurate), they have a network that is cable of serving each customer at say, 1Mbps constantly, but their average (mean) constant use per customer is closer to 3Mbps. They're selling the service with a claimed speed of 20Mbps. The solution here is NOT to cripple progress and drag usage back down to 1Mbps so your outdated hardware can handle it. The solution is to improve the network so that you can handle an average usage of 10Mbps constant per user. Take care of the problem at hand and leave yourself some growing room for the future. That's the only long term solution.
I really don't think many people have a problem with overselling when the math behind it works. It's just that they're overselling with insufficient capacity.
It'd be as if I charged people for access to drinking fountains at a concert, and said you could go as often as you like. Naturally there needn't be a drinking fountain for every single patron at a concert with attendance of 200,000, but if I put out 2 fountains for 200,000 people and call it a day that excuse just isn't going to fly. If you undersell you HAVE to still allocate sufficient capacity - not some arbitrary number and then tell your customers to bugger off if they don't meet your self-defined criteria of what "normal" usage is. Particularly in ANYTHING dealing with computers where "normal" describes an ever increasing number.
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Out of interest, how do you break a bandwidth cap?
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There is no way they should be allowed to cut anyone off or ban anyone for a year. In some areas they are a monopoly. And they advertised high speed internet service and have never, at any time, provided true high speed service. It's time for them to spend some time in prison which in my case would mean that they would follow the former owner of local cable service named Adelphia. It's time to cut the nonsense and have a real, legal, definition of high speed internet service and require Comcast to pr
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Yeah, but the summary's links are the wrong people to make that point. They're saying "But that means we won't be able to steal movies anymore!" when the real problem is "That means we won't be able to download the legal content anymore!"
One and the same voice. (Score:2, Insightful)
Your ability to share with your neighbor is intimately linked to your free press and "legitimate" content. When you surrender your right to share and give control to some third party, you will lose your free press. The ability to censor you is what this is all about. Big publishers want all the control they have become accustom to with broadcast and then some. If you buy into the line, "these people are pirates who want nothing more than to steal" you have lost all faith in your neighbors and might as w
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Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this what you guys wanted? Comcast is being told they're can't discrimate against so-called-p2p protocols... so they're just counting bits and if you use to many, you get a warning, then you're out. Only people who are using their Internet connection as their primary HDTV input will be affected at the proposed level.
There's enough room in 250 GB to watch what you want 16 hours a day... sleep the other eight or you'll go insane!
Re:Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules. (Score:5, Interesting)
The cap sounds pretty reasonable, but the warmings and disconnects are weird to say the least.
If you are over your alloted bandwith for a month, would it not be logical to block you for the rest of the month only, or even give you an option to buy more?
The warning and disconnect seems more like a scare tactic, "do not even dare to come close to this limit"
Re:Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules. (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the major cell phone companies give you a free text message and/or wireless web page that tells you as best as they can how many minutes/bytes you've used this billing cycle and such. Why Comcast can't do the same for their bandwidth limit is beyond me.
Re:Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules. (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the major cell phone companies give you a free text message and/or wireless web page that tells you as best as they can how many minutes/bytes you've used this billing cycle and such. Why Comcast can't do the same for their bandwidth limit is beyond me.
Then you haven't thought very hard about it from Comcast's point of view. It makes perfect business sense. Developing a customer-ready bandwidth usage meter has very real fixed and recurring costs to Comcast, costs which have no potential to increase profits now or in the future. If customers are going to switch to or from Comcast, it will be because of the cap, not because of the availability of a usage meter.
Additionally, an easily-viewable bandwidth meter would in all probability only encourage customers to get much closer to the limit than they would otherwise. It's fear-based policy. The more of their customers that decide "I'd better not download this movie/album/ISO/whatever, I might hit my bandwidth cap", the better. Comcast wants customers to stay in the dark regarding usage and be as conservative as possible in their internet activities, while still pretending to offer the full 250 GB.
"/." is just playing by the it's rules. (Score:2)
"Additionally, an easily-viewable bandwidth meter would in all probability only encourage customers to get much closer to the limit than they would otherwise. It's fear-based policy. The more of their customers that decide "I'd better not download this movie/album/ISO/whatever, I might hit my bandwidth cap", the better. Comcast wants customers to stay in the dark regarding usage and be as conservative as possible in their internet activities, while still pretending to offer the full 250 GB."
Gee! What you al
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Gee! What you all say to get in a political dig. Keeping track of your bits is a solved problem for the customer. You all just have to use them. As for "pretending"? Well if you can go up to your limit? Then there's no "pretend", any more than there's "pretend" in your checking account.
Um, excuse you! In this case we get a "checking account" with NO available statements or receipts to track the balance. Its just the customer's word against the bank's.
They are setting up their operations managers for an opportunity to fraudulently keep trimming the higher-usage customers off their bell curve.
Re:"/." is just playing by the it's rules. (Score:4, Informative)
"They are setting up their operations managers for an opportunity to fraudulently keep trimming the higher-usage customers off their bell curve."
http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use#tracking [comcast.net]
How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoid exceeding the limit?
We are in the process of creating a usage meter that will measure consumption for the Comcast account which will be available in the coming months. In the meantime, we offer a meter for free with our McAfee security suite available at http://security.comcast.net/ [comcast.net]
There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account. Comcast cannot verify that any tools customers may find themselves and use to measure data usage are accurate or without other flaws. Comcast's determination of each customer account's data usage is final.
It's important to note that when our new threshold goes into effect on October 1,2008 it will not change our practice around excessive use. We will continue to call only the top users who consume the most data each month, which is usually well over 250GB, which is the same practice we've had in place for several years.
250Gb/Month should be interpreted as start of a billing cycle to end of a billing cycle. Just call and ask at the first day of a billing cycle and set your meter appropriately. You can figure out the rest.
Re:"/." is just playing by the it's rules. (Score:4, Insightful)
First: My bank displays the amount avbl. in my checking account 24/7, I don't have to keep track.
Second: Even if I had to keep track (which I happen to do anyway), it's not like I make as many payments as I do online interactions.
Third: This is more akin to a cell provider threatening to cut off service if you go over on your minutes and not providing you access to how many you used - you could, of course, keep track yourself, but who does?
Fourth: it's == it is, not possessive it.
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Doesn't seem too hard. NetStat Live [analogx.com] seems quite reliable. Of course, the ISP isn't going to just roll over if this contradicts their (secret) meter level, but it gives you some idea of what's gong on.
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What if they don't want to? Why should they want to? To make you happy? Why wouldn't they just assume you'd find something else to complain about?
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Back in 1998, when I was on tci-mets for cable modem service, they had a handy website you could check to see how much data you had received/sent in the previous month.
There wasn't any cap - they had all of the modems uncapped, and encouraged people to use as much bandwidth as they could. METS was their testbed network, and they wanted it under a heavy load.
10 years ago, I had a faster, cheaper connection than I can get at home today.
Re:Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. The cap is a perfectly good idea. Giving users no way to see how close they are to their cap, and cutting people off for exceeding it, are terrible ideas.
I see no reason why I, a moderate internet user, should subsidize that guy down the street who downloads 1TB of torrents every month. He uses more, he should pay more.
But the way Comcast is going about it is stupid. They're trying to have their cake and eat it too, essentially. An explicit cap can lead to more traffic, since now people know what the limit is and what they're really paying for, and they may decide that they should use more of what they're paying for. I think they're trying to limit the top people without causing this sort of increase, and doing this by having an explicit cap that still happens to be vague and dire.
If you were to do this right, you should really have a system where many different caps are available. You'd have a default one, probably well under 250GB, that comes with a service that's cheaper than what they offer now. Then you can pay more to increase your cap. You'd be able to monitor your usage, get a warning well before you hit the cap, and increase your account's cap at any time just by requesting it. And if you do hit your cap, then your account gets throttled to dialup speeds until your 30-day sliding window average decreases below the cap level.
Of course this would make far too much sense so Comcast won't do it, but it's what they ought to do.
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If you were to do this right, you should really have a system where many different caps are available. You'd have a default one, probably well under 250GB, that comes with a service that's cheaper than what they offer now. Then you can pay more to increase your cap. You'd be able to monitor your usage, get a warning well before you hit the cap, and increase your account's cap at any time just by requesting it. And if you do hit your cap, then your account gets throttled to dialup speeds until your 30-day sliding window average decreases below the cap level.
Of course this would make far too much sense so Comcast won't do it, but it's what they ought to do.
That's how nearly every company in Australia works. However there are few that have a limit and whenever you go over, they charge the moon for data and our caps don't even get close to 250GB. Most that advertise big caps (100-150GB) usually offer the bulk of the data withing small "off-peak" windows, that you would have to flood your link with traffic to get even close to the limit, a another amount for peered traffic (usually within your city/state, which is irrelevant unless your employer is using a peere
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Your proposal is what ISPs here in Australia do and it works great, most ISPs have different speeds (256k, 512k, 1.5mbps, 8mbps, ADSL2 where available etc) and different caps (10gb, 20gb, 50gb or whatever)
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If my neighbor's use is so legitimate then he can very well pay for it. If I use 10-100x less than him, why should I still have to pay the same amount of money? The Slashdot population's insistence that everyone pay exactly the same amount no matter how much they use makes no sense to me.
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Yep that's the feeling I get as well. If Comcast wanted to play nice, they'd simply throttle after the cap was reached.
Frankly, if some kiddie was chugging 250gb of furry pr0n each month, I'd limit that user to 128kbit.
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Damnit, what do you have against furry pr0n?! Some of the finest people I know are furries! Or so they say. *ahem*
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...you get a warning, then you're out...
The way you said that makes me think Comcast should yell, in a middle-eastern voice, "No soup for you!"
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Left online, I upload at about 40kb/s that is 100gb/month, just in uploads.
Downloads tend to be about the same amount as uploads, if not more. I also enjoy watching TV online, heavy gaming, and a number of other things.
Online gaming uses a good amount of bandwidth, figure about 10gig a month between two users. General internet usage adds up. Then of course online TV and radio...
All in all, I could see hitting 250g. I'll be cutting uploads to 30kb/s, which will leave me more elbow ro
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Early dial-up providers promised "unlimited"... when has Comcast used "unlimited" in its ads?
Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comcast could do what they should be doing. Number 1 is using the tax-payer money that they were given to upgrade their infrastructures. Number 2 being that they could give a quality service.
Just saying...
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I hate to burst your bubble, but providing an internet service makes you a telecom. So does providing a television service.
Wiki [wikipedia.org] - Not that AC's like the use of Wikipedia or anything.
Question (Score:5, Funny)
I have read that some people believe that using torrent over TOR is abusive, but I never saw an explanation of why that would be so. If I operate a node (give back) it's fair, isn't it? And if not, why not?
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
That's the solution to the old model of blocking you... under the new plan that'll just put you deeper in the whole because adding all of TOR's routing information just makes your packets bigger. And bigger packets mean more bits against the 250 GB.
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PLEASE! DON'T USE TOR FOR TORRENT!
Really, you're abusing the system. It's NOT designed to carry such high loads.
Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Full disclosure: I'm in the Don't-use-Tor-for-torrenting camp.
I think the issue depends on how much you give back vs. how much you take. If your node is running 24/7 and you aren't limiting how much bandwidth goes through it (since it eats up your own bandwidth) I say torrent away. Whatever you're downloading is your business, BTw. What I take issue with are the people that leech off the Tor network by sending GB of data through it without giving anything back. (leeching http/text doesn't count as being bad, IMO, b/c it 's too small to make much of a difference)
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BTW, my torrents are not
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Ooops, I meant 220 down/110 up.
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Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
It really depends on how much you give back.
Remember, Tor uses onion routing which means that every packet you send or receive goes through many nodes to get to you. This effectively multiplies your bandwidth usage by a factor of perhaps 5-10, depending on how many hops your packets travel. (I don't really know what a typical number would be.)
So, you run a node. Do you process 5-10x as much traffic as you torrent? If so, great. If you're only passing an amount of traffic equal to what you torrent, or worse less, then you are definitely abusing the system.
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I don't really know what a typical number would be.
3.
You to an intermediary.
Intermediary to exit node.
Exit node to destination.
There's been a great deal of discussion over the possibility of any further benefit to anonymity by adding more than one intermediary hop, but no significant evidence has been put forward that it would (any attack that would disclose the origin through one intermediary would work through many); so in the meantime we conserve the bandwidth of all those other nodes.
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Thanks for the information. That's much lower than I thought it would be. Are your attacks which can work through many intermediaries theoretical or practical? It seems to me that adding intermediaries would make the problem much more difficult for an attacker in a practical sense, even if he could theoretically just apply his attack many times. With 3 hops, you only need to be sniffing two machines to find out who I'm talking to, whereas increasing that number would significantly raise the challenge. But I
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Thanks again for the explanation. It's good to know how this stuff works.
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If I operate a node (give back) it's fair, isn't it? And if not, why not?
I won't say its unfair when you also contribute.
Its just too bad that Tor doesn't yet require contributing as a relay by default. That would kind of resolve the 'abuse' stigma.
Warning! Don't read referenced articles! (Score:5, Funny)
telling P2P users on Comcast how to do what they do without the risk of corporate interference.
I've already watched a Netflix movie and downloaded a couple iTunes this month.
So I haven't read the referenced articles, as I'm afraid that doing so might exceed some Comcast quota.
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Heh heh heh... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Heh heh heh... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Heh heh heh... (Score:5, Funny)
They should put into place a system whereby the speed of your access is inversely proportional to the amount of data you transfer. Thus, when people first sign on to this service, they'll be impressed by its speed. But as time goes on, it'll slow down increasingly, until Google's homepage takes a year to load.
Comcast has that option already. It's called "Comcast High-Speed Internet".
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You joke, but this is sorta what happened to me. About 7 years ago, I moved into an area with no broadband available at all. Not long after, Comcast moved into the market. I signed up right away and even though I thought $60/month was expensive (even back then), I certainly enjoyed the solid and stable 5 mbit connection.
For a few months anyway. They kept signing up customers in the area without increasing capacity and after about six months, I was consistently getting better speeds on a backup dialup accoun
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suck_burners_rice hopes to change it so THAT's funny.
Problem with caps (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL but it seems to me that these caps are not because of P2P but put in place because of competition for the television audience. By capping the users Comcast seems to be trying to guarantee that their cable service is still viable.
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IANAL but it seems to me that these caps are not because of P2P but put in place because of competition for the television audience. By capping the users Comcast seems to be trying to guarantee that their cable service is still viable.
It isn't that what you are saying isn't plausible - but it's blatantly obvious that these caps only effect those who are high volume, low profit (actually, probably "loss" customers). It is sound business practice to remove these people or place restrictions. These people are subsidized by the low volume users.
Residing in a completely capped land (Aus) and having been labelled "a heavy user" (which, for the record is on a scale where about an eight of that cap makes you a heavy user) I have experienced
Easy solution: don't do business with Comcast (Score:2)
What I am about to say is not meant to play the "blame the consumer" game except this could be solved by the Comcast customers if they weren't so willing to act like sheep. There's only one way for the public to deal with Comcast, a mass boycott.
This anti-consumer behavior will only continue until their clientele start to leave en-masse. Only a large exodus from Comcast will force them to re-evaluate their bad attitude towards the very people who put bread on their tables.
I am speaking as someone who is p
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I'm a Comcast customer and I'm also happy with this cap.
There's no way I'm going to ever come close to it. There's very little way that anyone is going to come close to it with reasonable usage. And if they do, they can always pay more money. I see no reason why I should have to subsidize people who use far more resources than I do. Pay for what you use, that's what I say.
I'll certainly say that the way Comcast is implementing the cap is crappy. Not telling people their current usage and disconnecting users
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Hopefully you're right.
I have no CLUE how much bandwidth our household of three uses.
AFAIK, we don't do P2P. (I say AFAIK because of the 18-yo.)
We do have Second Life, streaming video, WoW, streaming audio, iTunes, VPNs for work, and near constant web browsing.
I emailed Concast asking for my usage figures. They replied that I should call them and they could "help me to examine my system." WTF? If they can monitor they can tell me.
I don't have any real problem with a bandwidth cap, so long as they 1) tell me
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From your description I absolutely wouldn't worry about it.
If you have a typical 6Mbit connection then the 250GB cap is about 1/8th utilization. In other words, if you use your connection full blast for 3 hours a day, or if you use it constantly at 1/8th of its full speed, you'll just reach the cap. Now consider, how often are you using the full capacity of your connection? SL, WoW, and streaming audio never come anywhere close. Streaming video isn't coming anywhere close unless it's streaming HD video. iTu
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Most people don't agree that you need more than 250 GB per month. Why should I engage in a boycott? It makes things worse for me. I should do that to benefit you?
I have a better idea. You should boycott that 251st GB every month to benefit me.
All in favor? Comcast agrees. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned.
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You assume people care. Most people never reach this limit, and Comcast doesn't really care if those that do reach it decide to quit or never sign up. People who don't reach this limit don't have an incentive to care.
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500MB per day? That's disgusting. I recently reinstalled MacOSX 10.5--the patches totaled 700 MB.
Chill pill people (Score:5, Insightful)
250 GB is both transparent and a real shitload of bandwidth.
This is 7 hour a day, 7 days a week, of 720p HDTV video over Hulu. It takes a LOT to reach this point.
Additionally, beacuse any user who gets terminated will undoubtedly ALSO terminate their cable TV and phone services with Comcast, its something that a company would not want to do lightly.
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250 GB is both transparent and a real shitload of bandwidth.
When a legitimate torrent of [insert your Linux distro of choice here] can run 700MB? I think not. What has been noted ad nauseum in threads all over is that the real problem is lack of investment in bandwidth - "Hey! the suckers have no choice but to accept it, and we make money hand-over-fist."
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He really means Windows Ultimate Edition, but doesn't want to be ostracized by the rest of Slashdot.
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More and more collages are putting lectures online.
For example, Stanford has a very interesting looking Machine Learning [stanford.edu] class which comes in at about 25G for the lecture videos.
A few classes like that can eat up a 250G limit rather quickly.
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When a legitimate torrent of [insert your Linux distro of choice here] can run 700MB? I think not. What has been noted ad nauseum in threads all over is that the real problem is lack of investment in bandwidth - "Hey! the suckers have no choice but to accept it, and we make money hand-over-fist."
250 GB means you have to download 12 of those Linux distro torrents every day, 30 days a month. Do you really have a legitimate need to do that? I'm on Comcast, and I'm damn relieved to see that the nebulous high usage cap has been written out as such a large number. I'm pretty sure that I've blown past 8 GB in a single day before, but I'm nowhere near to averaging that sort of usage. Even with my usenet service and p2p traffic. I can certainly wish that there were less periods where my dl speeds lagged due
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at the stats on my router, last month I used 230.60 GB.
This month I've used 139.38 GB so far.
Where was the bandwidth used?
Where's my measurement tool? (Score:3, Insightful)
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That isn't so bad (Score:4, Insightful)
I have WildBlue Satellite for internet, as I live out in the boonies where there is no cable or DSL. I am restricted to 17 gigs download, 5 gigs upload, the least restrictive option available to me (Hughes Net and Starband are worse in that regard). At this point, I would fucking kill for a 250gig cap.
That said, most people won't ever come close to hitting it. I don't use P2P (it simply doesn't work on a satellite connection) but I do a reasonable amount of downloading, and I manage to keep around 11 gigs download.
That said, Comcast definitely needs to provide a bandwidth meter. They're obviously metering bandwidth to employ the cap, it would be a simple matter to provide a web interface for their customers. Hell, every satellite ISP does it. Comcast must just be lazy, incompetent, or both.
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Hmm. 17 gig/mo cap, right? Does it make sense?
Lets compare with dial-up.
4KB/s = .004MB/s .004MB/s * 60 = .24MB/minute .24MB/Minute * 60 = 14.4MB/hr
14.4MB/hr *24 = 345.6MB/day
345.6MB/day *30 (avg month) = 10368 MB
Our dial up plan is 10 GB a month for 10$, plus 20$ second line. 30$ for 10GB, and we live in BFE. 3$/GB isnt great, but its what we have. Though, I thought sat was worse, considering the 400+$ initial device.
Holy exaggeration Batman! (Score:5, Informative)
I recently got Comcast (they are the only provider available at my new place), I routinely get download speeds around 1-2MB/s (with a 'bytes', not a 'bits'), including torrents, and the price is more or less reasonable. By my calculations I am damn unlikely to ever hit the 250GB cap (I may use 8GB in day from time to time, but far from most days), and even if I do, I was aware of this limitation of the service before signing up.
So remind me, why am I so damn outraged about this? Is it because someone would dare to suggest that there be some kind of limit to the amount of porn and movies I can download for 60 bucks a month?
I used to pay through the nose for Speakeasy, so far I'm getting a better service from Comcast.
The beginning of the end for cable modems (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that Comcast is setting bandwidth caps. It's that they have no choice. Now that you can get high-speed internet service via the cellphone network, AND Verizon is rolling out FiOS everywhere, how can they compete?
Remember, the internet runs over the *phone* network. The big cellphone/telecommunications providers own most of that. AT&T and Verizon are both Tier 1 providers with huge networks. It's almost *guaranteed* the Comcast is paying AT&T and/or Verizon for bandwidth and/or transit. And yet, Verizon and AT&T are competing with them.
And the same is true for most of the other cable TV providers in the United States. They have been offering phone and internet service for the past 5 years or so, but only because the telcos weren't doing it. They are now. The cable companies are FUCKED.
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Remember, the internet runs over the *phone* network. The big cellphone/telecommunications providers own most of that. AT&T and Verizon are both Tier 1 providers with huge networks. It's almost *guaranteed* the Comcast is paying AT&T and/or Verizon for bandwidth and/or transit. And yet, Verizon and AT&T are competing with them.
And the same is true for most of the other cable TV providers in the United States. They have been offering phone and internet service for the past 5 years or so, but only because the telcos weren't doing it. They are now. The cable companies are FUCKED.
Actually, you can get unpaid peering with most larger providers if your traffic with them is very high and more-or-less symmetric. A company as large as Comcast has its own internal network and probably has significant peerage arrangements with other providers. I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast didn't qualify as a Tier 1 provider themselves in view of their size.
If you do huge volumes, AT&T, MCI, AOL and several others will do unpaid peerage, provided you don't use them for transit (traffic being tr
Limits are OK as long as they are public and fair (Score:2, Interesting)
The position that an entity like Comcast enjoys is that of a local monopoly. There *may* be competition, but for most, we have only one viable option for broad band. Like I said, I have *no* problem with a bandwidth limitation on service as long as it is a reasonable business proposition based on the locally awarded monopoly position and market conditions.
The issue I have is the contortions and control. There is no reason why port 80 should be any more favored than any other port. I want "broad band" access
Weird Behavior with Bittorent. (Score:3, Informative)
This is NOT new. (Score:2, Informative)
Last month, I got a little carried away with binary newsgroups.
I got a phone call from Comcast. They informed me that I had managed to suck 450GB of data over my connection that month.
They said that if I didn't immediately curtail my traffic, I would not only be disconnected, but my service would be terminated for twelve months with no option for reactivation.
I really should have called up Qwest and gotten DSL and cancel my cable. A threat like that, to me, is unacceptable. If I actually had an option for a
What does it take to build your own? (Score:2)
If you are in an underserved area without competition, what does it take in practical and financial terms to build out a community ISP that can compete with the Comcasts of the world?
A 24-port ADSL2+ DSLAM and associated CPE would run about $200-300 per user, "last quarter mile" wiring could be anywhere from $300-3,000 per user.
What would you have to pay to get an OC3 for upstream connection?
I looked at a few years back when end-user bandwidth wasn't as much of an issue and you could get much better reach,
Re:"without the risk of corporate interference" (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you really that fucking stupid?
To put it as plain as day: If the corp is making a decision to maximize value, by denying or restricting your access to something, you are going to want to find a way around it. None of this is good or bad in any general sense, just rational behavior.
A better question may be, why don't we give credit to corporations when they do good? Well, we do give credit, in the form of $$$. Complaining, boycotting, &c. is the socially acceptable form of "negative money" (the unacceptable form is vandalism, robbery, kidnapping, &c.).
I think the problem is that Americans (I am one) tend to pay far too much respect to the rich and corporations. I can and do complain legitimately about Microsoft, but I still oppose most uses of anti-trust against them. Nonetheless, people look at me like I'm a communist, when I suggest that Bill Gates isn't wonderful. Even an atheist can appreciate the sense of the phrase "Render unto God what is God's and unto Caesar what is Caesar's."
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Right about the same time they start mining black crystal on the planet Ballybran for instantaneous communication over light year distances.
Stop it with the thruthout FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is neutrality and censorship
While I don't necessarily doubt that ISPs are salivating at the pay-per-byte thing, the whole truthout.org thing is a figment of your feverish imagination, fueled mostly by your insane hatred [slashdot.org] of Microsoft. At the very least you should research your claims [slashdot.org] before using them in any sort of cuasi-authoritative way.
Go ahead and read through these and then come back and tell me that "M$" or Google or Yahoo or any ISPs are blocking *anything* related to truthout.org at all. And please don't reply to me with your name trolls or sockpuppets.
http://directmag.com/disciplines/email/truthout_blocked_censorship/ [directmag.com]
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@isoc-ny.org/msg00354.html [mail-archive.com]
http://mainsleazespam.com/collateral/truthout_org.html [mainsleazespam.com]
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001260.html [sethf.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't use that "if you're not with us you're against us" line with me. I'm not young enough to be impressed by that kind of dumbness.
The issue here is not censorship, which is real enough, the insistence on using the same incorrect arguments to support a point. Surely even you see the value in making a valid case if you're arguing about a topic like that. So many of his so-called arguments have been debunked and invalidated time and again, and he just keeps trotting them out even though he knows he's