Comcast limits on badnwidth and targetted throttling

Comcast limits on badnwidth and targetted throttling

www.dslreports.com

Back in May I broke the news that in addition to throttling back high-consumption users to "DSL like speeds," Comcast was considering implementing a 250GB monthly cap as part of their shift toward "protocol agnostic" network management. Despite consumer grumbling, that plan is in fact now moving forward. Sources tell me that Comcast will officially announce that they're implementing this new system starting October first.

(visit the link for the full news article)

If you are a Comcast cable internet subscriber, the unlimited plan that you currently enjoy is about to get the ceiling dropped. Comcast is putting a fairly strict limit on its subscriber base. If you are a casual net user/surfer, you have less to worry about than if you are a real net time hog. 250 GB of download, with a fee for repeatedly going over the amount, is no worry at all for many. In fact, Comcast statistics say that it will really only affect about 1% of their client base.
Here’s what makes this news to you. There has been no mention of a reduction in cost for this limited usage. As well, this marks the next step of a potentially abusive trend with the implementing of over-usage fees (most commonly found in satellite net connections). Comcast has not released anything about monthly charges being reduced, only that bandwidth now has a limit. In fact, they have even gone so far as to say that too many infractions will garner a suspension of services. So, pay the same amount, receive less service, overage fees, account suspension criteria. The next evolution of internet censuring begins Oct 1 as we take the next step towards the end of net-neutrality.

I searched comcast dot com and dot net, neither of which have anything posted for their surrent or future customers to review.


www.dslreports.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I've noticed my comcase service has gotten unbearably slow in recent weeks. During large downloads they will actually interrupt my service. YouTube has slowed to a crawl.

I would dearly like to change providers now, but unfortunately they are a monopoly in my town.

reply to post by SevenThunders


You also have to look at the other issue. You are on a cable line, so, you are sharing with your entire block per sa, on bandwidth. If Suzie two doors down is downloading movies and gaming at the same time, you will see a decrease in speed. Unlike DSL, you have connections that are not shared.

It's been this way in the UK for a number of years & does make a lot of sense.
Most of the limits in the UK are set at 40gb although there are certain companies that will allow you to pay for higher limits.

Most of the people downloading large quantities of data are serial downloaders who download just for the sake of it & take up 90% of the available bandwidth.

It also helps the latency of the internet on a whole which is always a good thing.

Honestly, I doubt this very much because the game's industry would freak. An average college student, between usual BS Internet usage and playing Call of Duty 4 online with the same service could become at risk. Hell, MMOs like Age of Conan could preclude the usage of regular internet use for major players.

reply to post by wheresthetruth


I`m with you on this. I would not care if they do it, but, if I am paying for the unlimited plan and they put a ceiling on it, then they better readjust my rates from unlimited to the new forced ceiling plan. If they don`t, then they can look for some trouble from their subscribers.

Oh no, whatever will you do with less internet. Download less crap and go outside? Sounds like a plan.

A bit more info on this is coming out.

Comcast Excessive Use FAQ

Where's the consumer meter?

Q&A

Ok, so the FAQ is really geared towards generalized questions with generalized answers. They have steered clear of mentioning anything about truely why this is happening, leaving that up to the reporters and others to say that it is to throttle the P2P b/w hogs. Of course, not all P2P is illegal file sharing, they just want everyone to believe that.
They give somewhat irrelevant statistics in the FAQ, then in the Q&A do not seem to mention them at all. Most notably is the mention of the statistic about 50 million .05/kb emails. I read it twice, its not responded to anywhere. Have you ever sent an email that was less than 1 kb? Impossible. If you even include just your name without a designed signature and more than a couple of words in the subject and body, you cannot do it. My company required signature block is 15 kb alone. Thats 300x the posted statistic. That means that the 50 million emails that they say I can send turns into roughly 166,667 emails that only include my signature. No subject, no body.
So, a little math application here:
.05 kb is the base line
(personal statistic) 1 mb average email = 1024 kb or 20480x the base line
Apply that to the 50 million emails statistic and you get 2441 emails per month at 1 mb per mail

I send emails out that are up to 5 mb each, which brings the statistic down even further. Get caught up in one of those forwarding spam/scams and you could be sending even larger mails out. Keep applying the math and you can see how this degrades rather quickly, which is why they will not address it. Apply that even to the movie downloads, legal music downloads, a couple of hours on Hulu, anything that causes you to download, and the service begins to deteriorate at an alarming rate for the above average net user. They say this applies to only the worst very small percentage and have ratified that number to 5%.

Comcast users beware. This is only the beginning. As soon as you are settled in with paying an "unlimited" usage price for limited use, they are going to create some more statistics to validate throttling speeds and trimming more b/w from you. All while still holding that cost to consumer at a current or increased rate.

reply to post by Dulcimer


haha, as much as I hate to admit it, I agree with you. I am STRONGLY opposed to bandwidth caps, but oh man, do I agree with you.