ISPs Experiment With Broadband Download Capping

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ISPs Experiment With Broadband Download Capping

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday September 22, 2003 @06:55AM from the how-much-is-too-much? dept.

W33dz writes "News.com has an article detailing how some ISPs are now capping bandwidth usage by some of their high end users. Comcast claims this is an attempt to create better speeds for their average users, but you can't help but wonder how much of this is in response to the RIAA's subpoenas. Interestingly enough, there is no set limit, but just a subjective limit of 'more than the average user.' The World Tech Tribune has an article on the same topic."

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Throttle it. by grub · 2003-09-22 06:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

.. but you can't help but wonder how much of this is in response to RIAA's subpoenas. Interestingly enough, there is no set limit, but just a subjective limit of 'more than the average user.'

Lose the tinfoil hat, Sparky. Home broadband is dirt cheap for what you get. It's subsidized by business accounts much like telephone service. When cable and DSL first came out no one heard of Napster let alone Kazaa or eMule. Those apps use up a huge amount of available bandwidth which we get damn cheap.

Personally I'd rather them use bandwidth throttling for P2P apps rather than dictating a certain amount of usage over the course of a month. Most P2P users leave the thing running all day anyhow (I do and check in to home via VNC through an SSH tunnel) so why not throttle it back? A few K less incoming for P2P isn't much, but when you're waiting for a website to load.. well that's where you want the real speed.

--
Trolling is a art,
1. Re:Throttle it. by Torinaga-Sama · 2003-09-22 07:17 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Someone has to be a grub fanboy, so I suppose it will be me.
  
  He is right. Tinfoil hat and all. The problem is really noticable on residential Cable networks.
  
  When I am actually reading text in a browser noting upsets me more than having to wait for the next page, where on the otherhand if I am downloading something that takes an hour, an additional 15 mintues would not even be noticable (as I usually get up and go something else while doing that anyway)
  
  Also I think there are a lot of people on file sharing networks that are pack rats, they download everything they think might even be vaguly interesting even though a lot of it they will never use it.
  
  This f's my ping and I hate that too. :-)
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
2. Re:Throttle it. by danila · 2003-09-22 08:21 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Wow, that was good. :) You almost persuaded me to uninstall eMule and KaZaA. :) Still, the common sense took me back over. ;)
  
  P2P doesn't create much noise. Actually you can easily get the whole traffic picturee simply by measuring your own searching and download traffic. You'll see. Dedicated server might be a good idea in theory, but the truth is, it's not so bulletproof. Just look at Steam and it's recent problems and compare it with eDonkey2000. Do you think eDonkey will slow to crawl when Half-Life 2 is released? I don't. ;) But anyway, P2P was specifically designed to avoid the need for servers. It's not its fault, it's part of the specification. And claiming that P2P users consume more electricity is just plain nonsense. But you might want trying to sell this idea to RIAA for their PR^H^H FUD campaign. :)
  
  Now back to topic. When P2P was created, there simply wasn't a feasible alternative authorised by labels. To deny labels' partial responsiblility for the emergence of P2P is to ignore reality. Today there are such alternative (still not perfect) and people gradually start using them. But the problem is that users are now accustomed to another consumption patterns and labels still try to ignore that. People want a more active role in selection of the music. They want to taste much more than before and only then buy what they like. Labels still can't face this reality and continue pushing their 15$ CDs, now copy-protected. That's simply not what consumers want and in the end consumers always win.
  
  May be, if labels had offered online music services in 1995, P2P would not emerge and online piracy would remain confined to Usenet, IRC and private FTP. But now people know the taste of music without limits and nobody will be able to take it away. At least I hope so.
  
  --
  Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Makes sense... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-22 06:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Give more bandwidth to the people who don't download anything and less to the people who do...
Why is it always a devious plot? by DragonMagic · 2003-09-22 06:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why on earth if someone changes a policy that somehow will affect mass P2P traders, etc., it's some underhanded effort behind the scenes of one of the hated groups, SCO, MS, RIAA, MPAA, etc.?

Could it just be that bandwidth costs money, and some people just use way too much of it? That perhaps this usage could hinder others in the area or across the whole network?

Nah, usual paranoia sets in, it must be the RIAA strongarming them to change their policy so people have to take an extra thirty seconds to download that song off Kazaa . . .

--

Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
1. Re:Why is it always a devious plot? by MKalus · 2003-09-22 07:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  One word: Internet Radio.
  
  Let's assume right now I am listening to it 8 hours a day, 8 days a week (at 128KBit/s), that means I am "downloading" roughly 13.1GB a month.
  
  Now add some ISO's and other stuff and let's say I am at around 15GB a month.
  
  Of course, that's not 90GB, but still, more than the 5GB the "unlimited" one is giving you, no?
  
  --
  If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
This is the way it is... by Crusty+Oldman · 2003-09-22 07:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

If they have the capacity, then using that capacity doesn't cost the ISP an extra nickel. If they don't have the capacity, then they are selling you something they do not have. We call this fraud.
We've seen this before by mugnyte · 2003-09-22 07:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

As broadband gets adopted, the entry to provide service for it becomes lower in term of hardware. However, the wiring de-regulation efforts here in the US (telco and cable) are still a bit crazy. Sadly, those fights come in small waves.

If deregulation ever *does* open the door, I predict we're going to have another round of ISP start-ups, this time with broadband. Then, all kinds of tweaks are going to appear. This kind of competition is good for everyone, IMO. Customers have to be arena of what works and what doesn't. Ok, so I'm not saying anything new. Caps, Rates up and down, etc, should be on those menu.

For now, try getting most (DSL) ISPs to solve a line problem (they need to use the telco, who denies anything is wrong). Cable agreements are little better, but splitting the carrier and provider can be a headache anywhere.

But if the public knew the cost of broadband at the higher levels, they may not complain at 3.0Mbs for $50/month (my current Comcast agreement). Trying upping your agreement to a "business" service. What a whopper.
You must be joking? by Srin+Tuar · 2003-09-22 07:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

Home broadband is dirt cheap for what you get.

You cant be serious?
What you call "broadband" I call a poor quality, overpriced, asymmetric leecher link. The telecom monopolies have been trying to prevent broadband adoption inasmuch as they are averse to change of any kind.

Fiber to the curb should be here, and it should be cheap. I dont know why so many are happy to be bent over a barrel for a pittance in bandwidth. The network grows in value for each user online, and not the other way around.
1. Re:You must be joking? by jasonditz · 2003-09-22 09:31 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I can see where he's coming from though.
  
  I'm paying $40 a month for cable modem service right now, two years ago I was paying $30, and it was twice as fast, and there weren't any restrictions on what I could do with my bandwidth.
  
  Everything else in the technology world is getting faster, cheaper, and less restrictive. Broadband is going to opposite way.
In the wake of Isabel... by alispguru · 2003-09-22 07:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

... my Comcast bandwidth was capped at zero, starting Thursday evening, and hasn't been above that since.

I think I'm going to ask for a credit on this month's cable bill. My neighborhood didn't lose power (for more than a few seconds at a time) or phone service, but the cable and internet have been solidly down since the storm.

Grumble...

--

To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I'm all for it by realmolo · 2003-09-22 07:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

I work for a cable ISP, and I set up an Allot NetEnforcer to do some packet-shaping. The P2P apps just KILL us, and really any other broadband provider. I throttled that shit down to 16 kilobytes/sec down/8 kb/sec up (per user), and watched in amazement as network utilization by 40% during peak hours. And so far, no one has complained. Keep in mind that I throttled ONLY P2P stuff. It's not that we want to screw you, but the truth is that P2P apps use up more than their share. E-mail and web pages and even games are a higher priority. It's all kind of a moot point anyway. I expect that within the next year or so, most ISPs will simply block all the P2P stuff to avoid the legal hassles.
Opposite of progress by ChicagoBiker · 2003-09-22 07:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

Doesn't this just go in the opposite direction of progress?
I've been on the "net" for over 11 years, I started with a 2400 baud Hayes modem and AOL, quickly replaced within the first year with a 14.4 modem and an ISP, in those 10-11 years where has it progressed to? A 700k modem and I still can barely send anything more than keystrokes and a few postage stamp sized images to another person across the Ether. We all sit here like monkeys with a coconuts hammering away at keyboards and cellphone keypads.
It's the 21st century and they're talking about rolling back the bandwidth?
Where are the Gigabit Ethernet lines over glass, or better, to every single household? Where are the video conferencing screens in every living room? Why can't I call my friends and see them on my flat plasma screen via voice command? Where are my HD Dolby Digital movies on demand? Are we going forward or backwards?
To affect real change here I think it can only be done on a federal level by throttling the telecommunications industry by the neck away from it's profit model and back into a citizens utility so it can truly serve the citizens like it was intended to do 40 years ago and earlier!
All of these wonderful dreams of the future of technology and the internet are being strangled through the 300k broadband bottle necks that half the populous can't even get and those that can are paying double what they were before for no real improvement.
Comcast shouldn't be figuring out caps, they should be figuring out ways to offer 10 times the throughput to everyone in their service region and expanding that service region beyond what it is now.
The pipes need to be bigger or we're just spinning our wheels on this information superhighway.
It is fair pricing, . by Essron · 2003-09-22 07:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

I know we are all used to a relatively low access fee, and psychologically its difficult to accept a price hike, but really we have been enjoying an artificially low price due to firece competition and a general lack of knowldege around a newly emerging market. If 1% of your users are consuming 28% of your capacity, they should be charged more. This trend will continue and the new pricing is the only way to stay in business. Capacity issues aside, such pricing may be necessary simply to differentiate higher priced business services from residential access. The prices were poorly set from the beginning.
Even people who never come close to the cap will be outraged, but it should translate into lower prices for them in the long run. If ISP's charged by the byte for low bandwith users access would be so cheap that everyone would sign up. Really, /. users generally use lots of bandwidth, and most folks just check their email a couple of times a day and do some casual surfing.
We should have been paying more all along, be thankful you were in early enough to enjoy the golden age.
I'm not a troll, just an bandwidth hog with an MBA, which many of you will consider even worse...
Re:Broadband is already pretty cheap... by neurojab · 2003-09-22 08:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

Just to be devil's advocate... Gym memberships work much the same way as broadband access. A certain set of shared resources are used by those that show up, but the majority of the profit comes from the people that buy a membership, but don't actually go to the gym. Now in the broadband scenario, the low end market (people who don't use the net very often) is cornered by simple dialup. People buy broadband so they have a much bigger pipe to the internet. Why do they buy it? Because they want to use it. I find it hard to sympathize with providers that never thought of that. If my gym decided it could sell more memberships if its members used less resources, and started telling me which days I was allowed to appear and which hours I could use the facilities, I'd switch to a different gym. Likewise, there's no reason to put up with ISPs that don't figure out their business plan up front and offer a service they can actually provide.
Re:OT: Landlords by bellings · 2003-09-22 08:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

They refused to do anything since she hadn't seen the thrower.

Ha Ha! You can bet your sweet ass if someone threw a knife at a cop they'd be busting the fucking door down, right now, and putting a cap in anyone's ass who didn't get on the floor, right now. None of this shit about "I didn't see who it was, so I'll let them go."

I guess its true that we get the governement we deserve in this country. Too bad we deserve to be assreamed.

--
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Re:Stop being a troll by SirChive · 2003-09-22 08:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

Are you an absolute idiot? You admit that their terms of service give you unlimited downloads. Unlimited means without any limits. Nobody is a "freaky weirdo" because they actualy use their "unlimited" service as much as possible.