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ISPs Experiment With Broadband Download Capping
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."
When I pay my monthly internet bill, I'm not paying for an average download speed, I'm paying for a MAXIMUM download speed. Is it legal for them to change the contract for the amount of bandwidth I can use at any time?
Why don't they just shape the traffic to their needs? I'm sure there has got to be some way to do this at an application level. Couldn't they just assign lower priorities to p2p traffic? It's not like bandwidth is some tangible asset that we are USING up every day. Just have us capped to under their bandwidth needs.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
...for residential users. Business users basically already subsidize the home market. The telcos and cable companies probably didn't forsee the impact of P2P when they promised "unlimited" bandwidth, assuming web browsers, email, and the occasional Quake server connected at home. P2P takes off and suddenly they need to back off on their promises a bit, but don't expect them to drop the price lower as they are already losing money on home broadband.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
In my area I have access to both DSL and Cable. Both were uncapped, both got capped, and now, guess what? They are starting to uncap!
Ma Bell found out people would switch over to them if they actually offered uncapped service. Most people won't even download near the cap they had set up anyway. Users who actually do bust the cap are usually a little more at ease with computers... Which means that when their low-tech friends ask which service to subscribe to, they'll suggest the uncapped one *they* are using.
Anyway, I think the capping will eventually go away if there is competition. Pray you have competition in your area!
Regardless, they now not only have the reputation of being a capped service, but they have become the most unreasonable and vague capped service. Way to fight a PR war guys! Comcast/ATT (they keep passing the broadband and cable properties like a hot potato) have had a captive customer base for so long that they have really lost touch with how to keep those customers, let alone build any customer loyalty. I hope you dump them if you can.
I'm lucky, my DSL ISP lets me host servers, have a static IP and give them a call to say "Hi" for fairly cheap. Before you ask, Omsoft.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Too true. What I found interesting was that the people used as examples of the target of the caps were downloading the equivalent of 90 movies per month. Earlier in the article, they say two movies take up 2GB. So, assuming one GB per movie, that means the people targeted by the ISPs were using over 90GB per month. 90GB!!!
Perhaps the people who are complaining about this could take a deep breath, drink some soothing tea, and realize that that's a whole lot of downloading. Most of us don't even use 5GB, much less 90GB (90GB!!!). And, when you think about it, during normal web browsing, I doubt you use more than a couple hundred meg a month, total.
At first, I saw the article, and I was like, "bandwith caps? Oh no!" Then I read it and realized they're talking about capping up in the couple-dozen-gigabyte range. For the life of me, I can't see what the big deal is. You know? It's not like it's going to affect very many people...
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
... and I have not received any such letter.
So i've got to wonder, if the ~8gb/mo of traffic that i've been going through is ok - how much are these guys using that they're getting capped?
I mean, sure, it isn't right for comcast to cap without publicizing a formal cap - but these guys aren't saying what their usage is either.
Perhaps because we know what the price of bandwidth is, and would feel a little differently if we knew just how far on the fringe their usage was.
(i grab data regularly from for backup to my home network, as well as having a video game demo and mod habit. while i have a considerable quantity of music on my harddrive, it is all ogg rips done myself from CDs I own.
so snuff your flames and stay on-topic.)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Canada's largest ISP implemented bandwidth caps while the competitors didn't. Several months later the caps were removed because customers fled to the competitor.
Any ISP would need everyone in their competing market to agree to introduce bandwidth caps or it will fail. That's good for the consumer but bad for the ISPs.
Since day one about 6 years ago when I subscribed to the local cable Internet connection in Montreal, Canada, I've been subject to download caps. It started off with 6 gigs of download and 1 gig of upload a month. Downloads were 300k/sec max and uploads were capped at 15k/sec. Over the years, the service has IMPROVED (well, competition helped a lot for that to happen) and now I have 450k/sec in download and 50k/sec in upload, plus I get 15 gigs in download and 5 gigs in upload. Now, I wonder what legal uses people are making of 15 gigs a month.
Personnally, the only times I was able to download over 3 gigs in a month is when I decided to download all the Alias episodes so I could start watching the show on ABC this season. I did the same in the past with 24, Smallville and That 70's Show.
Otherwise, I mostly watch trailers on Apple.com and video trailers off Gamespot or Xbox.com, read the news and do instant messenging. That typically sums up to about 2 gigs of usage in download. And I use the Internet often. So, what can you people legally do with 13 others gigs of download? Yeah, I know, Linux distributions are 2 gigs now and VNC is pretty bandwidth intensive, but I bet more than 99% of broadband users don't give a flying squirrel about VNC or Linux and thus have no LEGAL use of 15 gigs a month. With only maybe the exception of multiplayer games, are there really any reasons to have 15 gigs a month in download?
Of course, if you're into heavy music, movie and software piracy, I'm sure that 15 gigs a month is not enough for you. Especially since the only people I hear complaining about download and upload caps are the ones who are using their connection for illegal activities. Me, I complain only when I have to wait another month to download the last 3 Alias episodes. But it's over now, and I'm back to my normal Internet usage.
So, is capping really THAT bad?
I help administer a mid-size linux cluster, and we use PBS Pro to handle job scheduling. In many ways, allocating cluster resources is similar to bandwith:
The scheduling algorithm we use on the cluster is called "fair share". I think it would also work to share bandwith, and it works like this:
Usage is tracked with an exponential half-life of 24 hours. For example, someone who used 20 cpu-hours today and 20 hours two days ago would have a total usage 20 * 2**0 + 20*2**-2 = 25 hours. A user's priority in the queue is based on their past usage, and optionally their number of shares (users can be given an unequal number of shares, if desired).
To apply this to bandwith, you could track the bandwith usage the same way. During peak usage times, when the lines are congested, a traffic-shaping router would give a lower priority to packets from the "bandwidth hogs".
It seems to me that customers and ISPs would both benefit from a scheme like this. I'm not exactly a networking guru, so I'd be interested in what other people think about it. Is there hardware out there that has this capability? Could it be done with Linux's iptables?
I wouldn't mind seeing bandwidth capping on my line if they did 3 things to make it fair.
1) Use the "toilet tank" method of capping people, instead of completely cutting them off entirely. This method has been deployed in several places, and people of course don't like it, but it is the fairest system that has been devised so far. Unlimited downloading (or uploading) is allowed, up to a point. When that point is reached, downloading will continue, but at a dramatically lower speed. The download will not be interrupted, but it will be capped to that lower speed. If the customer stops downloading for a period of time, they will re-earn the right to download at a higher speed, as their toilet tank slowly refills over time. This system also doesn't require strict time intervals (such as 24 hours, 1 month, etc.), because it is both triggered and released by the user's behaviour. If the user voluntarily downloads at a speed slower than the top speed, they can stretch out the length of time during which they can enjoy a noncapped connection. This is a good system because it has its intended effect (keeping high-volume users from abusing the service for everybody else) while not punishing people by cutting them off entirely or charging them a huge bill (important for cases in which the user isn't to blame for the high bandwidth usage, such as a virus or a Slashdotting). Also note that uploads and downloads are treated separately and independently, with a different toilet tank for each.
2) Make it clear what the cap level is, for both upload and download, including both the capped speed and the "toilet tank" size. Include this both in customer contracts and advertisements to non-customers. Advertising a connection as "unlimited" is false, when it could be capped! An example of an acceptable service description that could be advertised would be "1.5mbps download (capped 1GB/64kbps) and 256kbps upload (capped 128KB/64kbps)". This refers to a system that would have a toilet tank size of 1GB for downloads, after which the download speed would be reduced to a mere 64kbps. At this speed, it would take roughly 36 hours to refill the toilet tank once drained, but the user could still use their connection during this time (they just wouldn't be able to download another full 1GB without hitting the cap again). There's another similar toilet tank for uploads.
3) Provide tools for the user to monitor their current bandwidth usage, and how it applies against the cap. At the minimum, this should include both a live program that can be installed on the user's computer, and a webpage that can be visited occasionally should the user not wish to keep an extra program running. I would set that webpage as my homepage! The program would display the user's current usage and the threshholds at which capping would occur, and the current fill level of the "toilet tank". It should be made absolutely clear to the user what is going on, and how their current behaviour affects their cap, so there will be no guessing or finger-pointing.
I currently use DSL, not cable, because my connections are largely two-way. I do just as much uploading as downloading (no P2P, just old fashioned stuff like web servers), and cable companies are hostile towards uploaders and servers. The reason I use DSL is because so far my ISP (SBC) has not instituted any unfair caps! If they were to cap the line in an unfair way, I would be screwed, because I can't switch to cable. A friend of mine eats the cost of having a full T1 to his house. Maybe I'd have to do the same?
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
And furthermore, he blames the client, since if he never made a claim, this would not be a problem.
Why does this remind me of the skit? Because the broadband providers are saying you can't use all the bandwidth they're selling. If you sell me a pipe to the internet, and call it unlimited, then unlimited means, goddammit, unlimited. Don't blame me if I start using it for all the stuff that broadband is good for. After all, that's why I'm paying you guys $50-60/month.
Don't sell us broadband expecting us to use it like dial-up. We won't.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I think the above statement depends LARGELY on how you define "what you get".
I find it interesting that the cable companies have no problem feeding you nearly 100 channels of television, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (remember, that's bandwidth too - voice and full screen video), for, say, $50 a month -- yet when it's *Internet* bandwidth people want, suddenly we're supposed to respect all these artifically set limits/caps, and understand what a "great value" we're getting for that additional $49.95 per month.
True, home users' Internet broadband is currently subsidized by businesses - but that's only because they've got the current rates jacked up so high for T1 and T3 connections. There's no real, concrete reason I can see why a T1 should cost a business many hundreds of dollars per month. They've simply created artifical "costs" for connections, and tried to justify them by claiming they "help offset" expenses giving home users service.
DSL runs over existing copper, and shouldn't really present a telco with any additional overhead - other than maintaining the routers and the customer support/billing aspects of it.
>P2P is not about the music industry failing to provide.
It is, though. They have failed to provide a popular product (while I like emusic, rarely is there a lot of current top ten hits availible) in a format people like (iTunes DRM + AAC Mac only? Blech).
They have also failed to provide it at a reasonable price. According to the RIAA, when CDs were first made, they justified the price divide between CDs and casettes as an extra cost to produce CDs. According to them this almost doubled the cost of the product, from $8.99 to $17.99.
Therefore, considering a decent casette costs $2.00, the cost of a digital music download, which incurrs only a minor ($0.01) penalty for transfer should be $6.99 or less per album.
It isn't.
Also, with the lack of physical art a digital download has, and the reduced quality, another rebate should be made for the consumer. I propose $1.99. The price for an album online should therefore be $5.
But wait, media companies want to further denigrate their online music by introducing DRM and proprietary formats. I believe an album that cannot be resold should sell for half price, like most AS-IS sales on working items. The price for an online album is now $2.50.
Media companies have failed to bring to market goods that are cost representative.
P2P is all about trying to rationalize costs. While free is far less than consumers are willing to pay, it isn't free. The cost to the user is working for various marketing departments. A value which I say equals the proper cost of a legally downloaded album, $2.50.
Heavy piracy is always an indication of failed market attempts.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I read this entire thread and now have a question. :
... would you go for it? Your P2P stuff would go twice as fast, and your web pages would load twice as fast (and your gamer pings would halve, in theory, for this quesiton.)
Here is a serious question to all the nay-sayers
Assuming that the top 1% of users is using 50% of the bandwidth, and by eliminating that top 1% of users from the customer base the other 99% would get their bandwidth doubled and their pings halved - would you agree when Comcast's business solution?
If you were part of the 1% that kept the cablemodem pegged wide open 24x7, moving more than 300 Gigabytes per month (that is 10 Gigs each and every day without letting up) then you get sliced off the network, but anybody short of that gets their pipe doubled
Just curious.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer