How Much Broadband Usage is Too Much?

Semprini2k asks: "I just came home from work to find a letter waiting in the old snail mail box from my Broadband ISP. It has very nice titling on it: 'Notice of Acceptable Use Policy Violations' and also has an 'Abuse Ticket Number' associated with it. Has anyone else received these from their Broadband ISPs lately? Are they being overly cautious or are they working towards throwing off any users who might possible tax their network? I am trying not to be paranoid about this, but what are other people seeing and/or doing in this situation?" The "proper" bandwidth is liable to vary by region, but it would be interesting to note usage patters of people who are getting these letters versus those who aren't.

"'Oh, no!' I think to myself, 'They think I'm a spammer!!!' But further reading sheds more light on the subject:

According to our aggregate bandwidth usage records, during December 2003 your [...ISP...] account exceeded [ISP's] bandwidth usage limitations. The activity associated with your account was more than 100 times the national median. This level of activity violates [ISP's] AUP.

"I freely admit to using a lot of bandwidth. From the day Fedora Core was released via BitTorrent I have kept an active BitTorrent session going to help others get it too. So I find this a bit of a concern.

I called their toll-free number to inquire whether I could get access to their data. No, I cannot. All I can do is try to use less bandwidth and hope I do not see any more of these letters. 2 more and my service will be terminated."

Comments

Read their AUP

[grub]

It has very nice titling on it: 'Notice of Acceptable Use Policy Violations'

Look through their AUP and see if what you are doing is indeed a violation. I had a warning via email several months back from my (cable) ISP which claimed I was using "above average" amounts of bandwidth even though they advertised "unlimited" when I signed up years back. I replied to the supplied human-read address saying basically "An average is made of of highs and lows, right?" to which I never had a reply or a warning since. That may just be coincidence but I do generate a fair amount of traffic...

Re:Read their AUP

[Exitthree]

By definition, half of their customers are using above median bandwidth. In a case with an average, one user using 10 GBs of bandwidth and nine users using 1 GB of bandwidth, the average is 1.9 GB/user. One user is above average, and the rest are below.

Re:Read their AUP

[grub]

...we could get a court ruling that invalidated those obnoxious "we can change any facet of this agreement at any time" clauses...

Those things are no more than a glorified bait & switch put to paper.

When broadband was rolling out everyone was advertising as 'always on' and 'unlimited'. Well, they signed up millions of people after which they decide to change the rules. A lot of these ISPs keep their customers by means of inertia and little else.

Re:Read their AUP

[ron_ivi]

I'd be really curious if some false-advertising claim could be made against the companies.

If they advertise "X-Mbps" and I don't get it 95%, 99%, (what's an appropriate SLA for the computer industry) of the time, it's broken!

With the web site the company I'm at is hosting hosting, between WorldCom and Akamai, we're buying 50Mbps (95th percentile). If they tell us "oops you used 50Mbps for too many seconds", that's just wrong.

If a ISP wants to charge per Gigabyte, I'm all for it. But if their advertising Mbps, they should deliver.

Personally, I'd be all for some companies offering charge-per-Gigabyte plans, because I think there's a lot of time that I don't use that many gigabytes.

Re:Read their AUP

[jusdisgi]

Ok...no problem. We won't oversell our ADSL bandwidth at all.

Now...about your bill. That 768/128 line is going to cost, oh...$300/month.

Oh, yes...and I really do work for a small ISP, and our cost for our outbound bandwidth really is $500/mbps.

Not overselling bandwidth would be the stupidest thing any ISP ever did. It would make it absolutely impossible to profit. This thing only works because at any given moment only 5% of our customers are downloading.

Re:Read their AUP

[arth1]

I'd be really curious if some false-advertising claim could be made against the companies.

If they advertise "X-Mbps" and I don't get it 95%, 99%, (what's an appropriate SLA for the computer industry) of the time, it's broken!

It's worse than you think. I'm a Cox customer, and according to their revised AUP (not that I had to sign anywhere to accept the new rules) the customers aren't even allowed to use on average 56k6 modem speed over a month! If you calculate, you'll find that you have to throttle your connection to around 3kB/s to not exceed their limits for what's "abuse". Oh, and they don't have any CIR or guaranteed minimum speed. They sell the service on the *peak* speed, which you can't use a fraction of for any length of time.
They also block various ports, sometimes even both ways (which means they'll randomly block ports needed for legitimate return traffic).

This is sold as "High Speed Internet", and costs you $50 per month ($40 if you also purchase other services from them).

It's not high speed, and it's not Internet. Some legislation is needed, because this is slipping out of control. The cable companies clearly abuse the near monopoly they have in many market areas.

--
*Art

Re:Read their AUP

[Jerf]

In fact, a typical distribution is indeed exponential, so in real life many fewer then half their customers will be above average. The cited example is very close to reality.

The fallacy of course lies in the implicit idea that if you get rid of all of the "above average" customers, you won't still have "above average" customers. ;-)

Still, eliminating or significantly reducing the bandwidth used by as few as 50 or 100 people can significantly improve the performance of the system for many, many thousands of others. (Without going into details I will claim without evidence that I've seen the numbers in a real life example to back this up.) If those thousands of others are experiencing difficulties and complaining (and subsequently terminating service), guess who's gonna get it?

It may suck if you're one of the 50 or 100 people, but if you look at it abstractly, there's nothing else an ISP can possible do. Not even increase the bandwidth, since things like Gnutella and Bittorrent can grow their bandwidth use to match the expansion. Sooner or later, the top folks need to curb their use, and for better or for worse, the ISP folks will have to be the heavies.

FWIW, they don't necessarily enjoy it, it's just the way life is.

Re:Read their AUP

[override11]

The whole complaint isnt overselling, its the false advertising involved. If you have a bandwidth cap, or a transfer limit, speak up when I sign up so I know!

Re:Read their AUP

[Junior J. Junior III]

There's (at least) three ways to look at caps:

TIME - you can connect for x minutes per day. Broadband advertises that they are "always on" and thus not capped in this way. Dialups don't cap you in this way, either, but may well charge you for minutes above and beyond a certain amount, though most allow unlimited time connectivity per billing period for a flat rate.

BANDWIDTH - Bandwidth really means "range of frequencies" that you're allowed to transmit/receive on, which is either dictated by the FCC or the RFC for the technology you're using, or both. But I'll ignore that, for now, and talk about "bandwidth" as it is commonly used, which is to define the speed of the connection in bits per unit of time. You have physical limits inherent to the hardware, here, and also many broadband providers cap the hardware at a certain limit. Cable modems can pull down something like 33 Mb/s but are normally capped around 3Mb/s.

THROUGHPUT - Many ISPs ToS agreements include a clause stating how many bytes you can move up or down per month. Typically, with such agreements, this limit is much lower than the amount of data that you could theoretically push over your connection if you saturated it 24/7.

Note well that if you calculate the throughput cap as a speed and compare it with the "bandwidth" cap, the "bandwidth" cap will always be higher. They're saying, in effect, that you can drive 80mph but that you have to rest 10 hrs. out of every 24.

I'll guarantee that the limit that the ISP is complaining about in this case is the "throughput" type. If you saturate your connection, it costs the ISP more because they pay *their* connectivity bills according to throughput. It also throws a lot of suspicion that you are violating copyright, or spamming, or launching DoS attacks, or reselling your connection against their ToS, even if this is not necessarily true. A high level of activity = "you're up to something".

The argument about whether the usage level for a particular user is "above average" or not is not really the issue if the ToS includes a specific amount of throughput per month provided. "Above average" is a spurious argument, as many have already pointed out. The real issue is what does the ToS say, and are you abiding by that.

Most ISPs won't terminate you for exceeding this, but will bill you for bytes moving over your connection above and beyond this limit. And you'll pay through the nose for exceeding your limit, too. Step up to the next level and buy a business-grade service if you need that much throughput.

The reason for having a "bandwidth" (read: speed) cap that's higher than the "throughput" cap is to enable you to move a high amount of data quickly.

Say your ToS says you can pull 40GB/month down according to your agreement. But you don't want to wait an ENTIRE MONTH to pull that 40GB down. Your cable modem is capped at 3Mb/s, so you don't have to. Maybe you want to pull 30GB worth of ISOs in a few days time, and spend the rest of the month pulling the remaining 10GB allocated to you for email, gaming, browsing, or whatever.

The ToS agreement is desgined to allow you to do this, but if you go over 40GB that month, you're going to be paying extra or find yourself shut off.

If, on the other hand, the ToS doesn't have a clause about throughput caps, then the ISP has no leg to stand on, and if they say "unlimited usage" then they have to abide by it, and will probably go out of business doing so.

Where the marketing claim of "unlimited" and the fine print agreement to limits contradict each other, you can litigate with a false advertisement claim if you want, but you're still not going to get unlimited service. At best you'll get them to retract or modify the marketing claim, which itself would be something of a victory. But not the one you want.

Adelphia Bandwidth Caps and Newsgroups

[Eyah....TIMMY]

I have Adelphia cable and found the following in their Access Agreement:

"Traffic Consumption Allowances: Adelphia has the right to
monitor, measure and report bandwidth consumption by You. Adelphia
reserves the right to establish, modify and/or enforce consumption
allowances at any time now or in the future, with or without notice, and
apply a surcharge for excess usage."

This means they can say at anytime you are downloading too much, without even telling you how much is too much. They don't need to give you any download cap.
I haven't received a letter yet but I have friends who did... people might want to start thinking about limiting their download, especially with the very popular dvdr newsgroups. It does take 5 GIGs of download per movie. You can easily let newsbin download at 300k/s 24/7.

Download wisely...

Re:Adelphia Bandwidth Caps and Newsgroups

[Total_Wimp]

"download wisely" my ass. If they have some mysterious "limit" that they can choose at their whim without even telling you then I would tell them to go to hell.

Check this out:

1. My long distance carrier says I have to pay by the minute and I monitor my usage very carefully.

2. My local carrier says I can have unlimited time on the phone for a flat rate so I don't monitor the usage.

Your broadband carrier essentially promised you number 2 but is treating you like you've got number 1 and you're saying you're more than happy to LIMIT YOURSELF while they continue to imply to new customers that there's no limit.

You're a fool. Insist they give you a posted limit or use as much as you want. Don't limit yourself for their benefit unless they're willing to be straight with you about exactly what you're paying for.

TW

Has anyone with a DSL account gotten these emails?

[sllim]

Just out of curiosity, I have noticed that whenever I see these stories they are always associated with cable broadband.

Anyone with a nice fast DSL connection ever gotten one of these things?

Cap your BT upload?

[theRhinoceros]

How about

btdownloadcurses --max_upload_rate ($something more reasonable)?

Challenge them.

[wowbagger]

Challenge them. Pull out your copy of your service agreement, and verify that there is no statement of limits on that.

Then verify the on-line copy, since they will claim that is the controlling version.

Assuming you cannot find a statement that says "You agree to use not more than X bandwidth per Y period of time", then challenge them. Inform them that unless they can show a contract, with your signature, that binds you to that agreement, you will consider any termination a breach of contract and will pursue it as such.

Make them tell you exactly what the limits are, and what you usage is.

This is classic modern business - "Try to screw them, since they don't know their rights. If they bitch, back off."

BUT MAKE SURE THEY DON'T HAVE A LIMIT IN THE AUP FIRST!

Re:Challenge them.

[Tenebrious1]

Which does not mean that clause has any validity in court - I could put a clause in a contract requiring you to wear a rubber duck on your head when you sleep. However, should you challenge it in court, it would most likely be held to be unenforcable.

Yeah, but since most people can't afford the monetary risk of going to court, they'll just wear the duck and curse under their breath.

Time to get smart about your bandwidth...

[synth7]

... and set up a shaper on your ISP link that slows down your outbound BitTorrent traffic. Me, I use a SmoothWall box with a regular old Wondershaper script. Keeps my DMZ traffic in line (so it doesn't choke my isp link) and works well enough for a system that you don't have to twiddle the knobs on too much.

(Yes, I read the docs for tc, and I'd love to have an HTB shaper instead of the standard qdisc one I use, but I'm too busy to spend that much time for the small advantages a truly custom firewall box would offer.)

Re:Time to get smart about your bandwidth...

[Kenja]

Why not just tell Bittorrent to stop using as much bandwidth? There are many torrent clients out there that let you controll the amount of upload and download traffic you allow. I use BT++ myself and have had no issues at all.

Re:Maybe your machine's been hacked

[ihummel]

Possible, but keeping a Fedora Core bittorrent open since it came out is quite sufficient to explain the warning.

Cox Cable

[WTFmonkey]

http://support.cox.net
Here are some tidbits from their stuff:

What is the speed, of my Cox High-Speed Internet service?
Downstream data moving from the Internet to your computer is configured at 3 megabits/second (Mbps). Upstream data moving from your computer to the Internet is configured at 256 kilobits/second (Kbps). By setting the network equipment at these levels, we are able to deliver consistent high-speed Internet service.

I bought an 'unlimited' service. I asked you if the Cox High-Speed Internet service is rate limited, and you said no. This doesn't sound like the 'unlimited' service I signed up for. What happened?
Cox provides, as advertised, unlimited access to the Internet. However, Cox neither advertises nor provides unlimited service; as bandwidth is a finite commodity. Cox High Speed Internet is still advertised as being "downstream speeds up to 100 times faster than a 28.8 telephone modem" and remains the best service, quality, features, and speed for the price.

1. Maximum downstream speed: 3 megabits per second
2. Maximum upstream speed: 256 kilobits per second
3. Maximum monthly consumption cap: 30 gigabytes downstream; 7.5 gigabytes upstream
4. Size per email message: 5 megabytes
5. Size per email account/address: 10 megabytes
6. Personal WebSpace account size: 10 megabytes of disk space per email address
7. Personal WebSpace traffic: 300 megabytes of traffic per month (for visitors viewing your pages)

Your PC

[chunkwhite86]

"I just came home from work to find a letter waiting in the old snail mail box from my Broadband ISP. It has very nice titling on it: 'Notice of Acceptable Use Policy Violations' and also has an 'Abuse Ticket Number' associated with it. Has anyone else received these from their Broadband ISPs lately? Are they being overly cautious or are they working towards throwing off any users who might possible tax their network? I am trying not to be paranoid about this, but what are other people seeing and/or doing in this situation?"

FYI- I've been using your PC to relay spam for about a year now. Just let me know what the acceptable use limits are and I'll cap my uploads accordingly. Thanks.

Re:Throttle, don't limit.

[ldspartan]

Although I haven't read the law and have no actual information, I believe part of the "safe harbor" qualifications for ISPs to not be liable under the DMCA for what their customers do requires them to _not_ inspect the traffic flowing over their network. I know that my college has a policy of not monitoring network traffic in order to avoid being prosecuted by the RIAA under the DMCA.

Of course, I could've totally missed something.

--
lds

FTP servers

[Black Pete]

I used to run a FTP server on my home machine so that I'd be able to put my personal and work stuff on it, so I'd have a handy way of shuttling files back and forth between my home and work computers.

Well, one day I found in my InBox a nice little email from Shaw (main ISP for cable modems in western Canada) complaining that I was currently using more bandwidth their business users, and "to keep things fair" please consider either switching over to a business payment plan, or to turn off all P2P programs (assuming I was warezing mp3's, no doubt). They said that I'd been downloading about 37GB and uploaded about 20GB.

Needless to say, I was quite flabbergasted. I quickly checked my FTP logs, and sure enough, there was a whole bunch of mysterious IP addresses who connected to my FTP server, and had been using it as a Warez Joint over the past couple of days. I quickly shut down the FTP server and moved over to an encryption-based system instead.

So that was one example where a bitch-fest from the ISP actually help me quickly shut down a problem :P

Re:FTP servers

[GoofyBoy]

>and had been using it as a Warez Joint over the past couple of days.

The same thing happend to me.

I just created a new ftp folder "upload_pr0n_here_please" and deleted the rest.

Re:Has anyone with a DSL account gotten these emai

[wowbagger]

Most DSL connections are charged per GB of transfer.

Source, please - where do you get your information?

I cannot speak for "most", but neither my DSL nor that of the three other people I know personally who have DSL have any cap on their transfers save the cap set by the number of B channels assigned to their connection.