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Comcast Targets Internet "Abusers"
An anonymous reader writes "Here's a great Associated Press story on Comcast's invisible caps. The company has been threatening and then cutting off customers who 'abuse' their so-called 'unlimited' service by downloading too much. But Comcast won't reveal what the limits are. DSL Reports has been tracking this for a while, and it's good to see the mainstream press catch on."
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes (1637)
But what's that going to get you with most cable providers when you have a cap of 1 or 2 GBs?
You just get there faster, big deal.
I already ditched cable... late last year. With all the viruses Adelphia began dropping ping packets. That was the last straw. They also had a policy against VPNs and hosting services of any kind, and enforced the service block by not allowing inbound port 80 packets.
I pay more for DSL but I can do whatever I want with it. Speakeasy just rocks.
In the dslreports forums this has been a hot topic for a couple of months. If you want and interesting read, along with a lot of rants, check out this thread. I don't think I've seen such a long one before and it's the second one on the subject.
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That makes perfect sense. They are one of the largest (if not largest) broadband provider in the US. Therefore, a lot of spam is likely to come from them.
Not sure how widely known this is, but Comcast is a Microsoft company.
Um, no.
Microsoft also invested $150 million in Apple a few years ago... does that mean when you buy a G5 or iPod you're buying a Microsoft product?
Cablevision (OPTONLINE) Does the same thing. While OOL has great speed... They have the same "secret" cap policy, even though they advertise UNLIMITED access. Its lame. Cable in any form is over priced.
I did manage to get the info about what constitutes a breakage of the caps policy when I called their tech support line...
After a quick call to their tech support line, the guy said that the following would flag you as excessive for a residential downloader. 8 gbytes downloads over 20 hours and/or downloading enough to cause problems for other people in the service area. He also said that it shouldn't raise a flag if it's something like 3 gbytes/day for a month. Also, they mostly instituted these policies as a way to make sure that no one person was hogging enough of the pipe to make other cable users connections slow.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
They should do something about all those spammers using their service.
They probably won't but SPEWS has. Much of Comcast's home-user IP space has been blacklisted:
http://spews.org/html/S2963.html
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
"Even better, since unlike cable, you have your own link to the ISP, so they give you a pretty decent usenet account and don't care if you leech 10 GB/s a day from it."
Well, not really. While the "DSL gives you your own link" line is pretty good marketing spin from the telcos, it's true only in a technical, not practical sense. While you do have a connection directly to the DSLAM, that DSLAM is oversubscribed (i.e. the pipe going to the backbone from the DSLAM is much smaller than # of DSL lines * 768kbps per line). So the effect is much the same on either cable or DSL - if everybody used their max bandwidth all (or even vaguely close to all - oversubscription is usually in the range of 10-40X), the system would collapse. Since, however, users use their connections with different intensity and at different times, when users DO use their connections, they will (on a well-engineered network) see the speeds promised.
Keep in mind what you're seeing is most likely hijacked PCs or open proxies.
Computer hijackers have learned that 24/8, 12/8, and other cable-modem IP ranges are primed for abuse, so they forward spam through them like there's no tomorrow.
Whem a spam is send through an open proxy, the proxy, not the originator's IP is shown. This is different than using an open relay to send spam, which does leave a trail.
This is why providers to the unwashed masses of consumers who just want their pr0n and cheese should enforce some kind of interception of outgoing traffic destined for 25/tcp, at least to track stats, since there are very easy thresholds to set to raise flags (messages per minute for example) and have staffers check them out.
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
That's why most Internet users call them "Spamcast" and don't accept any email from their IPs. But it's good to see that Spamcast *has* an anti-abuse policy, it just doesn't get enforced to combat spam originating from their netblocks.
Maybe some mass-downloads of pr0n, w4r3z and m0v|3z through open proxies would finally make Spamcast shut them down. A year ago mass-downloads of premium-rate dialers (frequently spamvertised by German spam gangs) through open proxies within Latin American netblocks (200/7) helped to have most of them closed.
unlimited ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-lm-td)
adj.
1. Having no restrictions or controls: an unlimited travel ticket.
2. Having or seeming to have no boundaries; infinite: an unlimited horizon.
3. Without qualification or exception; absolute: unlimited self-confidence.
Just forward them that. They can take their email and shove it up their ass.
Only if they charge you extra while the contract is still in effect. If they terminate it and offer you a new one based on your download usage, that's not fraud.
i have to say i am 100% happy with earthlinkDSL (haveing also had DirecTV(RIP) and Verizon DSL)..... offhand the only cap i remember reading on their site was on newsgroups. if you download more than a certain amount of stuff from newsgroups in a week or month they switch you to a slower download rate for a month or something. i don't remember the details and am not finding it right now on their site, but when i was trying to figure out what that meant it seemed to me that it would require a MASSIVE download campaign from usenet. something along the lines of a lot of warez and/or movies i guess. i kind of remember thinking there would be no way to hit the cap downloading text posts or even still pictures at any normal resolutions.
anyway, it was a huge limit and seemed to be only for the news servers, but it does exist. i guess it was nice they let you know if advance... assuming you bother to read the user agreements.
According to my ISP (Cox), my account is unlimited also. But when I went and looked at the fine print it said that by unlimited they really mean 'always connected' and that they do, in fact, have bandwidth limitations. The limits, were not in the same reading though. I eventually managed to find the limitations on their website cox.net but only after 5 or 10 minutes of digging for it. If I remember correctly the download limit was 7 gigs a day, but no more then 30 gigs a month, and upload was 2 gigs a day, but no more than 7 gigs a month. Although these may be wrong since I can't totally remember, and when I went to look it up, I was, of course, not able to find it.
Buckethead
is it really possible to abuse a 56k connection?
AT&T WorldNet thought so. A couple months before I left them when Comcast finally rolled out cable internet in my area (circa '97-'98), they slapped a monthly limit on their service because of "heavy usage" by a fair number of people. It was so long ago, I don't really remember the details, but I do know that I went over their limit both of those months and was subject to some hefty additional charges.
If I had not already been planning to leave WorldNet, I sure as hell would have because of that.
And if I hadn't left Comcast two years ago for the greener pastures of unrestricted DSL, I would be shopping for a new ISP now as well.
~Philly
Cox cable does. Look here.
Comcast is, however, full of shit. They claim that they only send people abuse letters when someone in their neighborhood complains. First of all, each DOCSIS cable modem gets its own set of frequencies to download on. Your downstream bandwidth is not shared. Let me say that again; downstream bandwidth is not shared. So downloading cannot degrade anyone's performance unless they are oversubscribing. Upstream bandwidth is shared, there is only a total of 11Mbps upstream for everyone on your segment. However, I know from experience (working in a DOCSIS Cable Modem QA/Dev lab for Cisco in Santa Cruz) that there are line cards which increase the number of upstream channels. For example, Cisco's MC16 line card has one downstream interface (which goes into an up converter to be converted into the proper frequencies) and six upstream; the frequencies for upstream can be split off in six groups and fed into those six interfaces.
I have never had a time when I could not pull down a solid 1.8Mbps (my current cap) over my link. If somehow my downloading was degrading service for others, then my performance would suffer as well. This is not happening, and has never happened. Therefore, I conclude that someone called in with a problem that Comcast either couldn't figure out how to resolve, or doesn't want to pay to resolve (bad coax between the user and the little green box on the corner, say) and Comcast just used it as more ammunition for their witch hunt against those who use the most bandwidth. The truth, I suspect, is that they simply don't want to pay for that bandwidth. I respect that, but I don't like being lied to, which is clearly what's going on here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"downstream bandwidth is not shared"
.bomb.
Well, actually, it IS shared. If you think of it in terms of the total available spectrum of the coax distribution system. There are only so many channels that fit within the confines of the frequency response of the cable. So, cable is indeed finite, and it would not surprise me if they oversold their cables... especially since they have Digital Cable and On-Demand on top of it all...
I was working on a DOCSIS to MMDS transciever at one place, and I know that at that time, the total bandwidth was not that much, something like 40MHz, but you would probably know that better than I since it has been about 3 years since the company I was working for folded in the
40MHz ain't a lot to share between a thousand people on a cable... The numbers 21-62MHz are stuck in my mind for some reason...
Apparently with the right legal mumbo-jumbo, you can convince a court that "unlimited" doesn't necessarily mean "without limit"... Or at least that's what their legal dept. seems to think.
False advertising does indeed under the Statute of Frauds.
The elements of fraudulent misrepresentation are as follows:
> 1. a false representation is made;
Clearly "unlimited" does not mean "limited". In any dictionary, in any language, anywere in the this, or their fictional universe.
> 2. which is material to the transaction;
Others have said it, "because it sells more accounts than those that aren't."
> 3. which is made with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard as to whether it was true or false;
Obvious, Comcast is both publishing claims of "unlimited" at the same time they are paying people to analyse and cap usage.
> 4. with the intention by the person making the representation that the recipient will be induced to act or refrain from acting;
Again, obvious. If the word had no power, they wouldn't use it.
> 5. which representation is justifiably relied upon by the recipient; and
See 2.
> 6. which reliance proximately causes the recipient to suffer damages.
Getting your account closed causes on to suffer damages. You lose tha ability to post for work, you must notify any number of user of new e-mail addresses, etc. You also lose the ability to participate in potentially lucrative funds transfer deals with Nigerian nationals.
FRAUD. Open and Shut.
1TB/month would be about 3Mbps for the entire month (in other words fully saturated). That seems unlikely, but I suppose if someone was sufficiently determined it could happen.
On the other hand, at 100GB per month, they're only using 10% of their capacity, but apparently that's the threshold of 'abuse'.
Of course, the real problem is that they give their customers no way to know what they've actually used, and won't tell them what constitutes 'abuse'. I don't think many would guess that a mere 10% utilization would constitute abuse.
there was a search engine on an external site (can't think of it) that stored all +4 and +5 posts in a searchable index for the trolls to get modded up on.
The fact that they are lying is really not a relevant point. Consumers will flock to the guy that says "unlimited" in his advertisements regardless if it's the truth or not.
/month* /month* /month*
I'm not sure I understand. You're saying that there is nothing wrong with lying, because it brings in customers?
A letter I received from a semi-local ISP:
> Dear user,
>
> Our usage reports show that your Internet usage has exceeded the number
> of hours your account is allowed (including any additional hours you
> have purchased) in the last 30 days. As per our policy (
> http://www.semo.net/about/rules.asp ), above 300 hours of usage (an
> average of 10 hours per day) in a 30-day period is considered a Power
> User. This message is being sent as a courtesy to help you understand
> some of the options for your account. Please remember, that no
> additional charges will appear on your bill unless you choose to do so.
>
> You can check your online usage at https://billing.semo.net
>
> Within the last 30 days, if your usage exceeds 300 hours (or the
> additional hours you have purchased; see below), your connection (or
> session time) will be limited to 15 minutes. After 15 minutes of being
> online, you will be automatically disconnected but free to re-connect
> immediately. If you would like to lower your usage and avoid being
> disconnected, please contact us at 877.686.9114 (toll-free). We will
> then monitor your account and once your usage drops below the 300 hour
> mark for a 30 day period, your session time will be reset to the normal
> 8 hour connection limit.
>
> If you need to use more than 300 hours, you may upgrade your account by
> adding more connection time in 100 hour increments:
>
> up to 400 hrs total: $9.95
> up to 500 hrs total: $19.95
> up to 600 hrs total: $29.95
>
> * the above prices are in addition to your
> normal monthly access fees.
>
> or
> Dedicated account (always on and static IP address): $74.95
>
> If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy or believe this
> email is sent in error, feel free to contact us at 686.9114 (locally) or
> 877.686.9114 (toll-free).
>
>
> FAQ
> Q: Have you rewritten your rules & regulations?
> A: Although the 300 hours of usage has been a stated policy for
> reasonable use of the dialup service of our company for all unmetered
> accounts since 1995, it has now become more necessary to implement the
> policy. We have chosen to be more specific in our rules and regulations
> section on "No Camping Allowed." First we deleted the phrase "for
> several months in a row" and have changed that to "over 30 days." And
> then we also defined "reasonable level" of use.
>
> Q: How come you are changing your policy all of a sudden?
> A: We actually aren't changing our policy; the 300 hours of usage has
> been a stated policy for reasonable use of the dialup service of our
> company for all unmetered accounts since 1995. We have chosen to be more
> specific and implement the policy we have in place. We have noticed over
> the past two years, as broadband Internet access has become more
> available and popular, more people are staying online with their dialup
> service even though they are not actively using the service keeping our
> resources tied up for large amounts of time.
>
> It really is basic math, we pay telephone companies an average of $ 30
> per phone line. That phone line can't be shared, if you are logged on
> then that phone line is tied up. So we need 2.25 users to be able to use
> each phone line in a given month JUST to pay for the
All internet accounts are limited:
Dial UP 28K up 53.6K down 295Meg/day up 564meg/day down
DSL 128K up 384K down 1.3Gig/day up 4Gig/day down
Cable 256K up 3M down 2.7Gig/day up 31gig/day down
So using the Cox numbers (Cox is who I have and I want to compliment them on giving out honest numbers), this is:
Upload: 67 hours of max uploads/month or 9% duty cycle
Download: 39 hours of max downloads/month or 5% duty cycle
So they are working against about a 5 to 10% duty cycle. If you are using the service for "interactive" usage and not "automated" usage, then the limits are "way out there". If you want to run bittorent or kazaa, then you are hosed, but these are not "interactive" usage.
For non-server usage this is a lot. Lets say you listen to internet radio at 48K/sec. Even at 24 hours/day, this is only 14Gig or less than 50% of the usage limit.
here it is. I say almost because I've removed any personal information pertaining to me. But yeah.
Notice of Acceptable Use Policy Violation
Personal and Confidential
Abuse Ticket Number: NA000000000000000000000000
Incident Type: Network, Bandwidth, Data Storage, and Other Limitations
Comcast High-Speed Internet Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) Violation - Bandwidth Usage Limitations
LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME
ADDRESS
ADDRESS PART 2
Dear LASTNAME,
As a subscriber to Comcast High-Speed Internet service, you have agreed to use the service according to Comcast's Subscriber Agreement (http://www.comcast.net/terms/subscriber.jsp), Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) (http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp), and other terms of service and policies. According to our aggregate bandwidth usage records, during your Comcast High-Speed Internet account exceeded Comcast's bandwidth usage limitations. The activity associated with your account was more than 100 times the national median. This level of usage activity violates Comcast's AUP. Comcast values the business of all of our customers, and this policy was created and is enforced so that Comcast may continue providing a superior high-speed Internet experience for all of our customers and to maintain the integrity of our network.
If your account continues to exceed our bandwidth usage limitations for your service, this activity could result in the suspension and ultimately termination of your Comcast High-Speed Internet account.
Excessive bandwidth usage may be the result of many different activities. Activities that could contribute to exceeding bandwidth limitations may include, but are not limited to:
* commercial or business applications,
* peer-to-peer networking,
* newsgroup downloading,
* file sharing,
* streaming music/videos and
* voice and/or video services
If you are unaware of any activities such as those listed above on your Comcast account, we suggest that you speak with any other person who may have had access to your Comcast High-Speed Internet service. As the service account holder, you are responsible for any misuse of the service or violation of the AUP even if a friend, family member, or guest committed the misuse or violation by accessing your Comcast High-Speed Internet service.
To avoid future violations of the AUP for exceeding bandwidth limitations, we recommend that you immediately review and change your current Internet usage activities. Additionally, you may also want to update your anti-virus program or obtain one if you don't already have anti-virus software. Comcast also recommends that you install a firewall if you don't already have one to help control unauthorized access to, and use of, your service.
We hope that you take note of our recommendations and make Internet usage adjustments so that we may continue to provide you the very best high-speed Internet service available.
If you have any questions about this Notice, or would like to speak with a representative about subscribing to a Comcast commercial Internet service to support business use of the Internet, we encourage you to contact us at 877-557-5817.
Sincerely,
The Comcast IP Network Abuse and Fraud Management Team
I've done some work for Comcast, and have seen first hand how the company operates. It's absolutely mind blowing that they manage to make money at all, considering the pack of morons that run the the place, at least at the IT level.
For example, until a ~18 months ago, their entire network was publically exposed. I mean, their ENTIRE CORPORATE NETWORK. Servers, desktops, printers, etc., everything, on the internet, publically accessable. When I suggested that this was bad, I was given a look like just pissed on someone's face.
They brought in Accenture to do their broadband network, after the AtHome collapse (amusing in itself) which may account for it's not being entirely fucked up.
Oh, a little tip to get reductions in the price of your cable bill: call and complain. Just call, bitch at someone, and they'll usually give you a $25 credit to placate you. I personally know someone who does this EVERY MONTH. They can't track who's called, or when, or how many times they've given credits to people (software problems). That and, if you just get cable internet, you get free cable TV to boot - they can't block the TV and still provide the broadband.
I'm a (small) stockholder in this company (had ATT stock before the merger), but I encourage people to take as much money from these schmucks as you can. They deserve it, and maybe it'll prompt the massive firings of staff they need to fix the company.
DSL is great... As long as you don't mind paying more for less. Seriously, does any DSL provider offer 3MBps max for $50 a month? And without PPoE or some crap like that?
:)
:)
yes. my ISP is starting a promo next week - up to 6mbps down, and up to 608kbps up, with 8 static IP's. all for only $45/month. the caveat is that you have to sign up for a 1 year contract (an SBC requirement anyway) and after the 1st year it goes up to $70/month. they are working on pulling strings so that you can renew at the $45/month rate for an other year commitment indefinitely
for another 4 days, i pay $70/month for 1.5mbps down and 384kbps up. (with the same ISP, and same 8 IPs) sounds like a good deal to me
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
Correct, unfortunately in this instance it ISN'T false advertising. I should know, I'm in the ad industry. This is merely them using creative wording which as others have explained before means "unlimited time online/access", not "unlimited bandwidth". Now, I agree this is misleading, legally, its ok. Now.....what I would like to see is them make it more clear as to what the unlimited means......but then again I'd also like to see the RIAA offer non-DRMed music at an affordable price.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I will agree that, no, they have not stated that they have maximums. However, they are stating very clearly that you are not guaranteed, well, anything, and your are EXPLICITLY not guaranteed any amount of speed or consistent service.
I don't think you really understand what Comcast is telling these people.
It's not that someone is overusing the service, so Comcast is limiting them, and then they're complaining "But, wait, it's unlimited, waaaaa!" It's that they're overusing the service, and Comcast tells them to stop, so they say "Ok, what does that mean?" and no answer. "How much bandwidth am I using?" No way to find out. "How much bandwidth is acceptable?" No one will say. When Comcast says these users are using about 100 times the average bandwidth, the question is "Ok, so what's the average?" and they won't reveal it. The issue is not that people are demanding a particular level of service that Comcast says is unreasonble, the issue is that Comcast has established a reasonable level of service and won't share that information with the folks that are exceeding it. They are not making it *possible* to deliberately stay within the limits... they only want the customers who will do it by accident, which is disingenuous at best.
Also, the folks who are saying "It's not possible to use that much bandwidth unless you're doing X Y and Z that you're not supposed to" are highly unimaginative. My best friend and her husband are having their first child in April, and his family are in England. If they get a digital video camera, how much data do you think they'll be sending across the Atlantic? When you get into high-quality images and full-motion video, you jump into a different ballpark. Just one 8x10 TIFF image at print-resolution is 16 MB. What if you want to send or receive a whole roll of them? You've burned 400 MB right there. People can send MP3s that are perfectly legal... sharing their own music (that they wrote & performed) with friends and family. You combine a couple or three people with these unusual bandwidth-sucking hobbies or habits into one household, and you *can* exceed the limits while in line with the law. Then on top of that, Comcast won't tell you what the limit is, or how much you've exceeded it by. It makes compliance a bit difficult.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Here in the land of Oz, it's now been like this for a while. Both ISPs who offer cable have caps on their service, and they do tell you what that cap is.
You want more capacity, you buy more.
Cable services, however, are unlimited speed. This is good - my Optus cable would have to be (by my reckoning) somewhere between 7 and 10 megabits per second.
If you go over your cap (mine is 12GB) some companies will charge you per meg, some will throttle your speed back...
ADSL is a different kettle of fish, and you can get services that are advertised as unlimited downloads - and it is. Other services offer other advantages, like static IP address, or let you do what you want and run servers, but cap your data downloads.
US companies are having a good look at what's happened here in Australia, and are starting to follow suit... It's now been two or three years since the major ISPs have done this, and they seem to be quite happy with their subscriber level - and let's face it, if you want a T1 to use at 100% utilisation, damn well go out and buy one, rather than abuse a RESIDENTIAL service.
- k
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne