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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."
if( $provider_caps_unlimited_service )
{
while( $providers_without_caps.length > 1 )
{
switch_providers($providers_without_caps[0]);
}
}
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?
I run a small ISP, and I can put an end to all this speculation regarding the use of the word "unlimited" -- assuming anybody actually cares.
The reason ISP's use the word "unlimited" in their advertisements is because it sells more accounts than if they don't.
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. Consumers don't think that hard about the issue.
It should be obvious that you can't provide a dedicated "unlimited" 56K connection profitably at the $10-$15/mo market rate, but you will sell a lot more accounts if you say "unlimited".
This is also true in the web hosting business. I see advertisements for "Unlimited Bandwitdh" web hosting all the time. But we all know that this is neither physically possible nor economically possible. Still people sign up for these lies.
Guys like me that run businesses that want to be honest about things are punished for our truthfullness. Consumers demand to be lied to. So ISP's are forced to choose between significantly lower sales and being dishonest.
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't ISPs that try to be honest in their offerings. I could give you a list of honest ones that don't use the word unlimited unless they mean it. All I'm saying is that dialup consumers do not typicaly choose these honest guys when they see an "unlimited" offer for the same price.
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes (1637)
100 gigabytes a month? I get that from just reloading the /. homepage regularly, dammit!
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
When they come to you and say "you have been abusing your 'unlimited' download quota"? Do you ask them to define what 'unlimited' means? Or do you simply pack up and get another ISP?
I have that issue with my (dialup) isp, that the isp itself has an unlimited policy, but they forwarded me a nastygram that *they* recieved from their upstream provider during a month where I was downloading iso's heavily.
So, having other things higher on my to-do list, I let it go; but I'd like slashdots' opinion on how you handle it when "unlimited" means "unlimited up to a certain point"?
They should do something about all those spammers using their service. Seems like about 20% of the spams I run through SpamCop resolve back to Comcast as the email source.
We accept there is no service-level agreement, we accept that we're lower on the food-chain than companies who pay a lot more for their bandwidth, but when a company makes a secret, arbitrary decision to cap you, it gets a bit hard to accept.
If it were advertised that you get 512/128, xx GB/month, with a charge of $Y for every 10GB over that, everyone would know where they were. This unfortunately will not happen while there is no regulation of how companies advertise their service. If company A says the above, and company B *does* the same, but doesn't say they do, then B will get more customers - all of whom will be pissed off when B caps them...
Regulation is the way to go.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
We have talked about this numerous times on Slashdot before (at least twice). I have posted that what really sucks about it is:
a) they took over from AT&T, raised prices, forced you to get CATV or pay even higher rates (42.95/45.95 with CATV or 60.95 or 63.95 without)
b) have little to no competition in the broadband market, especially at the speeds they offer (now 3mbs in most, if not all, areas)
c) now are able to control their userbase with "invisible" DOWNLOAD caps (not speed caps as some people are confused with) based on a "local average" whatever that is...
So, they get a bunch of customers becomming one of the largest ISPs and probably *the* largest broadband ISP. They don't like the fact that some users are actually USING their bandwith so they decide to make up near-random numbers so that they can cut you off when they want... Best of all, they can cut you off at any time because you don't have a "contract" with them that you can retaliate against. They can disconnect your service at any time for any reason leaving you with little options for broadband (nevermind reasonably priced connections).
Just becuase they invested in them doesn't mean they are a MS company. Lots of tech companies invest in each other. MS has invested in Xerox in the past, are they now a MS company? You can point the tinfoil hat away now, thanks.
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.
They used to be AT&T until mid 2003. I've never had any issues with them, and I've been downloading lots of files, all of the time.
I work from home, and download large (several gigs apiece) drawings and presentations on a daily basis. One of my jobs is to proof them, and then send them on to the appropriate folks. So I would upload the same amount of data, just about.
I'm not sure how I would know that Comcast has issues with me, other than getting a letter. My service is extremely reliable, and I've never had a download or upload fail...
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Nothing to do with obscure ISP bandwidth usage, but HOW is Joe Bloggs winders user know what their bandwidth usage is? In all honesty, 90% of people haven't a clue what that means - that's why they still execute attachments in outlook without a second thought. Nick
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.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
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?
They claimed unlimited internet, now they claim that it was the always-on connection, not the number of bits. OK, now is that really so hard for them to state in the first place? They should be clear about the number of bits per day / week / month they'll haul on an account too and give users tools to keep track of that.
The article says that some of the abusers who are getting these warnings/disconnections are moving upwards of 1 terrabyte of data/month. Thats more than "downloading a lot" and it seems to me that if someone is moving that much data they should probably look into something other than basic broadband service. 1 terrabyte/mo is about 414 kilobyte/sec which is a pretty insane rate to be downloading stuff. Clearly these guys are running servers and whatnot which is not what the residential accounts are for - I have zero sympathy for someone who uses more than 400k/sec of data and then gets disconected from a residential account.
they are based on a local average... So if you live in a college-kid infested town you are likely to be in an area w/a higher average. If you live in an area of middle-aged to older-aged individuals who use the service for fast checks to yahoo and comcast.net then the average will be much lower.
The fact that they can't a) tell you how much you have downloaded, b) refuse to tell you what their # is, and c) don't think that they need to tell you is what makes it unfair.
If you are going to shut people off you need to give them a tool that tracks it, allow them to call up and ask a CSR for the current bandwith usage, and also know what the cap is.
I got Comcast cable and specifically asked the cable guy hooking it up what the bandwidth limit for each month was (being educated from a previous slashdot article :) He kinda blew it off with some answer to a question I didn't ask. I asked him a little later after he hooked it up and he told me that the only people that have ever given him a straight answer on that were the people at Avaya.
Sooooo, I'm not sure if that applies nation-wide or if that's just local -- but either way -- find out who ACTUALLY provides the bandwidth to Comcast and then ask THEM what the limit is...
Hope this helps.
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.
C'mon, 60 bucks for an internet-only subscription?! You're out of your mind.
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
forced you to get CATV or pay even higher rates (42.95/45.95 with CATV or 60.95 or 63.95 without)
I really don't see how this gets passed antitrust laws. I guess since they are a natural monopoly, that somehow makes them exampt??
Even as a Libertarian, I think local governments should own infrastructure and rent it out on a non-descriminatory basis. That way there can be a real free market for services, which is a very Libertarian thing.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
"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.
Snip! Emphasis mine. Sounds like Comcasts legal team broke into the nitrous oxide again.
Quack, quack.
A lot of dialup providers have always sold 'unlimited' dialup with the footnote that unlimited equates to a maximum of 12 hours a day and maximum connection time of 2-4 hours in a session.
I suggest charging a minimum fee for the connection itself and start charging more for the service used.
The phone companies (as much as we love/hate them) have a pretty good system worked out for $20/mo you get a local phone line that includes emergency access and whatnot.
ISP's could probably swing a connection for $20/mo with (oh I don't know) 50-75 gb of transfer. Best to make it symetrical traffic too. Then, when someones goes over it, charge them per gb of traffic.
This addresses a few problems:
* People complaining highspeed is too expensive
* ISP's taking a hit because not many people sign up
* People/ISP's happy with a balance of traffic vs billing
- Dan
I, on the other hand, have had horrible experiences with them. Consistently low power levels for my modem, frequent disconnections, horrible service. Despite never setting up an appt with me, the serviceman unexpectedly called me at work to let him into my complex. By the time I got home he was gone. Man I was pissed. Then for a billing problem, they said some supervisor would call me back instead of putting me on hold. Never happened. I've never had a complaint in any of my dsl experiences. Comcast has _always_ been a pain in the a@@.
from NYC to LA for $.37.
People who send first class mail from NYC to LA are not "abusing the system."
The system takes such matters into account when it sets the postage price.
The phone company acts in similar ways when it sets its price for unlimited local calling. Some people talk more, some never seem to stop talking.
One can send certain kinds of mail at lower than first class rates if one wishes. Just as one can obtain limited calling at additional fees per call. You may assess your own usage and determine which might be the better deal for you, thus those whose usage is expected to be high naturally pay a premium for the premium service and such service can be expected to attract such users.
The populace understands this system and when they see "unlimited" assume this is the sort of averaged pricing structure they are dealing with, and they have every right to do so.
The ISPs know full well what the public thinks they are getting when they advertise their service as "unlimited," thus, if that is not actually what they intend to deliver they are, in the technical language that applies to such legal matters, "Lying Bastards" and should be treated as such.
KFG
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.
When I play online games, the bandwidth is just plain insane. I did an estimate once with some network monitoring tool and it came to some 1 to 3 gigs worth of transfer over a 12 hr period.
If comcast said I can't play games, I am better off discontinuing the service. Why else would I need that much bandwidth.
Comcast has a HUGE problem right now with hundreds (if not more) of virus-compromised systems, run by the clue-deprived who have not the slightest inkling about the most basic Internet security.
These machines have long since been compromised, and turned into spammer 'zombies.' The problem has gotten bad enough that I've blocked access to our mail systems from ANY system with a domain name ending in 'client.comcast.net,' not to mention huge swaths of Comcast-controlled IP space.
If this 'crackdown' that Comcast is doing helps to get rid of a bunch of these spammer 'zombies,' great! It'll be that much less to worry about.
Granted, if Comcast's so-called "Abuse Desk" even gave a crap about the massive amounts of bit pollution their network is pouring out, they wouldn't have any problems with "abusers" to begin with.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Well, my speed isn't 3MBs - I'm up against the laws of physics, being within 50 feet of the farthest you can be from the CO and still get DSL... But I pay a lot less than $50.00 per month, and I have a static IP 768/384K with downtime less than 1 hour per year.
On my DSL line, No one gives a hang what I run. I have my own DNS, mail and web (hosting 3 domains) servers, and a bunch of other stuff.
I tried a cable modem recently - Cablevision. (technically Lightpath - I paid extra for "business class service"). Static IP: not available, dynamic only. Inbound Port 80: blocked. The IP address was registered somwehere - damned if I could figure out where - as a dynamic IP, so half the internet was blocking mail from my servers. Reliability: Down around 2 hours a week. Price: 3 times what the DSL line costs.
Oh yeah, sell me another cable modem... when hell freezes over. DSL is the way to do it.
That's $27 a month plus another $20-$25 mandatory for an ISP in my area, which places it more than cable.
Also, when they sold out to MSN they took away SMTP servers for email and forced everybody to webmail.
I'm grateful for comcast. This article is describing a bandwidth hog pure and simple. My heart does not bleed for him. Excessive bandwidth is not a "right", it really does amount to "abuse".
I actually see this keeping prices down for everybody, because if everybody sucked a terabyte prices would need to go through the roof just to pay for the extra equipment/bandwidth. And it really does _ruin it_ for everybody in the neighborhood.
This guy needs to get a dedicated T1 and get over it.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
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.
...in Rochester, MI; it's a suburb of Detroit.
For years, Comcast was the only cable company around. Their rates were pretty high, but I never thought anything of it until I moved away to Kalamazoo for college and realized I could get 1.54/786 internet AND digital cable with all the preium statiosn for only $10/month more than my parents had paid for Comcast's basic cable alone, back home.
Now, I'm living at home in Rochester again. I initially had my broadband through Speakeasy, but had a terrible problem dealing with Speakeasy, Covad, and SBC, which resulted in Speakeasy/Covad repeatedly trying to charge me $300 to reconnect my DSL circuit. Speakeasy was almost $100/month plus the cost of a phone line through SBC. It wasn't exactly what you'd call competetive, even though the service and support were top notch.
So, I decided to switch to cable internet; Wide Open West and Charter have both recently moved into town. However, there's some stipulation in my contract with my landlord that states that I can only get Comcast cable. So, I'm stuck with it.
My experiences so far have been mediocre. I don't exactly leach DVD rips all day, but it's not unusual for me to pull down a gig or two in a day. I've never been heckled by Comcast about it, either. And, also, the price is a bit more competetive, now. It's $70/month for 3mbps cable (with wretchedly slow upstream) and digital cable plus, which is essentially everything but HBO and Skinemax and the like.
That being said, my cable routinely goes out... usually at least once a week, and not during their scheduled maintainance times. I have mediocre ping times in most games, and, like I said, the upstream is terrible.
Overall, it's not a terrible service, though. Thankfully I've never had to deal with the customer service, though; I hear it's some of the worst around.
In order to do this, the customer would have to max out a 3Mb/s connection, 24/7, for the entire month. Since the cable companies are only now 'doubling their top download speeds to 3 megabits, how is this possible?
Now my connection is ADSL, 512/256. I run BitTorrent downloads 24/7 on an old headless box. Theoretically, I could pull down 165GB/mo. I know I don't because i haven't started buying shares in Maxtor, Hitachi or Western Digital yet.
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
I just looked at the Comcast site, and no where do I even see the word "unlimited". I do however see "always connected" type phrases. Where does Comcast promise unlimited downloads (Not to be confused with "unlimited connect time")?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I would have modded you insightful if I didn't want to respond so badly.
The problem that ISPs are now dealing with is that their calculations which made the "unlimited" label economically feasible in the late 90's are now way off. P2P has exploded; so has the net's general usefulness and the net-savviness of the average user; so has Internet publishing of every kind. That "unlimited" word started appearing before google became a verb, before blogging became popular, before people needed the term "file sharing".
The middle of the bandwidth bellcurve has moved up dramatically in those few years, and the company has to take into account the new median bandwidth usage, but they haven't. Ethical ways to do this would be:
1) Put pressure on upstream bandwidth infrastructure to lower their prices
2) Raise prices to consumers taking into account the new usage rates
3) Stop advertising unlimited service and charge the same rates
They of course chose (4), continue to do business the way we always have, and bill unsuspecting customers.
They'll get their comeuppance for this.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
i have comcast cable internet. (previously AT&T broadband). the only thing that changed from at&t was they discontinued unlimited usenet transfers, and outsourced to giganews. on my comcast connection, i transfer all sorts of files, both uploading and downloading. many many gigabytes per month. running web, ftp, email, kdx, and other servers. downloading all sorts of audio and video, linux and other ISOs. maybe 25-50 GB total up and down? they've never complained to me about it...
in the article, it says they wouldnt tell this person how much they had downloadloaded, and how much was acceptable. so, based on that, how can they expect him to comply?
... if it's available in your area. I have two DSL providers, DCAnet and, of course, Speakeasy. I love them both - they're always great to work with and are very responsive to my needs. I have two lines, a Covad and a Verizon, through DCA and one Covad line through Speakeasy. I've never once had a problem with either, and I've had these lines for a combined total of 5 line-years.
I routinely exceed what comcast calls a "reasonable" limit (30GB/month down and 7.5GB/month up, wasn't it?). Not only do I exceed that, I blow it away - never heard a peep out of either of them...
I have a theory about why Comcast is trying to choke off their Internet users. They recently had to double the downrate to compete with DSL, thinking that offering twice the downstream would make the extra expense worth it... However, they're also trying to ramp up their On-Demand movie service, which is far more profitable to them. So, it makes sense to try to reserve as much of their shared bandwidth as possible for movies rather than for Internet users. I would not be surprised in the least if they lowered those caps at some point, as there is a finite amount of information a single shared cable can carry...
Just a thought..
They're not doing false advertising, they're just not correcting misconceptions about it.
Originally, many internet services operated on a business model of overselling their internet service. Frequently, your local cable company advertises 250kps bandwidth for each of its customers. But they never originally expected a large percentage (if anyone at all) to saturate their entire allocation 90% to 100% of the time, which is becoming a growing trend among service users.
Yup they sure did. You paid for it in the speed shown on your downloads... So why in the world would they up their download caps to DOUBLE what they had when they started enforcing the "local average limits"?
This is bullshit on Comcast's part, plain and simple. If they were having such a problem w/bandwith being a "hot commodity" they wouldn't have nearly doubled our speed caps from 1800/256 to 3000/256. I went from 220kB/s to 390kB/s.
The article should point out that not all cable providers are as bad as Comcast.
Cablevision's Optimum Online service, which I use in NJ, is outstanding. They do NOT cap their service (8Mb down, 1Mb up). While I consider myself to be a heavy user, I have NEVER had a problem with my usage (unchanged over the last 4 years).
One way that cable providers can make customers happy, and reduce their costs, is to make newsgroups available (and educate their customers about them). This is an alternative, safer way for customers to get the media files they would otherwise go to P2P applications for. Since the news server is "on net" the ISP does not have to pay anyone else for the bandwidth.
Comcast's actions aren't just customer hostile, they show a lack of business acumen and technical skill. If I were in their area, I'd opt for any other provider (even multiple dialip lines if it came to that).
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
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.'"
Guys like me that run businesses that want to be honest about things are punished for our truthfullness. Consumers demand to be lied to. So ISP's are forced to choose between significantly lower sales and being dishonest.
Actually, I think the problem here really is that you are not BRUTUALLY honest. If you are serious about wanting to run an honest business, why don't you go all out? In your advertisements you should point out the blatant lies of your competitors. Point out that there is no such thing as 'unlimited' internet access right in your ads! Then go further and suggest that if your competitors don't respect the intelligence of the average joe before they get the money, how could you possibly trust them to respect the customer AFTER they already have the money?
You're in an uncomfortable position right now: you're in the half-way point. In tennis it is called "no man's land" -- the area between the baseline and the net. You haven't committed to one course of action or another and end up getting stranded in a position worse than either option. You need to decide whether you are going to be brutally honest or a deceiver like everyone else. Don't try to play a happy medium. You're not going to be very happy if you do that for very long.
Just make damn sure that everything you say in your ads is the truth otherwise their lawyers are going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. Be truthful and what are they going to do: sue you for telling the truth? If they take you to court you can countersue and make some dough.
GMD
watch this
well that wasn't so funny as the guy getting a NOTICE FOR USING TOO MUCH BANDWITH WITH A FRIGGIN MODEM.
If that isn't hilarious I don't know what is..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- if you're going to limit my bitrate usage, fine, just tell me what the limit is and give me way of monitoring my usage.
Apart from meeting this requirement, as far as I'm concerned, if they're selling me 3.5Mb/s downstream bandwidth, then I have every right to use every last bit of it 24/7/365, if I want to. Granted, I don't, because I don't need or want to. But, "unlimited" aside, if you sell me a service with certain specifications, I expect you to meet those specifications and not penalize me for using your service up to the limits.
Comcast (who happens to be my ISP as well), is being sleazy and overly secretive in this matter. They need to fess up to the fact that their networks are oversubscribed and underprovisioned and that, while you and your neighbors can probably get XMb/s burst rates, they can't really sell each of you that much sustained bitrate.
Frankly, I wish they'd scrap some of the crappy cable channels and use the excess bandwidth for better internet service.
Or, they could surcharge you for net transfers over a certain threshold -- as long as they specify the threshold and give you an accurate way to monitor your usage.
Um, 2 dvds from alt.binaries.dvdr per day, x 30 days is about 300 GB/month. Good thing I'm not with Cox!
I've been known to download video files from time to time but 2 DVDs per day is way, way too much. Unless you are also watching 2 of those DVDs each day, you must be building up one hell of a stockpile to films to watch.
30 GB/month is pretty generous for a home account. Anything more than that and you really should be on a business account.
2 DVDs a day is abuse. Did you even stop to think about what downloading like that must do for the other poor saps who have to share a local connection with you? I, for one, am glad that Cox puts limits on how much people download. I don't want my cable connection to turn to shit just because some jackass wants to download 2 DVDs a day!
GMD
watch this
Depends on what you mean by more for less. For $26.95 I can get 1.5Mbps down / 256Kpbs up from SBC DSL. And with 3Mbps cable going for $45-$50 while only offering 256-384Kbps UP, the $20-$25 saving is nice if you don't need a constand 3Mbps most people won't see in normal usage.
This article is describing a bandwidth hog pure and simple. My heart does not bleed for him. Excessive bandwidth is not a "right", it really does amount to "abuse".
I would agree, and I would also agree that it's the ISP's right to throttle bandwidth. However, it's absolutely imperative that the ISP be very upfront about this. They need to stop going around advertising "unlimited usage" when in fact that's not what they're offering. They need to advertise that there are caps, and what those caps are. They also should provide their users with a means to see what their usage for the month is.
ISPs have the right to regulate the use of their own equipment, but advertising unlimited usage when it's not is fraudulent.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
"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...
Uhm okay, I don't know who the fuck thinks it's funny to plaigiarize my writing, but I am the original author of this essay. I wrote it on January 8th of this year, the original text can be found here.
;)
Hmm. I don't know whether or not to say "mod parent down!" After all, it got a freakin' +5. In a way, now I almost wish I thought of copy/pasting my rant to Slashdot first. A pity. Could have done wonders for my karma
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
At a rough guess, it probably costs around $1000-$5000 per km to run cable/fiberoptic. Connecting from the pole to the house probably costs $100, most of which is covered by the install fee.
In short, there's a large capital outlay that has to be recouped over the next X years. In a highly-regulated market, X might be as long as 10-20 years because the company can count on a set amount of revenue for that period with little/no competition. In a deregulated market, companies need a shorter payoff (2-3 years).
It ain't the electricity used.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
The reason for this is that, as the party drawing the contract, they can word it in the best possible way for themselves. That they did not, when they had the chance, is, as we used to say as kids, "tough nookies".
This is why you have your lawyer draw contracts that you propose.
You could've hired me.
is make the the alterations to the TOS to be clear on what the limits are, send the tos out to all customers, and give them a grace period of 60 days to terminate their contracts without penalty. That would be the right thing to do, not that they'll do it.
If they want to offer tiered level of services, they should introduce a second data class on their line, requiring different hardware and operating at a symmetrical speed, like 1.5Mb up / 1.5Mb down, or even 3u/3d, and unlimited xfers. They should be wary of overpricing such an offering, but who am I kidding, they overprice everything.
The only reason I'm with comcast is because they were offering $20/mo for 6 months, and they only reason I stay is the new 3Mb down. If they send me a letter and disconnect me, I'll just get DSL and wait for the class action suit that will inevitably follow all this.
I wonder if the problem is more with having enough nodes in a given area, and the cost of adding nodes, or if the real problem is with the amount of upstream bandwidth that they have to buy.
If the problem is not enough nodes, it's their problem. They are responsible for maintaining the network and providing adequate room for growth, and for current users.
If the problem lies in purchasing upstream bandwidth, it's still their problem, but they just exposed themselves to potentially %100 more swing in their needs by doubling their speed limits.
I think they failed to plan for this 3Mb change and are ill prepared to deal with it. If they have to scale back to deal with it then I guess that's what they have to do.
Doesn't saying "unlimited" when it's actually not smack of false advertising?
I could see the company's argument if, like, General Electric signed up and decided to use a single account for all their global operations (shut up, geeks--of which I am one--I know this doesn't make any sense), but it seems that there's a significant proportion (I consider it significant if the business had to develop a process for discouraging the accounts that exceed the "unlimit") of people hitting this arbitrary and secretly-determined-and-monitored cap.
I see advertisements all the time that say You too can be a millionaire using this program* (footnote: provided you started with $1M plus $1 more than the fees associated with this purchasing this program), Lose 10 pounds per day!* (footnote: with diet, exercise, liposuction, surgical removal of excess skin, and successful completion of Boston Marathon), and Learn to read 100 pages per minute!* (footnote: really big print, really tiny pages).
So I don't buy this marketing argument that they'd take a huge hit in subscriptions. I propose they say the following:
or how about:Saying it's unlimited when it simply isn't, and they have a business process they apply to customers on a regular basis proving this is so, is simply unnecessary and at the very least arguably wrong (and I think illegal, no?), so why do it?
sevAs usual, I had to step in and give the right answer on this topic, for once and for all.
--me
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Reminds me of what some senator said not so long ago with respect to the state of health care in the U.S. -- everyone (including the poorest of the poor) has access to health care in the same way that everyone has access to the new Cadillac sitting in a showroom.
If it's all about access, then I'm sure when I go out for the evening tommorrow I'll be accessing hundreds of available women.
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
This isn't the second time this has been covered, its about the tenth in the last two years.
.16 = $160/mo divide that by half - $80/mo cost for my outflow bandwidth
... the silence is deafening ...
I'm not going to repeat my explanation of IP bandwidth costs *AGAIN* - just go read my journal - it is one of the first posts.
The attitude on here just amazes me - I pay $85/mo for two public IPs, 256k of upstream that I can use like a wholesale pipe (ie 24x7 101% utilized) and I have 3 meg of downstream. If I were younger and more flexible I'd be turning backflips in celebration of this.
When you buy a T1 worth of IP in a the form of a T1 you spend $200+ just for the local loop and the bandwidth itself costs $800 from a quality carrier all the way down to $400 from a third tier. Lets break down my 'expensive' broadband connection.
Half the cost is inflow, half is outflow.
256k/1.544 = 1.6 - $1000 *
3meg/1.5meg = 2 - $1000 * 2 = $2,000/mo divide that by half - $1,000 mo cost for my inflow bandwidth.
Now, can anyone tell me how Cox Cable makes money selling me $1,160 worth of service for $85? Its simple - they have a whole lot of business class customers like me who use the network in a bursty fashion. The technical term here is aggregation.
The typical slashdot responder who coyly dodges specifying that he has a god given right to steal music and video owned (right or wrong) by someone else, and jumps into arguments about false advertising, facist ISPs, and the like.
I think given the horrible way all of you are being treated that the solution should be obvious - pool your funds, pick the most vocal opponent of these policies, and let him spend your hard earned money on building a 'proper' broadband ISP.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
I see advertisements for "Unlimited Bandwitdh" web hosting all the time. But we all know that this is neither physically possible nor economically possible. Still people sign up for these lies.
"That depends on what your definition of 'is' is." - Bill Clinton
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.
I know from personal experience that a shared internet connection can be a real pain in the butt. I live in a privately managed, off-campus college apartment complex with a few hundred other college students. A large percentage of the residents here use KaZaA on their computers. The network connection is quite fast (multiple T-1, according to the management company) but during most peak times, you're lucky if you can get enough bandwidth to do DNS lookups. The point is, you really do affect the people around you with what you do.
I can't fault the tech department for the management company - as far as I know, KaZaA is almost impossible to block at the router. If anyone knows differently, I'd love to know about it.
One more suggestion: if you find yourself in a similar situation (a clogged residential network), I've found that having a DNS server on my computer work as my primary DNS speeds up your web surfing.
Again, just be good neighbors and try to hold yourself back from hogging the entire residential pipe that you SHARE with your neighbors.
The actual argument (I am paraphrasing not advocating here... 8-) that was advanced to kill the "false advertising" claims was that the access was "unlimited with respect to where and what the user could access" not with respect to "how fast" because clearly the access could not be made available at an infinite rate. No matter what the equipment there is a limit with respect to speed and there is a natural assumtion that fairness of use could be set and enforced just like speed limits on a road (etc).
It is further argued (ibid) that full disclosure was provided since the claims were made in conjunction with statements related to being on the "real internet" as opposed to limited or local services (like Prodigy or Compuserve or the older AOL "mostly on my site" services).
Accordingly (ibid) the meaning was clear when the standard of understanding was set. Removing the word now is impractical and everybody "should understand" this context for unlimited because it was the only one that was ever used in this market.
Yes, I know, "bull" but business stole my internet and made it cheap TV... I foresee a return to much of the BBS culture in the comming years.
[ASIDE]
I mean consider it, how long until the Warz sites stop offering the "full image" of products and start offering an encrypted image fragment. That fragment would be 99.9% of the actual image but to get the last 0.1% you have to make the private BBS call over the more private and protected direct "voice" POTS. Without that last little chunk the image is just so much digital noise and to get the chunk the "content owners" would have to get off the internet and take tracable real-world actions in a much more well-defined legal scope.
Think of it as a "stolen product activation".
Or as a infrastructurally validatable automated authentication system.
Anyway, IMHO, as "the net" gets clogged with "Cable TV" the phone lines will make a comeback as a unifying agency.
[End ASIDE]
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Okay okay, I'll admit that it's true SOME users may be using too much bandwidth and that it may possibly be justified to limit their use. However, despite the persuasive arguments presented here by people who have had experience running ISP's, it's also important for us not to lose sight of the other side of the argument, namely, that by having the right to arbitrarily pick out certain users as "abusers", ISP's may themselves abuse their power in order to fatten up their wallets at the same time as reducing quality of service.
ISP's are targetting users who are significantly above the average. Of course, however, the average is made up of highs and lows. ISP's are now trying to cut away the highs. If they succeed, then the middle becomes the new high, just waiting for the next onslaught. From the perspective of money-grubbing, backwards-looking ISP's the problem is the power user who wants too much bandwidth. In the big picture, however, the REAL problem is the low bandwidth user, who refuses to use their fair share and encourages ISP's to pursue these regressive policies.
Just try to picture what would happen if everyone became so paranoid and timid that they drastically reduced their bandwidth usage: the AVERAGE goes down, and then people who were previously average end up above average. The ISP's wallet gets fattened by the cost reductions, but their appetite just goes up. The executives feel the need to continue their "growth" to satisfy the owners. The next round of victims gets targetted by the ISP. Revenue growth ends up being sought through the ultimately destructive strategy of a gradual reduction of "costs" which are in fact hardware investments, without which the next generation of bandwidth and applications could never arrive.
Therefore, if AT ALL possible, always try to use AT LEAST as much bandwidth as the average user, if not slightly more. They can't terminate 50% of users, or even 40% of users. In fact, you could probably be in the top 10% without getting complaints. Let's be conservative though, and choose to use only enough bandwidth to be in the 75% (i.e. top 25%) Imagine if everyone did this. If everyone tried to do this, the average bandwidth usage would gradually increase, making it harder for the ISP to extort and terrorize power users. If the upward drift happens gradually, technology would hopefully keep up, and we would gradually get faster and faster bandwidth. Isn't that what progress should be?
If, instead, people reacted by cutting down on bandwidth and uploads, then the average might DECREASE. Then, the ISP could boot off the biggest users, reduce their infrastructure investment, hoping instead to make money off of the low-power users. After the pool of clueless low-power users is fully tapped, and with no infrastructure investment, the only further avenue for squeezing out more profits would be to reduce expenses even further by setting off another round of kicking off intensive users. With each successive wave of account terminations, the average usage would decrease, thereby decreasing the expense per revenue stream. There is a clear financial incentive for this scenario, which would ultimately lead to stagnation.
So, IF YOU ARE USING LESS THAN THE AVERAGE BANDWIDTH, then THIS IS YOUR FAULT.
It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm dead serious.
If you are using less than the average bandwidth, you are actually doing everyone a huge disfavour. Instead, you should be everyone a huge favour (including the industry, and hardware makers) by using MORE bandwidth. Share some torrents. Seed some even. Let it run for a few days a month. Try to be at least in the 60% percentile in terms bandwidth use.
In the long run, everyone will benefit.
Encourage technological progress! Use more bandwidth! (That is, you're not already in the top 5%. If you are already in the top 5%, then maybe cut down a bit, or just be careful and hold steady. Some day, if everyone else is as altruistic as you are (i.e. download and upload as much stuff)
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.
"Comcast and several other cable firms are doubling their top download speeds to 3 megabits per second"
From google: (1 terabyte) / (3 (megabits per second)) = 1.0632985 months
Therefore, before they raised their caps, it would take you over two months to download one terabyte. Afterwards, it would *still* take you more than a month.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
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?
I still say they have it way too good in the USA. Sure, things are getting a little more restrictve, but nonetheless.
/MB over the limit, or shape the account down to around 56k (varies from provider to provider).
Let me tell you how it is in Australia! When Telstra, our telecommunication overlord and monopoly release ADSL for all us little punters, you could get it at a tremendous cost, and they gave you a whole 300MB quota. Then they charged you a significant rate per MB after that. It's taken about 2 years to creep up to 1GB for the basic Telstra plan.
After Telstra was forced by various competition enforcement bodies, third parties are allowed to sell internet services over Telstras local loop. However, Telstra charges incredibly high prices for these services and there are terrible delays. These brave smaller ISPs are able to offer reasonably high limits, starting around 3GB and going anywhere up to 16GB (if you want to pay for it). ISP's will either charge
There are a few groups of ISP's with peering agreements, these make the very low limits on Australian broadband tolerable.
Some ISP's do offer unlimited, however there are a couple of provisos.. if you use too much bandwidth, your priority for connections declines and so does your general quality of service.
The primary real reason behind this is that the USA offers, I don't know, something like 1GB of traffic to Australia, and charges like crazy for the rest, generally bringing most countries who wish to communicate with the USA to their knees.
If you want to see how the rest of the world lives, have a look at http://whirlpool.net.au - it might open your eyes up a little.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
That is simply not possible with a standard cable-connection, of the type Comcast sells as far as I can see from their website. They say they sell "25 times modem connection", and specify that with modem they mean 56K, so, they sell 1400Kbps, upload is capped at 256Kbps.
Thing is, with that speed, even at *full* download around the clock, the entire month, you would end up with around 420 GB in a month. This is very much, but it is not "over a terabyte"
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
Here we go again, why are we having an argument about ISP's, we should be talking about how the whole current structure of what we pay for internet service is based upon some out-dated teleco pricing of internet access based upon demand models of 10 years ago!!!! We should be paying less and getting more bandwidth and times goes by... moor's law as applied to computer chip/technology growth should also apply to the cost of sending N number of bits down a given data distribution system...the explosion of growth we are experiencing in speed of computers and the ever lowering of cost of storage and the increased bandwith of the modems we use, imagine the speed in say 10 or 15 years, we probabbly will be using cheap fiber optic modems, will we be paying the same overpriced, outdated pricing structure we pay now? We had better be paying 100,000 times less in that future date or something in the universe is very very wrong...(same thing as Microsoft charging wayy too much for their crappy OS's, Go Linux!!!...(what we need is an equivallent of Cntl-Alt-Del for the teleco/cable/sat industry)
Comcast cable customers have no hard limit on their download speed. I was getting over 3 megabits since it was AT&T's network.
The bandwidth a customer gets is proportional to the number of people on the node, and since some people like myself out in the boonies only have one or two other people sharing our nodes, our bandwith is really high.
Anyone who says they are doubling their top download speed to 3 megabits are stepping way out of the wording I have ever heard them use: they have NEVER confirmed ANY bandwidth numbers even when directly asked. This is because they cannot guarantee any particular bandwidth for any particular customer.
Finally, I would note that Comcast upgraded the network this winter, and my bandwith is now...very very high.
Thus, it is quite possible that someone could download a terabyte of data each month.
I too have sold broadband. When I tell a customer that they get unlimited acess but not bandwidth, they rattle off a list of my competitors that advertise unlimited.. again, i tell them its the access and not the bandwidth that those companies offer.. Basically, the customer will go to one of my competitors and sign up. Wait for it, heres the best part.. as we trade under 2 different names, my colleagues selling a different brand of broadband will get the same customers call in, THEY DONT EVEN ASK FOR CLARIFICATION OF BROADBAND, we pre empt it with "its all you can eat"... ignorance is bliss, for some.. anyway, they basically beg us to tell them what they want to here and ignor everything else.. as long as i keep telling them things they dont want to know, i'll keep pushing them away.. so ive stopped!
serenity now!
Unlimited access (I.E., stay on as long as you care to) is not the same thing as unlimited bandwidth (I.E., use capacity that costs them 10 times as much to provide as they're charging you for the line.)
Information may want to be free, but fiber optic cable wants to be one million US dollars per mile.