Slashdot Mirror
Comcast's Throttling Plan Has 'Disconnect User' Option
newtley writes "Comcast's new people, not protocols scheme may mean high speed for some, but by no means all. It's also created a draconian 'disconnect' option for use against anyone who fails to toe the Comcast line. But, says Robb Topolski, the Net protocol expert who originally uncovered Comcast's blatant efforts to control its customers, the plan does offer key take-aways, telling P2P users on Comcast how to do what they do without the risk of corporate interference."
Excuse me? Where's the news here? We already knew that Comcast's bandwidth cap will be (starting next month) 250 GB... break it once and you're warned, break it twice your service address is cut off for a year.
That's the solution to the old model of blocking you... under the new plan that'll just put you deeper in the whole because adding all of TOR's routing information just makes your packets bigger. And bigger packets mean more bits against the 250 GB.
If you want/need more, you can get a business class account. I've had business class Internet for many years now. Currently it's with Cox cable, but I've used Speakeasy and Qwest in the past. Business class accounts get you a number of things, like static IPs and such, but one of them is no bandwidth cap. Whatever speed you pay for, you are free to use as much as you like and you'll hear not a peep out of them.
However, you are going to pay more for it. Where a normal cable account might be $50/month, expect to pay over $100/month for a business account. However, if you are the kind of person who needs lots and lots of bandwidth, it seems only fair you should pay more for it.
You have to remember that consumer connections are something like a big LAN. Everyone gets to have nice fast access, but only if people are nice and share it. You use your fast speed when you need it, let others have it. For example I work for a university. We have a nice fast network, I've got gig to my desktop. We've got plenty of upstream too. I've gotten things like 100+mbit download speeds on Linux ISOs and so on. Wonderful, however everyone on campus can't do that 24/7 full bore. If we did, well there's be maybe 300kbps of bandwidth for each of us. It is fast and cheap because we all share.
Same deal on your consumer grade cable modem. If you want a nice cheap price and a fast link, you need to be willing to share with others and that means not running it at full capacity all the time. Otherwise you either have to settle for less bandwidth, or greater costs. Me, I choose the greater cost option and then do as I please.
It really depends on how much you give back.
Remember, Tor uses onion routing which means that every packet you send or receive goes through many nodes to get to you. This effectively multiplies your bandwidth usage by a factor of perhaps 5-10, depending on how many hops your packets travel. (I don't really know what a typical number would be.)
So, you run a node. Do you process 5-10x as much traffic as you torrent? If so, great. If you're only passing an amount of traffic equal to what you torrent, or worse less, then you are definitely abusing the system.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
A draconian option for those who don't toe the line? Blatant efforts to control their customers? Corporate interference? Are you sure you aren't being just a teensy wee bit melodramatic about this?
I recently got Comcast (they are the only provider available at my new place), I routinely get download speeds around 1-2MB/s (with a 'bytes', not a 'bits'), including torrents, and the price is more or less reasonable. By my calculations I am damn unlikely to ever hit the 250GB cap (I may use 8GB in day from time to time, but far from most days), and even if I do, I was aware of this limitation of the service before signing up.
So remind me, why am I so damn outraged about this? Is it because someone would dare to suggest that there be some kind of limit to the amount of porn and movies I can download for 60 bucks a month?
I used to pay through the nose for Speakeasy, so far I'm getting a better service from Comcast.
sic transit gloria mundi