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Comcast Outlines New Broadband Policy
Slatterz writes "US cable provider Comcast has presented its long-term solution for managing broadband traffic. The new system is set at putting to bed a minor scandal that erupted around the company when it was found that Comcast deliberately limited traffic for certain applications. The company said that under its new system, traffic will be analyzed every fifteen minutes. Users who are found to be occupying large amounts of bandwidth will be placed at a lower priority for network access behind users with less bandwidth-intensive traffic. The new system will not replace or be related to the company's earlier installment of bandwidth caps, which limited a user's data intake to 250GB per month."
There are only two games in town: ATT's DSL (slow) and Comcast (Fast, but with strings).
What's the point of having the internet when you can't do anything on it?
I can deal with that, it's fair and doesn't really stomp on anyone's feet. So what if users eat up all the available bandwidth? Just make it fair who eats up more than others.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
So they're saying that if I am doing something that requires more bandwidth, I will get less bandwidth; and when I don't need much bandwidth, they're going to give me more? I'm really confused by this. Can anyone make sense of this for me?
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Low priority for large transfers is fine with me, but can we mark which data should be high priority? So we can download a movie from Comcast-Buy-A-Movie-Service in the background while online with Halo 3?
I'm not afraid of hitting their monthly limit, but they've deliberately hid any sort of metering concept from their public services, probably in fear of users gaming the system to use 249.9GB a month.
I'd be very interested in such a service, since I run our modem to several systems and I'm simply curious about where we rank in monthly usage.
The bandwidth changes sound like someone finally came to their senses about the purpose of an internet. Prior to this, it was an awful mess of dpi and false drops. yuck
...As my cable modem service slows to a CRAWL if I have a torrent open for more than 20-25 minutes. Once you terminate the d/l, it stays that way for 20-25 minutes or so... The throttling is so severe that DNS requests time-out... Not really that awesome of a solution, IMO.
This seems like a bandaid to solve network congestion.
What legal activity are you doing from home that takes over 250GB of data and requires that you always have a blazing fast connection? Sheesh, give them a chance to balance this out so that a few miscreants can't ruin it for everyone else.
1) User pays for their own broadband access (cost of bandwidth). $$
2) User pay for Netflix a service contract (which includes more bandwidth costs). $$
3) User uses the bandwidth for which he paid by watching streaming movies and suddenly the movies don't load anymore... because it takes a bit of bandwidth to download movies.
4) User buys digital movies from Amazon et al? $$
5) User gets kicked from ISP because he paid enough to use what bandwidth he used.
Sounds like a scam to me!
Why offer high speed internet if you're not going to provide high speed internet?
I am already looking for a new provider due to the 250 gig limit. I run a game server for my online group so I hit that in about 2 weeks. Not to mention that if I'm using my line for a lot of people then they are going to cut me back. Wow I don't remember seeing that one in the agreement I took, two years ago....hhmm change contract after the deal is done I think I'm gonna have my lawyer look into this.
So when NBC or ABC/ESPN/Disney or CBS/Viacom or Sony Pictures or Time Warner comes to me and says "Look at our really great new streaming movie/TV/video service! Pay only $29.95/mo and you can watch anything anyTIME ALL THE TIME!!!", I'll say "Sorry. Can't do streaming video. It puts me in the Comcast doghouse. I just play Nethack."?
Ok
I am upset by the fact that they have now told their users that if they try and use the bandwidth that they were sold for too long a period of time, thier service will be degraded until they fall in to the 50% bracket as compared to all other users. If they can not support speeds that they are advertizing, they should not be selling them. If you have a 250GB a month limit, you should be able to use the speeds you are paying for until you reach that limit.
Whew, I spent all day downloading and I think I'm getting pretty close to the 250gb bandwid
Many many moons ago (And I'm not talking about when I drop my pants) my dialup ISP did this.
I was on the un-metered plan. I could surf all I wanted, no limits. However, the more I used the lower my traffic was prioritized until I was at the bottom of the list.
I think this is a fair way of doing it to be honest. Regular end users just want their net to work... period... So why should they be bogged down by guys like me who download 100Gb a month? If my torrents slow down overtime, Im not concerned since its something I shouldn't really be doing anyway
I'm studying the AT&T U-verse postcard with more interest, now. Although I hate AT&T, and seriously doubt they're much better. In fact, the postcard has a tone of fine print on it. And that's just the postcard!
expandfairuse.org
..and I guess I won't make any plans to watch streaming movies through them, even if I have the bandwidth to do so in high quality BECAUSE 15 minutes into the movie they'll cut the speed back (to WHAT, by the way?) and there goes my movie. Not acceptable. I'd recommend everyone with Comcast get a Netflix subscription, and watch movies online. Then if and when it gets screwed up, complain to Netflix AND Comcast about it. Hopefully they'll eventually get tired of the complaints from customers AND from Netflix, and cut this nonsense out, too.
Wow, what a crazy idea. If only they could have deployed this sooner! Pity the technology has only been available for far longer than bittorrent has been a problem...
You mean I can get bandwidth caps AND high latency in one premium priced package requiring up-front install fees and a complex long-term commitment that can change at any time?
What a great deal! Where do I sign up?!?
That all the World of Warcraft players, when installing the new patch for the Lich King, will now be subject to slower download rates cuz they need a 1GB patch?
Woo hoo!?!
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
1) People who need the speed will be pushed to lower priority.
2) People who don't need the speed will be pushed to higher priority.
Great... I've got a simple solution for you: P2P users should encourage other people to use P2P. That way, everyone will share the same priority :)
You may have been aiming for humor, but I actually pretty much see it like this. Part of this is to destroy decent quality streaming video. The reason for this is that you don't need to pay for their expensive cable TV if you can get the shows you are interested in over the internet in good quality.
This is really an anti-competitive measure.
They already have a mechanism in place to handle those who are doing a ridiculous amount of file sharing/mass uploading/downloading (kicking them off after they hit 250 GB in a month).
So then once you ask yourself why they really need this additional step, stopping streaming video from competing with their services seems to be the most likely reason.
"Comcast deliberately limited traffic for certain applications."
That's wrong. It shouldn't be in past tense. Some IPs on Comcast space still drop p2p connection after 30 seconds. Dropping is common. Dropping consistently at 30 +/- 5 seconds from those IP blocks is too much coincidence to bear.
"The new system will not replace or be related to the company's earlier installment of bandwidth caps, which limited a user's data intake to 250GB per month."
Of course it won't replace their previous 'solution'. It will apply to uploading, as does their connection dropping, not to downloads.
If they can get their quotas to fly, they'll next offer to keep users off their slowdown list for a fee. That way they can charge users more without having to up their bandwidth.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
If you seriously think you are going to exceed 250GB a month, spend the extra money and get a business account. If you are that heavy of an internet user, moving to 70 bucks a month or so shouldn't be that big of a deal.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
they have been around for ages, and you are lucky to find a provider without one unless you want to pay over the odds.. bar one, virgin media use and advertise traffic management, during peak times, if you get through a set amount of data (specifics depend on if you are with 2Mb, 10Mb or 20Mb) then your bandwidth is reduces by a percentage for a period, then all resumes, which i think is much better and fairer way of doing it than caps.
more details on their site http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.php
They overprice their internet service too.
Love seeing you people get screwed.
I could simply not use torrents before, Giganews (with encryption) was a better way to go any ways, this new system seems like they will dump on me every 15 minutes regardless of what I am doing (gaming, downloading, streaming) and doesn't have a easy dodge for me to avoid it...at least not yet.
Knowing what a crap company Comcast is you can't expect anything ethical or fair from these people.
Why do we not have an internet where bandwidth is not an issue? We are so far behind some others it's embarrassing...bandwidth shouldn't be an issue now a days.
Isn't that real question? Why is bandwidth still an issue? What exactly do they do with their money?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Don't see much of a reason to stay with them. Too bad cable is a monopoly ( that needs to be broken up with their treatment of the customers )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I can handle this for now. Ill can comcast tho when fios is available in my area.
g0t b33r?
.... they include in their plans. if you are hampered because you use higher bandwidth in 15 minute intervals, that means that the plan is not unlimited. its a goddamn LIE.
hell. i live in turkey. we used to suck tit in regard to internet connectivity. now i have a 800 kbit connection adsl that delivers both download and games unhampered, and a cable that does 400 kbit with even better latency.
SO that im not torrenting or dling anything anymore. you know, when you have something readily available at any given time, the urge to make use of it lessens. but then again maybe i have done my fair share of p2ping in my time. but then again im 15 min walk to a blue flag beach, but i go swimming 1-2 times a year. is it me or is it shadows that are dancing on the wall ? hey ! teacher !! leave the kids alone !!! im going to give 5 bucks to the person who successfully establishes the hidden connections (a total of 2) in between the last 2 sentences and the preceding paragraph. paypal only.
Read radical news here
Comcast's internet has been causing me trouble the past two days, from around 12pm to 5pm.
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
Why the fuck should those who use [em]less[/em] bandwidth get higher priority than those who use more. How is that a fair management of the network in any way? It is the ones who need the bandwidth who should get it.
So, if i get slowed down do i get a discount for reduced service?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I guess the next time I install an OpenBSD or FreeBSD release, I will just buy the CD's. Anyway, it helps fund the projects- and don't forget about the great Blowfish T-shirts.
If I start downloading an iso image (and I used to get 500kb/s with my old Comcast installation, depending upon the ftp site) and suddenly the transfer speed drops to 25kb/s, I am really going to be pissed, and pull the plug on Comcast. But I think thats a moot point now that I got a letter from property management.
The property management here told me that I am responsible for any damage Comcast causes to the building. (turns out my cable line is dead/damaged) There is no way in hell that I am going to be held responsible for their incompetence after they start drilling holes all over the place.
The first place I ever lived where we planned to get Comcast, a couple of vans (independent contractors, not Comcast) showed up with looked like a load of teenagers. Plus we seriously believed they were on dope at the time, as when they left, wires were dangling from several places, and they left their ladder and some tools. What a mess.
Finally, real Comcast employees had to come mop up the damage and finish the install. I guess now I'm going for DSL.
I've been doing this kind of throttling on a per-connection basis for a long time. I needed to set up the packet scheduler on my Linux-based router correctly, but now it's configured to watch connections and any connection that eats a lot of sustained bandwidth gets bumped down to bulk-transfer priority. Packets for those connections go to the back of the queue and get to share the bandwidth left over after everything at a higher priority's gotten what it needs, subject to a hard cap of 80% (20% of total bandwidth is reserved for non-bulk-transfer connections at all times). That lets me start a large file download and quickly have it shunted off to soaking up only otherwise-unused bandwidth, letting games and other low-bandwidth applications continue pretty much unaffected. If I can do it on a cheap Linux box I'm pretty sure a high-end Cisco router can handle it too, it's just a matter of configuring it.
The entire reason for paying for a higher Mbit connection is so that I can download and use applications which require *more* bandwidth! So what would be the incentive to upgrade my services if they'll just throttle it anyways?
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter S. Thompson
Cable Internet, as configured by Comcast (bombast) has a fixed ceiling for how much traffic can flow through it's network without interfering with TV/phone. More people can watch a pseudo HD TV show, on the cable than can fairly share the bandwidth. So in the case of Comcast they are pulling an airline trick. In order to ensure max revenue they also "over book" the line. Problem is as time goes on more an more people are using their internet connection for more than e-mail.
Now on a airplane you can "bump" passengers. However in the case of bandwidth there is no bump available. The only options they have are to either put in more lines/equipment (quite often impossible due to community regulations and available space in underground cable easements) or drop customers. Both a and b won't sit well with the board. The only remaining options are to not renew customers who leave. (difficult since it also cuts into TV/phone revenues) or they can do what they are doing and refuse to service properly existing customers.
Problem for many is that it comes down to a choice between Darth and Adolf. Chose your darkside. But at least on ADSL you know that the bandwidth you use has little affect on anyone but people in your household.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
its called "class action lawsuit" - it works !
Read radical news here
Comcast doesn't know how to build nor design a network. All they've done is thoroughly oversell their backbone. They shouldn't be offering 6Mbps downloads to customers if their backbone isn't big enough to aggregate customers that big.
I guess this begs the question then; and that is, is your $59 per month for that broadband Comcast connection worth it anymore?? I dropped them a couple years ago and glad I did. Nothing but poor service. Never again.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
To be throttled you have to use more than 4.8 Mbps (80% of 6 Mbps); what streaming services use this much bandwidth?
"Broadband: You can't have any(tm)."
they're blocking people who use the Internet?
I have a subscription to netflix, and xbox live. I also use amazon to download video to my pc and tivo. I watch video on my tivo that is downloaded from the Internet. I buy a lot of games from steam.
I also watch HDTV on hulu and network websites.
These are all perfectly legitimate uses. I actually do use all these services. So now comcast wants to say that I should be "delayed" because I'm using too much bandwidth?
utter nonsense. These tactics are in place to prevent me from using the service I pay for to view the content I want.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I want my 10Mbs when I want it and for as long as I want it. If the $77 I pay per month isn't enough to build the infrastructure to handle that then charge more and I will pay it untill another company offers me something better. Don't offer me 10mbs which I pay $30 extra a month for, then try to shame me accepting anything less because i'm a "greedy bandwidth hog". I want what you sell and i'm willing to pay for it. If your supply can't meet my demands then prepair to be replaced.
... is only watch youporn films that are more than 15 minutes long.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It might be a good thing, in the sense that it could encourage people to maximize bandwidth.
Software that was developed with this in mind(the conservation of bandwidth) would have a market advantage over software that wasn't, protocols might improve..........who knows.
One thing is for certain, if I COULD use less bandwidth, and still get the same transfers, I would do it. Its not like I want to piss it away.
I have been unable to download any ISOs from any Ubuntu mirror, or from any OpenBSD site, for about two weeks.
The transfers appear to complete normally, but the checksums will not match (and Ubuntu's checksums are still a pain in the ass to find on their website incidentally Mr. Shuttleworth).
I have tried from a total of four physical locations in the comcast network, all in New Castle County Delaware.
I have used my Ubuntu laptop, a Windows XP desktop with the craptacular comcast software package loaded, and from a clean windows XP system.
The most interesting thing about it is, I get the same bad checksum repeatedly from any one particular mirror. That is, if I download from site A, I always get site A bad checksum, but if I download from site B, I always get the (different) site B checksum.
I have used a Verizon FiOS connection, physically located about ten feet from one of the comcast connections previously mentioned, to successfully download Ubuntu from two of the sites tried previously. For verification, I then attempted downloading over Comcast yet again, and received the same bad checksum.
Although FiOS worked (and worked faster, too) please do not construe this as an endorsement of Verizon or Verizon's business practices. FiOS was the only available alternative connection during testing. I will state that FiOS met the minimum expected requirements for Internet service during these tests, in that they did not poison my downloads like Comcast did.
I would greatly appreciate it if other slashdotters would test their own ability to download ISO images from Open Source Mirrors (preferably Ubuntu and OpenBSD for starters) and post their results here, with informative subject lines.
I did not knowingly use bittorrent or any other unusual transport, I just clicked download links in firefox (and also Internet Explorer in one test). However, my son tells me bittorrent is still being poisoned on our Comcast network segment (he uses bittorrent as part of some World Of Warcraft commercial game product).
Thank you!
--Vramin
You see a stranger wearing a suit and black sunglasses walking up to you:
Stranger: Excuse me, you look really familiar- Class of _____ from _____?
You: Yeah, I'm ________
*Stranger hands you an envelope*
Stranger: Served
Suddenlink offers 3Mb/s down 600K up here. If you use a lot of bandwidth for a while (like 30 mins) you go into a lower priority queue which drops you down to 800Kb/s download, 400K upload. If you continue to use that, you end up with your higher ports dropping to almost no bandwidth while http still runs at 600-800Kb/s.
This is empirical analysis. I don't know the true rules, but it works for me. If I set my upload limit to 16KB/s the download peers limit me to about 64KB/s (notice, B versus b) which keeps the throttles from kicking in and is fast enough for me.
I don't see anything being done with regards to excessive upload. I can cap my download speed and let my upload max out and no QoS ever seems to kick in.
I'm come from the 300BAUD MODEM days. I'm still amazed I can get this bandwidth - which could fill up my 144K floppies in a second. It's only going to get better. Fiber is coming to my neighborhood now, so watch out!
I'm thinking the same thing and am not laughing - don't know why your post was moderated as 'funny.'
Comcast is selling bandwidth and, because they can't deliver what they've sold, is resorting to prioritization algorithms. If Comcast's problem is some users are using what they've been sold and that's overloading Comcast's ability to deliver, Comcast needs to either increase their ability to deliver or admit they can't deliver what they've sold.
Admitting the later is tantamount to admitting to fraud.
you gotta make them admit. and that doesnt happen without class action.
Read radical news here
...FUCKING Telcoms and FUCKING ISPS! If they could only charge you for the air you breath, you'd be choking. All of you. In every country that has internet access it's the same old story. ISPs charge whatever the hell they can get away with on a scale based upon the user base/government regulator's comprehension of what 'the internet' means -OR- ISPs bends over backwards (and forwards) to help censor the internet in that particular country. Why do people even bother complaining about Comcast anymore? Comcast isn't specially bad, it's just as greedy and full of shit as a hundred other ISPs around the world. Ask an Irishman or an Australian if their internet access is any good and see what kind of answers you'll get. Now if it were possible for me, I'd start a cooperative and raise enough capital to run my own ISP - without the bullshit.
The new system is set at putting to bed a minor scandal that erupted around the company late last year when it was found that Comcast deliberately limited traffic for certain applications.
you could get sued for that
Being the monopoly that Comcast is in my area, I cannot discontinue my cable internet. My town has divided itself between a local provider and Comcast. Unfortunately I'm at Comcast's mercy in this regard as my part of town is handled by them. I can only overcome it by moving.
Instead of canceling my internet I have chosen to cancel my Cable TV. The cable TV costs more than the internet access does so they loose more than if I were to cancel the internet.
At the very earliest opportunity I will cancel Comcast altogether and go with something else.
Their draconian penalty to customers, rather than update their system to increase bandwidth (instead choosing to offer us less for more money) (by upgrading their systems nationwide as they should have done and should have continued to do for the past decade), results in them loosing my money, however indirectly.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
That was their selling point.
I want a lower price. What makes ISPs so brash that they can just alter the terms of an agreement to suit them and we're expected to pay the same price.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Will they refund me the extra amount of money I'm paying for the "Performance" speed tier during that "lower priority" time? No? You don't say!
If they don't know what it is, they won't throttle it.
That was their selling point.
I want a lower price. What makes ISPs so brash that they can just alter the terms of an agreement to suit them and we're expected to pay the same price.
it's the same as Wall Street sending all the jobs overseas so they can make more profit but when things get a little rough they cry for the American worker to bail them out.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
I am sorry, throttling != forging reset packets!!
I would be ok with throttling or QOS turned on my connection, but if you are going to pretend to be the host I am communicating with and send RST packets as a way to manage congestion, you incorrectly labeled your traffic shaping. SENDING RST PACKETS IS NOT THROTTLING! People here can't RTFA let alone understand the difference between throttling and faking packets.
Having worked for a cable MSO I know that oversaturation of a node is a huge issue. Comcast as well as the MSO I worked for refused to do anything about it. Bresnan's NOCs were always complaining about this to the higher ups. Now that they are going to apply QoS to those using large amounts of bandwidth, are they going to install more equipment or are they going to continue to put 5 times the number of subscribers on a CMTS by the formula that Cisco provides? Or are they just going to have everyone permanently at lowest priority because they are always "congested" because they screw the customer by saturating nodes even when customers constantly complain.
It will be interesting to see if these low priority packet queues will have any sort of wait threshold or if they'll just sit until the congestion clears. For heavy users, things could come to a stop. For heavy, ignorant users, this will generate calls to Comcastic support.
Since they're effectively saying stay under the 80% d/l and 70% u/l to avoid their QoS delays, I'd like my subscription fee reduced by 25%.
That's not likely to happen.
And there is no other game in my town.
Just another lesson and reason to run from Comcast whenever and wherever possible.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
leave and go to someone else.
Soooooo....Comcast is just making itself irrelevant in a world where more and more (legal) content is available online. How can so many ISPs be limiting usage, while at the same time there are more and more digital content providers (every major network, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Nintendo, I know there's a ton more but those are off the top of my head) providing more and more content. How pissed are people going to be when their Netflix or iTunes video downloads are clipping along, and then fall to a stutter? God, I hate hate HATE Comcast...and I don't even have them anymore!
We'll give you X Mb/S, but don't use it, because if you do, we'll throttle you down until you stop using it.
That's their plan. It's insulting enough when they add the metered usage, but then, they won't even let you use the bandwidth in anything other than short burst.
Yikes. This is aimed squarely, IMHO at the emerging streaming video market. It basically makes it useless.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"What legal activity are you doing from home that takes over 250GB of data and requires that you always have a blazing fast connection?"
By your argument, why does Comcast offer such a connection in the first place, since in your opinion, the use of such a connection is for nefarious purposes?
Here's some legitimate uses of such bandwidth:
1) Family of 4 each with their own computer, each downloading YouTube videos, keeping streaming audio for hours a day, and they have an account where my Tivo downloads movies right from Amazon.
2) Downloading hi-resolution video directly to my set top box to watch on my TV
3) Musician does a lot of online collaboration and moves audio files to and from a studio
4) Professional who does modeling and scene rendering and then sends the results to clients
Bandwidth *finds a use*. Almost all the uses of bandwidth are legitimate, and limiting bandwidth in such a way makes people conserve *what isn't actually scare*.
The people who keep carping about bandwidth simply don't understand the peering arrangements of Comcast, Verizon and other providers. In fact when people start with "I worked for Joe's ISP and let me tell you how much a DS3 costs...". They're clueless. When you're that big, you don't pay to peer; people pay you.
I suspect you know what this is about, and it's not about Bob Home User downloading too many MP3's. It's about control of the network. Comcast has decided you should not download video over their pipes. They sell that another way, and you will get it that way or not at all. They're not about to let a competitor come over their pipes to compete with themselves.
Seriously, think it through. I think you're trolling.
"What's the point of having the internet when you can't do anything on it?"
Like post to slashdot?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Why I want FiOS. Verizon when are you coming?!
Ask a Sweede or Japanese. Nordic states, Japan and Korea have excellent internet services.
But I'll answer your questions as an Australian. Australia's broadband caps are ridiculous compared to yours, you poeople are whinging about 250 GB, we get 20GB for A$50 (plus A$20 for the line rental) for ADSL2+ (no cable in AU, cable services never took off in this country) and we can only use half of that between the hours of 7am and 12am (at best, some ISP's have cut that down to a third). This is mainly because of the fact there are only three lines out of Australia in total. Three paths out, very limited bandwidth. Back to the point at hand, the Telecommunication industry needs to be regulated otherwise it will be abusive. Telecoms is naturally an expensive venture to start which limits competition, in an unregulated market this will allow larger players to squeeze out smaller companies (and stop them from starting to begin with) at which point they can charge what they like as they are a Monopoly or Duopoly (duopolies arent really any better than monopolies). Well regulated telecom industries allow a market to be competitive as well as profitable, what it prevents is the abuse that typically follows a monopoly left unchecked.
Some ISP's are trying to rape customers for all they can get and they typically only get the stupid customers that don't know any better but that's besides the point. The situation would be a lot worse if telco's weren't kept in check by the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission). The ACCC limits the kind of liberties Telco's and ISP's (From this point on, ISP's will be referred to as Telco's (TELecommunications COmpanies) because that's what they are under Australian law) can take with you, they will force Telco's stick to their contracts and prevent them from making sweeping changes despite the fact that your contract says "conditions may change at any time". More importantly the ACCC fosters competition by fixing the price at witch Telstra, the privatised remnant of Australia's public telecom can sell access to the copper (being the owner of all the copper in AU due to the fact that most of it was laid when Telecoms was a public service). This fixes the price of entry for smaller ISP's and allows for a competative market when realistically Telstra has a monopoly (owns almost all the copper in AU).
If you telco were ever to try to shaft you or refused to fix your problem in AU the next call you should make is to the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsmen), Telco's need to be regulated so much that they have their own branch of ombudsmen just for them. A Telco will recieve an A$200 fine just for having a legitimate greivence filed against them, this is before they are even investigates, any wrongdoings will incur further fines even if the problem is fixed before the investigation takes place (no one should have to call the TIO just to get their problem fixed). Further more Telco's in Australia are not permitted to change a customers contract without the customers consent (granted, I've had my broadband cap increased for free without my consent being asked but they could never decrease it) for example, about 8 months my ISP iinet changed its 20 GB cap from 10/10 on/off peak to 7/14 on/off peak (peak time is 7am to 12 midnight) they are not permited to change the cap without my permission even though my contract has now expired. If I signed up for a certain level of service the law requires that level to be delivered and the ACCC/TIO give average people a way to ensure it.
The problem with US ISP's is that there is no system in place to ensure that ISP's are kept to their word. Nothing to prevent them from giving you the run around and so they do. I dont get angry at Telco support, Never yell, never threaten and never raise my voice, I give them no excuses to claim I was unreasonable when I
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
So suddenly any large use of BW is illegal?
No, if it were illegal, they'd throw you in jail.
What it actually means is that if you run bandwidth hungry applications over an extended period of time, you get a lower priority than your neighbor.
That's a reasonable policy given that the line is shared. And you probably won't even notice, because, by definition, if your neighbor gets higher priority, they are using less bandwidth, hence they won't interfere much with your traffic.
Actually I think this is pretty fair with regards to congestiong. Throttle the particular user / account when the port is saturated, and let the user decide what's important and what's not.
This neutral from a protocol view, it saves the ISP equipment costs since they can use the built-in functionality of the network equipment (and perhaps use that cash to invest in more bandwidth upstream).
The issue of caps (which many people have a problem with) is separate than that of protocol shaping.
Comcast consumers have introduced a new policy for paying comcast,
Every 15 mins, the consumer's application sends out a tracer request identifying the speed at which comcast is providing internet access.
If the speeds are lower than the amount as specified in the contract, the application calculates and updates the payment sheet accordingly.
At the end of the month, the consumer sends the calculated sheet along with the check, to comcast.
If comcast has not provided the contracted speed, the payment sent is substantially less based on the consumer's calculations.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
It means that when the network is congested, heavy users get sent to the back of the queue. But when its not congested, you can use all the bandwidth you like for BitTorrent, VoIP, YouTube and whatever else.
As for the 250GB cap, if you need more than 250GB per month buy a business class package or something.
Fuck comcast. Every 15 minutes its going to check to see who is using the bandwidth and then limit that person? What if no one else is using that bandwidth? Can that person who is using it without being limited?
This is all silly nonsense. The fact of the matter is Comcast cant fucking upgrade their network, and the consumers are fucked because many of them are forced to use comcast thanks to regional cable monopolies.
Comcast knows this. Comcast is avoiding the reality, which is bandwidth demands will always increase. If they cant keep up with the demand, then fuck em, die burn. Dont worry Comcast, when you're company goes broke, the government will bail you out, so keep raping the costumers and do nothing now... in the end it will cost the company nothing because the gov will simply hand over our tax dollars to you... because heaven forbid a giant corporation that provides shitty service dare go out of business. Where will we get our "Dancing with the Stars" and Porn?
Avoid Comcast at all costs. They are big corporate babies that cant hack it in the internet world.
Its a simple formula really. If broadband company cant provide enough broadband.... said broadband company is not a broadband company. It is a dwindling relic of a failed business that refuses to adjust to market demand.
Keep fighting the forces of nature Comcast, i'm sure you will win.
All this does is allow low bandwidth usage users to take priority over high bandwidth users.
If someone bought their penultimate unlimited package allowing for 10MB/s download, 2MB/s upload or whatever the data rates are, then they should have that amount of bandwidth available on their network - or at least the major portion of it.
If they oversell their available bandwidth by 10% that's one thing. But when they oversell their bandwidth by 100% or 200% or higher, then these measures are nothing more than a bandage.
I hate to suggest this, but in reality, companies should not be allowed to oversell their bandwidth capacity.
It's false advertisement / contract breach, no matter what they do, unless they can give the end user what they contractually paid for... And no, a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that tries to change the definition of terms by throwing conditions and other crap at it does not change what a given data rate and unlimited mean.
If they sell 6/1 unlimited, then yes, they ought to hit that rate +/- 10% or better all the time.
If the sell 10/10 unlimited, the same applies.
Our society should not allow companies to claim to sell one thing, then say "oh - so sorry - read the fine print where we change the constant of gravity and the speed of light."
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Yep. The throttling plan is fine, and a big step forward given the crap they were pulling with RST-injection not that long ago, but the 250GB cap is significantly more onerous. That's where people should really be directing their flames. The throttling seems to be pretty clearly dictated by hardware limits and at ensuring the best experience for the largest number of people.
And with the throttling, Comcast has shown that they're capable of changing their tune (admittedly, only under threat of massive lawsuits, but that's par for the course with large corporations). If people make enough noise, they might come up with a more reasonable overall bandwidth cap scheme.
For starters, it'd be nice if they quit pretending that all transfer actually costs them the same amount (traffic within the Comcast network, such as would be generated between my house and my neighbor's, costs Comcast nothing for each additional packet), and came up with a billing scheme that actually had some relation between the costs passed on to the user and the actual cost of wholesale transit (basically the only marginal cost to them generated by a non-contentious heavy user).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Yup, that's what it means. What ever happened to "PowerBoost"?
It's just too bad that the only competitor in my neighborhood is Qwest DSL. In order to get 20 Mbps with them, I have to pay 3x.
I don't need to transfer many tens/hundreds of gigabytes per month; but when I do want to transfer a few hundred megs here, and a few hundred there, I want it fast, dammit!
Don't be such a fucking crybaby. It's selfish assholes like you that got us in this situation. The world doesn't revolve around you and your need to jerk off to the latest hentai before bedtime.
FWIW, as far as .EDU goes, at my university we are pooling cash with other schools to get one fat pipe (trunk with SLA, QOS, etc.) to divvy up; economies of scales and whatnot. Instead of having a bunch of smaller trunks, it works out to be cheaper to get a single bulk pipe. Not that it matters, the campuses will saturate an OC line if you give it to them (whatever isn't being used for torrents will get eaten up by malware); from what I've heard, we just started caching youtube videos, and this is helping a good deal. Even patch (black) tuesday and WoW patches stress the system from time to time.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
I really don't see the problem, as long one is made aware of this fact, and realize that they are buying oversubscribed bandwidth. But please realize that the internet backbones are oversubscribed, so there is no way to truly get bandwidth that is not oversubscribed at some level. This packet prioritizing scheme is entirely reasonable, and similar systems are in place on the internet backbones, and other high level routers. Comcast's real problem is the transfer cap, which is completely absurd.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Yes, but the FCC says that Comcast must be neutral with respect to application type, so Comcast is complying. If that means that high-bandwidth streaming media gets hosed, well, take that up with the FCC.
No, I'll take it up with the cable co.
What they are doing with respect to the FCC and the public will at large is no different than what a little kid does when mommy tells him "don't do that" as he reaches for the cookie jar.
He does it again.. with the OTHER hand, and then proclaims his innocence when mother yells at him yet again.
The intent was clear:
"Thou shalt not degrade internet traffic selectively"
This new policy selectively degrades high quality streaming video.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer, We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service. On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time. In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers. 250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:
I love how Comcast has multiple solutions to a single problem. I love how Comcast words their statements. I love how they treat customers who subscribe to only one of their services. Then again, I loved my ex-wife for a long time, too.
I sent an email asking if that applied to me as a business account, and they haven't replied.
From my earlier years, an example. What I really hate is offering to pay more for cocaine that is very pure. Then they charge you more money and cut it anyway. You ask, "Why did you do that?", and they tell you they have run tests, trying both very pure cocaine and moderately cut cocaine, and people prefer the moderately cut cocaine, maybe because they are constipated and the baby laxative is good for them. Anyway, it used to make me crazy because I was a baser and wanted it as pure as possibe, and money couldn't buy quality. This is how they make me feel about the provisioned rate with COMCAST. You pay up to get the burst bandwidth you desire, then you find something is holding you back anyway. What a drag.
what a load of serious bullshit. i am not even a comcast costumer, but with policies like this i never will be. Seriously I watch a few hours of LEGIT internet video a day. Does that make me a filthy pirate? FUCK NO. but comcast traps you in a situation that makes you accountable for the downfall of the internets bandwidth.
I cant Believe that gramma's 500KB of kitten pictures WILL take priority legit youtube viewer.
what a load of shit.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
will be placed at a lower priority for network access behind users with less bandwidth-intensive traffic
We'll just see if I get throttled at 3 AM on Tuesday night. Somehow I find it hard to believe that they will be fair in this.
I was informed by Comcast, after speaking to numerous people who didn't have a clue about the 250GB limit, or how it was determined, that the 250GB limit will include download AND upload combined.
So in reality, you'll get LESS than 250GB download per month..
-Myke
While I do not agree with the cap there are some things that we must realisitic accept.
1)Everything else we use is metered why not Broadband.
2)There are limits to provides for Highspeed but over time things change so hopefully for the better.
That being said comcast announced a change to there plans to its customers. Wether they actually do it or not is another story. I dislike how its being packaged/pushed out, but at least its being offered.
How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoid exceeding the limit?
We are in the process of creating a usage meter that will measure consumption for the Comcast account which will be available in the coming months. In the meantime, we offer a meter for free with our McAfee security suite available at http://security.comcast.net/
There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account. Comcast cannot verify that any tools customers may find themselves and use to measure data usage are accurate or without other flaws. Comcast's determination of each customer account's data usage is final.
It's important to note that when our new threshold goes into effect on October 1,2008 it will not change our practice around excessive use. We will continue to call only the top users who consume the most data each month, which is usually well over 250GB, which is the same practice we've had in place for several years.
>>>Users who are found to be occupying large amounts of bandwidth will be placed at a lower priority for network access
So much for net neutrality.
What this basically means is the power users (perhaps work-at-home folks) will be punished, while those who rarely use the net (mom) will get preference. Isn't that the exact opposite of how business works? Usually it's the frequent customers who get "preferred" treatment, because those customers bring in more money.
Net Neutrality is a separate issue - dealing with whether carriers are allowed to give preferential treatment to particular sites (basically, the carriers trying to take a slice of the profit of successful sites.)
The way the summary describes it, I think this sounds quite reasonable. People who aren't using a ton of bandwidth get low latency. People who are using a ton of bandwidth still get service, but they get a lower priority than all the light users.
All that really means is that people sucking down a lot of bandwidth are no longer going to have a big impact on those who aren't.
Bow-ties are cool.
One thing I've never liked about cable providers in particular, but most internet access services, is that they average an 'up to' speed. In this case, Comcast is explicitly saying, "You can get up to this speed until we can't handle it any more, at which point we pick and choose who gets their max, or close to their max, speed."
The subtlety is that in their advertising, it is very hard, if possible at all, to find out what the limit is on the CMTS port that you're subscribing to. They're servicing some number of users with each port, and promising those users 'up to x speed'. The letter indicates, I think, a very strategy for handling traffic within those parameters (presumably, for instance, the high priority traffic is utilizing less bandwidth, so percentage-wise you get the most effect); but the parameters are still bad by design. And could get worse if they up the number of people on a port.
In short, I think they simply need to be more honest about how they advertise their service.
[Ego]out
They'd better changed to ads to be:
Yeah, it's "high speed" until you actually try to use it to do more than read a few text e-mails, and a few mainly text based web pages, otherwise it's every bit as slow as DSL.
Of course actually spending money to upgrade their network infrastructure would cut into the HUGE bonus checks...
I have comcast cable, and I was wondering how they plan on allowing me to monitor my usage so that I can regulate my own activity to below the 250G cap?
I keep reading here about people saying "more bandwidth" and "less bandwidth". QoS works priority scheme to place packets onto the physical cabe. If your connection is set to a lower priority, you data packet will be put on the wire after a higher priority. Keep in mind this is happening at tiny fractions of seconds. The idea of more and less bandwidth is innacurate. I have business class cable @ UP TO 16mbps down, which means at normal running utilization i will see rates at up to that speed down. Now if over utilization occurs, and i am flagged at low priority, my data is put in line behind a higher priority. My bandwidth pipe is still a 16mbps pipe, but i get my data at a slower interval, because off all the people online. It works the same as a congested highway, your house being Exit 5 from the main backbone. If there is alot of traffic on the main highway, you will be put in line, regardless of what you are paying for.
You also have to take into consideration, you do not have a deicated line to every spot online, so if your internet is slow, you need to realize it vvery well could not have anything to do with your internet, but the other parties side.
Now remember that is QoS.
My point is that theres alot more to it then just "oh i have dsl at 6mbps i should see no lag at all". Every connects to the same backbone, and we all share the same resources at some point online.
I will face my users' data. I will permit it to pass through me ... eventually.
So when I reinstall windows yet again, and reinstall Warcraft, and download gigs of downloads, saturating my link.... I can expect to drop into the lower QoS bracket.
Then when I go to actually run Warcraft, I can expect packet drops that will render the game unplayable.
In the meantime, due to low-QoS packet drops, I can expect all other activities (webbrowser, email, kids games) to be painful as we wait for the TCP stack to recognize the packet drops and resend.
Hmm.
And DSL over FIOS just got rolled out. And Verizon is offering 33% price cut if I go with them. Plus a lot more cable channels...
Hmm.
Has anyone considered how easy it is under Comcast's DHCP IP-address allocation scheme to assume the IP-address of another customer and consume their 250gb bandwidth?
I found this out the hard way a few years ago, when upgrading my Linksys BEFSR41-ver2 "Cable/DSL router" gadget to newer firmware. The newer firmware had a bug that broke DHCP renewal on the WAN side.
A few hours after my DHCP lease expired, my internet connectivity would "resume". Though I'd see a lot of traffic from sites that I had not initiated a connection to. It's as though I was sniffing someone elses webbrowsing.
No. The solution is to upgrade their infrastructure. That's what we paid them for a decade ago. Japan is rocking 100+ mb/s while ISPs in America are limping with a 1-5 due to their greed.
Your "solutions" just create more problems for the same businesses Comcast wants no competition with. Comcast is the problem, not their competitors. Nothing has changed.
The system described cannot throttle. It by definition cannot have any impact at all except when one of the oversold pipes is being utilized at 100% of its real capacity.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524