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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."
So are the people using IPTV screwed? They will be queued worse due to their high bandwidth usage again and again if they watch a long IPTV show. What about households with multiple Youtube users streaming and watching different videos at the same time? Both are completely legal, but seems to something that occupies high bandwidth.
Strange. My Skype calls only take about 19-30kbps, even with five people on the line. I have a 4.5mbps line. Is there something wrong with your Skype?
The above is not worth reading.
"Too much bandwidth" is defined as a sustained download of more than 4Mbps or a sustained upload of more than 700kbps, over a period of 15 minutes. That works out to ten simultaneous VoIP calls; I don't know how many video chat streams you'd need to reach it.
On the download side of things, that corresponds to downloading one CD image every 20 minutes.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
One user running Skype isn't that much of a problem -- as you point out, it's not that bandwidth-intensive -- but keep in mind that it's up to ~30kbps per user. (And the usage can go up by 40kbps beyond that if one of the users is a supernode, although admittedly only one user per IP address should do that.) It can pile up to a significant amount if you have a bunch of people using it at the same time.
But really I was just using Skype as an example of an application that's particularly aggressive about using bandwidth, and doesn't give the user much of a say -- it grabs whatever it can, whenever it can. I'm not sure that's a great design, just fundamentally. But in reality, most of the problems with Skype and Comcast will be related to the overall amount of transfer it creates versus the 250GB limit; I don't think it'll really create that much of an issue with the bandwidth-based throttling. Video services are of a much greater concern. (Also, doesn't Skype do video? I bet that requires a lot more bandwidth.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The only thing Comcast are trying to do with that policy is implement a masquerade behind which they can throttle a range of customers who refuse to pay extra for premium services. Network analysis which find the most intensive data traffic users (likely already has) and they will specifically be targeted, pay extra or have all your traffic shut down to a trickle every fifteen minutes for what, 2 minutes to start with and, then they will continually up that until, the customer leaves or pays the premium bandwidth fee, pays extra for the actual bandwidth, that Comcast B$ marketing claims to be selling.
They are going to use that age old pathetic and immature excuse, don't blame us for the time outs, the computer did it. It is all just one B$ marketing campaign after another, all so they can claim to sell something they have no intention of providing all buried behind a maze of contract conditions, limitations, and lobbyists working to protect their ability to basically lie in their marketing.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen