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Comcast's New Throttling Plan Uses Trigger Conditions, Not Silent Blocking
clang_jangle writes with this excerpt from The Inquirer outlining Comcast's new traffic-throttling scheme, based on information from Comcast's latest FCC filing. "Its network throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at the routers, driven by two trigger conditions. Comcast's first traffic throttling trigger is tripped by using more than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes. Its second traffic throttling trigger is tripped when the Cable Modem Termination System you're hooked-up to – along with up to 15,000 other Comcast subscribers – gets congested, and your traffic is somehow identified as being responsible. Tripping either of Comcast's high bandwidth usage rate triggers results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average bandwidth utilisation rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes."
Here in america we prefer a system where the ISP gets a monopoly and can advertise what you could get, not what you will get ...sadly
I read it as you can use 69% for as long as you want and can spike to 100% for periods of less than 15 minutes. If your spike lasts more than 15 minutes you have to stay below 50% for at least 15 minutes. Rinse, lather and repeat.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
We really need preferential voting in our elections. Maybe then we could elect people from a party that cares about more than lining their pockets with the blood, sweat, and tears of us lowly Citizens. Both of our current parties suck, to put it lightly. Also, the name "congresscritters" is really annoying. Can't we just go back to calling them "crooks?"
I read the FCC paper.. the summary is full of errors. The individual user does not get throttled until the entire CTMS port is in a congested state (that's 80% downstream, 70% upstream). And 'throttled' is a loose term.. if the bandwidth is available you get it. You are throttled if there are lower volume users on the shared pipe, and even then they just get a higher priority. Depending on how bad the congestion is, you might not even notice this.
Comcast rolled this out nearly a year ago.
And its not throttling, its a fairness mechanism: It means that light users won't get outcompeted by heavy users, but heavy users shouldn't get starved out unless things are really REALLY bad.
Test your net with Netalyzr
During the time that a subscriber's traffic is assigned the lower priority status, such traffic will not be delayed so long as the network segment is not actually congested. If, however, the network segment becomes congested, such traffic could be delayed.
So what they are really doing is lowering your priority. If there is no real congestion then you notice no difference. If things get saturated then your packets are delayed before other peoples.
Lets do a little math. Good video over the net is 2 Mbps for Netflix. At that rate, this is ~9 hours of video a DAY before you get to the 250 GB cap. Do you watch 9 hours of video a DAY over netflix's service?
Time/Warner's previous attempts to do a 50 GB cap? Thats anticompetitive.
But comcast's is sooo high that you basically have to be a massive Warez trader or doing something very stupid (offsite backup better handled by Sneakernet) to get to.
Test your net with Netalyzr
comcast can suck it. maybe off topic, but i just ditched them.
* they advertise how customers will need to do nothing for the digital conversion. then we get boxes
* they've lied to my mom about prices, she called up before she had somethign done, they insisted it was free of charge, then she got a bill with.. charges on it, now it's of course it's not free.
* internet sucks, last few months during the evenings i had lag spikes all the time.
i've switched to verizon fios and so far i like it better, plus it's a few bucks cheaper. hoepfully i'll continue to liek it
Simply put, there are four steps to determining whether the traffic associated with a particular cable modem is designated as PBE or BE:
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
that's YOU. that's not why we as a country don't have it this way.
btw: we already have government standards on what can be legally called broadband. they're quite clear, and completely apolitical (beyond being unreasonably low.. pretty much everthing DSL or cable qualifies)
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
* they advertise how customers will need to do nothing for the digital conversion. then we get boxes
Not that I love Comcast or anything, but they advertised that in my area as well, and it was the truth. The digital switch came and went, I received no box to install or hook up, I literally did nothing. My cable TV still works fine.
It's possible that in some areas, a conversion box was required. Maybe you saw an advertisement intended for a different zone of customers. It's still false advertising, but don't ascribe to malice what can be easily explained by incompetence.
I find it funny that people assume that they are going to get full peek bandwidth at all, let alone 24/7. ISPs obviously can't provide full bandwidth 100% of the time so they have to throttle the power users. The Internet couldn't handle such traffic let alone most switches and routers
Actually, I get exactly the bandwidth I pay for - just as often I get too much as too little. My broadband provider - BeUnlimited, in the UK - actually seems to try to give customers the speed that they were sold the connection at. Not only that, but I get that speed at my house, not at an exchange two miles away. Of course, Be is at the expensive end of competitive pricing, but I'm willing to pay extra for good service and a lack of lies.
If just feels to me like people are complaining about the quality of their $.99 cheeseburgers. They want real beef, but they won't pay for it.
Really? It sounds to me like people are complaining because they only have one restaurant in town, by civil statute, and that restaurant advertises its cheeseburgers as top quality, good value, 100% beef, when actually they aren't beef and are more expensive than pretty much anywhere else in the world, bar places that need satellite links.
Be smart, help people!
but don't ascribe to malice what can be easily explained by incompetence.
There were two "digital transitions". The first was the federally mandated change from analog broadcast TV to digital - and this was the only one that Comcast spoke of when discussing (advertising) digital transition. No boxes required for anyone except rabbit-ears users, because everyone else had a cable, or satellite, or coconut-powered video coming into their house.
HOWEVER, Comcast used this period to "enhance" their service with some buzz-word compliant digital protocol. This change just started up in my area a few weeks ago. They conflated these changes with each other, and then told everyone that they wouldn't need extra equipment for the "digital transition". Super!
Whoa whoa whoa... but they were talking about the federal transition! For their stealth transition, we all need a central box, and then a box for every TV in the house! They are "giving" people enough for 2 TVs per house... for the first year. Then you'll be getting a rental charge.
Oh, and if you want more than 2 TVs to work, you'll have to fork over rental for those now. Did I mention they also decided to drop several (more) stations from their extended cable service? (that's the one with local channels plus the "basic" cable channels like comedy central, syphi, TNT, etc)
Same price (for now - until our year of "free" rental runs out) - fewer channels - fewer TVs.
Never forget the corollary to your quoted reference: Sufficient levels of incompetence are indistinguishable from malice.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
The electric company isn't always a monopoly. In Texas, the electric company can't own lines or power generation equipment. They buy electricity wholesale and sell it retail. The Transmission and Distribution Service Provider is a natural monopoly, however. This means that your choice of electric company can be boiled down to what sources your electricity comes from.