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."

Comments

Laws

[sopssa]

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.

Eh? In scandinavia countries new laws will state that "the speed of the line must be atleast 75% of the said one during 24 hour measurement period". And you get throttled with comcast if you're actually using more 70% of what you should have? Why do you put up with this shit?

Re:Laws

[pootypeople]

Because our laws are written by corporate interests, not the people.

Re:Laws

[LordKazan]

which is the inevitable result of "private funding of campaigns"

a more accurate term for "private funding of campaigns" is "buying votes of congresscritters".

Re:Laws

[dwlovell]

Because a T1 line is expensive and guarantees service 24/7. A residential cable/dsl service is far far cheaper and is contractually not obligated to provide consistent speeds, only burst speeds that can be affected by the traffic of other users of the system.

Consumers went from only have only T1/ISDN as a high-speed option and few could afford it, to cable/dsl that almost anyone could afford and has the performance 99% can appreciate. The 1% that expect 24/7 full throughput should understand they never bought that guarantee of service. Just because their aggregation point wasn't previously saturated and they weren't previously throttled doesn't mean that was an entitlement to that level of service forever.

Re:Laws

[castironpigeon]

Why do you put up with this shit?

Because taking it up the ass from ISPs is more convenient than moving to another country.

Re:Laws

[mcgrew]

Because we're a plutocracy masquerading as a democratic republic.

Re:Laws

[IndustrialComplex]

The 1% that expect 24/7 full throughput should understand they never bought that guarantee of service. Just because their aggregation point wasn't previously saturated and they weren't previously throttled doesn't mean that was an entitlement to that level of service forever.

I don't expect 24/7 full throughput. How about 72% for 24/7?

  I'd figure that a "C minus" is more than reasonable on my part, but apparantly it will get me throttled.

Re:Laws

[commodore64_love]

No because our fool politicians granted Comcast a monopoly.

That monopoly needs to be revoked so competitors like Cox, Time-Warner, AppleTV, Charter Cable, and so on can move in. When Comcast screws the customer, the customer can abandon ship to another provider..... precisely the way cellphones operate.

Re:Laws

[CannonballHead]

Cool. Well, I'm part Scandinavian if that counts for anything. Probably not. ;)

There are definite downsides to the way it is in America, heh. But I suppose most countries have downsides related to their governmental systems...

Unfortunately, we "put up" with stupid politicians and have decided to make "politics" a career choice, not a service to your country...

Re:Laws

[LordKazan]

They advertise it as

"X down/Y Up"

not

"X down/Y up for part of the time, X1/Y1 the rest of the time".

Throttling is a violation of your customer agreement and false advertising.

The "1%" (it's more than that) that expect 24/7 full throughput ARE THE CUSTOMERS WHO WANT TO USE WHAT THEY PAID FOR.

You sir, are what is wrong with american commerce. you'll take it up the arse from the corporate overloads all day long.

Re:Laws

[Red Flayer]

anal prolapse

That's rectal prolapse, you asshole. The anus cannot prolapse.

And if you want to search around for more info, beware! There be dragons:

Rectal prolapse is a condition routinely identified in pigs on farms and at slaughterhouses. If not reduced quickly, prolapses in pigs become necrotic and infected, plus the additional risk of cannibalization by other pen mates. If the latter happens it normally results in death of the animal by septicemia, shock or faecal peritonitis.

Re:Laws

[amplt1337]

I think it's unlikely that a bunch of local monopolists are going to start poaching on each other's territory. What I suspect would happen, even if the official monopoly (which should never've been granted) were revoked, is that they'd be perfectly happy to continue with spheres of influence in which they can each gouge their own customer bases.

The real issue here is that building infrastructure like this requires such a huge amount of capital that it's a natural monopoly. There's really no way for competitors to come in without a huge investment in laying their own lines that is very much at risk and only serves to lessen their own profit margins. The real government fail here isn't recognizing a monopolist (since the nature of the business is such that one is bound to emerge) -- it's not making sure to regulate that monopolist effectively.

Re:Laws

[cromar]

hyperbole comprehension fail :)

Re:Laws

[dwlovell]

Comcast main service description if you search by your zipcode and look at the "Performance" plan:
"Get download speeds up to 12 Mbps and uploads up to 2 Mbps with PowerBoost® for only $19.99 a month for 6 months!"

Click to immediate link in the summary "Terms and Conditions", in the first paragraph:
"Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. PowerBoost provides bursts of download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5 MB of a file, respectively."

You will find similar clauses in any service description for residential cable/dsl.

I am all for pushing the companies to get the best service for the cheapest price, but you do that by voting with your dollar. It is not reasonable or effective to agree to a service contract, then demonize the business for living up to their end of the bargain as they said they would.

The bottom line is you didn't pay for those speeds for any guaranteed amount of time. Techincally those speeds aren't guaranteed at all if your line quality isn't good enough to support the transmission. The only way to get guaranteed service is to pay for a dedicated line, ie: T1.

Go look at the cost of a T1 and realize it is only 1.5 Mbps, now look at the cost of that 12 Mbps residential cable. Why do you think the T1 is so much more expensive for almost 1/10th the speed? Technology may change, bandwidth may get so cheap it doesn't matter, but right now, guaranteeing 100% throughput at residential service prices simply wont work.

Re:Laws

[realisticradical]

Go look at the cost of a T1 and realize it is only 1.5 Mbps, now look at the cost of that 12 Mbps residential cable. Why do you think the T1 is so much more expensive for almost 1/10th the speed? Technology may change, bandwidth may get so cheap it doesn't matter, but right now, guaranteeing 100% throughput at residential service prices simply wont work.

I agree with you fully. But where's my in-between? Residential internet services are quickly becoming a race to the bottom scenario. Sure I could haul off and spend the multiple thousands of dollars it would cost to install a T1 line. But I don't need a T1 because if my internet goes down for an hour or so every few weeks or my IP address changes from time to time my world doesn't end. So my question is, where's my middle ground? Where's the plan for someone who wants to watch TV shows online, play some games and download big files here and there?

Re:Laws

[Maxo-Texas]

I used to vote for republicans and against democrats because republicans were thrifty and for small government.
I used to vote for democrats and for republicans because republicans were religious extremists forcing me to live by their religious rules.

So if the position was city controller, it'd be republican. If it was city council, it'd be democratic.

I'd also mix up the council vs the mayor, and so on.

Now the republicans are still religious extremists AND they also spend like drunken sailors AND they sell out my interests and freedom to corporations.
Now the democrats spend like drunken sailors AND they sell out my interests and freedom to corporations.

I tried voting for Ron Paul (religiously extreme but at least a certified small government type).

I'm really at a loss tho. It looks like we are hell bound for a corporofascist oligarchy.

Re:Laws

[Jrabbit05]

Burden of proof. These vast claims need hard data to back them up. You can't just assume they're a natural monopoly.

Re:Laws

[badasscat]

Because our laws are written by corporate interests, not the people.

Oh, this is bullshit. We put up with it because we're conditioned to put up with all manner of mediocrity, lies, and incompetence in this country. This is only one example of it. Our leaders are another, but WE voted for them.

People always want to put the blame on someone other than themselves. But the people who are responsible for this kind of crap in this country are US. We are responsible because we expect it and we do nothing about it.

If we don't want to put up with shit like this, then we should be electing people based on how they specifically say they're going to respond to these kinds of shenanigans. But we don't. Instead, we vote for people because it looks like they have a nice family in TV commercials, or because they're against teh gays, or because they claim to adhere to some poorly defined set of values (ie. "family values", "conservative principles", etc.).

THAT IS OUR FAULT.

When you see 6-10% of people undecided in the final days of a national election (as was the case in 2008), what does that tell you? It doesn't tell you that we have a bunch of independent thinkers, as those people and the media will claim, it tells you that we have a bunch of people in this country who aren't paying any attention at all. Not only do they not understand the candidates' stances on the issues they care about, they don't even know the broad ideologies of the parties they belong to - they can't even make an assumption based on party affiliation or label. These are the people that often decide our elections.

And when you couple this lack of paying attention with the ridiculously low voting rates we have in this country compared with other democracies, then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Advertised Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

How can they advertise xx mbps when you can only use said speed for 15 minutes? Shouldn't it be advertised as a burst speed with a real speed of 70% of burst speed.

Re:Advertised Speed

[Andy Dodd]

All cable modem contracts have been written on the assumption that your bandwidth is shared between multiple users. You can burst up to the advertised rate, but you are never guaranteed to get it 100% of the time.

As much as I hate Comcast, this is in my opinion a pretty reasonable approach. You get throttled *only* if the network is congested (compared to Sandvining which was implemented no matter what the network state) and you get throttled only down to 50% of your maximum (which is a hell of a lot better than Cablevision OptimumOffline's stealthcapping, indefinately at 10% of your initial upstream without notification once you tripped the threshold.) It's a pretty fair scheme.

Of course the key is whether the throttling will be done in a normal traffic shaping manner, or Sandvine style with false RST injection. I am assuming false RST injection is out of the question since that got Comcast sued before.

So Comcast is ...

[CannonballHead]

Falsely advertising. Isn't that what this really comes down to? It seems like Comcast is allowed to do what they want with the service they provide. But they need to advertise it correctly.

Not sure about the monopoly bits though.

Re:So...

[Znork]

ISP's should be legally obliged to advertise only what they actually offer. If you can only use half, then they can only advertise half with any burst capability added as a possible extra.

Sounds reasonable

[ceswiedler]

It sounds reasonable to me. If it doesn't, you may need to accept the fact that you're not at all guaranteed that you can get your full 6Mb download bandwidth 24/7. If you thought you did, sorry; you misunderstood, possibly because of shady (but probably not illegal) advertising, in which case I don't blame you for being angry. But a reliably 6Mb connection is vastly more expensive than the $50/month you're paying, so your anger is akin to being disappointed that the 120 MPH car you bought isn't guaranteed to make your 10 mile commute in 5 minutes during rush hour.

Re:Actually, its not...

[Itninja]

Good video over the net is 2 Mbps for Netflix

Where in the world did you get that info? And define 'good'. Like VHS quality? Or YoTube video quality? Also, some of use (like those with large families) can easily go through double-digit hours of Netflix streaming daily (especially in the Winter when going outside is not really an option). It's not the 1960's anymore....whole families don't gather to all watch the same show at the same time.

Re:Throttled how far down?

[tonyreadsnews]

The linked PDF says what is required, though in reading the FCC filing, the summary is a bit incorrect.
Basically Comcast has 2 levels in the tier (called PBE and BE)
Everyone starts out as PBE level.
To get moved from PBE to BE, all of the following have to occur
- That particular network segment needs to be 'nearing congestion' defined as 70% upstream limits or 80% downstream limits for 15 minutes.
- A particular user has to be 'significantly contributing' defined as 70% upstream or downstream limits for 15 minutes.
Being placed in BE means that if there is congestion (meaning priorities have to be determined) any delays will affect BE traffic before PBE traffic.

To be removed from BE status you have to drop below 50% for 15 minutes

I think it is good that these are coming out in the open and being shared, and I think it is a step in the right direction since they state they will no longer use a protocol based management method. If there is congestion on a network, someone has to suffer, and it seems reasonable that those placing the highest load should be the ones to feel the effects first.

I do think, however, they need to mention more explicitly that the speeds they market are theoretical maximum allotments, and to give a average attainable bandwidth if everyone in their (block, building, etc) were to maximize usage.

Re:Actually, its not...

[IgnoramusMaximus]

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?

Your "math" is full of unwarranted assumptions. Chief amongst them the mother's-basement-dwelling single nerd's view-point. Lets try this with a family of 4 using Hulu/Netflix/iTunes/what-not combo to watch TV, movies, sports, buy music, get Anime etc. That's slightly over 2 hours a day per person. Not so "unreasonable" anymore, is it now? And 2 hours a day for kids/teenagers is somewhat a conservative estimation (and am I not master of understatement or what?).

Vote With My Dollar How?

[Tony Freakin Twist]

Comcast is a monopoly in my area (Twin Cities). How exactly do I vote with my dollar?