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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."
What if you throttle your own connection for 5 seconds every 14 minutes? (No, I don't agree with the policy. At all.)
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So you've hit the 250GB cap, but you aren't a pirate. You pay for everything you consume - including bandwidth. Your only crime is that you went to another company for video service. You like your Apple TV and the iTunes store, or you like using a slingbox, or you like movies on demand from your Roku, or your DirecTV receiver.
All of these technologies may cause you to run over your cap, and they all have one thing in common - they directly compete with Comcast's video services.
Now Comcast appears to be using their broadband monopoly, in the form of transfer caps, to discourage the use of competing services.
If this isn't the very definition of an abusive monopoly, I don't know what is.
-ted
Or you can run at 100% for 14.5 minutes, automatically throttle yourself for 30 seconds, then go back to 100% for another 14.5 minutes. So for a 24 hours day you would be at 100% for 23.2 (non-consecutive) hours. Meh.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
The 250GB cap mentioned in the article does not affect business customers (I called to confirm it). I know I have a contract for 3 years (they were the only ones who could deliver service in my area), and was so floored by the assertion that all customers would be subject to bandwidth caps, I called about it. The rep informed me that there is no bandwidth cap for business customers, although if you do use a lot of bandwidth, they will let you know about it (I have no idea what limit would trigger that event or anything, but then again, neither did the rep I spoke with).
I got nuthin
I've long suggested the option to vote against a candidate instead of for one, that would be a variation on preferential voting.
Amen, that was a breath of fresh air in a room full of "me-me's" instinctively chanting that Comcast is eating babies and setting villages on fire, and that anyone who disagrees is a corporate apologist.
To agree further...
If someone actually *needs* 250GB or more of data per month, and full-pipe speeds the entire time to boot, then as you said there is a plan available for that, called commercial or business class service. There *is* a distinction, and it's funny that they don't see the irony when they say "I want what I paid for."
I dropped my landline and cable television both, everything comes through my cable modem (and I stream Netflix heavily as well as Plex) without issue.
I don't think that Comcast implementing throttling is going to be like what Rome did to Carthage. The reality is that if you are downloading a massive multi-gig file it's going to take a while whether you are throttled or not. Any QoS or traffic management 101 class defines this as bulk or best effort traffic and puts it at the bottom - it's not interactive or particularly time sensitive. Why not make it livable for everyone else? And before everyone hits the reply button and complains that Comcast shouldn't have their upstream oversubscribed, please pause first to grab a clue and realize that every ISP oversubscribes. On top of that, cable plants were only really designed for one way downstream delivery of cable channels so upstream bandwidth will always be much more limited. The only way Comcast can make more upstream bandwidth available is by splitting a node, which means they are doubling their upstream bandwidth by doubling their cable plant. As you can imagine, this is very expensive and that cost ultimately gets passed along to the consumer.
I'm sure someone in the comments has couched this as a net neutrality issue. I also don't buy that argument since it's not targeted at a specific person or application.
So yeah, this sucks, but it was more or less inevitable.
The problem is not the government granted monopoly of the physical infrastructure per se. It could be argued that this is a case of Natural Monopoly. The problem comes from allowing the same company with the natural infrastructure monopoly to also offer service to endpoint customers over that infrastructure. The ownership of the lines and the sale of service operating on those lines should be kept separate as a legal condition of holding the government granted natural infrastructure monopoly.
(1) The price goes up because the cable channels keep demanding more money. At one time channels asked for about 25 cents per home, and collected that money from Comcast, Dish, Directv, and so on. In today's world some channels like CNN or FOX News still only ask for 25 cents, but other channels like Sci-Fi, TNT, ABCfamily, and Disney are demanding 90 cents per subscriber, with the most-expensive channel ESPN charging $3/subscriber.
Therefore since these cable channels are demanding more fees, our monthly bills also go up.
(2) I'd say Dish and Directv are competing more with cable than one another. Dish now offers service for a mere $20 a month, plus $5 if you want locals, which is a darn good deal. Certainly better than what Comcast would charge me (~$65).
(3) I actually have neither of these. I get my TV for free via antenna (about 45 channels total), plus $15 internet for video-on-demand.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
You do realize we have gone through many political parties in the US, right? The reason parties die out is because more people "throw their vote away" than vote for the original primary party. For example, the Whig party is gone. They are no more. The current two parties, Democrat and Republican, actually started out as one party. Back then, the major polarizing issues were completely different, and the current polarizing issues were little more than minor philosophical differences among party members. Eventually the northern, industrialized portion of the party split off over issues like slavery and representation in congress, while the deep south Democrats consolidated their base. The Republican party has since gone through a number of near-deaths and re-births since then, while the Democrats have changed slowly and steadily since then.
One particular election that nearly saw the death of the Republican party in somewhat recent history was Theodor Roosavelt's second term - he became angry with the Republican party and ran under the Bull party. He took around 20% of the vote, while the republican candidate took around 30% of the vote giving the Democrat candidate the victory. Had his party been a little more established it might have overtaken the Republican party and we'd have the Democrats and Bulls today.
So, while it may seem like voting 3rd party is throwing your vote away, it isn't. You can think of it as voting against both parties, and if enough people agree with you a new party may rise to dominance. The mere fact that you voted has an effect on the election. No candidate can win by less than 50% of the electoral votes, so a strong enough third party siphoning votes from both sides can really shake up the political system. That isn't possible when nobody votes third party. For example, if the Green Party managed to take California and (inexplicably) Texas, both major parties would be screwed. Basically whichever party is dominant in the House of Reps chooses the president (effectively, it is run like another election), and the Senate elects the VP. Just imagine the message that would be sent to both parties and the grass-roots political efforts that would be generated. It would almost be a given that a new party will rise to dominance.
Honestly, I think if more people voted for the candidate that actually represented what what they believed instead of saying "well, it's better than the other guy" we would be in a lot better shape today.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I totally agree. If I'm gaming and my connection slows to a crawl because my neighbor decides to bittorrent 50GB of data I would be pretty pissed. Traffic management is a must for a smooth running network. For the 5% who use 90% of the bandwidth and demand no throttling it just makes life miserable to the 95% who aren't abusing the bandwidth. If you want non-throttled bandwidth, get a business account.
I myself have a Comcast business account and am quite pleased with it. The level of service is much better and the customer service is night and day compared to residential, but then again, I'm paying $90/month for my connection. Then again, I never really had much of a problem with my residential account for the most part, I mostly wanted a static IP and the ability to run servers.
All ISPs oversubscribe their networks because otherwise it would cost far too much for them to be competitive. If there's congestion, which packets should be dropped? The casual user or the user running huge bittorrents? Bandwidth is a limited resource.
The best solution would be if applications properly marked the packets as bulk, time sensitive, etc, but that isn't the case, and instead other less optimal methods must be used.
DOCSIS 3 will hopefully help, but it will be a while before it's available everywhere.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Honestly, I think if more people voted for the candidate that actually represented what what they believed instead of saying "well, it's better than the other guy" we would be in a lot better shape today.
Maybe if we actually knew what the candidates believed. What about people who voted for Obama because of DADT or closing Guantanimo?
Well said.
The natural gas company or electric company or water company are natural monopolies because it isn't practical to run 3 or 4 foot-wide pipes to every home. But cable TV isn't a natural monopoly. Neither is internet. You can easily bundle 10 companies/cables into less than half-a-foot diameter.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall