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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."
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?
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.
What if you throttle your own connection for 5 seconds every 14 minutes? (No, I don't agree with the policy. At all.)
Error 001
Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
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.
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.
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
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.
This article is from January. Maybe it got throttled somewhere.
If they are going to "throttle" my service, it seems only fair for me to "throttle" my payments.
"Oh, you've been billing 100% of the advertised rate for the last 4 months? I'm going to have to cut you down to 50% until your annual average is under 75%..."
This I don't like, but I understand. If this happens often Comcast should be upping capacity, but as a short-term solution the principle seems reasonable and fair (putting aside the filtering looking a bit extreme).
This however appears to be a solution without requiring there to be a problem. Being penalised regardless of whether there is congestion or not, simply for utilising three-quarters of what you paid for. The description in TFA does seem to imply that if there is no congestion the actual bandwidth won't change too much, but I guess it would significantly impact gaming lag (particularly if you're hosting).
I live in the SF Bay area, which is mostly Comcast country, but I'm really lucky to be in a city that has municipal cable. I have 12 mpbs down with no throttling. If there's a transfer cap, I've never run up against it.
I suspect what's going on with Comcast is their subscribers and bandwidth use are growing faster than they can (or at least want to) add capacity, so they're solving the problem with throttling. As a network engineer in a previous career life, I have a certain amount of sympathy for them in this case. Their bandwidth demands may be growing faster than they can add capacity while having their Internet business remain profitable. Throttling heavy users is one solution, and they are far from the first ISP to do so. The ISP I worked for 10 years ago did it in some cases. Our TOS allowed it in all cases, but it was usually only enforced in cases where a particular user was being regularly problematic.
Of course, my municipal cable provider seems to have no problem maintaining infrastructure, and IIRC they charge about the same as Comcast, so...
However, I do take issue with applying such a throttle after only 15 minutes. For most people, that's not long enough to download an install CD ISO (I can do it, since I usually see download speeds >= 1 megabyte/sec for ISOs) but I don't think most Comcast users get a connection as fast as mine; correct me if I'm wrong). Since I'm sort of a distro whore, I tend to download a lot of install ISOs. For distros that install from DVD, that 15 minutes is even worse. I think the throttling threshold should be at least 30 minutes.
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.
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.
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
One might think this could even be written as a nice plug-in style setup for "traffic shaping" on your local linux box. Define 100%, and it figures out how to maximize use w/o triggering the ISP-side throttling.
the delusion of choice and reality of choice are different things.
I have no choice of a provider that is competitive to comcast in my area, for example. So yes, I do have a choice, but it's not a competitive one, even at the 50% speed.
It also means that effectively, you may as well call the connection 50% of it's total speed. Thus, with a 22mb plan, I'm getting 11mb, effectively unless I throttle my own connection to 69%.
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
Comcast is not a monopoly. They are pretty close, and they certainly operate like one in certain local areas, but on the whole there is competition nationwide. So trying to prosecute under monopoly statues is impossible.
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
If Comcast can afford NBC, they can afford the bandwidth being used by its subscribers. This is just a way to increase profits at the cost of service.
Any broadband provider that fails to understand that bandwidth usage ALWAYS increases... might as well start selling tomatoes.
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. . . .
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.
I'd have to assume they're smart enough to avoid such trivial workarounds, and are using a sliding window to keep track of *average* bandwidth usage over the last 15min. If you run at 100% for 14.5min and 50% for 30sec, you'll be averaging 98.3% usage and you're hozed.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
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!
I only agree 70%.
Your post has been up more than 15 minutes, so you're probably only in agreement 50% now.
Fine with me. As long as you don't do so for more than 15 minutes.
This is the real solution. 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. If they can, the ISP would have to pay out the can for such equipment. If you want a dedicated full throttle Internet connection, the ISPs can help you out, but you're going to pay for it.
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. Yet another "I'm special and my needs are more important than you!" article.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
* 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!
Comcast is a monopoly in my area (Twin Cities). How exactly do I vote with my dollar?
mmm so what's this mean about VOIP? and phone service that Comcast might sell you vs Vonage or MagicJack?
so the kids view tons of videos, etc and all of a sudden you can't make usage phone calls? and will Comcast-supplied VOIP phone service work but Vonage or MJ fail?
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."
You know who else used a similar throttling scheme?
Nazi Germany.
Residential ISPs provide connections that are designed for households where relatively short bursts of high activity alternate with longer periods of very low activity. It is correctly designed for that sort of application. Although more infrastructure would sure be good to increase the average speed everybody's getting, too much of it would just make the service too expensive for people who are not benefitting from the extra throughput.
If what you expect of residential ISP service is a guaranteed bandwidth level that you will saturate 24/7, you have bought the wrong service. You can buy something that provides that sort of service--but you're going to pay more.
Are you adequate?
I'm looking for software that can trottle bandwidth based on time. Say 100% for 15 minutes, then 49% for 15 minutes then back to 100%. Or am I going to have to write a 5 line perl script to circumvent this?