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Earthlink Announces It Must Honor Comcast Cap
LostCluster writes "For those in Comcast territory, a popular way to get around Comcast's 250 GB monthly cap was to sign up for EarthLink Powered by Comcast Service, where there was no cap. Forget about that.... Earthlink just posted an FAQ explaining that Comcast will enforce the cap against Earthlink customers starting July 1."
I'm not sure what different perspective I'm supposed to take from your statement. That we should accept crappy limits because the UK does?
Stories like this make me increasingly wish the FCC would, indeed, move broadband providers back under common carrier rules. Competition would do wonders here. Though I did find it amusing that their FAQ talked about how 40 HD movies would nearly hit the limit, which I think is a good example of how keeping alternative download services off their network is probably the big motivation here. I highly doubt they apply this cap if you buy Comcast brand movies on demand.
I'm not sure what different perspective I'm supposed to take from your statement. That we should accept crappy limits because the UK does?
Yes. Because if it is good enough for England it is good enough for you in whatever backwards, uncivilized non-England country your cave is in.
According to TFA, they won't notify if you approach the limit, and the only way to find out your current usage is to call them. Now that's handy.
I take it that you don't watch much video or listen to Internet radio. 15GB means you only use 0.5GB/day. I get through almost that much just having a 128Kb/s Internet radio stream on for about 8 hours a day. Watching one show on iPlayer can use that much again - more for a film, and a lot more if I watch the HD streams. 250GB is still a lot more than I use, but your usage is very low for someone who practically lives on the Internet.
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Today, it's the 250 giggers. Tomorrow, 200. They will ALWAYS try to reduce the impact of the most prolific users. If they manage to get 99.9% of their customers under 250 gigs, they'll drop the limit to 200 gigs. Then 150. Then 100.
Meanwhile, maybe you start streaming HD movies from Netflix and watch your favorite TV shows on Hulu instead of paying $15/month for your DVR. Your 15-22 gigs a month starts going up. Eventually, your increased usage will meet their decreased level of acceptable use. Next thing you know, we'll be like Australia or England.
A friend of mine just signed up with Comcast at his new apartment? I warned him that Comcast has the WORST reputation in the US, but he just shrugged.
He pays for business access, rather than private home access. It's another $40 per month, but there's higher bandwidth, servers are allowed, no traffic shaping, no throttling of Bittorrent protocols, and best of all, NO CAP.
His theory-and it seems to hold-is that if you're going to cough up the dosh for a business account, then you know what you're getting into with such things, so they don't care if the RIAA/MPAA shows up at your door.
I suppose, but I think it's just the extra $40 that turns their head.
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To ensure it is all put in perspective and fit to reality. Downloads limits have absolutely nothing to ensure people can access the bandwidth they are paying for. It is just one huge lie in order to drive up prices via collusion between the major ISPs, the incumbent telecoms.
For once and for all, bandwidth caps will have zero impact on the peak load times. Those peak load times are purely driven by people attempting to access chronically over sold bandwidth at the same time and have absolutely nothing to do with the total downloads over a month. Point of fact peak down loaders will download by far the bulk of their data in off peak times, simple logical common sense.
The reason you internet connection turns to crap when you get home and try to use it, is because everybody else is trying to use it at the same time, total downloads over a month hand nothing to do with traffic congestion at peak times. Putting data limits in has much more to do with competitively crippling digital sales distribution companies. Want to sell your own music direct to your customers, well you not going to do it with out paying an ISP tax at anywhere between 20 and 100 percent ie either sell through the telecom and pay them or go out of business (it doesn't matter whether you get your customers to off peak or even try to torrent, the incumbents will kill your business by screwing over potential customers).
Truth in bandwidth sales should be forced upon the ISP's, if you advertise bandwidth that is what you should be capable of providing at peak times and should not be based on maximum potential localised bandwidth no matter how it is crippled by the reality at regional, national and international levels.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen