said by aciddrink :

What about those of us that stream netflix, download linux distros and/or movies from Itunes? We can easily consume as much or more bandwidth than a 'pirate' can, especially in a household.

said by PDXPLT :

Yea, and why would Comcast want to make that easy for you to do? Then you'll buy less PPV movies, premium mvie channels, etc., from them.

This policy makes business sense from Comcasts POV. They provide HSI to compete with DSL, NOT to cannabalize their high-margin TV offerings. So as long as you get an "above DSL" experience, you should be happy, right?

This is just like Frontier's cap - obviously, the only "appropriate" use for HSI is browsing, email, etc.: anything that doesn't threaten their other businesses.

said by PDXPLT :

Yea, and why would Comcast want to make that easy for you to do? Then you'll buy less PPV movies, premium mvie channels, etc., from them.

This policy makes business sense from Comcasts POV. They provide HSI to compete with DSL, NOT to cannabalize their high-margin TV offerings. So as long as you get an "above DSL" experience, you should be happy, right?

This is just like Frontier's cap - obviously, the only "appropriate" use for HSI is browsing, email, etc.: anything that doesn't threaten their other businesses.

said by ieolus (modified slightly):

Are you saying that Comcast is making business decisions on their common carrier internet business to help out their cable business?

said by baineschile :

Maybe when people stop downloading pirated movies and software at a staggering rate, ISPs wouldnt have to do it for everyone.

Thanks a lot, piraters, for making the experience rough for everyone

said by hopeflicker :

perhaps cable ISPs need to upgrade their network.
Docsis 1 and 2, pffftt!. LOL

said by baineschile :

Maybe when people stop downloading pirated movies and software at a staggering rate, ISPs wouldnt have to do it for everyone.

Thanks a lot, piraters, for making the experience rough for everyone

said by baineschile :

Downloading an unbox movie - 3gigs
VOiP 1 hour chat - 30Mb/hr (approx)
Surfing Clips - 250-500Mb an hour (1024x768 max)

So, if you download 2 movies a day (180 gigs/mo), chat on the phone 2 hours a day (about 4 gigs/mo) and surf for video clips 3 hours a day (about 40 gigs/mo), you are still using less than the cap 224gigs.

But cmon, who does all that?

said by baineschile :

You would be incorrect. No normal residential person can come up with a 100% legal excuse to use more than 250 gigs/mo

said by baineschile1 :

I support the whole "all you can eat buffet" style internet, but the problem is the people that spend all day at the buffet, and eat 75 lobster tails. That has driven up the cost of business for EVERYONE, now comcast has to implement technology to govern all of this, which will of course, come with costs.

said by meh37 :

A packet is a packet is a packet => first come, first served. Everyone has the same opportunity to use, or not use, their connectivity. We all pay for 24/7 access up to a certain speed, depending on the tier you choose. If a network is congested, then you have the same opportunity to wait for your turn as everyone else does. That's what it means to be on a network, especially one being used by more people than the number for which it was designed.

said by funchords :

Awesome! I hope you don't mind that I stole this.

said by TKJunkMail :

And with that statement you become one of those perverting the whole idea of net neutrality from its original meaning - an ISP discriminating against 3rd party companies to give preference to their own products.

said by TKJunkMail :

Your definition of net neutrality tries to say an ISP has no right to manage its network at all, except by endlessly expanding capacity to satisfy the needs of the most rapacious users.

said by funchords :

No - what has happened instead is that Comcast has mis-managed its network in order to fudge the perception of the actual bandwidth subscribers have access to in a competition with lower-priced DSL and more-capable FIOS.

said by espaeth :

The entire advertising model for EVERY player in this space is based on BS. To single out a single broadband provider for this practice is simply being disingenuous.

said by funchords :

You're right, except for my motives. I should have said "Cable." I said "Comcast" because that's the current example.

said by espaeth :

You make it sound like the other providers aren't lying about their capacity. If every subscriber started using 250GB/mo on their $30-$60 FiOS/DSL/BPL/Muni-wifi/DOCSIS/U-verse connection the entire cost model would fail.

The entire advertising model for EVERY player in this space is based on BS. To single out a single broadband provider for this practice is simply being disingenuous.

said by espaeth :

You make it sound like the other providers aren't lying about their capacity. If every subscriber started using 250GB/mo on their $30-$60 FiOS/DSL/BPL/Muni-wifi/DOCSIS/U-verse connection the entire cost model would fail.

said by espaeth :

I have a 5mbps DSL line from Embarq that from June until just last week I could only hit peak rates of just 2.5mbps on, and average rates stayed buried below 1mbps and latency was consistently 300+ms to any Internet destination.

said by espaeth :

In talking with the techs, they have something like 80 subscribers off our remote terminal DSLAM -- and it was previously only fed with 45mbps of capacity. If only 9 of those 80-something subscribers were 5mbps users that liked to push their line to the max, that would have worked to saturate the node for everyone.

said by BenAthar :

I would use another ISP, but since Comcast is the only franchise in this town, I would rather use dial-up or DSL instead.

said by Alcohol :

However don't you think this is a step in the wrong direction? Everyone knows American broadband is no way as advanced as the worlds, and instead of changing that we're putting limits on our outdated technology so we don't have to upgrade.

Way to go Comcast.

said by NOCMan :

If caps become commonplace then you can kiss the online backup industry goodbye. A lot of people have digital media collections that exceed 250G.

said by wentlanc :

How long of a cable do you use to connect to your offsite disk? That's the whole point of online backup. You NEVER have your backup media on the site!

said by wentlanc :

You NEVER have your backup media on the site!

And are ISPs counting their own data backup services in the caps?



cw

said by baineschile :

Maybe when people stop downloading pirated movies and software at a staggering rate, ISPs wouldnt have to do it for everyone.

Thanks a lot, piraters, for making the experience rough for everyone

said by en102 :

DSL = VERY stable. On a 3Mbps DSL line, I will hit max 99% of the time, and latency will not change
Cable = Faster (6Mbps/512kbps), however, speeds will vary, as will latency.

said by baineschile :

Thanks a lot, piraters, for making the experience rough for everyone

said by baineschile :

Maybe when people stop downloading pirated movies and software at a staggering rate, ISPs wouldnt have to do it for everyone.

Thanks a lot, piraters, for making the experience rough for everyone

said by baineschile :

Maybe when people stop downloading pirated movies and software at a staggering rate, ISPs wouldnt have to do it for everyone.

Thanks a lot, piraters, for making the experience rough for everyone

said by en102 :

6Mbps ? I could live with that.
The problem that I've noticed (been on Cable for a few days from DSL).
DSL = VERY stable. On a 3Mbps DSL line, I will hit max 99% of the time, and latency will not change
Cable = Faster (6Mbps/512kbps), however, speeds will vary, as will latency.

Skypeout actually ran better on 3Mbps DSL than 6Mbps cable.