Washington Post On Comcast CapsCox, AT&T chime in...limits still not specified... ( old news - 09:27AM Friday Sep 07 2007) tags: business · bandwidth · cable · caps · Comcast · Cox HSI · AT&T MidwestTipped by RichNice  We've been talking about this for roughly half a decade now, but the Washington Post has just discovered Comcast's invisible bandwidth caps. As noted countless times, the company sends disconnection letters to users who consume too much bandwidth, but never tells said users how much consumption is too much: To trigger a disconnection warning, customers would be downloading the equivalent of 1,000 songs or four full-length movies every day. Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas declined to reveal specific bandwidth limits. "It's our responsibility to make sure everyone has the best service possible," he said, "so we have to address abusive activities so they won't damage the experience for other customers." AT&T, who has no caps, says they have some bandwidth hogs, but says "we figure that's why they buy the service." Cox tells the paper they spend little time imposing limits, but occasionally warn customers about egregious consumption -- though such efforts "are few and far between," the company insists.
Related:- Comcast Gets Investigated While Cox Gets Free Pass
- Comcast, Cox, Trot Out Their Worst 'Bandwidth Hogs'
- Comcast Expands New Throttling Tests
- New Comcast Throttling System 100% Online
- Cox Network Management Trial Goes Live
- Comcast Usage Meter Still A No Show
- Cox Raises Their Usage Caps
- Comcast Still Fighting FCC Throttling Sanction
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 ace1974
join:2007-06-09
Goldsboro, NC | Comcrap Typical Comcrap tactics.. | |
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Cumcast sux0r
@integraonline.net | Re: Comcrap I agree. Comcast needs to wake up! | |
| 
fatmanskinny
Premium
join:2004-01-04
Wandering
1 edit | The wheels on the bus.... go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round everytime we mention Comcast capping speeds....
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The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary. | |
| | 
wolves01
2008 Calder Cup Champions
Premium
join:2002-11-21
Crystal Lake, IL
 ·Comcast Workplace
| Re: The wheels on the bus.... Here we go again. | |
| jhigh420
join:2001-04-12
Atlanta, GA | bye bye comcast Everyone switch to bellsouth till comcast gets their shite together  | |
| | 
Neyland
join:2003-02-04
USA | Re: bye bye comcast Yea switch to Bellsouth. Of course I can see why Bellsouth doesn't have caps... they only offer half the bandwidth. | |
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jkj860
The Final Frontier
join:2002-01-10
Valparaiso, IN | Re: bye bye comcast Exactly! What fun is it downloading for hours at those speeds when comcast offers 4 times the speed. | |
| whiteyonenh
join:2004-08-09
Keene, NH
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
|  Bad Comcast Bad, No Cookie For You.....
Whereas, most people that I know that want quality will find the FLAC and full DVD-9 Rips.
The difference between the two file sizes, and obviously quality, is sometimes staggering.
I'm not even going to get into HD-DVD or BluRay Rips, although, those are huge, and I doubt anyone could download those in a day, especially not four of them. | |
| 
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26 | Normally, this would be the perfect time for the Bagdad Bob picture with the caption "Move along. No caps here" but I think we get the gist.
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A monthly desktop thread should only happen when Paris Hilton buys a computer. | |
| | 
Sith HMP
I Did What?
Premium
join:2004-04-25
Bloomington, IL
| Re: Normally, this would be the perfect time
Move Along... |
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| 
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Thanks Comcast! Thank you Comcast for actually taking a stand and removing customers who are consuming 200GB+ every month. Those customers who run torrents 24/7, downloading movies, uploading movies, and in the end, just slowing down my connection. Thank you for not being like AT&T or Cox who apparently could careless how their network and service is degraded as long as the customer pays. Thank you for being on top of it and for removing the less than 1% of the top bandwidth abusers on your network.
And thank you for not making it known what the caps are. That way users aren't abusing it by always coming "close" to the bandwidth limit, but never over.
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YourIP.US - It's Your IP .. and more!
rr.cx - Personal Site.. coming soon. | |
| | mbkowns
Got Bandwidth?
join:2003-07-01
Riverside, CA | Re: Thanks Comcast! ATT has caps also that statement was dumb...
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- MBK (AIM = IllMBKllI) | |
| | |
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by mbkowns :ATT has caps also that statement was dumb... ATT has caps? So then the article is wrong when it says "AT&T, who has no caps, says they have some bandwidth hogs, but says "we figure that's why they buy the service."" ? | |
| | | Cod
join:2000-07-05
Greensboro, NC
| said by mbkowns :ATT has caps also that statement was dumb... Says who? Do research before making false statements. | |
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ninjatutle
Premium
join:2006-01-02
San Ramon, CA
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| said by mbkowns :ATT has caps also that statement was dumb... Again, more disinformation spread on this site.
Prove that they have caps. | |
| | | | mbkowns
Got Bandwidth?
join:2003-07-01
Riverside, CA
| Re: Thanks Comcast! I don't need to every provider does if you use enough of their resources and your payment doesn't justify it they will let you know. Since they don't offer the speed to get near some of those numbers its not as likely but it will happen.
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- MBK (AIM = IllMBKllI) | |
| | 
DaSneaky1D
one wall to block them all
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-29
The Lou | When have you heard about someone complaining about speed problems due to oversubscription with AT&T?
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:: my trivial ramblings :: | |
| | jtorre69
join:2005-12-26
Hollywood, FL
| It's not that at&t does not care about the state of their network, it's just that with at&t you don't share your network connection with your neighbors. It doesn't matter if your neighbor downloads countless data .That's what makes dsl a better product than cable modem. That's why at&t doesn't have to resort to this. | |
| | | 
Jodokast96
R.I.P Bassman442
Premium
join:2005-11-23
Erial, NJ
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by jtorre69 :It's not that at&t does not care about the state of their network, it's just that with at&t you don't share your network connection with your neighbors. It doesn't matter if your neighbor downloads countless data .That's what makes dsl a better product than cable modem. That's why at&t doesn't have to resort to this. Not totally true. You eventually share the bandwidth with them somewhere. Instead of at the node, it's at the CO. So now you're sharing with the whole town instead of just your neighbors. | |
| | | | 
RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by Jodokast96 :said by jtorre69 :It's not that at&t does not care about the state of their network, it's just that with at&t you don't share your network connection with your neighbors. It doesn't matter if your neighbor downloads countless data .That's what makes dsl a better product than cable modem. That's why at&t doesn't have to resort to this. Not totally true. You eventually share the bandwidth with them somewhere. Instead of at the node, it's at the CO. So now you're sharing with the whole town instead of just your neighbors. This is true but you need to look at the whole picture. With Cable you are sharing your available "last mile" bandwidth with your neighbors and thus a hog as a neighbor affects you. With DSL, you have 24/7 dedicated last mile bandwidth (you to the CO). At the CO, your traffic is commingled with all of the other users of that CO and since there is, hopefully, enough bandwidth to support the CO's user's average needs there is less impact from the hogs (you have more people and thus there are more "less than average" users in the mix). | |
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Jodokast96
R.I.P Bassman442
Premium
join:2005-11-23
Erial, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by RARPSL :This is true but you need to look at the whole picture. With Cable you are sharing your available "last mile" bandwidth with your neighbors and thus a hog as a neighbor affects you. With DSL, you have 24/7 dedicated last mile bandwidth (you to the CO). At the CO, your traffic is commingled with all of the other users of that CO and since there is, hopefully, enough bandwidth to support the CO's user's average needs there is less impact from the hogs (you have more people and thus there are more "less than average" users in the mix). It doesn't really matter. Either way there should be enough bandwidth to whatever point the sharing is occurs. For example, at the node level, you're saying 1 person can affect the whole thing. Ok just to use arbitrary numbers, let's say there are 100 people on every node. That's one person affecting another 99. Say there are 100 nodes in a given town, and that each node sees this problem. Each node receives 1% of X amount of bandwidth.
Now if you base it on a DSL model using the same numbers and bandwidth (X), but without the nodes, you've now got 100 people pulling the same amount of data from the same amount of bandwidth and affecting the other 9,900 just the same, except now it's spread out over a larger area. Either way it's not enough bandwidth to handle the demand. DSL may give you a fast sync speed over that last mile, but the use of it still ends up being the same. Slow.
One method is really no better than the other. It all depends on the makeup and usage of individuals in a given area. In a node system, if all 100 of the hogs are off of one node, then the rest of the nodes won't be affected, because they are all fighting over 1% of X. But in a DSL system, it doesn't matter if they are all in a single area or not, because they now have direct access to X, so the other 9,900 are affected. | |
| | |
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| said by jtorre69 :It's not that at&t does not care about the state of their network, it's just that with at&t you don't share your network connection with your neighbors. It doesn't matter if your neighbor downloads countless data .That's what makes dsl a better product than cable modem. That's why at&t doesn't have to resort to this. DSL is a shared medium, just like cable. The difference is at which point you begin sharing your connection with your neighbors on a DSL connection is not the same point on cable.
DSL is not a better product than cable modem. Whichever service is available in your area, and reliable, that is which service is a better product. Not to mention that cable tends to yield faster speeds than DSL, constantly. | |
| | | | jvanbrecht
join:2007-01-08
Bowie, MD
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by Rob :DSL is a shared medium, just like cable. The difference is at which point you begin sharing your connection with your neighbors on a DSL connection is not the same point on cable. By your account above, it means every single link is shared across the entire internet from business to residential service.
By shared, they mean segment, not the entire company, Cable segments are a shared medium, DSL is not as its a point to point connection via a local loop from your house to the ISP (bypassing the switching equipment in the CO since DSL is not a switched medium) Yes, on the ISP side it becomes shared when it hits the ISPs backbone as well as its connections and peering points to tier 1 backbones. BTW, ATT is a tier 1 backbone, where as comcast is just a customers of a tier 1 provider. If the ISP does not have the accumulated backbone bandwidth to provide all their customers with sufficient service, that is not the users fault, regardless of how much they download. | |
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Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by jvanbrecht :said by Rob :DSL is a shared medium, just like cable. The difference is at which point you begin sharing your connection with your neighbors on a DSL connection is not the same point on cable. By your account above, it means every single link is shared across the entire internet from business to residential service. By shared, they mean segment, not the entire company, Cable segments are a shared medium, DSL is not as its a point to point connection via a local loop from your house to the ISP (bypassing the switching equipment in the CO since DSL is not a switched medium) Yes, on the ISP side it becomes shared when it hits the ISPs backbone as well as its connections and peering points to tier 1 backbones. BTW, ATT is a tier 1 backbone, where as comcast is just a customers of a tier 1 provider. If the ISP does not have the accumulated backbone bandwidth to provide all their customers with sufficient service, that is not the users fault, regardless of how much they download. AT&T may be a Tier 1, whereas Comcast isn't (though they have their CRAN Network), yet Comcast provides much faster speeds than AT&T does. Obviously Comcast is doing something right if they are usign AT&T's network, yet bringing faster speeds than the Tier 1 provider is! | |
| | | | | | jvanbrecht
join:2007-01-08
Bowie, MD
| Re: Thanks Comcast! Thats a limitation on DSL, which is heavily reliant on line quality and distance. That is one advantage that cable has over DSL. I do not live in an ATT service area, so I am not sure what they are providing with their fiber service that they are deploying. Also, as I stated in another post further down, yes they are a customer of a tier 1 provider, and odds are they use either ATT or Verizon (used to be uunet, then mci) as their provider, and I suspect they are probably running OC3's or OC12's to provide the bandwidth they need. But thats not the problem with cable. The problem is in fact that cable is a shared medium (all users on a particular segment share the bandwidth available on that particular segment), and yes, a single user can very easily saturate that segment, but that is not the users fault, that is the fault of the operator offering services it cannot support to stay in the game and compete against others who are offering faster services.
I am not being anti comcast.. well actually I am, but my beef with comcast has less to do with their bandwidth problems, and more to do with their billing practices, but that is off topic. I also equally hate ATT and Verizon.. so I consider myself unbiased on this fact. Also consider my background, I have worked for UUNET (before they were murdered by MCI and then Verizon), RCN, AOL Time Warner and Roadrunner (also owned by AOL/TW). I understand the technology and its limitations.
The issue at hand here however is not the technology, well it kind of is, but not completely, the issue here is Comcasts policy, which in my opinion is lame. A police officer cannot give you a speeding ticket, and then not tell you what the speed limit is that you broke (assuming all the speed limit signs were removed from the road) | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by djrobx :Oops, but wait, lots of AT&T DSL customers are serviced from a neighborhood RT where they share fiber back to the CO. Yeah, but it would take an AWFUL LOT of bandwidth heavy users I think to reach the capacity of the RT's Fiber connection.
Anyone from AT&T care to comment on approx. how much bandwidth an RT has? Because if you figure the TOP speed a user can get is around 8mbps down/1kup (and most much lower then that) then even if the connections were maxxed it would take a quite a few of them to overload the RT, me thinks.
--
"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
| | | | | | | jobias
join:2006-01-18
Knoxville, TN
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by KrK :said by djrobx :Oops, but wait, lots of AT&T DSL customers are serviced from a neighborhood RT where they share fiber back to the CO. Yeah, but it would take an AWFUL LOT of bandwidth heavy users I think to reach the capacity of the RT's Fiber connection. Anyone from AT&T care to comment on approx. how much bandwidth an RT has? Because if you figure the TOP speed a user can get is around 8mbps down/1kup (and most much lower then that) then even if the connections were maxxed it would take a quite a few of them to overload the RT, me thinks. This is a silly argument.
Seriously, what do you think cable nodes use to connect to the headend? Coax? Really? Cause you'd be wrong.
Cable nodes and DSL RT's both use a fiber link to talk to their respective Headend/CO. (lookup HFC: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fibre-coaxial)
The primary difference is that RT's offer individual lines to the home, while Nodes run shared coax to the house.
As djrobx points out, the bandwidth usage becomes an issue in the same place. If an RT is significantly over-subscribed (I say significantly, because they are, just as with cable nodes, cell phones, and even normal phone service, slightly oversubscribed by design) you'll see the same exact issues occur in DSL as when a hog pops up on a cable network. | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
2 edits | Re: Thanks Comcast! said by jobias :This is a silly argument. Seriously, what do you think cable nodes use to connect to the headend? Coax? Really? Cause you'd be wrong. No, it's not silly. Each DSL user is connected directly back to the RT or CO. (Often called dedicated run). At that point, the connections of all the DSL users on the RT is combined and goes over fiber back to the "Cloud" if you will.
That means to experience slowdown, the *entire RT* has to be overloaded to the point the fiber connection from the RT's capacity is exceeded.
Now, with Cable TV, it's different. YES, Fiber comes to the Node... But then the node goes out on Coax and connects many homes.... 500... I'm not really sure. To experience slowdown, if people on your Coax run are overloading it, you will slowdown. The bandwidth capacity of Coax is a lot less then fiber, and if you have dozens of homes on one run, it's a lot easier to overload the connection **BEFORE** it gets back to the Node which is where the fiber is.
Basically, yes, it's possible for an RT to be oversubscribed.... and everyone on that RT to experience slowdown.... *but* it's a *lot* more likely that a cable run with many users on it will experience slowdowns because simply put, there's a ton of people sharing one coax connection run back to the Node. So with DSL, all the users combined on an RT have to overload it's *fiber* connection, whereas with cable, all the users on that one run have to overload it's *Coax* connection.
I can't really explain it any clearer then this.
Cool, here's an image that shows it well:
Typical DSL setup. Note the direct connections to the RT's and CO's.
Now, typical Cable setup. Note the runs of coax from the node with tons of houses all on the same run.
'Nuff said, methinks. | |
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codee
Premium
join:2001-10-01
Minneapolis, MN
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by KrK :Now, typical Cable setup. Note the runs of coax from the node with tons of houses all on the same run. 'Nuff said, methinks.
Do you SERIOUSLY think that there are still 2000 homes on a node?? 1000?? I hope you are joking with that picture because that is ridiculous....that is a good example of maybe 1999. I don't experience any slowdowns no matter what time of day it is. On a side note, I am totally against any sort of specific limit being stated by Comcast. It would probably be lower then what I sometimes use anyways, I mean look at the limits of the ISPs who DO state what they are - they're pretty low. Some months I may need to use 300+ gigs, and some I may use 50-75 gigs. I haven't ever recieved a letter/warning/bad behavior slip for anything before, and I'm pretty sure the limits wouldn't be as high as 300+ gigs. I like it the way it is now with no set limit. | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| Re: Thanks Comcast! I don't know how old that is, or how many homes are on a Node.
Perhaps a Comcast employee would care to comment?
Irregardless, however, whether it's 500 or 25, the point still stands.
They are all on one shared coax back to the node. If your neighbors are "hogging" the connection, it can get overloaded and slowed down.
Look this isn't a DSL vs Cable: Which is better bashfest. This is merely a description of the topographical differences of the systems, and lends itself to why there are or aren't caps and why they'd be necessary.
Peace.
--
"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
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David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs:
 ·DIRECTV
 ·magicjack.com
·AT&T Midwest
| said by KrK :Anyone from AT&T care to comment on approx. how much bandwidth an RT has? Because if you figure the TOP speed a user can get is around 8mbps down/1kup (and most much lower then that) then even if the connections were maxxed it would take a quite a few of them to overload the RT, me thinks. Well I will put it like this. The alcatel 7300 DSLAM for Central offices at bare minimum for management and program controls only takes an OC-12 (that's just management control). Consumer traffic management now a days to the DSLAMs is as least a OC-48 or better. I forget what the actual is but it was told to us if they activated the test DSLAM in our office and maxed out it's connectivity for the consumer side, it would only be at 1/2 the bandwidth of the connection required to connect to it. That's assuming all useable ports and shelves! They advised in training class you can max one out, but you are not meeting "minimum requirements" if you do.
Remote terminals are given 4 Fiber optic connections 1 Digital POTS + 1 DSL + 2 spares. I believe the connections currently to them are configured for OC-48 currently and with just a flip of a switch can easily be 192's. Hell the RT sends an alarm to the central office if the bandwidth ever hits 50%. The RT's send alarms for all kinds of things including fan problems, cooling problems, and even power problems.
Ironically the big problem for some RT's is they run out of ports for customers to connect to before they run out of bandwidth for one. I have never in my 7 years been here ever seen a bandwidth problem from an RT. I probably never will in my lifetime. The RT's have way more bandwidth than what they have ports for customers for. I mean it's something fierce on what those things have. From what I hear is some of the RT's now (and if you are close enough) will have Uverse capability right next to the DSL customers. Digital T1 customers and others even get provisioned out of there. One RT tech told me one day that he just got done turning up a DS3 connection from an RT. Those things are like lego blocks the possiblities are just endless.
Ironically they are working at the VRAD models to be the same way.
--
If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!
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David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs:
·DIRECTV
·magicjack.com
·AT&T Midwest
| Re: Thanks Comcast! I didn't even say anything about the underground vaults. Those are and could be C.O. 's just on their own.
You can still slow down at a node, it's possible but typically your DSL and your Pots to the RT would have problems. We have whats called a "streaming RT" condition where the RT just keeps sending fragmented packets to the C.O. header and you can send no packets back to the RT or they all fail. Typically a switchover can fix it, however every now and then they have to go to the RT and change cards.
Those repairs are typically less than 4 hours. 90% of the time they are replacing a card at the RT while they are there or switch to the backup card and route that way till permanent repairs can be made. If the RT goes down hard they drive and change.
Now the areas they typically don't have a lot of bandwidth would be say small towns with DSL and such. For instance, say ozora, mo. Town of about 5,000 people and maybe say 300-500 live in town. an OC-48 for those customers might be overkill by quite a bit. Most times here they deploy a big dslam there as a "Master controller" and the adtran Dslams as a slave controller or the customer's side. Now they don't keep a lot of bandwidth for DSL here, but then again, how many customers in a small town are you expecting? You are not going to have say 1000-3000 customers like downtown STL on a given part of town. I can see the point here would be if they are not using enough traffic to really peak a OC-12 why give them a 48? At that point it's just overkill.
I remember last year there was a few different small towns in wisconsin that were getting another OC-12 between them and chicago for backhaul. The one and only OC-12 they had was and finally hit 50%. Before the traffic peaked 65% they had another one turned up and divided the traffic in like 1/2. I remember he said he checked his work like 6 months later and the original OC-12 was at like 30% and the other one just cracked 22%. Now how long was it before the 2nd OC12 was even required, it was 2+ years out. Even then he had it on the books to make them both 48's. Even if he did one this year and one next year, he would still have enough bandwidth available. Now that we have at&t's legacy network and SBC's legacy network, it's going to be interesting how they integrate everything. I am watching the changes on this side of the fence and it's just phenomenal.
I just for kicks and grins looked at my local dslam's percentages. Ya know on patch Tuesday it hit 12%? It's average for the month is 7%. Some days like labor day and Christmas it's at like 0%. I have seen a few days with goose eggs on the report. I am sitting here thinking I would take a pic if it ever hit 50%, but then again, I wonder how long I will be waiting? Or if the equipment or me will be retired by the time it happens?
--
If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!
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ib50MbSoon
Formerly TwoKDialup
Premium
join:2002-06-07
Coloma, MI
| said by Rob :Thank you Comcast for actually taking a stand and removing customers who are consuming 200GB+ every month. ...snip...
Exactly! Basically Comcast is just kicking a bunch of file pirates off their network so who really cares. I sure don't.
--
Meet Bill and Karolyn at www.theslowskys.com | |
| | 
AtlGuy
join:2000-10-17
Marietta, GA
| said by Rob :Thank you for not being like AT&T or Cox who apparently could careless how their network and service is degraded as long as the customer pays. I have no knowledge about Cox so I can't comment on that, but AT&Ts network is degraded? That's funny because I ALWAYS get the speed I'm supposed to get. I can't recall ever having to deal with a "degraded" network. | |
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Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by AtlGuy :said by Rob :Thank you for not being like AT&T or Cox who apparently could careless how their network and service is degraded as long as the customer pays. I have no knowledge about Cox so I can't comment on that, but AT&Ts network is degraded? That's funny because I ALWAYS get the speed I'm supposed to get. I can't recall ever having to deal with a "degraded" network. That's because you've never used a good network  | |
| | nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
·Comcast
| I liked the comment in the article that "if strict limits were disclosed, customers would use as much capacity as possible without tipping the scale, causing the networks to slow to a crawl."
that absolutely correct - if Granny Jones knew what the cap was, she would download all the way up to the limit - that's 100 billion emails and 9 trillion visits to the KnittingForFun web page and forum. | |
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dallash
Premium
join:2001-08-17
Little Rock, AR
clubs: | Rob,
You're my hero.
To hell with all those "something for nothing", bandwidth-abusing bastards. | |
| | | n0ym
join:2004-12-21
Rockville, MD
| Re: Thanks Comcast! To hell with all those "something for nothing", bandwidth-abusing bastards. Damn right. It's not as though they're paying for a service that a large number of customers seem to believe is unlimited (wonder where they got that idea?) or anything. | |
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Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by n0ym :To hell with all those "something for nothing", bandwidth-abusing bastards. Damn right. It's not as though they're paying for a service that a large number of customers seem to believe is unlimited (wonder where they got that idea?) or anything. I don't have no clue where they got the idea it is unlimited. But I know they didn't get it from Comcast, since Comcast does not advertise their service as unlimited. | |
| | | | | n0ym
join:2004-12-21
Rockville, MD
| Re: Thanks Comcast! I don't have no clue where they got the idea it is unlimited. But I know they didn't get it from Comcast, since Comcast does not advertise their service as unlimited. I believe the simple fact that they refuse to put numbers on their caps (instead, dancing around them, when it's perfectly clear they DO have them) is itself the promotion of a myth of unlimited availability. In fact, they're so invested in promoting that myth they're willing to take the negative PR hit from occasional bad stories of people being cut off. | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | I'm new to using a bit-torrent client. Even so tho, it's easy to configure a reasonable cap on it. Course I'm not running mine very much, so, meh. But even so, just set a reasonable cap and you'll be good, methinks. | |
| | n0ym
join:2004-12-21
Rockville, MD
| And thank you for not making it known what the caps are. That way users aren't abusing it by always coming "close" to the bandwidth limit, but never over. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that this would be the case, as compared with the current situation? If so, you should state it. If not, you really should stop claiming something that is both counter-intuitive and utterly unsupported--at least, if you want to be taken seriously. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
| jsouth
Jsouth
join:2000-12-12
Wichita, KS
| The thank you for not making the caps known is dumb. Comcast should make the caps known. If Comcast says the caps are 50gigs a month and people stay under them, wouldn't that also stop bandwidth abusers?
--
Bush bashing is old. How about more solutions instead? | |
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Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by jsouth :The thank you for not making the caps known is dumb. Comcast should make the caps known. If Comcast says the caps are 50gigs a month and people stay under them, wouldn't that also stop bandwidth abusers? Then it's an inconvenience to the other 99% of their customers that aren't consuming 200GB/mo.
So again, THANK YOU Comcast. | |
| | | | n0ym
join:2004-12-21
Rockville, MD
| Re: Thanks Comcast! Then it's an inconvenience to the other 99% of their customers that aren't consuming 200GB/mo.
So again, THANK YOU Comcast. With that level of certainty, it should be easy for you to back up your assertions that stated caps would encourage additional bandwidth usage over the current situation, in which many (most?) people seem to think the bandwidth is unlimited.
Please feel free to do so. And if you can't, we'll know where things stand. | |
| | | n0ym
join:2004-12-21
Rockville, MD
| The thank you for not making the caps known is dumb. Yeah, it is.
The simple fact is, it's quite likely those who will use high-bandwidth applications will use them, and those who have no interest in them are not likely to discover such interest when caps are stated.
By stating caps, Comcast could 1) decrease bad publicity and 2) decrease excessive usage. But by doing so, they'd dispel the myth (which, of course, they had no part in starting), that their service is unlimited.
I think there are a number of vocal people here who either work for Comcast or enjoy other people's problems, and simply won't acknowledge that explicitly stating caps and limitations on service (instead of vague legalese buried in terms and conditions) is a fair business practice. | |
| | 
ph03n1x
join:2003-02-15
Sanford, FL
| While I agree that there are people that are abusing the service, I think there is a greater problem. Yes, certainly, right now those that use 200+ gigs of traffic per month could likely be pirates and those that are should be penalized for excessive usage.
However, I see a bigger problem developing. The Internet in general is shifting focus from pure information delivery to content delivery more and more. Video and audio downloads and streaming are becoming more popular and more mainstream. Online gaming is extremely popular.
At my apartment, there are 5 people constantly online. Since I setup the network, I know there is no pirated content being downloaded. Every file is legit and even so, we manage to use about 30-35 gigs per month.
Between 3 adults who all have different taste in video podcasts & music. Songs are pulled from iTunes or Yahoo Music. Two of us play World of Warcraft actively. The third adult is an active eBay power seller and is constantly uploading pictures of items which can use a surprising amount of bandwidth. Of course, there's also the seeming addiction to YouTube and other similar sites.
The point I'm driving at is that the amount of traffic that can be generated just by legitimate use is already pretty high in a multi-user home and is just going to get higher as time goes by. The policies and caps that ISPs are currently using do not line up with the increasing amount of bandwidth usage, and I have no doubt that they will continue to fail to do so. | |
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Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| Re: Thanks Comcast! said by dMarks :Can I ask you a question? How 'degraded' has your service been at it's worst? Seriously, I would like to know. I would like to compare your degraded speed to what my top speed is on HughesNet...just to see if you have something to complain about. The worse my service has been is about 4mbps down and 700kbps up. Now I constantly get my standard 8mb down, and 74x up, and w/ powerboost around 12-15mb down. Thanks to Comcast for keeping their network working. | |
| 
Jon
Premium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | They have caps? hmm, never heard of that.  | |
| gatzdon
join:2002-10-25
Lake Zurich, IL
| Excessive???? or the new Norm? So let's see, 8 hours a day of streaming TV/Radio/Telephone use is not out of the question for a large family.
There are hundreds of tv stations around the world that broadcast on the internet. There are thousands of radio stations that also broadcast on the internet.
Why would it be out of the question for someone to get their entertainment from the internet rather than a cable subscription. Afterall, what are they paying for the internet for?
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$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterlyfor 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 --by which time it will be worth nothing.- Lazarus Long | |
| 
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
2 edits | Thanks Comast... for protecting the 99.99999% of us who aren't affected by this one single bit.
Thanks Comcast, for giving even those who DO download 300 gigs a month a WARNING letter telling them to curb their activities...or else.
Thanks Comcast..for giving even those people another alternative, namely actually paying for what they use in the form of subscribing to a workplace, business level connection instead.
Thanks Comcast, for your commercials regarding the Slowsky family. Lord knows the reason THEY don't have this problem and can say "they have some bandwidth hogs, but says "we figure that's why they buy the service."
is because their service is generally so slow their customers could never abuse the network if they wanted to.
Thanks comcast, for all the free speed upgrades since you took over adelphia. Going from 4400k speeds in January, to over 20,000k now has been a real pleasure.
Thanks Comcast, for giving BBR something else to write about every other day. The sleeping tech story was getting a bit old anyway.
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See 12 replies to this post | |
Fried fly wings
@1dial.com
| Fly wing fever It's amazing that this is finally hitting the main stream press.
Even more amazing is the way that some people think other peoples actions are their business when they have absolutely no affect on them.
Shut up about what other people are doing and go pull the wings off of some flies or beat your children.(or however else you treat the sickness) | |
| 
DownTheShore
Maddie Knows Poopie
Premium
join:2003-12-02
Beautiful NJ
clubs:
| It Just Seems That... ...if I'm paying for an advertised access rate to the internet, I should be guaranteed that rate 24/7, whether I download 10 million movies or if I don't even know what a torrent is. The customer shouldn't be penalized for using the service they're paying for, just because they may be using it more often than another customer. Nor should they be viewed as some sort of evil demon because they are using the service they are paying for, just like any other user.
It's interesting how the ISP's keep trying to shift the blame for internet slowdowns to their customers, when in reality it is their fault because they are overloading their infrastructure in order to minimize expenses and maximize profit. I'm just constantly amazed at how many of their customers buy into that and attack their fellow customers with a holier-than-thou attitude. It's not up to any of us to decide whether or not another user's use of THEIR internet service is legal or fair in our eyes. We should be keeping our eye on the main point - the ISP's are not providing what they're advertising. Someone else's internet use should not be causing a slowdown for you, and if it is, it is the ISP's fault for overloading the nodes or whatever the connection point is.
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Life is simply one damned thing after another. | |
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See 7 replies to this post | |
chanur
Premium
join:2001-02-26
Colorado Springs, CO
1 edit | Yawn... cough... burp. I guess a Comcast cap story always fits the bill when news filler is needed. | |
| jvanbrecht
join:2007-01-08
Bowie, MD
| The larger problem.. Is the fact that Comcast (atleast in the DC Metro area) has to compete with the likes of DSL and Fiber (I have FIOS personally, even though I despise verizon). What they end up doing is upping the bandwidth offerings to their customers to keep them from jumping ship, without providing sufficient infrastructure on the back end to support it. For the record, normal ISPs suffer the same fate (you can only have so many dialup customers on a single POP being fed by T1's and T3's) Cable customers are not tier 1 backbone providers, like ATT and Verizon. ATT and Verizon can offer extremely high speeds without suffering any impact simply due to the fact that much of the customer infrastructure hits the backbone immediately, rather then going through the ISP's (comcast, cox, cable companies/satellite providers) backbone, then hitting the tier 1 backbone. I suspect most of the cable companies and such are probably running OC3's, potentially OC12's, but I doubt anything higher. That is where many of the bottlenecks will occur. Except on shared mediums, where yes, a single user can saturate the link, that is just a limitation of the technology, but that is not the customers problem, that is the providers problem for pushing a service they cannot support. | |
| 
CableTool
Poorly Representing MYSELF.
Premium
join:2004-11-12
| Favorite Passtime quote:
We've been talking about this for roughly half a decade now, but the Washington Post has just discovered Comcast's invisible bandwidth caps. As noted countless times, the company sends disconnection letters to users who consume too much bandwidth, but never tells said users how much consumption is too much:
The great DSLR has known about it forever and the washington post, who probably couldnt give two shits, just reported it!!
And of coure DSLR will regurgitate it at every chance they get, offering no new information. Why not just repost any random Comcast Cap story every other day. It must get exhausting trying to come up with new ways to say the same thing.
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CableTechs.org/"Horrible People with Integrity" | |
| | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20 | Re: Favorite Passtime Now -THAT- is Comcastic!  lol | |
| TripmasterG
join:2004-01-01
Centreville, VA | Cox Limits Are Stated Or at least they were when I last looked it up on their website. However I'm sure I went beyond them for a few months when I first got broadband but I never received a single warning/complaint. So I guess it's more of a guideline. | |
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Comcastbombast
@adzilla.com | BBR=Comcast shill? The front page says this article has 70 comments.However only about a dozen show.I guess it's safe to assume all the anti-Comcast comments are being censored out. | |
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comcastbombast
@adzilla.com | Re: BBR=Comcast shill? Never mind, they are all showing up now.My apologies BBR. | |
| Tim2
Premium
join:2006-06-19
| Last time, I promise I'll say this once more and I'll never say it again... I promise, really... (just like all the the other times I've promised).
I don't think it's a matter of numbers... it's behavior. Comcast will never, ever say, "Okay, we know you're up to something that violates the TOS, but if you agree to keep it to 200gb, we'll be okay with that."
It's not going to happen. Not now, not ever.
Even thought most people seem to be having a terribly difficult time with this easy concept, (perhaps it's too easy?) one happy thing remains true... Comcast is also saying, "we don't really care what you do... as long you do it in a reasonable way. You're mature enough and responsible enough to know what 'reasonable' means without our having to spell it out for you and creating a morass of legal mumbo-jumbo endlessly interpreted by amateur lawyers on forums. Um... you are that mature and responsible, aren't you?"
Again, I don't any of this for a fact... but the evidence is so overwhelming, I can't figure out any other explanation. | |
|
fdfsfdffsdfs
@rogers.com | ALL ISP'S NEED TO THINK AND SAY WHAT AT&T IS SAYING ALL ISP'S NEED TO THINK AND SAY WHAT AT&T IS SAYING.. WE "have some bandwidth hogs, but "we figure that's why they buy the service."
now ALL ISP'S WAKE THE F UP.. | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| Re: ALL ISP'S NEED TO THINK AND SAY WHAT AT&T IS SAYING To be honest, I'm stunned by AT&T's acceptance of business reality here. I mean when you view some of their other choices (Like VDSL is enough for HD IPTV and Internet and VOIP) they seem like they aren't always thinking that clearly ahead or long term. Then suddenly they have a policy like this. Surprising, and, actually, kinda re-assuring really.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
| 
Ikyuao
Pro. debian Linux
join:2007-02-26
Wichita, KS
·Cox HSI
2 edits | I prove that a fact... Cable networks are more suspectable to bandwidth hogs than DSL network architecture design. Cable operators may soon starting cutting bandwidth hog users as heavier users just like comcast do this cutting bandwidth hogs off out of cable networks. AT&T DSL still kick ass that AT&T doesn't have to police bandwidth hog users on DSL networks. | |
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Don Piano
@dsl.net
| Yet another reason to be ashamed of having worked for them I have Cox at home, a full 15x2 line, and regularly download 3-4GB a day.
BUT... It's done with a multi-part download accelerator (Free Download Manager), and with my speed it takes me maybe four hours including the web surfing to find the links in the first place. Those rare times I use P2P I use eMule and I remember the most important thing is upstream saturation and I throttle my upload speed to less than half my 2Mbps max. I even more rarely use Bittorrent and I throttle that as well.
The rest of the day my connection is barely being used for maybe eight hours more and the remaining twelve hours of twenty-four not used at all other than for my Linux server to go looking for update to bug me with later. My Windows boxes are off.
Comcast has a history of going after people with less use than myself and similar only at night or one small part of the day high usage and almost nothing the rest of the time. And they are the biggest purveyor of the myth that P2P/Torrent is a huge bandwidth abuser (it can be, but they make out as if every cable modem user is doing it and not remotely enough people do to seriously screw up the system, viral connection storms are far worse in networking) as many people are leeches and hardly do any upstream. If they went only after those that saturate the upstream 24/7 they'd be hitting a fraction of a percent of the people they hit now.
I am thankful not to work for them anymore. | |
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