Comcast Mulls Bandwith Cap

Seeking to limit disproportionate bandwith use, Comcast is considering a monthly limit of 250GB that could set a precedent affecting game downloads.

The North American provider may charge $15 for every 10GB in excess of the cap, already in place in other parts of the world. The company says the limit would affect only one-tenth of one percent of users.

But the move may set a precedent and create a downward trend that would affect digital distribution of games and movies.

PC users of Valve's Steam network download games measuring from a few hundred megabytes to five or more gigabytes in size, as do users of Direct2Drive or EA's service. The Xbox 360 allows for movie downloads, weighing in around 4.5GB, as does iTunes.

"Comcast is currently evaluating this service and pricing model to ensure we deliver a great online experience to our customers," said Comcast spokesman Charlie Dougla. "We have not made any changes to our current service offerings and have no new announcement to make at this time."

Source: Shacknews.com

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Is that 250gb a typo? Very few people need that much.

250gb doesnt seem bad. But why do they need to do it at all?

This has been an ongoing bit of fear mongering for a while now.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/50054/

I haven't a clue how true it is, but basically since people are now using the internet for videos and other huge files so excessively in tandem that it won't be able to support it. A giant slowing down or something like that.

Scarey. So South Park was right the internet will one day just stop working

This is, in part, related to net neutrality. The cable companies know that eventually, the fed is going to pass a net neutrality bill which will keep them from charging websites a right of way fee (basically free revenue) which will serve to limit the amount of traffic so they do not have to spend money to upgrade the system. This is their counter to the pending legislation. If and when Comcast does this, expect every cable company to do the same.

Fuck Comcast!
I use their shit internet and it cuts out on me at least once a day.
They also tried to charge me over $100 last month for just internet.
The problem is that no one else offers high speed anywhere near here.

My 65 GB, $120/month ADSL account feels no sympathy. Especially as it's one of the cheaper, and larger, plans available here.

Where is "here?"

Part of me wants to say you guys should just be thankful to have access where getting 250gb a month is even possible, but the less-embittered side of me is more concerned about the impact this could have on an entire range of net-based services. Net neutrality is a wonderful concept but the fact is that in many ways we've (well, you've) been getting a free ride for a long time now, and there's no way the big players are going to let that continue indefinitely without a fight.

Zippy1313:
Fuck Comcast!
I use their shit internet and it cuts out on me at least once a day.
They also tried to charge me over $100 last month for just internet.
The problem is that no one else offers high speed anywhere near here.

I agree completely #@$% comcast! Here is the email they sent me.

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.

On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.

In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.

In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use.

Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.

mistwolf:
My 65 GB, $120/month ADSL account feels no sympathy. Especially as it's one of the cheaper, and larger, plans available here.

It definitely ain't Australia, where I'm stuck with 21GB, and my download speed is about 1.5MB/sec... yeh, even if you get capped at 250GB, consider yourself lucky.

The real problem for these limit caps is the way of the future. How could I download (rent or buy) a couple of HD movies, watch other videos on the web and so on when I can only download X amount of data.

The problem is that ISPs don't want to put in more expensive and better quality hardware. Theyt still rely on copper wire in some parts, and can't see that they are responsible to make the Internet more accessible.
I'm just lucky that I have a network connection that comes from the University in my city. Limitless, unrestricted, uncensored (this is a valid point in Finland damnit) 100Mbit connection.

Thats not the point though. When i signed on to comcast a year ago it was advertised as unlimited access. Now they cap me, interrupt my torrents and other legitimated downloads, and raise prices too.

Hold on a sec...

People still use Comcast?

Come on people. They're like the worst ISP known to man, woman, child, or alien.

Oh stop bitching America we are set at 20GB a month.... and this is a high end internet scheme.

smallharmlesskitten:
Oh stop bitching America we are set at 20GB a month.... and this is a high end internet scheme.

**Makes truce with Kiwi**⁺

^{+ No more sheep-shagging jokes... I swear... well, to the best of my ability}

Khell_Sennet:
Hold on a sec...

People still use Comcast?

Come on people. They're like the worst ISP known to man, woman, child, or alien.

If I had any choice, I wouldn't. But Comcast is the only cable Internet provider I have access to. Plus, my mom pays the bills, and she pays for Comcast.

Oh yeah... What is the average download speed im the US. I'm at 1 MB/s.... Averaging out at 100 KB/s

smallharmlesskitten:
Oh yeah... What is the average download speed im the US. I'm at 1 MB/s.... Averaging out at 100 KB/s

I average out at about 2.5mb/s, which is awesome

I really don't understand what anyone is complaining about, it's like getting called by the water company and being told they're limiting you to 250,000,000 gallons of water a month, who cares?

My crappy old hard drive doesn't even *hold* HALF of 250gb

smallharmlesskitten:
Oh stop bitching America we are set at 20GB a month.... and this is a high end internet scheme.

Its the principal of it. They fact that they just change the rules whenever they feel like it. They are gonna cap me and not lower the price??

And this will be seen as a model which other companies start to mold their business on. They will start a trend of capping your connection. Soon you can not get a connection that is not capped. Traffic increases always, and the caps will be a real problem some day.