Comcast to make monthly Internet use cap official

[Longtooths]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080828/comcast_internet_cap.html?.v=2


Comcast to set official limit on Internet use to deter bandwidth hogs

NEW YORK (AP) -- Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, Thursday said it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month.

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On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site.

Comcast has already reserved the right to cut off subscribers who use too much bandwidth each month, without specifying exactly what constitutes excessive use.

"We've listened to feedback from our customers who asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive," the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Customers who go over the limit are contacted by the company and asked to curb their usage.

"We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily," the company said.

Comcast floated the idea of a 250 gigabyte cap in May and mentioned then that it might charge users $15 for every 10 gigabytes they go over, but the overage fee was missing in Thursday's announcement.

Curbing the top users is necessary to keep the network fast and responsive for other users, Comcast has said.

Comcast stressed that the bandwidth cap is far above the median monthly usage of its customers, which 2 to 3 gigabytes.

Very few subscribers use more than 250 gigabytes, it said. A user could download 125 standard-definition movies, about four per day, before hitting the limit.

The cap is also above those of some other ISPs. Cox Communications' monthly caps vary from 5 gigabytes to 75 gigabytes depending the subscriber's plan. Time Warner Cable Inc. is testing caps between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes in one market. Frontier Communications Co., a phone company, plans to start charging extra for use of more than 5 gigabytes per month.

[Fiery Red XIII]

Any idea how that will affect those of us who game online? Or know how to tell how much Bandwith you're using?


Red

[Turbodreams]

Any idea how that will affect those of us who game online? Or know how to tell how much Bandwith you're using?


Red
Id really like to know this too, I play A LOT of COD 4 on Xbox Live.

[Fiery Red XIII]

Id really like to know this too, I play A LOT of COD 4 on Xbox Live.

MMORPG's here!

Red

[Longtooths]

I have Verizon but you can bet that if this flies with Comcast, the rest will follow suit because they can charge us more for "over use."

I play World of Warcraft religiously. Probably over 40hours a week. Certainly that has to be over their maximum. I also have three computers on my network also and they are usually humming with WoW at the same time....

Calling Verizon now to see what usage was last month....sec


Well I got someone in India that I could barely understand but she said since I am on an unlimited plan there is no collection of usage/gigabits that she or anyone can get to.

[Rooster Rugburn]

Some poster here mentioned this was coming, and another poster jumped all over it saying it would never happen.

I wonder if the poster who pretended to know what he was talking about, has the cohones to step up and admit he was wrong? I doubt it.

[FillYerHands]

Their explanation about maintaining bandwidth is a load of crap. This is to punish people who watch video over the internet, which competes with their cable service.

[Ballistic40]

i just dumped comcast for ATT U-verse so that looks like a better choice from this news.

[PeterJasonMN]

The VR's are screwed.

[Turtle13]

Online gaming doesn't use very much bandwidth at all. I don't know specifics but I do know that they purposefully only transmit small packages. Gamers need not worry a bit.

...and I hate comcast.

[Peace Warrior]

Oh much bandwidth does coming on GT use up? :shocked:

[Model19]

Regarding MMORPGS and COD4; most online games use very small packets of information. If this is all that you do you would not come close. But, a lot of games have huge patches and downloadable clients. For example Warhammer Online BETA download was 90 gigs, and the Age of Conan patch was something like 30 gigs.

Depending on the limit per month. This will affect people that download movies on a daily basis IMO. And that is the way the industry was headed. Internet TV, Internet movies are the future.

[Turtle13]

Regarding MMORPGS and COD4; most online games use very small packets of information. If this is all that you do you would not come close. But, a lot of games have huge patches and downloadable clients. For example Warhammer Online BETA download was 90 gigs, and the Age of Conan patch was something like 30 gigs.

Depending on the limit per month. This will affect people that download movies on a daily basis IMO. And that is the way the industry was headed. Internet TV, Internet movies are the future.

If you're playing a game that comes close to patching 250gigs in a month you need to move on to better games :supergrin:

[wolfman97]

Regarding MMORPGS and COD4; most online games use very small packets of information. If this is all that you do you would not come close. But, a lot of games have huge patches and downloadable clients. For example Warhammer Online BETA download was 90 gigs, and the Age of Conan patch was something like 30 gigs.

Depending on the limit per month. This will affect people that download movies on a daily basis IMO. And that is the way the industry was headed. Internet TV, Internet movies are the future.

Which is why they will ultimately lose to companies that do something more sensible, like increasing the size of their pipes.

[Longtooths]

this snip from a Yahoo article seems to explain that Comcast first tried to make up for their small pipe by blocking some sites downstream. When they got slapped for that they came up with this limiting Bandwidth....Heaven forbid they spend some capital on improving internal structure and increasing their pipe to meet customer needs.


The U.S. Federal Communications Commission investigated complaints by consumer groups that it was blocking peer-to-peer applications like BitTorrent, and earlier this month ordered Comcast to modify its network management.

Comcast has said that by the end of the year it will change its network management practices to ensure all Web traffic is treated essentially the same, but has also been exploring other ways to prevent degradation of its Internet service delivery.

One consumer group said while Comcast's new 250 GB limit was "relatively high," it could eventually ensnare customers as technology progresses.

"If Comcast has oversold their network to the point of creating congestion problems, then well-disclosed caps for Internet use are a better short-term solution than Comcast's current practice of illegally blocking Internet traffic," said S Derek Turner of Free Press, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group that filed a complaint about Comcast's network management practices earlier this year.

ARTICLE (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080829/wr_nm/comcast_internet_dc)

[sohaltang]

With the demand for more HD channels cable is screwed. Cable already compresses regular and HD channels to save bandwidth. Truth is (I have cable) cable is breathing it's last breath. Fiber is the way of the future even though FIOS TV is not that great ATM. There is no way to add additional bandwidth to cable, all they can do is compress data.

[Model19]

If you're playing a game that comes close to patching 250gigs in a month you need to move on to better games :supergrin:

I get your point :) But it will soon be the norm and not the exception. MMORPGS last for years and many add monthly content. WOW patches from a clean install are probably 50 gigs if I just had to guess.

10 years ago, games were only a few hundred kb's. Now the games are taking gigs of space. Even at the current game size 250 gig limit could possibly hurt you. What if you decide to buy a new computer and you have to reinstall all of your games? Buying games via download is the future, dowloadable content is the future, massive textures and high quality sound is the future. Comcast has no future.

[harlenm]

With the demand for more HD channels cable is screwed. Cable already compresses regular and HD channels to save bandwidth. Truth is (I have cable) cable is breathing it's last breath. Fiber is the way of the future even though FIOS TV is not that great ATM. There is no way to add additional bandwidth to cable, all they can do is compress data.

Don't forget satellite. All directv needs to do is launch some new birds for more bandwidth. They did it not too long ago and left all the cable companies in the dust.

[chuckb891]

With the demand for more HD channels cable is screwed. Cable already compresses regular and HD channels to save bandwidth. Truth is (I have cable) cable is breathing it's last breath. Fiber is the way of the future even though FIOS TV is not that great ATM. There is no way to add additional bandwidth to cable, all they can do is compress data.
once cable gets away from analog (which theyre slowly doing) their bandwith will roughly double, theres alot that can still be done with coax cable

[Turtle13]

WOW patches from a clean install are probably 50 gigs if I just had to guess.

No they aren't, I run WOW on a 40g partition. There's probably around 250 megs of patch from a clean install though.

[Dragoon44]

This is aimed at the music\movie\game pirates, you have 5% of the online population sucking up 95% of the bandwidth. these folks are downloading hundreds of GB's a day. And with the drop in hard drive prices and larger size hard drives the problem is only going to increase for companies like comcast.

[tbhracing]

Some users in here that go to the adult websites arent going to happy.:crying:

[Model19]

No they aren't, I run WOW on a 40g partition. There's probably around 250 megs of patch from a clean install though.

WOW 2.4.0 US patch is 924MB

But I was way off.

I was guessing from memory, comparing the time of downloading the patch from a clean install, to the 90gig Warhammer download I did last Friday. It was probably the slow WOW patcher that threw off my guesstimation.