Comcrap and internet usage

[Nasanna]

I found this article on yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080829/wr_nm/comcast_internet_dc

Comcast to limit customers' broadband usage

By Yinka Adegoke Thu Aug 28, 10:20 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable operator, said on Thursday it will cap customers' Internet usage starting October 1, in a bid to ensure the best service for the vast majority of its subscribers.

Comcast said it was setting a monthly data usage threshold of 250 gigabytes per account for all residential high-speed Internet customers, or the equivalent of 50 million e-mails or 124 standard-definition movies.

"If a customer exceeds more than 250 GB and is one of the heaviest data users who consume the most data on our high-speed Internet service, he or she may receive a call from Comcast's Customer Security Assurance (CSA) group to notify them of excessive use," according to the company's updated Frequently Asked Questions on Excessive Use.

Customers who top 250 GB in a month twice in a six-month timeframe could have service terminated for a year.

Comcast said up to 99 percent of its 14 million Internet subscribers would not be affected by the new threshold, which it said would help ensure the quality of Internet delivery is not degraded by a minority of heavy users.

U.S. Internet subscribers are typically not aware of any limit on their Internet usage once they sign up to pay a flat monthly fee to their service provider.

As Web usage has rocketed, driven by the popularity of watching online video, photo-sharing and music downloading services, cable and phone companies have been considering various techniques to limit or manage heavy usage.

But Comcast has come under fire from a variety of sources for its network management techniques.

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.

The Philadelphia-based company is not alone in trying to come up with ways to limit heavy Internet usage.

Time Warner Cable Inc, the second-largest U.S. cable operator, said in January it would run a trial of billing Internet subscribers based on usage rather than a flat fee.

Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said Comcast was also considering so-called consumption-based billing, but no decisions had been made.

Anybody know how much "internet" Warcraft takes up?

I don't think its fair that in so many places, you only have one or two choice for internet service, then they want to disconnect your internet, rather than just saying "okay, we'll just charge you more" and/or upgrading their systems to account for more people doing more things on the web.

[capnpop]

Verizon did the same thing with their "unlimited" wireless internet package.  Over 2 gigs a month and they'd just cut you off...

As an answer to your question, I think you should be fine.  250 gigs is quite a bit and even on a heavy update month I doubt that you get anywhere close with standard use/gaming/ect.

[Arcdelad]

I am having big verizon issues right now...I might have to switch net...

[capnpop]

That was only their wireless stuff, not their to-the-house interwebs (house, apartment, alley, wherever you live that is).

Their reasoning then was that it should only be an on-the-road, occasional use ISP and that when you signed up it was expected that you had a regular internet provider to your house.

[Grendeel]

In Canada they have different packages based on your dl amounts, up to unlimited.  I asked them when choosing, which package would be best for me and explained i played a ton of online real time games, to which they replied; "Those types of internet traffic usage is relatively small in terms of data transfers".   The real pigs on dls is the video streaming and movies and such.  If you just play WoW and dl the occassion videos from utube, I doubt u will come remotely close to 250

[Arcdelad]

you're also really old gren...im sure this whole "internet" thing is new to you =)

[Grendeel]

lol Im fully up to speed thanks to Ted Stevens.  Its a bunch of tubes all connected together. Right?

[capnpop]

[Avelandra]

250GB of data would probably take an average user 3 months to rack up. Even downloading a few DVD movies a month wouldn't put you close to it. Besides, comcrap has been doing this for YEARS, they just didn't tell anyone until now.

[Nasanna]

I have Time Warner, but I was hoping to get a number like MB per second or something while playing WoW. Using that, I'd work backwards to see how many hours of WoW you'd have to play to get kicked off of Comcast... yes I'm an engineering student/nerd

[Kothnok]

Several "Network Service" applets have some kind of meter for upload/downloads since being connected.  Currently, I'm sitting at 9 days with 64Mb Sent and 256Mb Received.  I've played WoW for roughly 35 hours in those 9 days.