The rapid growth of online videos, music and games has created a new Internet sin: using it too much. Comcast has punished some transgressors by cutting off their Internet service, arguing that excessive downloaders hog Internet capacity and slow down the network for other customers. The company declines to reveal its download limits.
"You have no way of knowing how much is too much," said Sandra Spalletta of Rockville, whose Internet service was suspended in March after Comcast sent her a letter warning that she and her teenage son were using too much bandwidth. They cut back on downloads but were still disconnected. She said the company would not tell her how to monitor their bandwidth use in order to comply with the limits. "You want to think you can rely on your home Internet service and not wake up one morning to find it turned off," said Spalletta, who filed a complaint with the Montgomery County Office of Cable and Communication Services. "I thought it was unlimited service."
As Internet service providers try to keep up with the demand for increasingly sophisticated online entertainment such as high-definition movies, streaming TV shows and interactive games, such caps could become more common, some analysts said. It's unclear how many customers have lost Internet service because of overuse. So far, only Comcast customers have reported being affected. Comcast said only a small fraction of its customers use enough bandwidth to warrant pulling the plug on their service.
News source: MSNBC
"You have no way of knowing how much is too much," said Sandra Spalletta of Rockville, whose Internet service was suspended in March after Comcast sent her a letter warning that she and her teenage son were using too much bandwidth. They cut back on downloads but were still disconnected. She said the company would not tell her how to monitor their bandwidth use in order to comply with the limits. "You want to think you can rely on your home Internet service and not wake up one morning to find it turned off," said Spalletta, who filed a complaint with the Montgomery County Office of Cable and Communication Services. "I thought it was unlimited service."
As Internet service providers try to keep up with the demand for increasingly sophisticated online entertainment such as high-definition movies, streaming TV shows and interactive games, such caps could become more common, some analysts said. It's unclear how many customers have lost Internet service because of overuse. So far, only Comcast customers have reported being affected. Comcast said only a small fraction of its customers use enough bandwidth to warrant pulling the plug on their service.
News source: MSNBC
I agree with you. How can they hold back information on how much you can use, then disconnect people for going over it?
Ahem.
There are consumer protection laws against this, starting with bait and switch, and full disclosure of the terms and conditions of any contract or purchasing agreement, etc.
Make this a HUGE story. Let the world know that COMCAST is scum.
I agree with you. How can they hold back information on how much you can use, then disconnect people for going over it?
In NZ we have a similar situation, except they outline what the limits are per-day give a certain package, and normally if you excessively download, your speed is reduced to 64kbps till the end of the month.
Then again, we don't have flat rate accounts here, so the cost/allowance moderates peoples usage.
I agree with you. How can they hold back information on how much you can use, then disconnect people for going over it?
In NZ we have a similar situation, except they outline what the limits are per-day give a certain package, and normally if you excessively download, your speed is reduced to 64kbps till the end of the month.
Then again, we don't have flat rate accounts here, so the cost/allowance moderates peoples usage.
With Optus Cable in Australia we have a similiar problem with uploads. Theres no set limit, and the limit that Optus has decided upon is different per exchange.
I just hope that such things don't start happening now that we're a part of the EU...
If theres no limit in the contract, they are breeching it by shutting off service for no reason then
Yes but those ISPs disclaim how much monthly bandwidth you have, they dont refuse then cut you off when you hit the random target.
However, the service providers would sell the product as "Fair Use" and not "Unlimited".
If theres no limit in the contract, they are breeching it by shutting off service for no reason then
Dont also forget that most ISP's "Reserve the right to cancel the subscription of any customer at their discretion"
For example, my TW/RR cable is almost SEVEN times as fast as my AT&T DSL used to be...for only $10 more per month. Be thankful you have a choice. Many people don't. I compared apples to apples (since I can get both in my apartment) and TW/RR blows AT&T DSL away in speed, lag, uptime, etc. No comparison.
For example, my TW/RR cable is almost SEVEN times as fast as my AT&T DSL used to be...for only $10 more per month. Be thankful you have a choice. Many people don't. I compared apples to apples (since I can get both in my apartment) and TW/RR blows AT&T DSL away in speed, lag, uptime, etc. No comparison.
Unfortunately you're both wrong (though the parent much less so then my quote). Cable IS "shared" and you have simply bought in to... god knows what. A cable connection can be seen as a single line running down the street, with individuals who subscribe to a cable service 'hooking in to' that single cable (hence the name). ADSL, on the other, hand has an individual line coming from each users place of residence and connecting to the exchange. Do you see where the sharing occurs? The maximum speed a cable user can obtain is directly proportion to the amount of users sharing that cable. The fact that your cable connection is seven times (I would also be curious how you measured that) faster then your DSL one simply means that: a) your phone line/exchange/rim is awful and b) you don't have very many people near you using cable.
In regard to the OPs question; if the apartment you move in to has a phone line and the building isn't too old then there is a good chance you will be able to get ADSL. As long as the hardware is in the exchange (see: central hub for phone lines in your residential area) then your phone line should support cable -- assuming you aren't too far away from said exchange, or the cabling isn't too old.
My uncle also ditched comcast as TV cable provider last month.
theres no limit and comcast likes to shove the Terms of service is customers faces whenever they complain
They have the worst way of handling problems to
If we see an entire neighborhood offline, we cant report it, we have to lie to the customer and say "hey u need a technician"..then after like 10 ppl in the same street complain, it gets turned into an outage
but guess what..that person could be at home waiting for a technician that will never arrive cuz its an outage and comcast wont say anythin
happens EVERY freakin day
Cablevision was capping uploaders on the normal package. But since we got the speed bump from 15/2 to 16.5/2 there have been no reports of capping.
The boost package the download max was taken away so that the max download speed is whatever the top speed of the docsis 2 technology allows . Also there has been no reports of boost customers being capped for uploading.
Why in the world would a company kick you off for downloading too much?
VErizon fios is not any better. They have good service but they wil lovercharge you and bill you for services that you dont have,. it has been all over the news so dont start saying how fios is your savior because they are just as bad.
Cablevision was capping uploaders on the normal package. But since we got the speed bump from 15/2 to 16.5/2 there have been no reports of capping.
The boost package the download max was taken away so that the max download speed is whatever the top speed of the docsis 2 technology allows . Also there has been no reports of boost customers being capped for uploading.
Why in the world would a company kick you off for downloading too much?
VErizon fios is not any better. They have good service but they wil lovercharge you and bill you for services that you dont have,. it has been all over the news so dont start saying how fios is your savior because they are just as bad.
Comcast counts COMBINED up and down as your limit... the limit is 100GB invisible cap... but I've seen people get kicked off for as little as 50GB in my area... because no one else on their node uses that much they take the top 1% of the nodes and claim them as excessive... its a complex process... I hate it and they need to state in black and red what is not allowed... none of this "if we determin to be a detrement to our lines" junk they pull in the TOS now... I alctually got kicked off Comcast for doing work from home! yeah work!... they claimed it wasn't allowed on a residential service and I would need the $99 a month business plan... well im not a business, I am an employee that works from home over our VPN... and their home service even says "work from home" in its advertisement... yet they said that wasn't the case
So much for this "Unlimited" service BS
if there is really nothing in theiur contract or TOS, sue their @$$.
if they told us how much we can download, that'd be fine.
i was ****ed when they capped torrents upload, but this is just retarded.
anybody actually know what the official speeds are? i know its 6mb/s dl, but what about upload?
how do i know if FIOS is in my area without calling somebody up?
This isn't a question of oohhh, it fun to download a lot. Its a question of being left behind. People are using the Internet for work, education, networking, reaching others. Limiting this access defeats the purpose of the Internet. What's then the point of expanding high-speed to all communities - to stop people from being left behind - if limits are being imposed.
IMO, caching servers used to be popular back in the day of high-speed and patches of OSes, software could be downloaded from the caching servers. Why not reinstitute this idea. Wether you use Windows or OS X, there can be hundreds of Megs of patches a month.
Plus, if you look at webhosting, you can get 1 TB of traffic on your site for $10 or $15 a month. Internet unlimited is $40 a month. Can't convince me a large tier provider w/ Cable TV as a major revenue source can't afford for customers to have 1 TB a month. Thats a excess ton of bandwidth, but gets to my point.
If they say "you're limited to xxGb", then users can monitor their traffic and respect the limit.
Furthermore, it makes it impossible to be an informed consumer. If you have two ISPs in town, and they offer a different, but defined ceiling, that makes a difference in who you'll sign up with. If you're trying to compare unknown limit A with unknown limit B, you can't. I expect the real reason they don't do defined limits, is that the first company that says "20G limit", their competitor can immediately respond "well, we have 30/50/100/true unlimited", and they don't want to give competitors a weapon.
However, if they just say "you're not allowed excessive usage", it's a complete non-starter. There's no quantifiable definition of where 'excessive' begins-- it's very relative-- and home users don't have the information and technical facilities to verify weasel language like "your use impacts quality of service for others" Should I ask my neighbour if his service feels sluggish while I'm downloading the latest Slackware ISO?.
Finally, it makes it easy to have wide arrays of "tiered" limits if there's nothing in writing. I'd bet that the limit is set higher if most of your traffic is on their own properties (ad revenue) and lower for things like heavy VoIP use (then they can't sell you other services!
omg... thats ridiculous...
stop advertising it as unlimited then? HAHA
Glassed Silver:mac
omg... thats ridiculous...
stop advertising it as unlimited then? HAHA
Glassed Silver:mac
Find one place that says its unlimited internet usage... there are none, we looked in the past... only unlimited access... aka we dont block sites
omg... thats ridiculous...
stop advertising it as unlimited then? HAHA
Glassed Silver:mac
Find one place that says its unlimited internet usage... there are none, we looked in the past... only unlimited access... aka we dont block sites
My ISP Knology. http://knology.com/residential/internet/features.cfm#q03
UNLIMITED USE
Use your account whenever you want. You will never be charged more for using your service too much.
omg... thats ridiculous...
stop advertising it as unlimited then? HAHA
Glassed Silver:mac
Find one place that says its unlimited internet usage... there are none, we looked in the past... only unlimited access... aka we dont block sites
My ISP Knology. http://knology.com/residential/internet/features.cfm#q03
UNLIMITED USE
Use your account whenever you want. You will never be charged more for using your service too much.
Thats not Comcast, I was saying find one place on Comcast's site
Oh wait... Comcast only has their fast packages as a GIMMICK!!? Wait just a moment...
>.>
if cause ill bet they pretty much just screwing with people, i hope they get sued cause they are not clearly stating any limits in the service when they clearly say it's "unlimited".
and this "your usage effects other users" is a bunch of crap... cause even if that is true... it's probably not even "noticeable" to the effect where the users it's supposedly effecting would even notice a performance drop in there internet connection.
but the way i see it, is if comcast really has a problem with this... why dont they just drop the speed and then that would make it so people cant go off on it.... but if they did that people would complain that the speed droped and the price is the same or comcast could not advertise there "fast speed" claims. lol
but me personally i used to have comcast (had it since like 2000 (which was when it was first introduced into my area) to like mid 2005 or so) and even though the overall service was good. i still think they where way overpriced for what you got... cause about a couple years ago when i ditched comcast high speed internet service i was paying roughly 45-50 dollars per month... now i heard it's 60 or close to that per month. it just aint worth it! ... cause you can get DSL in my area for MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper and it still allows me to do pretty much what i did on comcast for a fraction the cost... and even though it's only 384k (40KB/s) plan for 15 dollars per month so i do have to wait for some loading etc ... it's overall ALOT better than comcast is "bang for the buck" wise
and also, in comcasts commercials about there "claims" as to "dsl is the slowest internet etc, you just cant buy a slower internet etc" those are 100percent lies cause ANY dialup is slower than even the slowest dsl which i have.... seems like if someone wanted to they could get comcast in trouble for basically flat out lying. (im sure alot of people seen those commercials
but im glad i read this article as i say screw comcast even more now!
Last edited by ThaCrip on 09 Sep 2007 - 19:47
Lately this monopolistic ISP have disconnected themselves from Norway Internet eXchange, also to a huge uproar. They say it's "OK" because they have private peering to most other norwegian ISPs. Local internet experts, for instance Gisle Hannemur Professor at UIP, say its a step towards a tiered internet that might get worse then TV. If you dont pay Telenor, you dont get good line to Telenors customers.
Before this they tried GB capping, capping your line to 64kbit if you downloaded more then 5GB/month, which also didnt work out due to a huge uproar in the media and forums.
I remember content providers wanted money from the ISPs a few years back because they didnt get enough income from ads. I guess it has turned. Telenor want money both from their subribers, and the content providers.
Of course not in those exact wording, but actually very close.
Where they are having problems is HDTV, VOIP and highspeed data all in one transmission line. It has really become a interesting situation for the cable companies as they are continuously having to re-evaulate their structure to make room for all this high bandwidth data. I hate to say it...but things are probably not going to get much better in the near future.
They are working on new compression scheme's, but its all still in the works. The best option in the very near future is going to be IPTV. Basically, this technology is based on the On-Demand system that cable companies utilize for PPV movies and shows. Instead of the cable companies having to transmit all 100+ channels to every house, it will be an on demand system for all your tv channels. You click on a channel and it will start broadcasting to your house..therefore freeing up all the bandwidth that all the unwatched channels would use.
Now dont get me wrong..I am not in favor of what ComCast and other cable companies are doing. They should have a user limit defined in their contract..not some magical number they can determine at anytime if they are going to start shutting off peoples connections. I for one hope I am not one of the victims.
If Charter Internet ever started doing that, I swear I'd contact some of my radical muslim friends and have them blow the nearest Charter building up. (Glaff, all that just for internet)
... so, wtf is up?
This is using Comcast.
I did get a bandwidth warning call in March, I think I was around 300GB at the time. I've gone over that with no call for some reason.
Networx
http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/
I ZeroArmy's post showing 4 times that for the month of August, you guys need to get a job or go to school or something because that is nuts! (This coming from a loser that spends most of his free time on a computer).
They are terrified of new technology like that. This is the same company that refuses to upgrade there network until a competitor comes along and kicks them in the nuts. This whole new marketing thing with the 20 megs downloads (certain files) is a joke, it's only a damn proxy server farm.
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