Thanks Comcast...

[Saphirea]

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


Apparently "Bandwidth Hogs" are taking too much.

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.

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.

[Mizango]

We had a web conference for our vendors about that this morning. That fucking sucks.

[Churchill]

I think they are doing this for a few reasons.

They're targeting people who download for torrents, rapidshare, etc so the RIAA stops talking to them; they're targeting people who allow more than one user per network; they're trying to make tons more money using the same infrastructure they have currently, not having to update to any new technologies and be able to bring in new users with what they have.

I wonder what playing FFXI all day uses for bandwidth, or XBOX Live, or even playing for 4 hours a day. What running AIM/MSN/Gmail all day costs for bandwidth.

[Souj]

eh 250 really isnt that bad. You have to really try to go over that in a month.
I may not leave things to upload as much anymore though..

[Azalee]

I think the people that this will bother the most are people who are constantly streaming/downloading things. For the average user, or even someone like myself who watches TV shows online, it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

[Nitsuki]

gg comcast, it's really the people who are constantly getting the torrents it is true, i doubt i'll be going to that extreme, 250gb isn't that bad i guess.

[Souj]

even if you go over, $15 per 10gig. and if they actually contact you amd tell you, you went over.. It's not too bad.
as long as theyre not banning you from services all together for 6+months like they did before..

[SamanosukeShiva]

fucking sux

[Norellicus]

Like they said, that's more than a hundred movies a month! Just don't overseed and you'll be fine

[Churchill]

I know that I download 50GB of movies a month, play Call of Duty 4 for about 3-4 hours a night after work and the other guy on my network downloads 50-100GB a month and plays XBOX Live for 26h each week on top of LOIC'ing and Youtube and stuff, plus our other roomate is gone now so he'd have to be added in.

[Correction]

250 gigs/month is extremely reasonable.

[Myst]

all the companies listed there are horrible. (not listed:charter.) the only good isp i've ever had has been TDS. <3 TDS.

[Gulkeeva]

I wonder what playing FFXI all day uses for bandwidth, or XBOX Live, or even playing for 4 hours a day. What running AIM/MSN/Gmail all day costs for bandwidth.

Near nothing considering most online games run at like 2-5K/sec upwards to maybe like 15-35K/sec at most. Chat probably uses about 5K a dya or less depending on how much you chat (more if your sending pics/videos etc)

[Zosi]

From what I've heard, this is pretty close to the "shadowy cap" that they've had in place for a long time, they're just actually telling us what it is now. 250gb is a lot, I probably use close or a little more than that depending on the month, but luckily Charter hasn't said anything about capping plans.

[Quixotic]

Not that big of a deal, 250gb a month is like 8gbs a day. You have to be downloading a ton of shit or a couple HD movies a day, everyday for a the whole month to hit that cap.

[Lexa]

Uh... I live with other people. It'd be np for my house to hit that cap. Even if it's only like $5-10 more a month divided by everyone here, I'm still a little bit worried. But I can't really change, either. Comcast is the only ISP in my little shit town.

[Tymon]

Uh... I live with other people. It'd be np for my house to hit that cap. Even if it's only like $5-10 more a month divided by everyone here, I'm still a little bit worried. But I can't really change, either. Comcast is the only ISP in my little shit town.

I highly doubt it'd be "np" for your house to hit the cap, unless everyone living in your house is downloading massive amounts of music, movies, and etc every day.

[Quixotic]

I agree, that would be ridiculously silly. The way me and my roommates have it set up, we have one computer dedicated to download stuff for all of us, and there's still no way we'd hit that cap, unless you like to horde every movie/tv show/etc released each day.

[aurik]

Uh... I live with other people. It'd be np for my house to hit that cap. Even if it's only like $5-10 more a month divided by everyone here, I'm still a little bit worried. But I can't really change, either. Comcast is the only ISP in my little shit town.

Heavy network users being required to pay more than light network users, oh noessssss

[octopus]

Don't we have a thread earlier and someone said he downloads many gigs every single day? Hope he doesn't use Comcast ;o