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

Bastards.

I don't see where it talks about things that would effect gaming.
I'll only be able to send 50million email now, instead of 51million, but how does that effect gaming?

I'd rather not see any caps. But if there has to be one, 250GB is a pretty high cap. You could run a gaming server 24 hours a day without ever hitting that limit.

gaming is not very bandwidth intensive, it's all about response time and/or latency.

next time you play TF2 or some online game on your computer, have network monitor running in the background, you'll see for yourself how little it takes.

bandwidth only becomes a concern when your hosting a dedicated server.

250 gigs a month is like, 8.3 gigs a day every day. That is a huge amount. I would say even in my most used internet days I don't even get that close to that number, and that is rare.

I am not one of those people like, "nobody needs that much bandwidth", but if you do need more bandwidth for a legitimate purpose then well, guess you have to pay for it and you can curse out the people who do nothing but pirate every game and movie that comes out and run Bit torrent 24 hours a day. Because that's who this is really targetting.

yeah, but how can a cap possibly be a good thing? Especially with all this downloadable content on the LIVE marketplace. I admit that 250 gigs is a rediculously high number, but between everything in a household it could get tight

Here in Toronto i have Rogers Extreme which has a 99 GB cap (combined up down, which means i can 90 98 gb down adn 1 gb up, or 50 down and 49 up etc etc)

I have never used more then 30GB in a months period (they have a nifty report which shows your up/down by day and month)

Now "but your internet usage isn't anything like mine so it's no comparison!!!" arguments can be made but.. here is the list of network attached devices..

1 Xbox 360
2 Wiis
2 ps3s
2 Desktop computers (1 media streamer, 1 "family" pc)
2 laptops (one of which i use for work, and is constantly attached to the vpn for netmeetings, video conferencing, email and training)
3 Tivo's
1 Voip device utilized at about 6600 minutes per month.


There are 4 of us in this house, all of us gamers, all of us internet users.
On top of my day job, my SO also runs two web based businesses, and my kids both have websites.

We are HEAVY users. If you use more than 260 GB a month, what the hell are you doing?

yeah, but how can a cap possibly be a good thing? Especially with all this downloadable content on the LIVE marketplace. I admit that 250 gigs is a rediculously high number, but between everything in a household it could get tight

While I'm not arguing about caps being a good thing, a couple positives:

1) Take that pirates! You're ruining the internet for the rest of us!
2) Take that people who don't realize your computers have been hijacked to send out 51 million spams a month.

I see the downside when they do this, and then lower it to 150GB in 6 months, and then to 50 a year from now, and then to 15 or 5 like some providers...then I'm having issues when I'm trying to do AppleTV or Netflix streaming (when it goes HD). Not that my movie watching effects gaming.

it doesnt matter to me how much they cap it... but i cant say i am surprised... expect this with everyone

Glad I have alternatives in my area. Doubt I'll hit 250g very often, but if that phone call ever happens from Comcast, I'll be sure and tell them I'll be switching my cable and internet within the month before hanging up with them.

yeah, but how can a cap possibly be a good thing? Especially with all this downloadable content on the LIVE marketplace. I admit that 250 gigs is a rediculously high number, but between everything in a household it could get tight

The one thing it may be good for is people who's computers have been hijacked and are used to send out gazillions of spam every month. They'll find out quickly. And it will be good for people who don't set a password on their wi-fi and the entire neighborhood is downloading porn with it. They'll find out quickly.

Clearly Comcast stands to benefit the most from this, but it seems eminently reasonable. I thought the cap would be like 40gb or something.

Glad I have alternatives in my area. Doubt I'll hit 250g very often, but if that phone call ever happens from Comcast, I'll be sure and tell them I'll be switching my cable and internet within the month before hanging up on them.

Why? If you are using Comcast you are agreeing to their cap. If you hit the cap why would you be pissed at Comcast?

I have never used more then 30GB in a months period (they have a nifty report which shows your up/down by day and month)

Exactly. This is to target people who pirate tons of games and movies and TV shows every day of every month. Nobody and I do mean nobody would buy enough downloadable content every month (movies off XBL, games off Steam, etc.) to go over 250 gigs a month.

I don't care if bit torrent bandwidth suckers are targetted, I really don't.

It's bad for people who do, say, lots of video editing from home or something. They'll just have to pay more! It sucks but... that's how it goes. I have to pay more to go to work every day than I did a few months ago.

Didn't say I would be pissed. The phone call would be my first clue that I need to look elsewhere for my needs. But, I don't think it's likely I'll hit the 250g limit unless it's an abnormal month.

(I used 'on' instead of 'with' at the end of that sentence. I can see why that would imply 'I'm pissed.' Not that way at all.)

Philosophically, I hate the idea of having a cap. Realistically, I find it hard to believe I would ever hit that limit.

This wont affect gaming at all. What it will do, however, is slow illegal movie downloading and file sharing. There are folks out there (a lot of them here on these boards....and I only know this because I know a few folks as well) who download HD movies all day long onto their computers. If those 1% of folks doing it somehow affect the rest of our service, then Im all for this. Regardless, with HD movies on demand coming sooner rather than later, cable bandwidth is going to be so large that these types of "limits" will never affect anyone.

I've already gotten a call once in the past about usage, and Comcast wouldn't say how much I'd used or how much their limit was, so a little transparency here is a good thing.

However, 250 GB seems to be combined upload and download, which to me makes it a little low. I mean, I've got the MLB.tv premium package, which means I stream 1.2 Mbps streams of a few baseball games daily, plus the XBL demos that come out, Hulu streaming video, the occasional youtube clip, and Steam purchases, not to mention whatever usage my roommates use, its a little too low. Not to mention if anyone plays WoW or Second Life, two things I don't use but from what I understand, are constantly downloading new textures every time you move to a new place, you could be screwed. Or if you have Netflix streaming or even worse buy a bunch of Video Marketplace HD videos. And that's not even counting the legal uses of Torrents such as downloading Linux distributions.

Knowing what the exact cap is that they'll limit you with, that's nice. And yeah, 250 GB is much higher than many other caps. However, its just too much backwards thinking, even for many people who are only using their internet for legal content.

Edit: And to the above poster... that'd assume that the cable companies actually work on their infrastructure and improve bandwidth all around, unless you're talking about SDV (Switched Digital Video). Even still I wouldn't be surprised if in the future Comcast keeps the caps lower, just so that if you're going to get HD videos streamed to you, you'll have to do it on-demand through Comcast, which if you haven't noticed is a very poor selection usually.

At least it'll start in October and the baseball season will be pretty much over by then.

250gb is a decent monthly cap if you are a home internet user (you don't work from home via VPN, etc.) I don't mind capping, I can understand it from a cost perspective for the ISP. What I hate is when they throttle your connection speed. I'm in DSL up here in Toronto and our Canadian DSL ISPs have been throttling connection speed lately and it DOES negatively impact on my gaming experience. I speedtest at 5meg/600k and yet sometimes when my line is being throttled my gaming gets very laggy. I've complained, but thousands of us up here are in this situation. A formal complaint is currently in front of the CRTC (the Canadian FCC) right now about this throttling - we hope to have a decision by Oct 31st.

Capping = ok
Throttling = very bad

Gaming by itself is not going to take you to 250g (at least not on XBL) but downloading content is another story. Things like demo's are about 1gig per and who knows (I don't at least) what the down loads for something like Netflix might be. Heck every if you are downloading TV shows via bit torrent which I've done a handful of times in the past hitting 250gigs would be a challenge. As said above, its really only the video and music pirates that are going to come close to or exceed that limit. Even when I telecommuted which had me running a computer and voip phone over VPN 10 hours a day on top of gaming, etc. I don't recall ever hitting 20 gigs a month.

ETA: Just thought a little more and remembered that you've now got folks like D* offering VOD that using the internet to download. Just downloaded a 1080P movie the other night as part of the CE program. Need to check my router to see how much got used up during that download. If I used all the entertainment features available to me even on a semi regular basis I bet I could at least flirt with 250...

Anyone got a free app off-hand that will monitor bandwidth usage? I used to have one, but can't remember it for the life of me. It sat in the system tray and you could find out your totals anytime and reset it whenever you wanted.

I'm not exactly sure how much bandwidth I'm using between work/gaming/streaming/downloading/etc.

250 is more than enough now!!! But in the future, it might have to be changed. I'm kinda happy. It might lower lag if the heavy hitters are elsewhere. I'm not a torrent guy, but I'm sure others in my neighborhood are. Without them, I might have a much better signal. Although we do have 5 360's online without a problem 99% of the time.

Anyone got a free app off-hand that will monitor bandwidth usage? I used to have one, but can't remember it for the life of me. It sat in the system tray and you could find out your totals anytime and reset it whenever you wanted.

I'm not exactly sure how much bandwidth I'm using between work/gaming/streaming/downloading/etc.

If you have a Linksys router, install the newest versions of DD-WRT to it and there's a monthly bandwidth monitor in the WAN status section.

I got throttled once. It really did suck and I got a stern lecture from the guy on the phone when I called to un-throttle.

Really, these policies should be transparent.

You should never hit 250gb for gaming. But if you download HD movies which average 8 - 10g each, you'll hit it for sure.

I think we can all agree that it's a good thing it is transparent now.

I think we're mixed on a cap, but the cap is more than reasonalble IMO. Comcast will happily offer you a business-class account if you really insist on using more (if you are, you are either running a business or doing something dodgy anyway).

Philosophically, I hate the idea of having a cap. Realistically, I find it hard to believe I would ever hit that limit.

I essentially feel the same way. Practically speaking, personally, as of today, there is no way I'd ever come remotely close to hitting this soft cap. But in the not so distant future... maybe not so much.

That being said, I do have an issue with the term 'abusers' for people that are only using a service as it has been sold (by speed and not capacity). In fact, Comcast's claim that a relatively small percentage of people taking full advantage of their connection is causing them network problems is a tacit admission that they are overcharging the vast majority of their customers and that they'd rather not spend money to upgrade their network in response. Will the low use people see a decrease in their monthly bills? Fat chance. Will I be able to effectively block traffic that I do not want that contributes towards my monthly allotment? Fat chance. This is just a naked attempt to drive away the folks (aka 'demon customers') that would either force them to upgrade, and/or to extract more money for the same service.

If they would upgrade their network rather than charging people more for less, they wouldn't be in this predicament (and yes, I know this is a bit of a false dichotomy... clearly they can and are doing both, but the execution and message here is poor). That is the future of the internet. The people that say that only pirates etc. use this much bandwidth only have their heads in the sand with regard to where things are going. More and more legitimate, high-bandwidth applications ARE the future of the internet. And this future isn't all that far away (YMMV depending on geographic distribution). HD streaming/on-demand multimedia, open source kernals, teleprescence, cloud computing, etc. etc. etc.. Not to mention that P2P as a protocol is such a VASTLY more efficient way to distribute data (legal or otherwise) that ham-handed efforts at blocking that protocol just drip with conflict of interest.

And on top of all of these sins there are the following-

1) the marketing aspect- it's been advertised as all you can eat for so long now to do a 180 is going to cause folks to squawk and do a double-take. At the very least, it opens up some ability for the competition (where they exist) to advertise they aren't capped.

2) slippery slope- no reason they can't further modify the TOS to decrease it in the future.

3) gov't mandated monopoly in most markets- very few options for most people. Most markets are local gov't mandated monopolies going back 30+ years now that communications/entertainment/data are all the same thing carried on the same lines vs. the past when they were all single purpose.

4) conflict of interest- this ties into #3 in that Comcast can effectively (and unfairly in my opinion) place artificial barriers of cost to competing high bandwidth applications (HD-VOD for example, or interfering with the way that VOIP traffic is handled)

5) net neutrality- see #3 and #4 above to combine to give way too much power to Comcast (or any monopolized ISP for that matter) in terms of dictating what kind of experience I may or may not have when trying to access content across the internet. It's the old payola system and it's not in consumer's best interests.

I think we can all agree that it's a good thing it is transparent now.

I think we're mixed on a cap, but the cap is more than reasonalble IMO. Comcast will happily offer you a business-class account if you really insist on using more (if you are, you are either running a business or doing something dodgy anyway).

For now I agree. Transparency = good. Current cap = more generous than others and overall sufficient.

But I don't think that is a great future prospect, and it does put a lot of power in the hands of ISPs, which by and large are locally regulated monopolies (at least here in the states). That's the biggest problem I have- the concentration of power/lack of choice. Market forces don't work well when the deck is stacked against them. You get the broadband situation we have had in the US over the past 20 years, stagnation.

That being said, I do have an issue with the term 'abusers' for people that are only using a service as it has been sold (by speed and not capacity).

It's silly to call them abusers, but if they are putting too much stress on the service it is not unreasonable for Comcast to take measures to limit the hit as much as possible.

If you are running an insurance plan, you may very well find out that a small segment of people are using the plan much more than everyone else, which drives up the overall cost of everyone. This may include raising premiums, raising deductibles, placing limits on overall coverage, etc.

Now, I am not saying that bandwidth is health insurance or whatever. But I am saying is that this is not out of the ordinary. Comcast should not be forced to upgrade their systems into perpetuity because a tiny segment of people want to illegally download every game and movie that comes out. Like I said, at the present I do not see someone buying so much content, even if we are talking about 8 gig HD movies or games, that you would hit the cap very quickly. For that to happen we would be talking about like, $150+ in content every single month. Now, that may change! And when it does the cap should be raised.

points 1-5

1. Yes that is how business works.
2. Yes and they have to face the customers every time they do so.
3-5. It all comes down to good regulation. Now we have not had good regulation for a while now. Plenty of articles have been written about how countries like South Korea and/or France used regulation to push forward market-friendly reforms which have led to better service at lower prices. That hasn't happened here. If we have a FCC which is devoted to giving big telecoms all the power they want and need then we won't get anywhere.

250 is more than enough now!!! But in the future, it might have to be changed.

you mean like starting this fall, when comcast itself starts rolling out docsis 3.0 and 50mb speeds? "here's 1o times more speed, just don't use it!"

you mean like starting this fall, when comcast itself starts rolling out docsis 3.0 and 50mb speeds? "here's 1o times more speed, just don't use it!"

or use it to its fullest extent, but we'll charge you an arm and a leg :)

We are HEAVY users. If you use more than 260 GB a month, what the hell are you doing?

The answer: Two words. ********** and Porn.

And at the risk of soundling trollish. Most (not all) Bittorent activity is for illegally copywrited games, music, or videos.

Gaming itself does not take up much bandwith.

Now, I am not saying that bandwidth is health insurance or whatever. But I am saying is that this is not out of the ordinary. Comcast should not be forced to upgrade their systems into perpetuity because a tiny segment of people want to illegally download every game and movie that comes out. Like I said, at the present I do not see someone buying so much content, even if we are talking about 8 gig HD movies or games, that you would hit the cap very quickly. For that to happen we would be talking about like, $150+ in content every single month. Now, that may change! And when it does the cap should be raised.


I think we are more or less on the same page.

That being said, Comcast then shouldn't have advertised unlimited service (speed not capacity). Under those circumstances it's disingenuous to call heavy usage 'abuse'. That they are making this cap explicit is acceptable at the end of the day (assuming it is reflected in their marketing). But it's abundantly clear (ergo the need for a bandwidth cap) that Comcast isn't ahead of the curve as it comes to increasing capacity to deal with the coming reality of pervasive high bandwidth (legal) applications. We shall see if the cap gets changed when it's in direct opposition to Comcast's business interests to do so...


1. Yes that is how business works.
2. Yes and they have to face the customers every time they do so.
3-5. It all comes down to good regulation. Now we have not had good regulation for a while now. Plenty of articles have been written about how countries like South Korea and/or France used regulation to push forward market-friendly reforms which have led to better service at lower prices. That hasn't happened here. If we have a FCC which is devoted to giving big telecoms all the power they want and need then we won't get anywhere.

No argument from me that telecomm regulation has been awful in the US for the past decade if not 2-3. Just my 2 bits on the greater picture of these caps as they reflect on the market as a whole and not just some 'those darn pirates are screwing up our network!!!' justification/red herring.

As to #2, sometimes you really have no choice- see 3-5. =)

Time will tell.

The ONLY reason the ISPs are initiating caps is to stifle the VOD competition that is now in its infancy!

Its brilliant really, complain about capacity issues and use that to initiate caps to "protect the experience".

Right...

Its to protect 7 dollar PPV movies and on demand. This ISN'T about pirates or capacity! It is about the big guys PROTECTING THEIR BOTTOM LINE and stifling a new media format. So now everyone is busy blaming the pirates and not paying attention to the precedent that is being set. What happens in 3 years when Hulu is streaming HD? Or Netflix? If we even get there...

Genius... pure genius

you mean like starting this fall, when comcast itself starts rolling out docsis 3.0 and 50mb speeds? "here's 1o times more speed, just don't use it!"

Yes, another one of those contradictions. Or as other posters have pointed out- if you do use the speed we give you, we'll just charge you a metric crap-ton. *Unless you buy it from inside our network*, which... by the way, you can't really opt out of even if you wanted to.

And now you see where this is all headed... end result is you will pay more for less.

The ONLY reason the ISPs are initiating caps is to stifle the VOD competition that is now in its infancy!

Its brilliant really, complain about capacity issues and use that to initiate caps to "protect the experience".

Right...

Its to protect 7 dollar PPV movies and on demand. This ISN'T about pirates or capacity! It is about the big guys PROTECTING THEIR BOTTOM LINE and stifling a new media format. So now everyone is busy blaming the pirates and not paying attention to the precedent that is being set. What happens in 3 years when Hulu is streaming HD? Or Netflix? If we even get there...

Genius... pure genius

This is precisely what I believe is at the heart of the matter as well. A bit of a smoke and mirrors distraction to end-run around network neutrality issues and to stifle competition that uses their (monopolized) pipes.

The next thing we know, 250 gigs will be "too much for the infrastructure" and it will get whittled away. Soon after, expect bill by the byte. Similar to any other utility (water, power, etc.) The issue I have is that if this is the path they want, why not start it that way? It's not like we have ever had "unlimited" electricity! For cripes sakes, we are not talking about a natural resource here!

Here's a thought... can you imagine buying bandwith for your home routers? Well here sir... here is your 500 gig Dlink wireless router, after that you'll have to renew your 2 year contract to allow more traffic to pass through it. Scary huh?

I know.... I am a little out there with that, but the point has been made.

Guys, two things to remember:

1) There is already a cap, there has been for 5 years...its been.."invisible" on Comcast...sometimes its 100gigs, other times its 500gigs....people have been getting warning letters and getting kicked off Comcast for years and years now due to being bandwidth hogs. Comcast has finally put at least their chips on the table and said 250gigs is considered acceptable usage.

Now, combine this with their "hog throttle"....and that means that at least they wont get angry calls during the day from Grandma whos internet is slow because Johnny across the street is running 10 torrent servers at 6pm in the afternoon.

2) 250 gigs is extremely generous. In fact, even to a Pirate flying the Jolly Rodger thats a damn lot of bandwidth. If you ARENT a pirate, then guess what? You nowa t least wont have to worry about HD VOD from netflix when it arrives, or downloading movies or demos or what have you from legitimate sources.


I feel sorry for you guys stuck with Time Warner or those other services who are considering 5gb's to be "generous" and 40gb to be a "high tier customer".

But the biggest issue of this entire CAP discussion is this:
This decision will now dramatically affect online commerce. For YEARS content providers have been waiting for broadband to hit the masses so they could push more content to their clients.

Suddenly, now, they are going to have to re-think how much data they send, and of what quality. This will *dramatically* affect things.

Broadband providers are now about to become (if they aren't already) the new Railroad Barons of the 1800's........where the Railroads literally controlled this country, because they determined if entire CITIES survived or not. Broadband companies will now utterly control how much business can be done online in any kind of higher-bandwidth form. Streaming the news online, watching the Olympics online, and so on.

Anyhow, at least the caps for Comcast are finally on the table.

Guys, two things to remember:

1) There is already a cap, there has been for 5 years...its been.."invisible" on Comcast...sometimes its 100gigs, other times its 500gigs....people have been getting warning letters and getting kicked off Comcast for years and years now due to being bandwidth hogs. Comcast has finally put at least their chips on the table and said 250gigs is considered acceptable usage.

Now, combine this with their "hog throttle"....and that means that at least they wont get angry calls during the day from Grandma whos internet is slow because Johnny across the street is running 10 torrent servers at 6pm in the afternoon.

2) 250 gigs is extremely generous. In fact, even to a Pirate flying the Jolly Rodger thats a damn lot of bandwidth. If you ARENT a pirate, then guess what? You nowa t least wont have to worry about HD VOD from netflix when it arrives, or downloading movies or demos or what have you from legitimate sources.


I feel sorry for you guys stuck with Time Warner or those other services who are considering 5gb's to be "generous" and 40gb to be a "high tier customer".

But the biggest issue of this entire CAP discussion is this:
This decision will now dramatically affect online commerce. For YEARS content providers have been waiting for broadband to hit the masses so they could push more content to their clients.

Suddenly, now, they are going to have to re-think how much data they send, and of what quality. This will *dramatically* affect things.

Broadband providers are now about to become (if they aren't already) the new Railroad Barons of the 1800's........where the Railroads literally controlled this country, because they determined if entire CITIES survived or not. Broadband companies will now utterly control how much business can be done online in any kind of higher-bandwidth form. Streaming the news online, watching the Olympics online, and so on.

Anyhow, at least the caps for Comcast are finally on the table.

I agree entirely with number 1.

2 I disagree with, its not as generous as you'd think. Okay, its better than Time Warner, but that's just a stupid limit.

I mean, as I mentioned above, watching a few baseball games not covered by Comcast each day on MLB.tv at 1.2 Mbps is around 50 gigs a month by itself. To estimate, maybe 8 Demos on XBL every month, around 10 GB. Maybe watching a movie or two each weekend HD from the Video Marketplace, another 50 or so GB. I own about 20 games on Steam, thats about 100 GB (maybe more) on its own, just to redownload those if I need to reformat. That's not including any online gaming, email attachments, MMORPGS, PC game demos, Linux distributions, youtube, hulu, OR any uploads. So if you have an online backup service, you better hope you're not uploading stuff to it that often.

Sure, you might say that this usage would be uncommon all during one month, for example why download all 20 games on Steam. Its not so much that its needed, but you should be able to if you choose. I mean with the ridiculous rates that Comcast charges, you'd think they'd be able to have some sort of solution that involves improving infrastructure.

If it was 300-350 GB for now, I'd be a lot happier with it, but its still the principles of it.

Quite frankly, I agree with the above. Its a last ditch effort to force the need for their own on-demand video and PPV video as opposed to other online on-demand video services. Besides the fact that its a very hypocritical situation. I mean online multimedia is what drives the need for high-speed internet in the first place, so to now say the very thing that brought you customers needs to be limited is ridiculous.

And what happens with more customers, and faster speeds, as people have already mentioned? Are they going to put the limit further down as more and more people begin to use their capacities?

That's not including any online gaming, email attachments, MMORPGS, PC game demos, Linux distributions, youtube, hulu, OR any uploads. So if you have an online backup service, you better hope you're not uploading stuff to it that often.


Eh...you're kinda using an extreme example there of throwing everything into one month at once. And even then, with all your examples, you weren't far off from 250gigs.....so its a reasonable number.

But look at it this way: This will encourage Verizon and AT&T to get off their asses and keep up the FIOS front. I can get AT&T UVerse in my neighborhood, and in another year or two it'll probably worth moving to.
(But not yet, not with its "same as cable" speeds right now).


that its needed, but you should be able to if you choose. I mean with the ridiculous rates that Comcast charges, you'd think they'd be able to have some sort of solution that involves improving infrastructure.


Uh, I pay $52 bucks a month for 8mb down and 2mb up. Thats pretty reasonable considering I pay almost double that for CableTV that I barely even watch :P Or a Cell Phone is more than that per month for most folks...


If it was 300-350 GB for now, I'd be a lot happier with it, but its still the principles of it.


250 is awfully close to 300....so I think you're picking nits here, but look I'd love higher limits too.......I wont argue that point, so I'd be happier if Comcast offered a 500gb tier at, say, $80 a month...so i could bump it up if I wanted to.


Quite frankly, I agree with the above. Its a last ditch effort to force the need for their own on-demand video and PPV video as opposed to other online on-demand video services.


Thats one part of it, but its not the biggest part.....with Caps come tiers, with Tiers come pricing models, and pricing models make companies money.

Who makes more money: The restaurant at $20, $40, or $100 per plate, or the $12.95 All YoU Can Eat Buffet? Broadband needed the buffet to get people in the door (like Casinos!)....but now that people are here, and HOOKED, they are starting to tighten the screws. I mean I dont have internet I start feeling disconnected. :P


And what happens with more customers, and faster speeds, as people have already mentioned? Are they going to put the limit further down as more and more people begin to use their capacities?

Probably......although the faster speeds (lets say DOCSIS 3) will mean less congestion as people get their stuff faster and then free up the bandwidth in the pipes.

But look at it this way: This will encourage Verizon and AT&T to get off their asses and keep up the FIOS front. I can get AT&T UVerse in my neighborhood, and in another year or two it'll probably worth moving to.

Except many towns have contracts with the cable companies, which keeps it being a monopoly in each area. Verizon has to go and have legislation passed in pretty much every town it wants to get FIOS in (yes, not even at a statewide level, but with every town). It's not that they're being lazy, its they're being fought every step of the way by the cable cos.

And my reference to ridiculous prices is more that FIOS is faster and cheaper.

And honestly, I'd be happy for being able to pay more for more usage, but that's not how this is working. Instead, you're kicked off with nothing to go to in many areas of the country.

Except many towns have contracts with the cable companies, which keeps it being a monopoly in each area. Verizon has to go and have legislation passed in pretty much every town it wants to get FIOS in (yes, not even at a statewide level, but with every town). It's not that they're being lazy, its they're being fought every step of the way by the cable cos.


Yep, I understand that.....but thats changing.


And my reference to ridiculous prices is more that FIOS is faster and cheaper.


Yeah its faster and its...well i dont know about cheaper.....Verizon isn't here and UVERSE is basically the same price as Cable, maybe a little cheaper but its HD service kinda blows still (work in progress). It'll come around.


And honestly, I'd be happy for being able to pay more for more usage, but that's not how this is working. Instead, you're kicked off with nothing to go to in many areas of the country.

Lets just see how it all shakes out....remember, we are in an infancy here...the first "tier" of broadband dust has finally settled and now we are in the "So, how can we make all this bandwidth work for us, what can we do with it?" phase.....so content is getting richer, speeds are going up, cable companies are bitching....exciting times :)

Capping isn't really an issue yet. With media trending to all downloadable and systems like FIOS and Uverse becoming more popular, that's when it would be a problem. Back in the day no one cared because there was only so much content available and connections weren't as fast.

I just downloaded a beta test file that was 9Gb long. I'm just glad that FIOS is coming to my neighborhood this month- but I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually did the same thing.

Well luckily this won't affect me unless Cox and Time Warner start implementing caps. Or Comcast buys out either of those 2 companies. Otherwise I would be worried because I love watching HD movies via download because I'm not interested in buying any BR players or discs anytime soon and I hate compression laden HD that cable companies are passing off to customers.

I have to wonder how much this will effect companies like MS, Sony and Netflix who are trying to sell services like HD movies over their 360 and PS3? It's got to spike up the bandwidth usage per month, and you just know Comcast won't make any allowances for that either.

Well luckily this won't affect me unless Cox and Time Warner start implementing caps. Or Comcast buys out either of those 2 companies. Otherwise I would be worried because I love watching HD movies via download because I'm not interested in buying any BR players or discs anytime soon and I hate compression laden HD that cable companies are passing off to customers.

Uh, Cox has a 60gb/mo cap stated right in their acceptable use policy...its lower for their lower tiers of service.

http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

Time Warner looks like its maximum bandwidth cap for its highest level of service is going to be 40gb a month.

Must stop downloading HD Porn. I use my internet from gaming to slingbox all the time. But I still feel like the 250GB is far from what I could hit in a month.

So if I could in theory download something that's 250GB in size downloading at my speed which is 13000kbps, how long would that take in minutes or hours to reach?

http://www.speedtest.net/result/315823865.png

Philosophically, I hate the idea of having a cap. Realistically, I find it hard to believe I would ever hit that limit.

My thoughts exactly.

Must stop downloading HD Porn. I use my internet from gaming to slingbox all the time. But I still feel like the 250GB is far from what I could hit in a month.

So if I could in theory download something that's 250GB in size downloading at my speed which is 13000kbps, how long would that take in minutes or hours to reach?

If you could use the full capacity of your connection steadily with no dips, you are getting about 45.8GB an hour. So the 250GB limit is a little under 5 and a half hours of downloading. There's nothing like selling super high speed connections, but putting bars in place that prevent you from actually using it for more then 6 steady hours a month...

You should never hit 250gb for gaming. But if you download HD movies which average 8 - 10g each, you'll hit it for sure.


Yeah but what legal HD movies are you downloading at that clip?

Must stop downloading HD Porn. I use my internet from gaming to slingbox all the time. But I still feel like the 250GB is far from what I could hit in a month.

So if I could in theory download something that's 250GB in size downloading at my speed which is 13000kbps, how long would that take in minutes or hours to reach?

http://www.speedtest.net/result/315823865.png

Those are some great upload and download speeds. What does that run you per mo?

If you could use the full capacity of your connection steadily with no dips, you are getting about 45.8GB an hour. So the 250GB limit is a little under 5 and a half hours of downloading. There's nothing like selling super high speed connections, but putting bars in place that prevent you from actually using it for more then 6 steady hours a month...

I think you forgot to convert from bits to bytes. My calculations put it at about 5.6 GB an hour (or close to 47 Gb an hour, if you excuse all the rounding), or about 45 hours of straight downloading at his full connection speed to hit 250 GB.

I think you forgot to convert from bits to bytes. My calculations put it at about 5.6 GB an hour (or close to 47 Gb an hour, if you excuse all the rounding), or about 45 hours of straight downloading at his full connection speed to hit 250 GB.

Bah, shouldn't do math when I'm tired. Still, that's 45 hours for the whole month. As far as 250GB, I think it's a pretty fair amount of data and I'd be hard pressed to use that much. My issue is that they sell you this big fat pipe, and then limit how much you can even use it. If you can download steady for an entire month and have patience, you do not need anything more then a 1megabit connection (I get 809kb/s or 101KB/s at 250GB per 30 day month assuming they don't round GB like hard drive manufacturers do). So basically they sell you a 16 megabit connection, but effectively limit maximum monthly data use to less then a 1 megabit connection.

Bah, shouldn't do math when I'm tired. Still, that's 45 hours for the whole month. As far as 250GB, I think it's a pretty fair amount of data and I'd be hard pressed to use that much. My issue is that they sell you this big fat pipe, and then limit how much you can even use it. If you can download steady for an entire month and have patience, you do not need anything more then a 1megabit connection (I get 809kb/s or 101KB/s at 250GB per 30 day month assuming they don't round GB like hard drive manufacturers do). So basically they sell you a 16 megabit connection, but effectively limit maximum monthly data use to less then a 1 megabit connection.

I think its actually probably a little slower than that too, because the whole powerboost thing where they give you a ton of speed at the beginning of the connection and then it slows after a little while, so depending on how big the file is for the download test, that could make it seem faster than it really would be too.

Instead of thinking of it as "I DONT HAVE UNLIMITED USE? INTERWEBZ SUCKZ!" think of it like this: For $50 bucks a month we'll give you a 8mbit pipe thats good for 250gigs of transfers.

Interested?


Its all about perception.

Instead of thinking of it as "I DONT HAVE UNLIMITED USE? INTERWEBZ SUCKZ!" think of it like this: For $50 bucks a month we'll give you a 8mbit pipe thats good for 250gigs of transfers.

Interested?


Its all about perception.

So I've been thinking about it some more, I'd also be much happier if they did it more like say Australia... where you get 250GB at highspeed, and then after you exceed that, THEN, they throttle back the speed of your connection to maybe 250kbps or whatever. Its the whole, two strikes and you're out thing, when a lot of the country doesn't have any other options, that is the biggest issue for me.

So I've been thinking about it some more, I'd also be much happier if they did it more like say Australia... where you get 250GB at highspeed, and then after you exceed that, THEN, they throttle back the speed of your connection to maybe 250kbps or whatever. Its the whole, two strikes and you're out thing, when a lot of the country doesn't have any other options, that is the biggest issue for me.

that makes sense. Punish by dialing it back, slowing you down as you approach the limit / go beyond a mark. That way, there's no limit, but you're screwing yourself.

I do about a gig/30 minutes at 600kbs which I feel is a fair average broadband rating (the 13000kbs above has to be .01% of the market if that), I feel the majority on broadband are actually well under my number.

I have 500 hours per month of downloading potential each month, there is 720 hours in a 30 day month. That would be max usage 70% of the time. I run 2 - 24/7 systems, 2 laptops as biz needs and a 360. I download a few demos per month, play on-line,. I probably don't even use 25 gigs in a month, let alone 10 x that.

The only angle I see with this is the slippery slope mentality of this number dropping lower. IMO a cap makes sense and 250 is still more then generous. You'd have to think the small percentage that hits that, a high percentage of those people are doing no-no's to begin with, and since I'm not about digital theft GOOD!. It makes the world better for me and those like me who pay for their content and not theft it.

I think this is a means of cutting down thoes people who do nothing but download movies etc. It may cut down the illegal download, but it may start putting a hamper on the future, especially of netflicks, MS etc, expand the online services. Currently compressed 720p movies are 5-7 Gigs, but if they start 1080p, and go to more uncompressed stuff, each movie could easily get to 15-20 gigs. There was some stat on how we (in America) are still hampered with poor download speed, and increased costs. There are many places (like Japan) that have 10 times the average download speeds we do at less price. What is the point of having higher download speeds if you max out on monthly limits. This is not a good trend.

"What is the point of having higher download speeds if you max out on monthly limits."

They aren't mutually linked. If I don't download 250 gigs, then the limit means nothing. However I will always benifit from the speed. I still may want my 10 gig WarHammer download in 5 hours instead of my previous broadband time of 20 hours.

Netflix moves at best quality are around 1.7 mbps, that is a lot of netflix streaming to get to 250 gigs a month.

Everyone should be pissed-off about this.
I already pay Comcast for channels I never watch ( Economy Package ) and the amount of commercials is horrendous. There already getting away with murder IMO.
Regulation should always be questioned.

250GB is a pretty large number until other companies decide to follow suit and before you know it the best you can get is a 200GB limit and so on and so forth; I seed many torrents (and no not the illegal kind) and it's not uncommon for me to go through 20-25GB of transfer per day. It would only take me a little over a week to suck up the maximum allowed. These companies are making money hand over fist, it's high time they start to update their networks to accommodate the customers usage needs rather than continue to take on additional customers and keep restricting your usage.

Verizon is slowly installing FiOS around larger metro areas and where that has happened cable companies have already started to increase the transfer rate which they are offering users in order to try and stay competitive. I talked to the cable guy when they came out to hook up cable he flat out said they have 20MB/5MB connections available; however, FIOS is not available in my neighborhood yet so they have no need to offer it.

We have Charter cable and never had caps. I hope they do not follow suit.

I have to wonder how much this will effect companies like MS, Sony and Netflix who are trying to sell services like HD movies over their 360 and PS3?

Consider this. In my country it costs approx $1 per GB, so a 4GB downladable movie costs you $4.99 to rent + $4 in bandwidth, making it $8.99 for a fricken rental. Totaly not worth it. I can understand teleco's in little countries such as mine intergrating data caps because a lot of traffic is international and that costs a bundle more than national traffic. However with the US and the bulk of traffic being local it makes little sense.

PS the speed reduction once reaching a cap system works well, but far from the ideal of re-investing in ones infrastructure.

Uh, Cox has a 60gb/mo cap stated right in their acceptable use policy...its lower for their lower tiers of service.

http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

Time Warner looks like its maximum bandwidth cap for its highest level of service is going to be 40gb a month.

If this is true, why are we discussing a 250GB limit, when clearly these two have much lower monthly limits? And apparently with these low amounts it hasn't affected those customers enough to complain. So I don't see why 250GB would be a big deal. Forgive me if this sounds retarded but I don't always understand this stuff completely.

Those are some great upload and download speeds. What does that run you per mo?

To much, 80.

I got it to host games and slingbox but the only game I play now is Spades. Waiting for a good ole shooter game to test it out.

I think its actually probably a little slower than that too, because the whole powerboost thing where they give you a ton of speed at the beginning of the connection and then it slows after a little while, so depending on how big the file is for the download test, that could make it seem faster than it really would be too.

Nope, I get that D/L and U/L the whole time.

Depending on the day I can download Microsoft HD Videos between 1.40-1.80MB/Sec. That's atleast what it shows as the Transfer rate. And my U/L tops out at above 2000kbps and stays around that once it's been going for a few seconds. But like I said, it's freakin expensive.

P.S.


Powerboost is for the first 5MB of a file and speedtest using a file bigger than 5MB

Except many towns have contracts with the cable companies, which keeps it being a monopoly in each area. Verizon has to go and have legislation passed in pretty much every town it wants to get FIOS in (yes, not even at a statewide level, but with every town). It's not that they're being lazy, its they're being fought every step of the way by the cable cos.



Here in Michigan, AT&T went to the state legislature over local community blackmail or in-action. The law passed and now Uverse is starting to gain momentum here. I use Uverse for my phone and internet and I'm pretty happy.

I don't have a pay tv service, so we use the internet pretty heavily for our entertainment. Between email, gaming, XBLA, Amazon Unbox, Hulu, etc., I still don't use anywhere 250 gb, but with HD right around the corner, you never know.

I think what Comcast is doing is conditioning people that it's ok to have limits. Give a few years of this crap and it will be commonplace. I bet that some geek-nerd at Comcast ran a few numbers and pointed out the fact that HD movies are becoming common place, it's best to have a foot in the door as far as limits go so that when HD entertainment downloads is mainstream, there won't be as big a stink when they reveal their future service tiers where you'll eventually pay a hefty price.

I don't know how much data is costs to have MP gaming but I would imagine it won't be as much as we all think. Most of the processing happens locally on the console right?

To much, 80.

I got it to host games and slingbox but the only game I play now is Spades. Waiting for a good ole shooter game to test it out.

I've got comcast as well but I've got business class service which is $90/month for 16 down/2 up. With powerboost, I'm supposed to be able to get up to 32mb down. The highest I've tested it on speedtest.net was around 30mb down and close to 3mb up.

Well I think if they are going to cap it then they need to lower my rate for HSI. They sold me an unlimited connection and now it isn't. Not that it matters all that much to me. My main connection I use is my 20/20 FIOS from Verizon. Comcast is for my roomates cuz I don't want them on my network. This just gives me one more reason to love FIOS.

Wow you guys are getting jerked.. I just did Speedtest.net and got 7500 up.. 1800 down.. 11ms ping time.. and thats on my laptop running connected to a 4 year old wireless router..

no cap on bandwidth.. Optimum Online by Cablevision

I pay about $40 bucks a month..

Wow you guys are getting jerked.. I just did Speedtest.net and got 7500 up.. 1800 down.. 11ms ping time.. and thats on my laptop running connected to a 4 year old wireless router..

no cap on bandwidth.. Optimum Online by Cablevision

I pay about $40 bucks a month..



Guess what, welcome to the internets homeboy. There's Comcrap guys that get three times that for less than 40. And it just makes me all warm inside to know I also pay three times that for service they get for cheap.

250GB cap is something I will never see in my lifetime. I know there's the uber nerd that says, "wait that's the first step and beside the point", ZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZZ, I don't download or stream HD Video, HD Music - hehehehe, HD whatever. I will never come close to 251GB in one month.