Comcast Sets Subscriber Bandwidth Limit
Operator Will Limit Internet Users to 250 Gigabytes Per Month
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 8/28/2008 1:43:00 PM
Comcast will cap Internet usage of its broadband subscribers at 250 Gigabytes per month—a very large amount of data, the equivalent of 62,500 digital songs—starting Oct. 1.
The operator Thursday posted an amendment to its terms of its “acceptable use policy” on Comcast.net, outlining the new guidelines.
The cap of 250 Gbytes per month is “much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis,” according to Comcast. Currently, the median monthly data usage by residential customers is approximately 2 to 3 Gbytes.
Separately, Comcast faces a Sept. 19 deadline, under an order by the Federal Communications Commission, to disclose details of how it has been “blocking” access to peer-to-peer applications and submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop the practice by the end of 2008.
Comcast has announced that it is migrating to a “protocol-agnostic” approach to managing its Internet bandwidth by the end of 2008, which will limit the bandwidth available to only the most excessive users.
Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said in an e-mail that the new explicit bandwidth cap has "nothing to do with the FCC's inquiry. This is a completely different program that has been in place for years."
To hit the 250-Gbyte ceiling, a customer would have to do any one of the following, according to Comcast: send 50 million e-mails; download 62,500 songs or 125 standard-definition movies; or upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos.
Less than 1% of all users exhibit Internet usage that even comes close to 250 Gbytes, Douglas said.
If a customer uses more than 250 Gbytes, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use, the company said. “At that time, we'll tell them exactly how much data per month they had used,” Comcast said. “We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily.”
Comcast said it will notify customers of the new policy via banner notices on the Comcast.net home page and on the Security Channel Web page as well as directly by including a bill stuffer in an upcoming monthly billing statement.
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This limit shows the lack of preparation Comcast has undergone throughout the years by not making proper Technological upgrades to existing data lines. If profits were distributed like they were supposed to, we would have more of an optical infrastructure instead of an outdated data system like we have today, and there would be no need to limit these 1% of the population. By the way, I am one of those 1% who received a phone call informing me if I exceeded the 250GB limit again, I would be ban from Comcast service for 1 year.
Erik Thomsen - 2/4/2009 2:44:15 PM EST -
Its interesting to me that Comcast got away with limiting people early on. When verizon did it on their wireless network without putting it in their advertising they were punished.
www.betanews.com/article/Verizon_Wireless_compensates_customers_for_unlimited_usage_cap_fiasco/1198093924
So why is it that Comcast hasn't been punished for their undergroung rogue tactics of not disclosing bandwidth limits, previous to them going more public and aggressive with this. Does it have anything to do with the government or did they just get the lucky straw? Having secret limits and percent usage scales resulting in services being cut off. Which has in several cases cut off 911 services to homes. Homes that have vonage service on a broadband line and are heavy downloaders.
This whole idea and concept is rediculous. It changes everything the internet is about. A limitless virtual world. It may not be bad intially but what happens when they lower limits or screen resolutions increase (more bandwidth used to stream).
This idea sounds analogous to Hitlor's concept. Make everyone think they are benefiting from it by "speeding up your download speeds". This is nothing but BAD news for everyone and we should not be putting up with it!
Sam - 11/5/2008 8:53:00 AM EST -
If an HD movie is 4 times larger than a SD movie, then this cap is equal to 1 HD movie per day (125 SD movies/4/30 days). That might be pretty unusual today, but it doesn't seem like that would be considered an excessive use of bandwidth in the future.
Peter Litman - 8/28/2008 10:43:00 PM EDT -
Good move by Comcast to interupt those customers who violate copywrite laws and hog bandwidth. These are not "residential" users. These are people operating businesses out of their homes and people stealing songs and movies. They should pay for their higher bandwidth needs to carry out their illegal enterprises. The FCC should leave Comcast alone. In fact Congress should pass legislation to allow all the cable companies to share information about illegal activities with the Studios so they can go ater the offenders in civil court.
George T. - 8/28/2008 8:13:00 PM EDT -
If I may, a cancer cure cannot help a diabetes problem.
Putting a cap on data usage does nothing to relieve the 'bottle neck' created by high users. Presuming you only use the cable modem 6 days a week, their cap is about 1GB per day.
High users cannot OVER use their service. For example, if they have a 3 MB service, they cannot exceed data speeds of 3 MB, ever. That would be getting more than they are paying for.
Additionally, how many 3 MB users, for example, ever get 3MB anyway? Very few to zero. The customer is NOT getting what they are paying for. The customer is short changed. 3MB circuits rarely run 3MB. Many times they run 1.0MB or .7MB. The customer is short changed again.
Why has COMCAST under-engineered their network for the capacity they have sold? The deliberate under-engineering of their internal network to increase profits is what is happening here.
Gene Thomas - 8/28/2008 7:25:00 PM EDT
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