Comcast limits bandwidth usage starting in October

[jw]

Looks like Comcast is cracking down on movie downloaders. I have 2 PS3's hooked up just kind of curious to my bandwidth usage. I wish I could get Verizon DSL.. I would be on it

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.

On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.

In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.

In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use.

Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.

[DeathByAsh'aman]

Originally Posted by jwbbud

Looks like Comcast is cracking down on movie downloaders. I have 2 PS3's hooked up just kind of curious to my bandwidth usage. I wish I could get Verizon DSL.. I would be on it

slightly old news...

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?.../08/28/2339207

But none the less disconcerting. Its not really an issue now but definately not a good path to start going down.

I have comcast as well, but have yet to receive anything about it.

[Marquoz]

250 gigs doesn't seem that bad of a cap. I'm a pretty heavy user, and there's only a couple months that I would come close to that. Those would be the times I've got large chunks of free time and stream/download bunches of movies.

[silversnake]

i had unlimited in Canada and now it's 100 gb ( 50 down - 50 up). People shouldn't complain THAT much considering it's 250 gb.

[Wingman1977]

Don't Verizon DSL. It's terrible. That's what what we use at work and last school year it was down a many times.

[dpomp]

how will this affect online gameplay??? i'm not sure if it uses a lot of bandwith or not. wow this kinda sucks. i might have to look at switching to dsl.

how will this work, when you reach your limit will they just cut you off?? or will they charge extra for overage??

[xtop]

whether or not 250gb is a lot or not isnt the point. this will become industry standard if users let comcast get away with this. dump them now and tell them why

[Wingman1977]

Originally Posted by xtop

whether or not 250gb is a lot or not isnt the point. this will become industry standard if users let comcast get away with this. dump them now and tell them why

I agree. Comcast users, let you wallet do the talking. Call, write and tell them you are not going to put up with this and you're switching internet companies. Heaven help us all if this becomes standard.
There would be in the streets and all would break out. I just pray to god that Road Runner doesn't follow suit.

[jw]

Originally Posted by DeathByAsh'aman

slightly old news...

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?.../08/28/2339207

But none the less disconcerting. Its not really an issue now but definately not a good path to start going down.

I have comcast as well, but have yet to receive anything about it.

I know its kind of old news but they just officially updated the TOS

Originally Posted by dpompeo

how will this affect online gameplay??? i'm not sure if it uses a lot of bandwith or not. wow this kinda sucks. i might have to look at switching to dsl.

how will this work, when you reach your limit will they just cut you off?? or will they charge extra for overage??

I think you have to explain to them why you are using so much bandwidth

If a customer uses more than 250 GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use. At that time, we'll tell them exactly how much data per month they had used. We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily.

Kind of interesting facts so the average joe doesnt worry, I believe I am fine

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 - 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

• Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
• Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
• Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
• Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

[Chocolatejas]

I had Verizon DSL and it sucked hard. Too forever to download anything and my comp was hardwired to the DSL router.

[DaMexiRican]

I would switch if there was a better option. But there isn't. Other than comcast I can get DSL but that is uber slow. If FIOS was available I would switch in a heart beat.

[DetroitSportsFan]

How are HD downloads going to take over with restrictions like this?

[xtop]

while 125 movies sounds like a lot, it fails to consider daily internet browsing, streaming sites like pandora, gaming and downloads like games/demo's, etc. the more i think about it, the closer i think i'd be to 250gb without even trying.

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

How are HD downloads going to take over with restrictions like this?

Easy, they are going to be 720p, no lossless audio, no extras, no frills, horrid bitrate, tons of artifacts, and just a mess. But they will be "good enough".

[quexos]

Usually I stand against companies that would abuse users with overpriced underachieving connections. But 250GB/Month, dude that is More than fair, no complaints there.

To compare it with My internet subscription, I have 40 GB/month recently updated a couple of months ago from 20 GB back then. I'd be happy with 60 GB/month and with 100 GB/month I think I'd never be too short on any downloads anymore.

[Tony Stark]

I am v ery happy with Verizon FIOS

[red_5ive]

Although 250GB isn't bad, the only good news I can see with a bandwidth cap is movie download services that the persistent hd-dvd whiners continue to spew will bring down Blu-ray. Consider a family of 4 sharing an internet service, all their daily browsing, mIpod/music downloads and whatever else, plus movie downloads, they'd eat that 250GB fairly quickly.

[Forrestandjen07]

250 gigs is an insane ammount

you would have to download like 60,000,00 some songs, and what not

the likley hood of you hitting that in a month is slim, unless you are a movie pirate or mp3 pirate, or just a pirate, thats what this cap is for

but i find it kind of comical that comcast gives you 2 gigs a month on news groups , and this cap is supposed to be to help stop piracy on the net

[Forrestandjen07]

Originally Posted by red_5ive

Although 250GB isn't bad, the only good news I can see with a bandwidth cap is movie download services that the persistent hd-dvd whiners continue to spew will bring down Blu-ray. Consider a family of 4 sharing an internet service, all their daily browsing, mIpod/music downloads and whatever else, plus movie downloads, they'd eat that 250GB fairly quickly.

No they wouldnt

I game ALOT online, Download videos from XBM, Download Trailers, online, Download Mp3s from ZUne, while 3 others are Usint the internet at the same time

Trust me, Hitting this mark Should be quite difficult, unless like i said, you are downloading pirated movie files all day long, every day of the week

[red_5ive]

Originally Posted by Tony Stark

I am v ery happy with Verizon FIOS

Same here. I was just upgraded to the 10 Mbps service for the same price and they didn't even tell me. I found out when I pulled down 4GB in an hour!