@Mr.SithNinja: That's stupid because there has been a recent study showing that much of the ISPs backbone is utilized by those watching online streaming videos.

ripfire

Wasn't it found that most of the people slowing down internet connections were people watching youtube videos and listening to music online. Not the population using bit torrent.

crugg

@Git Em SteveDave is starlost: Comcast's cap isn't a Download Cap, it is a "Data Usage Cap". That means they get you for Downloading AND Uploading. They worded it that way to go atfer the p2pers. That means if you DL a 40gb file and upload it twice, you get clipped for 120GB against your cap. CONcast is out to stop p2p altogether with this capping non-sence as an end-run around the FCC stopping them from throteling.

Mr.SithNinja

@kulawhawk: " Do you know how quickly you would run through the caps if you watched HD content through your ISP."

But that's not the point he's trying to make. Comcast's internet provision should be independent of their other services. If they're going to say they're going to provide "unlimited" internet, then there should be no limits through the term of service. What dukemang is saying is that if Comcast wants to provide internet service with limitations, then they should lay out the terms out in the open, including their advertisements (even if it has to be that fast-talking voice towards the end of an ad).

ripfire

If Comcast starts "throttling" everyone. I will drop them like a bad habit. This is bad business. They need to fix the technolgy and not punish their subscribers. They claim to have so much Speed and Bandwidth, why don't they boost the Users who slow their networks down. Or comeup with a better solution than going behind our backs.....

Whirl

All I have to say for a change is Go Government !

Comcast has to be the most hatted company that deals that provides a service or product to the public in history.

Verizon, ATT, the other phone, isp etc. all look like angels compared to Comcast; Comcast must be trying to out do MA Bell history of bullshit.

utube2007

I really want to know why on Time Warner I pay for a 10 meg connection and yet I never see anything CLOSE to that speed...ever

From-My-Cube

@dukemang:

Okay, are they going to let me block internet advertising and other unwanted crap that would be cutting into my caps.

You do realize this is a preemptive measure with HD streaming content starting to come online. Netflix, Blockbuster, and other content providers. Comcast is protecting it's cable business. Do you know how quickly you would run through the caps if you watched HD content through your ISP. Any wonder why Comcast would want to slow up the merging of cable and internet. Where do they make their inflated buck when you can simply pay for a data connection and then pick and choose to pay for whatever channels you like directly from them, like ESPN or Discovery for example. TV's already have wireless links, my Samsung 650 has both a wireless link and ethernet port.

Cutting out the cable provider opens up a wider variety of options and seemlessly an endless catalog of OnDemand content.

It'll be interesting to see when Google wants to start getting into this debate, seeing as their reach is continually expanding and forcing old competitors to stop resting on their laurels.

kulawhawk

@dukemang: What's great about that, is that it would probably drive people away from Comcast (provided they have a choice), because they'd now have a clearer look at what the deal is.

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

@dukemang: My gut reaction was to tell you to screw off because you agreed with Comcast. But I agree with your points.

Speaking tranparency, has anyone actually gotten a notice from Comcast yet about the caps being instituted on Oct 1st?

Enochrewt

@dukemang: Well said, at least this way people would understand their options.

UnderLoK

@dukemang: Dude, you should work for FCC.

ripfire

I agree with Comcast on this one. It sucks that they cap internet speeds but instead of regulating how they make their network run, what the FCC should do is
1) Define what "broadband" speeds are
2) Define what "unlimited" is
3) Force all ISP's to clearly state speed and caps on their websites, all marketing and advertising materials and in all contracts so there is NO misunderstanding.

This way Comcast can do what ever they want, but they have to make it big, bold and black and white.

dukemang

Wasn't comcast at the dnc and rnc throwing millions and millions at the candidates?
Or was that just AT&T?

Phenostar

I still don't understand why I would pay a ton of extra money for "blazing fast speeds" if they are going to cap my internet. "Wow, I sure hit that cap fast. I used to hit it on the 30th of the month with my old 3 mb service, having my net shut off on the 19th is FAST".

Saboth

With the new cap they want to put on, you would think they wouldn't want to slow down connections. Let the users hit their max, then shut down their connection till next month, or let them pay a per mB fee to keep DL'ing.

Git Em SteveDave is starlost

I'd like to take bets now that not only will Comcast and ISPs in general get permission to throttle protocols they don't like, but they'll also end up setting bandwidth caps as well and still charge us the same amount as they do for our current "unlimited" access.

Any doubters?

tarrantm

Good luck with that Comcast.

We're talking about the government letting loose of the largest communication stream for the next century most likely. Not to mention with VOIP, wireless, and the convergence of so much different communications formats being bundled into internet networks, no way does Uncle Same let them go unregulated.

Usually, I'm all for the government staying out of business affairs, but Comcast is a dick of a company and it's nice to see our government looking out for the everyday consumer.

kulawhawk

I trust comcast to muck things up as much as possible and as much as I don't like the fcc I think letting isp's slow user connections and place bandwidth caps on something the users pay stupid amounts for to begin with is just bad business.

lilaliendog

If I had reams of money to invest I'd start laying fiber in Comcast's areas and scoop up all their users.

Maksimir is on a bender.

I hate to see Comcast surviving despite this crap, or even in spite(as kulawhawk said) of this crap.

A better option for Comcast is charging people based on tiered data caps, instead of throttling the lesser paying to access to the tubes -- and have everyone interneting at the same speed. Better yet, they could allow people to travel from one cap to another(uping their monthly charge to a higher tier), and in doing so allow a wide-range of data-users reason to stay with them -- because their policies would be reasonable and innovative.

...The latter feature would never go however, because what is profitable and what is reasonable aren't always the same. But I think tier-capped, speedy-as-hell internet is good business.

Anyone know which providers aren't capping data these days? Verizon? Time-Warner? AT&T? I have crap DSL through AT&T, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were capping it.

D.E.P.C.

@ripfire: Do you really think CONcast gives a crap about the truth in anything? They are obsessed with blocking p2p. You are right streaming is a bandwidth beast, but in case you hadn't noticed, CONcast is in the streaming business as well. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see them NOT charge streaming data from their sites against their customer's "Data Usage Cap" either. What better way to funnel people from competing streaming sites to their own?

Mr.SithNinja

@crugg: duh.. too slow

ripfire

If ComCast officially starts doing this, I will order FiOS and just buy a new fire extinguisher.

DashTheHand

My family has already begun the switch to FiOs after hearing about Comcast's latests plans. Its almost as if they don't want our business.

If I remember correctly I read a post on Gizmodo about a month ago where somebody bad mouthed Comcast in their blog and soon received a call from a Comcast representative who's job it was to monitor for such talk. I can only wonder what kind of posts that guy has been reading lately.

Mykich

@dukemang
defining unlimited: without limits, no end, ongoing, never to stop, infinite
How hard is that? No company should use the term "unlimited" with anything that they want to put limits on.

SuperMacGuy

The thing I wish they would really figure out, is how Comcast can by out areas so they don't have any compitition. I really hate to say it, but Comcast is working out goof for me. I am also at or above up/down speeds. What I don't like is the fact that they are still commies and bought out the whole state. I would drop them like a hot rock if I could get anything other then them. If I could get fios, or something other than 1.5mb dsl, I would be all over it just so comcast doesn't get any of my money.

But I do have to agree, Comcast should have to explain everything. Lay out the plans in plain english. If there is a cap, how big the cap is. Maybe a monthly useage with the bill. Be acountable for their speed claims. I sure as hell would be pissed if I was paying for 6mb service and was only getting 3mb.

Russs

Wah wah wah I can't download Dark Knight of uTorrent at full speed. DEAL WITH IT! They only slow down downloads on questionably large downloads and WONT slow down your HD downloads from Netflix of iTunes or whatever. I agree that mp3's and movies and whatnot are overpriced but that does NOT mean that we have a right to illegally download the movies and mp3's. 250 GB is more than enough for the average user, unless you download a 8 GB's of material EVERY SINGLE DAY. So in other words, stfu.

daftrok

I don't really care about the cap as I think it's 8GB/day. At least for right now, that doesn't concern me. What concerns me is the fact that whenever I run a torrent, I cannot browse the web. Comcast essentially shuts off any HTTP traffic until I turn the torrent off (usually takes a few minutes for HTTP to return).

Anyone else experiencing this?

kakashisan

comcast eats the cock meat sandwich

lldsandsll

I have a general question(s) about cable tv/internet providers.

If the cable companies measured their cable television in MBits, how would that number compare to average internet use? Whats the difference? Should all be 1's and 0's. Why the different pricing?

Think the cable companies might have some explaining to do.

Stabio

@daftrok: You aren't looking at the bigger issue here. It isn't ALL about p2p and piracy (even tho Comcast seems to think so). Like Ripfire pointed out streaming is what soaks bandwidth NOT bittorrents. It is about the ever growing need for more and more bandwidth. It's about Comcast trying to dictate how you use that bandwidth. It's about Comcast saying "We are going to limit what you can do, how much you can do or where you can go to get your online services." It's about Comcast saying "We don't want to upgrade our network because of the increased traffic so we are going to cap everyone instead." What is going to stop them from implementing a policy saying that information coming from certain "partnership" or "Comcast sponsored" sites WON'T count against your cap? How many people will start to use ONLY those sites just for that reason? Why do you think that they are so concerned with the FCC and the ruling against them about throtteling? They want to set the presidant for being able to tell the FCC to stay out of their network managment practices. Their "Data Usage Cap" is bad for everyone. Not just the pirates you despise so much.

Mr.SithNinja

I think daftrok needs to get laid.

redwingsmonk

@From-My-Cube: Here, here.

ideaman2020

" What would do about Comcast?"...." I'd shutdown Comcast and give the money back to the shareholders." - The Consumers

redwingsmonk

@daftrok: I know I can hit the cap doing 100% legitimate stuff with VNC, VPN, Netflix, Hulu, Slingbox, and playing on Xbox Live. The type of stuff they tell you that you can do if you sign up for Comcast.

Considering that I'm not doing anything illegal, I don't see why it's fair that when I signed up I got the CSR to say "unlimited internet access" 3 times during sign-up and suddenly not have that anymore.

PS Comcast needs to give you a bandwidth meter in your account, but I understand why they won't.

StartingAces

@kakashisan: yeah I have the same problem, so I don't use torrents, but rather I wait for a blog site to upload the movie or song via rapidshare, megaupload or whatever other filesharing site they can hide the link with. the uploads generally take place the same day as the torrents. also, I can download faster than the torrents and still browse the web!

hindsight2020

With all the controversy over comcast's abuse of it's clients, why does anyone still give them any business?

Come on people, vote with your wallets and let's all find out how well their caps and throttling work with no customers.

Ednonymous

@daftrok: you do realize that someone did a study (think it was actually comcast) and they found out that it was actually Youtube users that were using all the bandwidth, not P2P.

FrancesTheMute

@From-My-Cube: probably because a lot of people on your same node are using the same time you are. I have a 15mbps line from TWC, but I think most people in my neighborhood have switched to AT&T Uverse, so I'm getting nearly 15mbps all the time (every time i've checked, at least) plus when I d/l stuff from a good server, I'm usually hitting about 1.6-1.7 MB/s, and my theoretical max would be about 1.8MB/s

FrancesTheMute

@Ednonymous: Spoken like a person who lives in area where they actualy HAVE A CHOICE! There are a lot of areas that are literaly Comcast or nothing. Comcast cuts deals with apartment complexes to BAN satelite dishes and ONLY ALLOW Comcast cable. I fought with my complex for 8 months over it because I refused to remove my dish from my patio area. Wake up man! They are the only game in town in more places than yout think.

Mr.SithNinja

@Kaiser-Machead on the Edge: You would think that, but in the City of Alexandria, VA. Comcast has EXCLUSIVE rights to providing broadband internet. That means if you don't go with Comcast, you either get dail-up or Satellite(basically dial up).

Joseph

Don't forget that K-Dawg's tenure is going to be highly suspect come January 20, 2009.

Maybe Commish Adelstein has gotten enough political capital to get the vote (provided B. Ob. wins), but it seems unlikely.

K-Dawg, on the other hand, is unusually liberal for a conservative-appointed Commissioner; hence, his pro-net-neutrality, anti-cable-company stance. Unlikely to get a re-thumbs-up if McCain's in power.

hologon

@StartingAces: Yeah I saw that article a few weeks ago I think. I would definately go after them for that.

Mr.SithNinja

hi, comcast is crap and the lack of other choices makes it hard on consumers to switch. I for one am close to switching to DSL/Dish service. See, its been averaging me about 45 seconds to bring up CNN.com lately and the CS lady told me to run DEFRAG on my Vista machine. That one thing you shouldnt do. they dont care.

additionally, they botched my installation repeatedly (4 truck rolls in the first week and a collections notice three days after initial service.)

they suck. If only FiOS was a viable option.

cotr

@Mr.SithNinja: When the Comcast guy installed my cable, he cut the DirecTV line going in through the front window without asking me. I registered a complaint about this (per suggestions from Consumerist), but I doubt it will go anywhere.

StartingAces

@redwingsmonk: I'm on it.

KarinDiscoGirl

FIOS couldn't come sooner...

MICHAELSD

@hologon: don't forget that biden is very anti-consumer when it comes to technology. we might get screwed either way.

elegantelliot

@daftrok: sooo, what you're saying is, because you think piracy is bad, com-crap has a right to monitor my internet usage and adjust my maximum speeds based off of whether or not they think I should be downloading from thepiratebay.org? you can still download things from ANY and ALL torrent sites (yes, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM) that are legitimate and legal. in fact, I pride myself on being a p2p user who uses torrent sites for things other than keygens and porn. so get your shit straight, and think about what you just said... they are going to adjust my performance based off of WHERE they think I should or shouldn't go?? sounds like solid business practices to me. caps I can deal with, but bandwidth limiting is straight up wrong.

thetiminator69

FUCK YOU COMCAT AND UR BULLSHIT!!!!!

cristian77

comcast is worried they are going to lose their television business, pure and simple.

They HAVE to gimp internet service because if they dont they will lose 2/3 of their revenue to streaming TV so fast it would be over before you can say mustache in spanish.

TV and internet: quickly becoming the same thing. Im surprised that we still even have regular television programming, why would people choose that? Comcast has to go through a major revision soon.

i dont get why they dont just ditch television altogether and use that bandwidth for internet and on demand stuff.

@cristian77: right on

pevans34

@cristian77: Fuck Comcast indeed.

@Joseph: Same here in Nashville, TN...comcast fought to keep charter out and won. Most areas of Nashville doesn't even have the DSL lite package, let alone the high end one; I've checked haha.

Can't wait until FIOS becomes available here so I can tell comcast to shove their bandwith caps, insane prices, constant "planned outages" and shitty speeds during prime time up their collective assholes.

grayfx007

If you pay for 15mb/s you shouldn't be getting DSL speeds because then that'd be false advertisement.
If comcast and other ISPs start doing that then they wont be able to say their internet is 5x's faster than DSL. DSL can say they may be faster but we wont ever take away from your initial bandwidth. Even though i rarely see more than 500kbps on DSL i think i'd rather be getting 500kbps on a 3MB/s plan than 500kbps on a 15MB/s plan with comcast which you pay a substantial amount more. But hey comcast thinks it can rule the world. Here comes the FCC to smack it around and put it back in its place.

SneakerFiend

At this point I really trust neither. FCC took way too long to act (banning P2P blocking when Comcast is already slowing everything) and not really helping when we needed. While Comcast...just being Comcastic is way too much already.
Here is a quote from my favorite comedian of all time, Lewis Black:
"FCC sucks. Comcast BLOWS!"

ffbb

i would be willing to bet that Comcast sees the future of the way we receive media being through the internet.

i would also be willing to bet that this is their first step towards a system where you pay on a site to site basis. As @Mr.SithNinja: said, its about partnerships and milking the consumer for every penny they can.

sunshine06

It's just so we can reach the cap faster

Wolf_in_command