Is the End of Unlimited Internet Near?

[Roon]

Last week, Comcast -- the second-largest Internet service provider in the country -- announced that starting Oct. 1 it would officially set a threshold for monthly Internet usage.

In an online announcement, the service provider said that although it already contacts residential customers who use excessive amounts of bandwidth, it had never provided a specific limit. Now, Comcast said it will amend its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of monthly usage
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5689480&page=1

[tularetom]

1. When they do that I'll dump 'em

[willing dwarf]

2. anyone else?

now will anyone else follow suit?

[Liberalynn]

5. Our local news

said that Time Warner is trying it out with Road Runner customers in a limited number of communities but not here yet. I will dump them if they do.

[tavalon]

7. Yep,

I'm already vetting my choices. I don't like to do that at the last minute.

[NMDemDist2]

3. back in the old days when the internet first was available in homes

that's how you paid for it.

the longer you were online (bandwidth wasn't an issue then) the more you paid.

:shrug:

[Roon]

23. I know

I remember people saying in AOL that they have to log out of chat, they spent too much money already.

[rsmith6621]

4. Remember AOL and Compserve early days

$5.99 a month for 4 hours and ten cents a minute after that and that was before dsl/broadband. Then they went to $9.95 for 10 hours


They lack financial creativity if they cant figure a way for customers to buy up.

[kestrel91316]

6. Um, how on earth does one determine one's "bandwidth"???

I know how many hours I am online (a lot, lol), but I have no clue about my bandwidth.

[tavalon]

8. This is because of peer to peer issues

Comcast was sending illegal TCP/IP packets to mess with people who used bit torrent and the like. The EFF figured it out and ratted on them. The got slapped down by the FCC last month. This is their response. Basically, if they can't pick and choose who they discriminate against, they're going to discriminate against all.

And when I found out about what they were doing, I decided to go with another provider. I'm vetting them.

[kestrel91316]

10. I didn't understand three words of that.................

What is peer-to-peer issues?

[tavalon]

15. Sorry, I wasn't trying to be technical

I guess I have just lived with too many programmers for too long. Peer to peer is where a bunch of people make an agreement to share various files with one another - they download and upload files. One of the more famous ones from the past was Napster, which allowed people to share their music files, without having to buy multiple copies. The ethics of that aside, it took a lot of bandwidth with so many people uploading and downloading files. Nowadays, people are sharing video files - one can pretty much get anything that has been shown on TV and many movies too. When movies remind you that sharing copies of movies is piracy, they are referencing Bit Torrent video file sharing. Again, a high bandwidth use (supposedly).

Comcast, probably for many motives, decided to start screwing up those downloads and uploads by inserting fake information that convinced computers to shut off the Bit Torrent program when people tried to run it. The Electronic Freedom Foundation did some sleuthing and figured out what Comcast was doing and that they were the only company doing it. They told the FCC and the FCC said it was illegal and Comcast's response is that they are going to cap everyone's usage. There isn't strong proof that Bit Torrent and programs like that were actually slowing the flow of traffic, but that is the defense Comcast is using for why they did this illegal thing.

I personally only use Bit Torrent to see shows I would have watched if I had cable hookup, basically I use it like a TIVO. For instance, Battlestar Galactica, but I do download them without the commercials, so that has to chap someone's butt. I have seen Bit Torrent fail over and over again, and now I know why.

[kestrel91316]

21. Well, I have never downloaded music files, and rarely movies on Netflix.

I hope the capping bandwidth won't mean that after you view too many DU pages you have to start paying, lol. That would NEVER do.

[tavalon]

22. I can't imagine that it would

I'm ditching Comcast because I'm angry at them, not because I'm worried that I'll exceed bandwidth.

[Systematic Chaos]

9. It's the total amount of data you send and recieve.

Simple webpages could be as small as a a few kilobytes (thousands of bytes).

Long DU threads with photos could be a megabyte or more.

Large YouTube files could range into the megabytes (millions of bytes).

Comcast is proposing a limit of 250 billion bytes per month.

So, if you're just a casual web surfer who doesn't watch lots of streaming video and stuff like that, you're fine. BUT, if you do a lot of file sharing on peer-to-peer sites and also surf the web and stream in media, it's not too hard at all to exceed that limit.

I'm quite confident that I either come close or go over that amount in the average month. If Cox plays that bullshit with me I will probably drop them.

All this really is, is an attempt to limit people from sharing large amounts of music and video data on peer-to-peer networks. "Intellectual Property" rights, and all that. :eyes:

[Erebus67]

11. The limit is 250GB of traffic passed over your connection per month.

Which is huge. Very few and I mean VERY FEW people are going to go over that limit. Unless you are a hard core movie downloaded(bootlegger) you aren't ever going to get near that number. I think I saw something that said you would have to download 4 HD movies a day to hit that number.

BTW I have no affiliation with Comcast except being a customer that looked into the limit to see if I would need to change providers.

[TwixVoy]

13. Wrong

An HD movie on a blu-ray disc is either 25 gigs or 50 gigs (if it is a dual layer movie). So that would be 5 dual layer HD movies a month.

You are right though it is a huge number.

HOWEVER - if you are, for example, a big You Tube, Playstation/Xbox fan, etc I could see you hitting the limit. A LOT of playstation and xbox content is downloaded now.... and they offer a lot of HD video content, game demos, etc which can be very large.

[tavalon]

16. I'm leaving Comcast because of what they did before they got caught

They were putting false TCP/IP packets out to screw with people who were using peer to peer. They got caught and this is their solution. Our household won't go over the limit but I'm bugged by how Comcast decided to handle things and how they aren't copping to what they did.

[bananas]

14. You have to use something like this

http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/09/09/how-to-monitor-your-internet-bandwidth-usage-in-windows/

[pipoman]

12. I find it hard to believe that

they could do this and still compete without collusion with other ISPs which may bring an anti-trust investigation on. I believe if this happens we will see more and more local ISPs offering wireless localized high speed service. This is already happening in small communities where other high speed options aren't readily available. Correct me if I'm wrong IT people, but it seems to me that high bandwidth users would be easier to absorb on a smaller scale. It is when ISPs begin getting millions of high usage customers that limiting band width actually looks like an attractive way to increase profits and stall expensive equipment upgrades.

[spanone]

17. once it's regulated, it's over....

[Subdivisions]

18. I make my living on the Internet. I have several websites of my

own and I work full time for an online retailer of solar energy products. If I'm not directly working on these sites, I'm either researching, keeping up with news, and enjoying my guilty pleasure of being part of the DU community.

Fortunately, I am not on Comcast. But, I am on Charter and if Comcast gets away with it, Charter may want to jump on the bandwagon.

The bottom line is that a bandwidth restriction will be devastating to me and my way of life and my welfare.

[Wiley50]

19. My usage last month was14,637539 KILObytes

I'm math phobic

Sorry

Where do I stand with Verizon Wireless internet?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. That's 14 Gigabytes.

Welllllllll below the 250.