Comcast Finally Comes Clean on Acceptable Use

[NaughtyGeek]

As many of you have seen, Comcast has been under a lot of scrutiny for their questionable network management policies and alleged unjustified termination of customers who use too much bandwidth. They recently sent the following email to customers to finally state what amount of bandwidth is too much. While I didn't want to see a cap on service, I'm glad to see they have finally backed away from their "unlimited" claims and have let their customers know what will get them axed.

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/conten...ns-about-Excessive-Use.

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

 

[Xavier434]

Now if only they would provide us with a service which allowed all customers to easily monitor how much bandwidth they have used at anytime during a pay period.

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Now if only they would provide us with a service which allowed all customers to easily monitor how much bandwidth they have used at anytime during a pay period.

^^ Co-signed. Unless you have a private firewall or network bandwidth monitor, there is going to be little the common user can do to measure their monthly traffic. For geeks like us it's easy; just use tomato firmware.

 

[Xavier434]

I also want roll over bandwidth. If you are going to charge me for 250gb per month then I want to keep what I paid for.

 

[BurnItDwn]

with 6mbit of bandwidth, if you download nonstop, you can fill 250GB in less than a week.
700+ kbyte/sec ... 40+ mb/minute ... 2400+ mb/hr ... 56+ gb/day

In theory, it's actually a bit over 60gb per day....


Ahh well, I'm not complaining, I just don't like how they claim it's some sort of astronomical number ...

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

Now you can add "statistics" to the long list of your failures.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

A few friends of mine use 2 - 3 TBs of data per month. I could see how usage like that would bog down their network.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

A few friends of mine use 2 - 3 TBs of data per month. I could see how usage like that would bog down their network.

The days of that sort of usage are soon to be over.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

A few friends of mine use 2 - 3 TBs of data per month. I could see how usage like that would bog down their network.

The days of that sort of usage are soon to be over.

Well, not for them. Right now we're with RCN, which has no cap and, if that fails, they'll just move to a dedicated line. The 2 - 3 TBs are for financial data, which is imperative to their work, so it's not like they're just downloading every movie on the internet.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

Now you can add "statistics" to the long list of your failures.

You work for Comcast?

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek

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.

I bolded the words that make it all bullshit.

If their network cannot handle a fraction of one percent

A few friends of mine use 2 - 3 TBs of data per month. I could see how usage like that would bog down their network.

The days of that sort of usage are soon to be over.

Maybe with Comcast that's true, but Verizon claims to not restrict usage. And with a 15 MB FIOS line, you could post some serious download numbers.

 

[bamacre]

They didn't address the fact that they monitor torrent use, and in my past experience, will cut off your connection completely if you are transferring data using torrents.

 

[kyzen]

Yeah I can't wait till there's some real competition around here for them. In the meantime, I'm unfortunately seriously starting to consider a business type connection.

I agree with the fact that we need a way to monitor our bandwidth easily - how the hell am I going to know how much bandwidth is gobbled up by my Xbox 360?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Now if only they would provide us with a service which allowed all customers to easily monitor how much bandwidth they have used at anytime during a pay period.

^^ Co-signed. Unless you have a private firewall or network bandwidth monitor, there is going to be little the common user can do to measure their monthly traffic. For geeks like us it's easy; just use tomato firmware.

the common user isn't coming close to these caps, unless their computer is the epicenter of several trojan botnets

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Now if only they would provide us with a service which allowed all customers to easily monitor how much bandwidth they have used at anytime during a pay period.

^^ Co-signed. Unless you have a private firewall or network bandwidth monitor, there is going to be little the common user can do to measure their monthly traffic. For geeks like us it's easy; just use tomato firmware.

Originally posted by: kyzen
I agree with the fact that we need a way to monitor our bandwidth easily - how the hell am I going to know how much bandwidth is gobbled up by my Xbox 360?

No need, the ISP should have this information already...

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Now if only they would provide us with a service which allowed all customers to easily monitor how much bandwidth they have used at anytime during a pay period.

^^ Co-signed. Unless you have a private firewall or network bandwidth monitor, there is going to be little the common user can do to measure their monthly traffic. For geeks like us it's easy; just use tomato firmware.

the common user isn't coming close to these caps, unless their computer is the epicenter of several trojan botnets

I am not the common user and the way I see it is that if they are going to threaten me with suspension of service if I exceed the caps then I need certain kinds of information in order to responsibility assess where I stand in order to not exceed that cap.

The thing is that they already have the information I want and there is already web application software out there which does pretty much what I am asking. Every cell phone provider allows you to log in and view where you currently stand with minute usage. I want a web app like that for my bandwidth. I also want rollover bandwidth because I want to keep what I am paying for.

I really do not think what I want is too much to ask.