Comcast targeting abuse - go after the abuser, not the protocol

[spidey07]

http://www.lightreading.com/do...doc_id=154572&site=cdn

Seems a really good move to preserve a quality service and stop the abuse. P2P protocols are the real crusher but at least with this move they will only really target the abuse.

So it appears Comcast's new network management policy will target and punish those that actually do the most damage instead of trying to prevent or disrupt the protocol itself.

 

[frostedflakes]

Sorry, but I having trouble taking them serious considering how long it took them to admit they were shaping BT traffic.

If they really plan to shift their focus to high-bandwidth users, though, thumbs up to them. You work for Comcast, don't you? Do you happen to know how much bandwidth those top 2% typically use? I've heard people mention they use hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth per month on residential connections, which is absolutely ridiculous IMO.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Sorry, but I having trouble taking them serious considering how long it took them to admit they were shaping BT traffic.

If they really plan to shift their focus to high-bandwidth users, though, thumbs up to them. You work for Comcast, don't you? Do you happen to know how much bandwidth those top 2% typically use? I've heard people mention they use hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth per month on residential connections, which is absolutely ridiculous IMO.

When I was working for comcast 2 months ago we had a few people locally who used around 300-400gb/month on a res connection. It can get pretty insane when you consider people who download 20-30 torrents continuesly 24/7 + newsgroups + Ircautoget ect ect. Theres stealing an album here or there and maybe buying it anyway, and theres trying to collect every piece of media available in the world which these people seem to do.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Sorry, but I having trouble taking them serious considering how long it took them to admit they were shaping BT traffic.

If they really plan to shift their focus to high-bandwidth users, though, thumbs up to them. You work for Comcast, don't you? Do you happen to know how much bandwidth those top 2% typically use? I've heard people mention they use hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth per month on residential connections, which is absolutely ridiculous IMO.

No, I don't work for comcast. Although I do try to help ISPs deal with security and traffic management. It's a very real problem that all high bandwidth at a cheap price providers are facing.

The people that abuse the network need to pay for what they are using. The all you can eat model is over.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Sorry, but I having trouble taking them serious considering how long it took them to admit they were shaping BT traffic.

If they really plan to shift their focus to high-bandwidth users, though, thumbs up to them. You work for Comcast, don't you? Do you happen to know how much bandwidth those top 2% typically use? I've heard people mention they use hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth per month on residential connections, which is absolutely ridiculous IMO.

No, I don't work for comcast. Although I do try to help ISPs deal with security and traffic management. It's a very real problem that all high bandwidth at a cheap price providers are facing.

The people that abuse the network need to pay for what they are using. The all you can eat model is over.

I'm not sure the all you can eat model is over completely. (though in the US this is a real possibility with the crap infrastructure in place.) I know we were already starting to disconnect customers who abused services and either switching them to much more costly "business plans" or putting a cap and charging them insane costs to go over it. I can see them going after the top 5-10% before pissing off the entire base of customers with a massive pricing change. It was really the top 13% who used almost 80% of the bandwidth.

 

[her209]

If the ISPs don't have the bandwidth then why are they allowed to advertise it?

:evil::laugh:

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: her209
If the ISPs don't have the bandwidth then why are they allowed to advertise it?

:evil::laugh:

Because the word "unlimited" sounds impressive when you use it in a commercial!

 

[frostedflakes]

Not to mention as soon as one provider goes unlimited, the others would have to follow suit if they wanted to remain competitive. Even if your average Joe would never go above the limit, if given the choice between unlimited and a 50GB/month cap at the same price, I'm sure most people would choose the ISP that offered "unlimited" access.

Marketing FTW.

 

[George P Burdell]

Oh look, ComcastBoi is here!!! Hi OP!!!

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: RichardE

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Sorry, but I having trouble taking them serious considering how long it took them to admit they were shaping BT traffic.

If they really plan to shift their focus to high-bandwidth users, though, thumbs up to them. You work for Comcast, don't you? Do you happen to know how much bandwidth those top 2% typically use? I've heard people mention they use hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth per month on residential connections, which is absolutely ridiculous IMO.

No, I don't work for comcast. Although I do try to help ISPs deal with security and traffic management. It's a very real problem that all high bandwidth at a cheap price providers are facing.

The people that abuse the network need to pay for what they are using. The all you can eat model is over.

I'm not sure the all you can eat model is over completely. (though in the US this is a real possibility with the crap infrastructure in place.) I know we were already starting to disconnect customers who abused services and either switching them to much more costly "business plans" or putting a cap and charging them insane costs to go over it. I can see them going after the top 5-10% before pissing off the entire base of customers with a massive pricing change. It was really the top 13% who used almost 80% of the bandwidth.

I seem to recall something about a $200 billion dollar infrastructure upgrade that was never actually implemented.

 

[PokerGuy]

What a crock. That's basically like the fly-by-night web hosting companies, they promise huge bandwidth and storage at a low price, and then of course are unable to deliver on those promises when people use them, so they cut off the high-use customers.

If you're going to go after the high bandwidth users, fine, but then you should be up front about it. Don't advertise download as much as you want, high speed anytime etc etc without disclosing that there is a limit and what those limits are. They need to disclose up front what the limits are, not have some vague "excessive use" policy somewhere that isn't defined.

For the record, I don't use P2P or use a whole lot of bandwidth, so something like this won't affect me at all. This notion that someone is "abusing" the service when no limitiations or restrictions are specified is idiotic. If you clearly specify the limits then the consumer can make an informed decision on what provider to use......

 

[Beev]

I'm surprised we haven't had a simple "Comcast sucks shit" post yet. I currently use RoarRunner. They've been good to me, and every few months or so I'll have a month where I download quite a bit. They don't seem to mind at all. I used to use Cox and if I went over an invisible threshold they would throttle me and then if I called them they'd lie about it.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Beev
I'm surprised we haven't had a simple "Comcast sucks shit" post yet. I currently use RoarRunner. They've been good to me, and every few months or so I'll have a month where I download quite a bit. They don't seem to mind at all. I used to use Cox and if I went over an invisible threshold they would throttle me and then if I called them they'd lie about it.

You're not an abuser then.

It's the folks that constantly download stuff 24x7 that are the problem.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: spidey07
The people that abuse the network need to pay for what they are using. The all you can eat model is over.

Basic Econ 101 says that companies will follow suit when lowering prices, however not raising prices.

I don't think that the all you can eat model is over, because it's what people want. They want an internet connection, and that's what matters to most of them.

Why don't they just put in a simple limit at maybe 50GB or something per month and charging more beyond that?

 

[Beev]

Originally posted by: spidey07
You're not an abuser then.

It's the folks that constantly download stuff 24x7 that are the problem.

There was one time that I had a ~130gb torrent running. It took about a week and I don't think I downloaded anything else really that month. That wouldn't flag me as an abuser?

 

[zoiks]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Beev
I'm surprised we haven't had a simple "Comcast sucks shit" post yet. I currently use RoarRunner. They've been good to me, and every few months or so I'll have a month where I download quite a bit. They don't seem to mind at all. I used to use Cox and if I went over an invisible threshold they would throttle me and then if I called them they'd lie about it.

You're not an abuser then.

It's the folks that constantly download stuff 24x7 that are the problem.

Comcast sucks ass. If they can't offer 'unlimited' internet, then they shouldn't advertise it as such. Abusers? Thats a laugh. Face it buddy, in todays age, everything takes bandwidth. Especially if you have many people in your family sharing a connection.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Beev

Originally posted by: spidey07
You're not an abuser then.

It's the folks that constantly download stuff 24x7 that are the problem.

There was one time that I had a ~130gb torrent running. It took about a week and I don't think I downloaded anything else really that month. That wouldn't flag me as an abuser?

A 130gb torrent? :boggle;

You know, there's not a whole lot of legit data out there that's that size. What is that, 7 seasons of Seinfeld?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: zoiks

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Beev
I'm surprised we haven't had a simple "Comcast sucks shit" post yet. I currently use RoarRunner. They've been good to me, and every few months or so I'll have a month where I download quite a bit. They don't seem to mind at all. I used to use Cox and if I went over an invisible threshold they would throttle me and then if I called them they'd lie about it.

You're not an abuser then.

It's the folks that constantly download stuff 24x7 that are the problem.

Comcast sucks ass. If they can't offer 'unlimited' internet, then they shouldn't advertise it as such. Abusers? Thats a laugh. Face it buddy, in todays age, everything takes bandwidth. Especially if you have many people in your family sharing a connection.

Yes, and that costs money. Somebody has to pay and when you have a small percentage of customers consuming most of the resources they need to be dealt with and forced to pay their share.

What comcast and all ISPs are doing is the correct approach - go after the abusers and make them pay or get them off the service.

 

[child of wonder]

Simply put, ISPs offer the connection as an unlimited service. If they really don't want people using lots of bandwidth they should change their service offerings, not come down on people who actually take them up on their unlimited offering.

Say, for example, take the current unlimited bandwidth connection and offer a $5 per month cheaper service that allows 50GB per month (which the average user would NEVER touch) and then offer an unlimited service for $20 more per month.

However, some major infrastructure upgrades are going to be needed in the future as more and more services go digital and begin streaming through the internet such as Youtube HD, TV episodes in HD, streaming music services, etc., etc.

 

[spidey07]

It's an unlimited service with an acceptible use policy. Part of that policy is "abuse". It's an open ended clause that you signed up for and agreed to.

Business connections have no such clause and you're free to fill it all day, every day. But you are also paying for such a service.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: spidey07
It's an unlimited service with an acceptible use policy. Part of that policy is "abuse". It's an open ended clause that you signed up for and agreed to.

Business connections have no such clause and you're free to fill it all day, every day. But you are also paying for such a service.

It is amazing the sense of entitlement residential users have regarding their 20-50 dollar connection. Perhaps the phone and cable companies should charge us the truer cost of that line which typically falls more in line with a business connection.

Want to have our cake and eat it too is seems.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo

Originally posted by: spidey07
The people that abuse the network need to pay for what they are using. The all you can eat model is over.

Basic Econ 101 says that companies will follow suit when lowering prices, however not raising prices.

I don't think that the all you can eat model is over, because it's what people want. They want an internet connection, and that's what matters to most of them.

Why don't they just put in a simple limit at maybe 50GB or something per month and charging more beyond that?

I don't know about your solution, but you are correct in the sense that if that's what people want then that is what will be sold if there is a lot of profit still involved with it. Comcast is making a shit ton of profit. This "real problem" is not negatively effecting them as much as Spidey is making it seem. What is true here is that there is a "potential real problem" which will only become a reality if too many people use this kind of bandwidth for pirating purposes. However, I believe it will still be quite some time before that comes to light. During that time, more and more competition is spreading their way across the states. I do not believe Comcast will be able to afford to take away the all you can eat plans because too many customers will leave them for ISPs that opt to not follow suit in order to attract Ex-Comcast customers. I believe that after Comcast crunches those numbers, they will realize that they will lose more money by the potential customer loss than they will by putting up with the major bandwidth hogs.

We'll see. No matter what happens, it will be the money that talks the loudest.

 

[Genx87]

I have a feeling Comcast wont miss the 1-2% of people who spend 50 bucks a month and consume 70% of the network. And neither will the other 98% of subscribers.

 

[RightIsWrong]

I would hope that the cable companies/ISPs would be smart enough to look at their own business units before they do something so asinine as get rid of "all you can eat" model internet service.

They only have to look at how phone companies are dying off because of users switching to VOIP/digital phone service where they can make unlimited local/long distance calling and see that it is what drove the customers into their laps and if they try to pull this AOL pay/hr. crap they will only cripple their revenue stream.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I have a feeling Comcast wont miss the 1-2% of people who spend 50 bucks a month and consume 70% of the network. And neither will the other 98% of subscribers.

You are assuming that those are the only customers which will switch. There are too many people who are willing to switch services like that just because it seems like they are getting the better deal despite the reality. This is nothing new. People pay money for what they believe is the best deal or pay money for what they think is the best service/product all of the time. The reality doesn't matter. It's all about the perception of reality. It's been like that for decades