Comcast throttling Bittorrent traffic

[Eos]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: GuideBot
That's the problem, spidey07. Nobody's abusing anything.

Sure you are. You're using a burstable connection like a sustained one.

You can get a nice fat link to the intarweb at whatever speed you like. You can fill it all day long and run it to full capacity, all day, everyday.

But you'll have to pay for it.

What you're likely to see in the future is a 'power user' connection at a significantly higher price to help pay for the network.

I think this "sustained" vs. "burstable" type of connection comment was overlooked.

Say there was no P2P. In this magical land, people had standard broadband circuits. 5mb/512k, 3mb/256k even some people with a 10mb/1mb.

What would be acceptable burstable usage?

10 minutes a day?
60 minutes?
5 hours a day?

I'm talking full inbound and outbound traffic.

How many calls have you (the collective you, not spidey07) made to complain about slow download speeds? How does the CSR respond?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: manowar821
Then the ISP should FIX THEIR GOD DAMNED NETOWRKS.

Stop punishing the people who actually USE the service they're offered. "Unlimited internet" amirite?

Fuck, this is stupid.

Sounds great.

Your service is now 850 dollars per month.

Keeps going up anyway.

You're moaning and groaning will be moot anyway since only you and your fellow rich buds will be able to afford the Internets.

When DSL first hit it was over $50 a month for 256k-768k connections. Right now I can get it for $14 a month through AT&T. My rates are going down. Not up.

Obviously you have cable internet in the area and you should thank god because they are keeping the Telco honest in your area for the revenue.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
its just sad, its not as if they don't have other solutions..you know like catching up to other countries with broadband that makes ours looks like dialup. this is just greed.

Name the other solutions.

Specifically name the design, pricing, detailed capital and operational costs as well.

Don't just parrot speak "but look at other countries, us is just evil corporationy"

Nothing personal Spidey, but these are types of arrogant statements that we've all come to expect from The Cable Company or The Phone Company. As long as they have an oligopoly on home broadband access, they have an excuse to stiffle innovation and jack up prices to squeeze more revenue out of their outdated technology. Meanwhile, we have countries with real broadband competition like Korea and Japan that are offering broadband that's twice as fast at half the price.

It's cockiness like this that has me rooting for someone big like Google to start rolling out wireless Internet access around the country. Nothing like a little competition to spur innovation and improve service. The Phone Company is never going to make wireless Internet access cheap and widespread, since doing so would cannibalize their own DSL/FIOS product lines. Without competition, it's going to remain a expensive niche player that's only available in metropolitan areas for business users that can expense the bill to someone else.

 

[pcslookout]

Good BT sucks anyway. Its for newbies.

 

[normalicy]

I personally think that there should be capacity to support my usage if I'm paying for it. If they have to cut back other users support to enable others, it sounds like their network needs an upgrade instead of cutting users service back. They're a service, they're not here to make the law.

 

[her209]

A perfect analogy is the throttling of Netflix renters and look what happened to them.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: her209
A perfect analogy is the throttling of Netflix renters and look what happened to them.

Ummm, I give up, what happened?
Did they just complain and keep renting? Or did they cancel subscriptions in droves?

I only used it for a month several years ago so I wouldnt know.

 

[VanTheMan]

I would gladly switch companies if I had a choice. Unfortunately, DSL is not available where I live. Comcast is the only broadband ISP available. Since there isn't any competition, why would Comcast invest money in making their network better? They can just sit back and rake in the profits off of what they currently have. Competition is the spark that lights the fire of innovation.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
its just sad, its not as if they don't have other solutions..you know like catching up to other countries with broadband that makes ours looks like dialup. this is just greed.

Name the other solutions.

Specifically name the design, pricing, detailed capital and operational costs as well.

Don't just parrot speak "but look at other countries, us is just evil corporationy"

Nothing personal Spidey, but these are types of arrogant statements that we've all come to expect from The Cable Company or The Phone Company. As long as they have an oligopoly on home broadband access, they have an excuse to stiffle innovation and jack up prices to squeeze more revenue out of their outdated technology. Meanwhile, we have countries with real broadband competition like Korea and Japan that are offering broadband that's twice as fast at half the price.

It's cockiness like this that has me rooting for someone big like Google to start rolling out wireless Internet access around the country. Nothing like a little competition to spur innovation and improve service. The Phone Company is never going to make wireless Internet access cheap and widespread, since doing so would cannibalize their own DSL/FIOS product lines. Without competition, it's going to remain a expensive niche player that's only available in metropolitan areas for business users that can expense the bill to someone else.

Sorry Bob but the FCC already voted down the 700 MHZ wireless Internet access around the country idea because the incumbents at&t, Verizon, Qwest and cable paid them to stifle it. (Lobbyists).

 

[Rubycon]

denied

Whose lying here?

 

[Nocturnal]

Ruby: It's not only Comcast. TWC has gone out and issued a release stating that they do not shape traffic either. There is a big problem in NYC with TWC and WoW. Blizzard claims it has to do with traffic shaping but TWC insists they do nothing like that. There's a huge thread over at DSLForums.

 

[jandrews]

Frankly, if comcast is gouging users so badly like everyone says, shouldnt their stock be in the high hundreds to thousands? I mean the way you guys make it sound it is like their service only costs them pennies and they charge 50 dollars for it, get real.

They have to bury cable for entire cities, put up breaker boxes and have technicians hired and trained to install and get people up and going, its a cost heavy business.

To those that complain bout other countries being 'way ahead' of us you are truly blind or idiots or both. Sure, sweden has fast internet, guess what their populated areas equal out to 1/50th of the size of our country, cable isnt some magic stuff you just plant in the ground and have it grow all over. We are spaced out and we are in a big country. I imagine Russia has pretty slow or average internet speeds as well.

Overall I am pretty happy with my comcast service, I live in St. Paul which allows me multiple choices of providers. For those that have only one provider you made the choice to live in the area you live in, suck it up and shut it.

 

[Eos]

"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: eos
"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

You did, your connection is rated 5mb but typically those are known as 'burst' rates and rarely are given as a static limit that can be reached consistently. The same applies in the business world typically for business connections. They did not state they have a capacity of 5000mb/s, they would be bankrupt or have to charge a huge amount of money to support that type of infrastructure. They have to look at the average user and try to see what packages they can offer that can typically be met for the area. No place in your contract states anything about guaranteeing 5mb/s 100% of the contract period.

I would guess they have more like hmmm 1000mb/s capacity but who knows for sure.

 

[Eos]

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos
"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

You did, your connection is rated 5mb but typically those are known as 'burst' rates and rarely are given as a static limit that can be reached consistently. The same applies in the business world typically for business connections. They did not state they have a capacity of 5000mb/s, they would be bankrupt or have to charge a huge amount of money to support that type of infrastructure. They have to look at the average user and try to see what packages they can offer that can typically be met for the area. No place in your contract states anything about guaranteeing 5mb/s 100% of the contract period.

I would guess they have more like hmmm 1000mb/s capacity but who knows for sure.

I have always been under the impression it was the constant upload that hurts other users. At least the Charter technician manager who is my neighbor says that anyway.

It appears as if you're addressing the download speed.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos
"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

You did, your connection is rated 5mb but typically those are known as 'burst' rates and rarely are given as a static limit that can be reached consistently. The same applies in the business world typically for business connections. They did not state they have a capacity of 5000mb/s, they would be bankrupt or have to charge a huge amount of money to support that type of infrastructure. They have to look at the average user and try to see what packages they can offer that can typically be met for the area. No place in your contract states anything about guaranteeing 5mb/s 100% of the contract period.

I would guess they have more like hmmm 1000mb/s capacity but who knows for sure.

I don'tk know if I would look at it in terms of bandwith used, but more of actual data downloaded. For example, your typical user might only upload/download a few gigs worth of data a month. But somebody that is seeding or pulling down BT's could be using up hundreds of gigs of data a month.

I'm not certain how ISP have to pay the people above them, but I'd bet that actual data uploaded/downloaded gets factored into those rates along with burstable rates.

When you start putting dollars to downloads, heavy users are costing those ISP's more.

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: eos

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos
"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

You did, your connection is rated 5mb but typically those are known as 'burst' rates and rarely are given as a static limit that can be reached consistently. The same applies in the business world typically for business connections. They did not state they have a capacity of 5000mb/s, they would be bankrupt or have to charge a huge amount of money to support that type of infrastructure. They have to look at the average user and try to see what packages they can offer that can typically be met for the area. No place in your contract states anything about guaranteeing 5mb/s 100% of the contract period.

I would guess they have more like hmmm 1000mb/s capacity but who knows for sure.

I have always been under the impression it was the constant upload that hurts other users. At least the Charter technician manager who is my neighbor says that anyway.

It appears as if you're addressing the download speed.

I was just following the example of 5mb/s you gave me which is the dl speed, anyway, add in upload and the same example fits.

 

[Eos]

If that's the case, then they need to make a "pay per gb" plan or set transfer limits like satellite or point to point wireless does.

 

[Phokus]

I have no problem with comcast throttling p2p (if it is indeed true that they do). However, their advertising should clearly reflect that there are restrictions to their internet use. I, as a consumer, would otherwise assume that i can basically do anything i want provided that a) i'm not doing anything illegal and b) i'm not circumventing their system to increase the amount of bandwidth past what was advertised to me.

 

[Eos]

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos
"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

You did, your connection is rated 5mb but typically those are known as 'burst' rates and rarely are given as a static limit that can be reached consistently. The same applies in the business world typically for business connections. They did not state they have a capacity of 5000mb/s, they would be bankrupt or have to charge a huge amount of money to support that type of infrastructure. They have to look at the average user and try to see what packages they can offer that can typically be met for the area. No place in your contract states anything about guaranteeing 5mb/s 100% of the contract period.

I would guess they have more like hmmm 1000mb/s capacity but who knows for sure.

I have always been under the impression it was the constant upload that hurts other users. At least the Charter technician manager who is my neighbor says that anyway.

It appears as if you're addressing the download speed.

I was just following the example of 5mb/s you gave me which is the dl speed, anyway, add in upload and the same example fits.

Hmmmm.

Can you look again?

10 users at 512k each is 5000k of upload speed. According to the article posted above, those 10 users maxed out 24 hours a day uploading at 512kb/s can destroy the network for 990 others whose maximum capacity is 512k*990, or 506880k.

Burstable? Okay. Cut it back to 100000k sustainable for the same 990 users.

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: eos

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: eos
"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said.

So .01 percent of customers are destroying the experience for everyone else? I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

Scenario:
1000 people with 5mb/512k connections.
10 people (.01%) max their upload 24 hours a day.

5 mB/s of upload kills 5000mB/s of stated capacity?

Please tell me if I messed up the math on that...

You did, your connection is rated 5mb but typically those are known as 'burst' rates and rarely are given as a static limit that can be reached consistently. The same applies in the business world typically for business connections. They did not state they have a capacity of 5000mb/s, they would be bankrupt or have to charge a huge amount of money to support that type of infrastructure. They have to look at the average user and try to see what packages they can offer that can typically be met for the area. No place in your contract states anything about guaranteeing 5mb/s 100% of the contract period.

I would guess they have more like hmmm 1000mb/s capacity but who knows for sure.

I have always been under the impression it was the constant upload that hurts other users. At least the Charter technician manager who is my neighbor says that anyway.

It appears as if you're addressing the download speed.

I was just following the example of 5mb/s you gave me which is the dl speed, anyway, add in upload and the same example fits.

Hmmmm.

Can you look again?

10 users at 512k each is 5000k of upload speed. According to the article posted above, those 10 users maxed out 24 hours a day uploading at 512kb/s can destroy the network for 990 others whose maximum capacity is 512k*990, or 506880k.

Burstable? Okay. Cut it back to 100000k sustainable for the same 990 users.

I am almost certain that is not the way they calculate it, I have never worked in the field of home based internet connectivity but if the article states as such I am guessing they have the data to back it up or why bother making the claim?

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: nweaver

Originally posted by: jdoggg12

Originally posted by: jdoggg12
To those with qualms about 5% using 90%... what if everything that 5% was doing is legit/legal? Is it still unfair to the other 95%? They're both paying for the same service, some just choose to more fully use it.

Still waiting on an answer to this...

yes....

Lets see, as a business, I can keep 5 customer happy/paying, and have 95 complain about service, or I can throttle the 5 (and maybe loose them, oh no!) and keep 95 happy. It's not rocket science.

If your 95 customers are not using the bw why/how are they going to complain?

 

[adairusmc]

We heavily limit p2p on our wireless customers and DSL customers where I work, and it is never going to change. We limit to 120kbit on DSL and 14kbit on wireless for p2p protocols. Of course, this is in our terms and conditions, and since we make everyone sign a contract they can either deal with it or pay early termination and leave. Since we are the only broadband provider in the area, most choose to stay.

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: manowar821
Then the ISP should FIX THEIR GOD DAMNED NETOWRKS.

Stop punishing the people who actually USE the service they're offered. "Unlimited internet" amirite?

Fuck, this is stupid.

Sounds great.

Your service is now 850 dollars per month.

It's a hopeless argument spidey. Until these guys have been the ones negotiating contracts and approving the invoices for true dedicated bandwith, they'll never understand.

Address the European and Asian situation please?

 

[Agentbolt]

I have no problem with comcast throttling p2p (if it is indeed true that they do). However, their advertising should clearly reflect that there are restrictions to their internet use. I, as a consumer, would otherwise assume that i can basically do anything i want provided that a) i'm not doing anything illegal and b) i'm not circumventing their system to increase the amount of bandwidth past what was advertised to me.

Jesus, THANK YOU. This "oh well 8 mbps is the burst speed it's unreasonable to expect to be able to use that speed all the time blah blah blah" argument is ridiculous. It's not advertised as a burst speed, it's advertised as the speed the connection runs at.

I'm neither for nor against P2P, but I am for truth in advertising. If it's financially impossible to give everyone who signs up for an HSI account their full 8mbps connection speed all the time, then it shouldn't be advertised that way. End of goddamn story.