And so it begins

Comcast puts the limits on bandwidth as promised.

http://gizmodo.com/5043253/comcasts-250gb-...ting-in-october


I know I could easily hit that that least once in a while. From what I've read in that article they can suspend your service if you go past that just twice!

A couple of years ago when I did try it from them, they sent me a notice that I was abusing their unlimited bandwidth by using over 100gigs in one month. I canceled it a week later.

It will be interesting to see if this starts to spread to others, although other services would be smart to start advertising that they have no use caps and try to get people to switch. Hopefully this is another failed experiment and will go away.

I would find it odd if Cox did this for one reason..

They keep upping our download speeds... So why give us the ability to download more if you dont want us to do it?

Seems that if they did that it is just a fast road to being turned off and not a Cox customer anymore...

[If they were to jump on this...]

Comcast has been upping DL speeds here. It's all about $$$, if they find they can get away with it, then they will.

I didn't see a specification of if it's 250Gb for up and down or just down.

I can see where this makes alot of sense to them, especially if they aren't your video content provider. Now they will have to be. What does IP phone use for bandwidth? It'll be interesting to see people curtail their use. I haven't the foggiest idea what I use in a month, but 250 seems like alot.

Yeah, this would be interesting for me to see as I work from home over the internet [always connected through a VPN, ssh'ed into multi servers at once], I use Vonage for my phone and my wife and kids spend their whole time on the internet...

I'll be interested the reaction when their customers demand a way to monitor that traffic. It will be interesting when they start yelling at comcast for not doing better at blocking spam (which now costs them money). I will be interested to see how Comcast deals with all the virus laden computers spewing spam onto their network (the one good part of this idea, is it'll stop this).

I also wonder how the Anti-trust lawsuit will work out when it is shown that in many places Comcast has a monopoly on HS internet and Cable TV, now they will be restricting me from getting things like Amazon Unbox movies, while not restricting my purchase of pay per view from them.

I will be curious how the court cases against the RIAA and likes will work out now that Comcast is taking responsibility over the content on their pipes. I would think that now Comcast is responsible for music stolen over their network. You have to know the pockets on Comcast are much deeper than my own, even the godforsaken RIAA can figure that out.

Where available the droves of people who leave comcast for Fios and the like will be interesting.

Just one big PR issue after another for COmcast. I bet the head of their PR dept just shot themselves, if not maybe they should consider it.

Bubbaspanky wrote:I'll be interested the reaction when their customers demand a way to monitor that traffic.

So is there a way to monitor traffic locally?

Duck wrote:So is there a way to monitor traffic locally?

Its easy enough at the router level assuming you have a router that does that (not many). But below that I would have to monitor each computer in the house and any other IP device, such as our tivos.

I mean hey none of this is truely an issue with me, I suspect I am in the teens of Gb and they are offering 250, but people will start to ask questions only once they are threatened with shutoff.

Duck wrote:So is there a way to monitor traffic locally?

Bitmeter 2

http://codebox.no-ip.net/controller?page=bitmeter2

You should probably disable it while playing online games - I think Punkbuster was disconnecting me while this was running. It's good for monitoring your uploads, downloads, and web-surfing usage. I was 194 gig total UL & DL last month. If you're interested it DOES break it down by UL & DL.

Bubbaspanky wrote:Its easy enough at the router level assuming you have a router that does that (not many). But below that I would have to monitor each computer in the house and any other IP device, such as our tivos.

Yap, I'd have to have it router based too, unfortunately neither of mine have that builtin.

Hehe, it does make you want to put one of those outside wireless boosters up and tap into your neighbors networks ;p I have up to 3 of them close enough for my laptop to detect 😉

Someone hit on the truth in an earlier post. This isn't about Bandwidth. This is about protecting their core business, Television. While it seems like a lot, it breaks down to about 25 HD Movies a month. You start adding everything else you do on the Internet and that 25 shrinks very fast. This move is squarely designed to protect Cable Television and nothing else.

TimeWarner is testing this in one of the Texas markets as well. I am sure it will apply to me at some point. Before they apply it, I better have access to see how much I've used in a month or I will become their biggest pain in the ass customer.

Either way, I'm screwed. I had AT&T DSL and it sucked so bad, I had to spend twice as much with TW or continue getting random dropouts.

When we get a new house in a few years, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we are in a Verizon FIOS area.

Atomm, you know what my choice is besides Comcast?? Dial Up. You know what the most wonderful part of that is??? Since my copper lines were put in in the early 1900s, they can't even sustain 56k

Bubbaspanky wrote:Atomm, you know what my choice is besides Comcast?? Dial Up. You know what the most wonderful part of that is??? Since my copper lines were put in in the early 1900s, they can't even sustain 56k

I was thinking about that myself. Some folks don't have an alternative. I was tickled pink when DSL was introduced last year. Before that, I was thrilled when I finally got cable internet in 2002. I had no high-speed at all prior to that.

I was in the same boat in OKC. DSL Central Office was 4 miles away and Cox Cable was the only high speed option. Man, my neighbor would slow to a crawl at certain times of the day.