Comcast Targets Internet "Abusers"

An anonymous reader writes "Here's a great Associated Press story on Comcast's invisible caps. The company has been threatening and then cutting off customers who 'abuse' their so-called 'unlimited' service by downloading too much. But Comcast won't reveal what the limits are. DSL Reports has been tracking this for a while, and it's good to see the mainstream press catch on."

So, what do you tell them, then?

[RLiegh]

When they come to you and say "you have been abusing your 'unlimited' download quota"? Do you ask them to define what 'unlimited' means? Or do you simply pack up and get another ISP?

I have that issue with my (dialup) isp, that the isp itself has an unlimited policy, but they forwarded me a nastygram that *they* recieved from their upstream provider during a month where I was downloading iso's heavily.

So, having other things higher on my to-do list, I let it go; but I'd like slashdots' opinion on how you handle it when "unlimited" means "unlimited up to a certain point"?

First,

[certsoft]

They should do something about all those spammers using their service. Seems like about 20% of the spams I run through SpamCop resolve back to Comcast as the email source.

All we want is some accountability

[Space cowboy]

We accept there is no service-level agreement, we accept that we're lower on the food-chain than companies who pay a lot more for their bandwidth, but when a company makes a secret, arbitrary decision to cap you, it gets a bit hard to accept.

If it were advertised that you get 512/128, xx GB/month, with a charge of $Y for every 10GB over that, everyone would know where they were. This unfortunately will not happen while there is no regulation of how companies advertise their service. If company A says the above, and company B *does* the same, but doesn't say they do, then B will get more customers - all of whom will be pissed off when B caps them...

Regulation is the way to go.

Simon

ISP business model analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting to look around at all the different internet services and how they're handling their own inflation. Simply stated, bandwidth used to be an abundant commodity and now it is not. When broadband internet services first started to take shape, many of them started advertising unlimited bandwidth at amazing speeds. The definition of just what unlimited means to these services in question seems to be diminishing as more and more people start taking full advantage of the unlimited nature of their service.

Originally, many internet services operated on a business model of overselling their internet service. Frequently, your local cable company advertises 250kps bandwidth for each of its customers. But they never originally expected a large percentage (if anyone at all) to saturate their entire allocation 90% to 100% of the time, which is becoming a growing trend among service users.

To put this in perspective, this would be like your local water utilities company advertising that they had more water than they actually did, assuming that their customers would only use a fraction of their allocation, then being run dry due to usage statistics higher than their estimates.

Unlike water, bandwidth is truly infinite. However, it costs money to generate. The companies which have oversold their service are beginning to realize that the customers who are simply using what they've been given is beginning to become dramatically less profitable. Internet services charge a flat rate for bandwidth whether it's used or not. When it goes unused, they profit ridiculously. When it goes used, they lose ridiculous amounts of money under the "oversell" business model.

To combat the profit loss yet still maintain the oversell business model, recently some ISPs have begun fining their customers insane amounts of money for consuming bandwidth beyond a certain point per month. The service remains normal until, for example, 10 gigabytes have been transferred, then extremely unfair additional charges are added to make up for the ISP's loss of profit due to the user's "excessive" use. This is clearly legally in violation of the original contract, but ISPs have had no trouble maintaining legality, due to the wonderful vagueness of most ISP terms of service documents which essentially state that they have the right to do whatever they want with their service regardless of how unfair it is to the customer. I could at length discuss the moral and legal implications of such contracts and why they should be made illegal, but that is for another time.

This kind of treatment to the customers who use bandwidth "excessively" is causing an outrage. Some ISPs even go so far as to accuse their customers using "excessive" bandwidth as being criminals because they could potentially be using all that bandwidth to distribute software, music, movies, etc illegally, which they think justifies their decision to invoke these limits, regardless of the fact that they have no proof to support such an accusation. As a result of these unfounded accusations and unfair limits on monthly throughput, many ISPs have received bad publicity.

The only internet services that are throwing fits over bandwidth like this are the ones that are using the oversell business model. Some ISPs, notably slower ones, are committed to the real definition of unlimited. Meaning 100% bandwidth saturation is acceptable because the ISP has enough money to pay for it. The oversell business model has the potential to become far more profitable, but at the risk of all of the above-described problems.

If I were running an ISP, I would likely never use such a business model. In contrast, the "sell-what-you-have" business model is profitable in exactly the same way, except you have to advertise a slower service. While your service may be capped at a lower speed, you can also advertise that you really do provide unlimited service even when your users are running at 100% saturation.

It seems that honesty will inevitably become the best po

Re:Comca$t MyCrow$oft Connection

[AgntOrnge]

Just becuase they invested in them doesn't mean they are a MS company. Lots of tech companies invest in each other. MS has invested in Xerox in the past, are they now a MS company? You can point the tinfoil hat away now, thanks.

I'm with Comcast

[buck_wild]

They used to be AT&T until mid 2003. I've never had any issues with them, and I've been downloading lots of files, all of the time.

I work from home, and download large (several gigs apiece) drawings and presentations on a daily basis. One of my jobs is to proof them, and then send them on to the appropriate folks. So I would upload the same amount of data, just about.

I'm not sure how I would know that Comcast has issues with me, other than getting a letter. My service is extremely reliable, and I've never had a download or upload fail...

Re:My thoughts

[74nova]

is it really possible to abuse a 56k connection? as i recall, it was barely possible to actually surf the web(yes, im spoiled by my cable at home and lan at work, rarely am i limited by my end), let alone download massive amounts of software, etc.

is it just a matter of $10-15 is not enough to pay for very much at all?

I think that it's time companies openly clarified.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

They claimed unlimited internet, now they claim that it was the always-on connection, not the number of bits. OK, now is that really so hard for them to state in the first place? They should be clear about the number of bits per day / week / month they'll haul on an account too and give users tools to keep track of that.

Re:My thoughts

[AstrumPreliator]

Wouldn't this be considered false advertising though? I mean if you say unlimited you can't just go back on it because it isn't economically feasible. If a company told me I had unlimited bandwidth and then sent me a letter that I exceeded my bandwidth limitation I would be pretty irate. I would be especially pissed because not only are they employing false advertising, but even their own AUP that they refer to makes no mention of a bandwidth limitation.

Re:I'm with Comcast

[rjelks]

From what I understand, the cap is based on your habits compared to the others in your node. If your neighbors don't have cable or just use it for email and casual browsing, you kinda stand out. If you get an abuse warning letter, I'd encourage your neighbors to download more pr0n.

Just a couple weeks ago...

[Idealius]

I got Comcast cable and specifically asked the cable guy hooking it up what the bandwidth limit for each month was (being educated from a previous slashdot article :) He kinda blew it off with some answer to a question I didn't ask. I asked him a little later after he hooked it up and he told me that the only people that have ever given him a straight answer on that were the people at Avaya.

Sooooo, I'm not sure if that applies nation-wide or if that's just local -- but either way -- find out who ACTUALLY provides the bandwidth to Comcast and then ask THEM what the limit is...

Hope this helps.

Re:My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

>It should be obvious that you can't provide a dedicated "unlimited" 56K connection profitably at the $10-$15/mo market rate, but you will sell a lot more accounts if you say "unlimited".

Nah. Bulk ports are available in quantity for sub $5 per month. Netzero's paid account at $9.95 monthly really is unlimited - nail it up, go nuts, they make up for it on the millions of customers. I wouldn't be unsurprised if other big dialup providers were the same nowdays...

Re:My thoughts

[cmoss]

if you figure it costs the ISP about $20/month/incoming line it is difficult to make money off someone who is online every night thoughout peak usage.
When Dialup ISPs first started the rule of thumb was 20-25 customers per line. Not long after you needed 1 line per 8 customers. I would bet it got worse later.

The "abuse" is not the upstream bandwidth it is tying up the line.

Re:*SLASHDOT* has been tracking this for a while..

[GigsVT]

forced you to get CATV or pay even higher rates (42.95/45.95 with CATV or 60.95 or 63.95 without)

I really don't see how this gets passed antitrust laws. I guess since they are a natural monopoly, that somehow makes them exampt??

Even as a Libertarian, I think local governments should own infrastructure and rent it out on a non-descriminatory basis. That way there can be a real free market for services, which is a very Libertarian thing.

Re:Caps arent exactly low

[wo1verin3]

>> The article says that some of the abusers who
>> are getting these warnings/disconnections are
>> moving upwards of 1 terrabyte of data/month.

And many of them in Rogers and Comcasts case are using less then 100gb / month, some of them less then 50gb / month. No one has a problem with the caps, we just want to know what they are. I download software builds from work, msdn subscription, obligatory pr0n, but need to know to slow down if I'm gonna hit a cap so it's there when I need it. No one is demanding they take a financial hit for us, we're demanding to know what the limits are.

Re:My thoughts

[DynaSoar]

AnonyCow sez: "Consumers demand to be lied to."

WRONG.

SOME consumers ALLOW themselves to be lied to. The rest of us should not have to expect it just because of them. I demand honesty from those I deal with. If someone's lying to me, they're lying, and the fact that they gtet away with it with some idiots is no reason to excuse it.

Here is how to beat it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our ISP here had a charging metered cap on 2mbit, 8 and 10 mbit adsl, 2 weeks ago they removed it because they said "Our customers did not appreciate it". No more caps for metering. UNLIMITED, I did protest at theyre caps by dropping down to 512 kbps. It seems I was not alone in doing so.

Vote, drop down and let them know why. the 512 was UNLIMIED :D So I and probably others downloaded like a whore (And I told them I was going to do so).

They've been doing this for years

[JediDan]

A lot of dialup providers have always sold 'unlimited' dialup with the footnote that unlimited equates to a maximum of 12 hours a day and maximum connection time of 2-4 hours in a session.

I suggest charging a minimum fee for the connection itself and start charging more for the service used.

The phone companies (as much as we love/hate them) have a pretty good system worked out for $20/mo you get a local phone line that includes emergency access and whatnot.

ISP's could probably swing a connection for $20/mo with (oh I don't know) 50-75 gb of transfer. Best to make it symetrical traffic too. Then, when someones goes over it, charge them per gb of traffic.

This addresses a few problems:
* People complaining highspeed is too expensive
* ISP's taking a hit because not many people sign up
* People/ISP's happy with a balance of traffic vs billing

Re:Comcast isn't that bad...

[pastryp]

I, on the other hand, have had horrible experiences with them. Consistently low power levels for my modem, frequent disconnections, horrible service. Despite never setting up an appt with me, the serviceman unexpectedly called me at work to let him into my complex. By the time I got home he was gone. Man I was pissed. Then for a billing problem, they said some supervisor would call me back instead of putting me on hold. Never happened. I've never had a complaint in any of my dsl experiences. Comcast has _always_ been a pain in the a@@.

Re:All we want is some accountability

[MourningBlade]

I agree. Rather than let the court system take care of "misleading advertising" claims, we should establish laws to enable people to take companies to court to take care of "misleading advertising" claims.

Or, of course, we could set up extra-judicial systems for determining what networking companies can say in advertising, taking into account ease of understanding by a non-technical population, accuracy, completeness of information, and notifications of exemption[1]. Look how much car dealership advertising has been improved by such measures!

[1] - of course, this system will have to get expert advice, which major networking companies would be all too happy to provide.

Re:My thoughts

[nomadic]

They generally also state in their contract that they can terminate it at will. They're not really lying--"I will give you unlimited bandwidth while you're connected with my service, and I'll be able to terminate the service when I want to". You start out, you spend 24 hours a day downloading one big file, at the end of the month they charge you the same flat fee, but in essence terminate the contract and offer you a new one. They would be lying if after the first month they sent you a huge bill that you didn't contract for.

Hey, if it gets the job done...

[KC7GR]

Comcast has a HUGE problem right now with hundreds (if not more) of virus-compromised systems, run by the clue-deprived who have not the slightest inkling about the most basic Internet security.

These machines have long since been compromised, and turned into spammer 'zombies.' The problem has gotten bad enough that I've blocked access to our mail systems from ANY system with a domain name ending in 'client.comcast.net,' not to mention huge swaths of Comcast-controlled IP space.

If this 'crackdown' that Comcast is doing helps to get rid of a bunch of these spammer 'zombies,' great! It'll be that much less to worry about.

Granted, if Comcast's so-called "Abuse Desk" even gave a crap about the massive amounts of bit pollution their network is pouring out, they wouldn't have any problems with "abusers" to begin with.

Keep the peace(es).

Re:Comca$t MyCrow$oft Connection

[mcocke]

Well, my speed isn't 3MBs - I'm up against the laws of physics, being within 50 feet of the farthest you can be from the CO and still get DSL... But I pay a lot less than $50.00 per month, and I have a static IP 768/384K with downtime less than 1 hour per year.

On my DSL line, No one gives a hang what I run. I have my own DNS, mail and web (hosting 3 domains) servers, and a bunch of other stuff.

I tried a cable modem recently - Cablevision. (technically Lightpath - I paid extra for "business class service"). Static IP: not available, dynamic only. Inbound Port 80: blocked. The IP address was registered somwehere - damned if I could figure out where - as a dynamic IP, so half the internet was blocking mail from my servers. Reliability: Down around 2 hours a week. Price: 3 times what the DSL line costs.

Oh yeah, sell me another cable modem... when hell freezes over. DSL is the way to do it.

Re:Crap like this kept me off COmcast for years

[eclectro]

That's $27 a month plus another $20-$25 mandatory for an ISP in my area, which places it more than cable.

Also, when they sold out to MSN they took away SMTP servers for email and forced everybody to webmail.

I'm grateful for comcast. This article is describing a bandwidth hog pure and simple. My heart does not bleed for him. Excessive bandwidth is not a "right", it really does amount to "abuse".

I actually see this keeping prices down for everybody, because if everybody sucked a terabyte prices would need to go through the roof just to pay for the extra equipment/bandwidth. And it really does _ruin it_ for everybody in the neighborhood.

This guy needs to get a dedicated T1 and get over it.

I have Comcast...

[Dragoon412]

...in Rochester, MI; it's a suburb of Detroit.

For years, Comcast was the only cable company around. Their rates were pretty high, but I never thought anything of it until I moved away to Kalamazoo for college and realized I could get 1.54/786 internet AND digital cable with all the preium statiosn for only $10/month more than my parents had paid for Comcast's basic cable alone, back home.

Now, I'm living at home in Rochester again. I initially had my broadband through Speakeasy, but had a terrible problem dealing with Speakeasy, Covad, and SBC, which resulted in Speakeasy/Covad repeatedly trying to charge me $300 to reconnect my DSL circuit. Speakeasy was almost $100/month plus the cost of a phone line through SBC. It wasn't exactly what you'd call competetive, even though the service and support were top notch.

So, I decided to switch to cable internet; Wide Open West and Charter have both recently moved into town. However, there's some stipulation in my contract with my landlord that states that I can only get Comcast cable. So, I'm stuck with it.

My experiences so far have been mediocre. I don't exactly leach DVD rips all day, but it's not unusual for me to pull down a gig or two in a day. I've never been heckled by Comcast about it, either. And, also, the price is a bit more competetive, now. It's $70/month for 3mbps cable (with wretchedly slow upstream) and digital cable plus, which is essentially everything but HBO and Skinemax and the like.

That being said, my cable routinely goes out... usually at least once a week, and not during their scheduled maintainance times. I have mediocre ping times in most games, and, like I said, the upstream is terrible.

Overall, it's not a terrible service, though. Thankfully I've never had to deal with the customer service, though; I hear it's some of the worst around.

Interesting

[nizo]

I just looked at the Comcast site, and no where do I even see the word "unlimited". I do however see "always connected" type phrases. Where does Comcast promise unlimited downloads (Not to be confused with "unlimited connect time")?

Re:My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop screaming "false advertising" like a baby. There is no law against this "false advertising."

There IS a law against fraud. The question we have here, is did these ISPs commit legal fraud?

Why DSL is the way to go...

[EmagGeek]

... if it's available in your area. I have two DSL providers, DCAnet [dca.net] and, of course, Speakeasy [speakeasy.net]. I love them both - they're always great to work with and are very responsive to my needs. I have two lines, a Covad and a Verizon, through DCA and one Covad line through Speakeasy. I've never once had a problem with either, and I've had these lines for a combined total of 5 line-years.

I routinely exceed what comcast calls a "reasonable" limit (30GB/month down and 7.5GB/month up, wasn't it?). Not only do I exceed that, I blow it away - never heard a peep out of either of them...

I have a theory about why Comcast is trying to choke off their Internet users. They recently had to double the downrate to compete with DSL, thinking that offering twice the downstream would make the extra expense worth it... However, they're also trying to ramp up their On-Demand movie service, which is far more profitable to them. So, it makes sense to try to reserve as much of their shared bandwidth as possible for movies rather than for Internet users. I would not be surprised in the least if they lowered those caps at some point, as there is a finite amount of information a single shared cable can carry...

Just a thought..

Re:DVD Newsgroup usage

[RajivSLK]

A couple of years ago I got a DSL line from a local company. I felt good about giving my business to a local company rather than the regional telephone company.

A few months go by and I receive an invoice for ~$80. Apparently, they had modified there agreement to redefine unlimited to mean 6GB/month and were charging $10/GB overages.

I didn't say anything to them. I called the BBB and the CRTC (Canadian equivalent of the FTC) and when I had a couple of hours free I filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment stating that I didn't owe them any money, court costs and treble damages for breach of contract. My damages were the cost of having a replacement service installed and business interruptions.

They ended up paying me $250 plus court costs as a settlement. Although, I still wish I hadn't settled.

Keep it simple... truth in advertising

[blate]

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- if you're going to limit my bitrate usage, fine, just tell me what the limit is and give me way of monitoring my usage.

Apart from meeting this requirement, as far as I'm concerned, if they're selling me 3.5Mb/s downstream bandwidth, then I have every right to use every last bit of it 24/7/365, if I want to. Granted, I don't, because I don't need or want to. But, "unlimited" aside, if you sell me a service with certain specifications, I expect you to meet those specifications and not penalize me for using your service up to the limits.

Comcast (who happens to be my ISP as well), is being sleazy and overly secretive in this matter. They need to fess up to the fact that their networks are oversubscribed and underprovisioned and that, while you and your neighbors can probably get XMb/s burst rates, they can't really sell each of you that much sustained bitrate.

Frankly, I wish they'd scrap some of the crappy cable channels and use the excess bandwidth for better internet service.

Or, they could surcharge you for net transfers over a certain threshold -- as long as they specify the threshold and give you an accurate way to monitor your usage.

2 DVDs a DAY? Are you nuts?

[GuyMannDude]

Um, 2 dvds from alt.binaries.dvdr per day, x 30 days is about 300 GB/month. Good thing I'm not with Cox!

I've been known to download video files from time to time but 2 DVDs per day is way, way too much. Unless you are also watching 2 of those DVDs each day, you must be building up one hell of a stockpile to films to watch.

30 GB/month is pretty generous for a home account. Anything more than that and you really should be on a business account.

2 DVDs a day is abuse. Did you even stop to think about what downloading like that must do for the other poor saps who have to share a local connection with you? I, for one, am glad that Cox puts limits on how much people download. I don't want my cable connection to turn to shit just because some jackass wants to download 2 DVDs a day!

GMD

Re:Changes in usage patterns

[kfg]

I used to get first class postage for $.04. My mother only had to spend $.03 to send out my birth announcment cards (does that date me or what?).

I used to get unlimited cable internet service for 30 bucks. Now it's nudging 50. Some have chosen to take door number 2 (Of course both of these cases are government regulated monopolies to one extent or another). Although I pay more for my internet service said service has actually improved both in general quality (it would be hard not to accomplish this with any effort at all frankly. A friend of mine once wrote an essay entitled "We suck faster") and in terms of available bandwidth.

I'll note, however, that this phrase appears in their acceptable use policy:

. . .service may not be used to engage in any conduct that interferes with Road Runner's ability to provide service to others, including the use of excessive bandwidth.

By strict interpretation any use whatsoever could violate stricture number 1, given how cable operates over shared sub nets and "excessive bandwidth" is not defined. Since the ISP throttles bandwidth this should be a nonissue if they were operating properly.

An interesting aside though is that any stricture against running a server no longer appears in the policy and when I last transfered service and I raised the issue with the tech he said "we really don't give damn anymore. We just provide the wire to the house and the bandwidth."

KFG

Imitation is the highest form of flattery?

[Kethinov]

Uhm okay, I don't know who the fuck thinks it's funny to plaigiarize my writing, but I am the original author of this essay. I wrote it on January 8th of this year, the original text can be found here [halo43.com].

Hmm. I don't know whether or not to say "mod parent down!" After all, it got a freakin' +5. In a way, now I almost wish I thought of copy/pasting my rant to Slashdot first. A pity. Could have done wonders for my karma ;)

Re:ISP business model analysis

[WuphonsReach]

At a rough guess, it probably costs around $1000-$5000 per km to run cable/fiberoptic. Connecting from the pole to the house probably costs $100, most of which is covered by the install fee.

In short, there's a large capital outlay that has to be recouped over the next X years. In a highly-regulated market, X might be as long as 10-20 years because the company can count on a set amount of revenue for that period with little/no competition. In a deregulated market, companies need a shorter payoff (2-3 years).

It ain't the electricity used.

Re:i've had no problems with comcast so far

[ALpaca2500]

umm... i knew exactly wtf i was doing. when there's 3 pages of comments, not many people are gonna read my comment on the last page.

We ALL need to use MORE bandwidth: Consumer power!

[jellybear]

Okay okay, I'll admit that it's true SOME users may be using too much bandwidth and that it may possibly be justified to limit their use. However, despite the persuasive arguments presented here by people who have had experience running ISP's, it's also important for us not to lose sight of the other side of the argument, namely, that by having the right to arbitrarily pick out certain users as "abusers", ISP's may themselves abuse their power in order to fatten up their wallets at the same time as reducing quality of service.

ISP's are targetting users who are significantly above the average. Of course, however, the average is made up of highs and lows. ISP's are now trying to cut away the highs. If they succeed, then the middle becomes the new high, just waiting for the next onslaught. From the perspective of money-grubbing, backwards-looking ISP's the problem is the power user who wants too much bandwidth. In the big picture, however, the REAL problem is the low bandwidth user, who refuses to use their fair share and encourages ISP's to pursue these regressive policies.

Just try to picture what would happen if everyone became so paranoid and timid that they drastically reduced their bandwidth usage: the AVERAGE goes down, and then people who were previously average end up above average. The ISP's wallet gets fattened by the cost reductions, but their appetite just goes up. The executives feel the need to continue their "growth" to satisfy the owners. The next round of victims gets targetted by the ISP. Revenue growth ends up being sought through the ultimately destructive strategy of a gradual reduction of "costs" which are in fact hardware investments, without which the next generation of bandwidth and applications could never arrive.

Therefore, if AT ALL possible, always try to use AT LEAST as much bandwidth as the average user, if not slightly more. They can't terminate 50% of users, or even 40% of users. In fact, you could probably be in the top 10% without getting complaints. Let's be conservative though, and choose to use only enough bandwidth to be in the 75% (i.e. top 25%) Imagine if everyone did this. If everyone tried to do this, the average bandwidth usage would gradually increase, making it harder for the ISP to extort and terrorize power users. If the upward drift happens gradually, technology would hopefully keep up, and we would gradually get faster and faster bandwidth. Isn't that what progress should be?

If, instead, people reacted by cutting down on bandwidth and uploads, then the average might DECREASE. Then, the ISP could boot off the biggest users, reduce their infrastructure investment, hoping instead to make money off of the low-power users. After the pool of clueless low-power users is fully tapped, and with no infrastructure investment, the only further avenue for squeezing out more profits would be to reduce expenses even further by setting off another round of kicking off intensive users. With each successive wave of account terminations, the average usage would decrease, thereby decreasing the expense per revenue stream. There is a clear financial incentive for this scenario, which would ultimately lead to stagnation.

So, IF YOU ARE USING LESS THAN THE AVERAGE BANDWIDTH, then THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm dead serious.

If you are using less than the average bandwidth, you are actually doing everyone a huge disfavour. Instead, you should be everyone a huge favour (including the industry, and hardware makers) by using MORE bandwidth. Share some torrents. Seed some even. Let it run for a few days a month. Try to be at least in the 60% percentile in terms bandwidth use.

In the long run, everyone will benefit.

Encourage technological progress! Use more bandwidth! (That is, you're not already in the top 5%. If you are already in the top 5%, then maybe cut down a bit, or just be careful and hold steady. Some day, if everyone else is as altruistic as you are (i.e. download and upload as much stuff)

Fuzzy math.

[pb]

"some abusers, he said, consume more than a terabyte of data each month"

"Comcast and several other cable firms are doubling their top download speeds to 3 megabits per second"

From google [google.com]: (1 terabyte) / (3 (megabits per second)) = 1.0632985 months

Therefore, before they raised their caps, it would take you over two months to download one terabyte. Afterwards, it would *still* take you more than a month.

...something smells fishy here...

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world

[obeythefist]

I still say they have it way too good in the USA. Sure, things are getting a little more restrictve, but nonetheless.

Let me tell you how it is in Australia! When Telstra, our telecommunication overlord and monopoly release ADSL for all us little punters, you could get it at a tremendous cost, and they gave you a whole 300MB quota. Then they charged you a significant rate per MB after that. It's taken about 2 years to creep up to 1GB for the basic Telstra plan.

After Telstra was forced by various competition enforcement bodies, third parties are allowed to sell internet services over Telstras local loop. However, Telstra charges incredibly high prices for these services and there are terrible delays. These brave smaller ISPs are able to offer reasonably high limits, starting around 3GB and going anywhere up to 16GB (if you want to pay for it). ISP's will either charge /MB over the limit, or shape the account down to around 56k (varies from provider to provider).

There are a few groups of ISP's with peering agreements, these make the very low limits on Australian broadband tolerable.

Some ISP's do offer unlimited, however there are a couple of provisos.. if you use too much bandwidth, your priority for connections declines and so does your general quality of service.

The primary real reason behind this is that the USA offers, I don't know, something like 1GB of traffic to Australia, and charges like crazy for the rest, generally bringing most countries who wish to communicate with the USA to their knees.

If you want to see how the rest of the world lives, have a look at http://whirlpool.net.au - it might open your eyes up a little.

An explanation: the second is incorrect

[rufusdufus]

Comcast cable customers have no hard limit on their download speed. I was getting over 3 megabits since it was AT&T's network.
The bandwidth a customer gets is proportional to the number of people on the node, and since some people like myself out in the boonies only have one or two other people sharing our nodes, our bandwith is really high.
Anyone who says they are doubling their top download speed to 3 megabits are stepping way out of the wording I have ever heard them use: they have NEVER confirmed ANY bandwidth numbers even when directly asked. This is because they cannot guarantee any particular bandwidth for any particular customer.
Finally, I would note that Comcast upgraded the network this winter, and my bandwith is now...very very high.
Thus, it is quite possible that someone could download a terabyte of data each month.

Comast is great -- speed doubled this month

[Cutting_Crew]

--just unplugged the modem, wait 60 seconds and voila! now my normal connection speed is between 2.7 and 3.0 Mbps all the time and i frequently get a transfer rate of the same amount. i would say on average my transfer rate is around 600 or 700 kbps but like i said i have actually gotten 3.0- mbps download speeds -- of course this all depends on what the site's own cap is. if a site only allows you to get 100 kbps then thats all you are getting. I am also in a college town, so there are HUBS set up everywhere. IT is true -- if you dont want cable with them then you will pay something like $65 - $70 for cable internet, if you want cable then its $42.95 per month..even if you get the $6 cable package which is basically all the local channels. 2 - 13(by luck channel 13 here is ESPN) :)