oh how I hate this operation - the minute surewest sets up in this neighborhood, I'm gone...

but in the mean time... comcast called and said that I was in the top percentile of evil downloaders and that I must 'drastically' reduce this level or they will cancel or force to a 'biz' account. "To what level", I ask. "Not tellin'" they respond.

is this evil or what?

I looked at the customer agreement and they seem to give themselves the right to change the service in anyway they like and I can quit if I don't like it.

comments? suggestions?

oh... how much am I downloading - A LOT! No less than 5gb a day.

Sounds fair to me.

5 gigs a day is a lot of clown pron, btw.

5gb a day? What are you downloading? Microsoft security patches?

5gb's a day? You're the next Google, aren't you.

But still, what should it matter? Don't get me wrong, if it's affecting bandwidth for other users, then I can see an issue (but even still, isn't that the ISP's problem?). But in the end, not everyone in an a network area is gonna be saturating the available bandwidth, so who cares if one or two people do? Maybe someone who knows these things in better detail can correct my statements.

I don't even see how anyone else in his neighborhood can afford Comcast let alone download enough to affect a network area. ;)

I'm downloading DVDs you perverts!

There is endless bandwidth here and I'm capped at 800kb/s as it is. Never have a problem reaching the cap.

Good point Iron mac... this shît aint cheap... they are the most expensive broadband isp in the area. With a standard cable TV setup, it's about $90 a month. The crappy ATT dsl is beginning to look a little better....

That's idiotic .... if they are already capping your download speed, why the heck are they complaining about how much you are downloading?

5 gigs a day?

thats like a terabyte+ a month?

if i was comcast, that would be a huge red flag for me too

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

you need to work on your math there jdc

5 x 30 = 150gb/mo = 0.15TB/mo

whoops =)

and 800kb/s = 8 megs, right?

cause i get 2400 Kb/s down on my ATT DSL .... $25

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

Quote
hal
I'm downloading DVDs you perverts!

Are these DVDs legal to download? Independent of your bandwith usage, you might be violating Comcast's terms of service by the nature of your downoads.

Dude. 5GB/day is a 1000%+ jump from the average user...

This isn't socialism....they are a business and if you are using that traffic they should be able to drop you without cause.

But they don't specify a download limit, do they?

There is nothing you can do - Comcast's Service Agreement allows them to make up the rules as they go ("...change at any time..."). It is so like Comcast to not tell you how much to cut back.

DSL might be cheaper and faster.

There are a couple sites like Vongo to legally download movies. I could see that a few movies would easily put you over 5 GB a day especially if you had multiple people using a computer. While it is questionable, I downloaded all the episodes of Red Dwarf from tv-links.co.uk in one evening and it added up to just over 4 GB. They must have links to almost 100 TB of stuff.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Quote
Carnos Jax
But they don't specify a download limit, do they?

no they don't - just that I'm over it

service agreement says nothing about limits, but like malfunction says, it's full of intentional ambiguity - it means whatever they want it to mean.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2007 07:31PM by hal.

Quote
jdc
whoops =)

and 800kb/s = 8 megs, right?

cause i get 2400 Kb/s down on my ATT DSL .... $25

I can't talk bits & bytes

real world reality is that I can get a 4.3gb dvd in a bit over 2 hours. when I'm downloading, the activity monitor's network pane shows the download speed pegged at "800KB/s" plus/minus 10KB/s or so.

hal,

I remember seeing a discussion like this before but I can not remember where. It might have been Slashdot. Like you say, the agreement says nothing about actual numbers. People get nastygrams saying they are overusing the service but nothing about how much they have to cut.

They leave it vague so that if a local node gets congested, it means they can tell the top 1% to cut their downloads without actually having list a number. If another 5% knew what the limit was and consumed right up to that number, they would have to double the infrastructure.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Quote
hal
I can't talk bits & bytes

real world reality is that I can get a 4.3gb dvd in a bit over 2 hours. when I'm downloading, the activity monitor's network pane shows the download speed pegged at "800KB/s" plus/minus 10KB/s or so.

I can get a peak of about 15,000 kbps on [www.speedtest.net] before the Comcast Speed Boost cap comes in at 6,000 kbps. If I run several tests at once ( [www.testmyspeed.com] ), I can get peak network rates of about 30,000 kbps.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2007 08:01PM by Filliam H. Muffman.

I thought the days of clogged cable infrastructure was long over.

It seems to me that it's just another way to cut costs. I find it unlikely that comcast (of all companies) would be taking long range preventative measures to assure their customers the finest service... this has never been their MO.

MO in the past has always been MO, MO MONEY....

They came into this market, purchased the competition then raised the rates. Isn't deregulation great?

what a surprise

DL: 8132kb/s UP: 1942

I guess "always on" doesn't mean "always downloading."

I have a dislike for our local cable company. Terrible service. Frequent service disruptions. But for fast internet; they are about the only game in town.

---

I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making
him carry me, and yet assure myself and others
that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his
lot by all possible means — except by getting off
his back. - Leo Tolstoy, novelist and Philosopher
(1828-1910)

The sucky part of this Comcast game isn't just the ambiguity but that it's a moving target. If you're on an over-sold node then you're going to be shut down for far less than if you're on a sparsely populated node.

Another problem that some people have had is when they get around to warning you. It might be pretty far into the month and if so, you're screwed because it's too late for you to cut back enough to keep them from terminating your service.

There's something very wrong with a policy in which they only tell you "You're downloading too much. Cut back or we'll terminate your service." ... How much is too much? They won't say. How much did you download? They won't say. How much do you need to cut back? They won't say.

I never got "the call" but this policy was a small factor in my dropping Comcast HSI and switching to DSL.

Take them up on the "or else" part. The worst thing they can do is cut you off. More likely, they'll try and push you into a higher priced plan.

Unlimited bandwidth is soon going to be a thing of the past, and we'll all be paying for that just like we pay for minutes and text messages.

There needs to be a few more hooked on the downloading, however, and iTMS and other outlets are working on that now.

As soon as it's as easy to download a dvd as it is to rent or buy one at the store, you'll see the tiered pricing hit a wider audience. Give it another two years or so…

That sucks.

What Comcast is doing it trying to do is prevent the inevitable. One day a large percentage of their customers may be downloading at the gigs-per-day rate and what will they do then? Tell everyone you have to stop? That would be a disaster because then everyone would leave and they would go bankrupt. This is not a solution for them, this is just a stopgap measure that makes them look bad and annoys the tech-savvy public. I will never go back to Comcast unless there is absolutely no other option for Internet access.

I'm with Verizon now, signed up for their FiOS 15Mb service. Not sure what their official policy is about monthly download limits but I have yet to hear about it being a problem.

A question about the comcast nastygrams - how are they delivered? I have Comcast internet but I *never* use the accounts they've provided me, and I don't think they even have another address to send it to electronically; so is this a letter in the mail? Or might I inadvertently step over the line some day, find myself cut off (having missed the electronic warning?)
g=

"I guess "always on" doesn't mean "always downloading." "

like I said, I can download 5gb in just over 2hours - it's hardly 24/7

"A question about the comcast nastygrams - how are they delivered?"

Comcast called with this joyous news...

have them show you in writing in a printed hardcopy document that you, as the customer, were provided with, where there is a download limit.

So, d/l 4.99GB a day and tell them to stuff it since you've decreased the amount.

>The crappy ATT dsl is beginning to look a little better....
I agree with jdc-I dumped Comcast because they kept raising their rates and signed up with AT&T DSL and am quite happy with it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2007 06:50AM by DP.

I'd begin to question my needs if I were you. Just how many 5GB days do you need each month?

What are you doing with all of this "data"? Is it perishable so that you need to replace it periodically?

That kind of volume suggests business purposes., Maybe you should pay for a higher bandwidth.

If Comcast cable was a highway, there would be "rush hour" and "hal hour". Hope those 2 periods don't happen at the same time.

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Ed (modelamac)

I think I will just put an OUT OF ORDER
sticker on my head and call it a day.

Just get a lawyer to look this over and perhaps sue them.

I guess it is the pattern rather than a specific number of allowable download per month. I would agree that with high utilization there should be tiered pricing, and that someone with such high use may be considered using Internet for more than usual household use, for which the infrastructure is designed and priced.

Another way to look at it is "what if everyone were to be doing this?" More common content downloading is in the future, but I think we can expect further improvements in network infrastructure to meet this increased demand, and, likely, increased pricing. We all do much more on the Internet nowadays and most of us can do it thanks to high-bandwidth infrastructure, but we should not forget that this need was met with concurrent increase in price.

When the company like Comcast designs and prices a service, there is a certain model that takes into account the usual pattern of use. When that pattern is exceeded, the quality of service for other consumers can suffer. And I would rather the total download amount be regulated by means other than limiting the bandwidth. And BTW I am on FiOS.

That sucks hal, way I see it is that I am paying for 600k down and if it isn't going at 600k then I am wasting money, I pay for it so I am using it. Charter have never complained, maybe it was a nudge to see if they could huckle some more cash out of you.

I hate to be on the side of corporations, but 5GB a day every day makes you a pirate, not a legitimate user.

Tone it down, or lose the service. You're abusing their bandwidth and they have every right to put a clamp on it unless you can find a clause that says "unlimited."

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chas_m




[crawlingfromtheusa.blogspot.com] <-- Moving to Canada blog

Downloading 5 GB a day is only using about 8% of the available daily bandwidth. How can that be considered abuse? I bet they would not be complaining about it if he was paying for Scumcast On Demand and was getting 20 GB per day through that.

If three drivers rent a car for a seven days and Avis says they get "unlimited mileage." Is Avis going to complain because they "abused it" by putting 1,000 miles on it, when three drivers could have conceivably put 12,000 miles on it? A group did put about 10,000 miles on a rented Lincoln Town Car in one week while participating in "One Lap Of America" about 12 years ago. The agent did not even blink when they turned it in (assuming he even noticed). I think it was Motor Trend.

Edit: Looks like it was longer ago, and Car and Driver was the magazine.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2007 03:04PM by Filliam H. Muffman.

"I hate to be on the side of corporations, but 5GB a day every day makes you a pirate, not a legitimate user. "

that is such utter @#$%& - I use the full width of my pipeline for 2 hours a day and that makes me a pirate? Nonsense...

I think 5 GB/ day is LOW