[NPMUG] Comcast controls bandwidth starting October 1, 2008

[Greg Simkins biz]

This new policy was also the subject of a recent Slashdot article.  It  
makes sense to me.  I don't know why people feel they have a  
constitutional right to unlimited bandwidth (as nice as that would be).

Greg


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Comcast Outlines New Broadband Policy                              |
|   from the knowledge-is-power dept.                                |
|   posted by timothy on Wednesday September 24, @16:49 (The Internet|
|   http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/24/1941221         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Slatterz writes "US cable provider Comcast has presented its [0]long- 
term
solution for managing broadband traffic. The new system is set at  
putting
to bed a minor scandal that erupted around the company when it was found
that Comcast [1]deliberately limited traffic for certain applications.
The company said that under its new system, traffic will be analyzed
every fifteen minutes. Users who are found to be occupying large amounts
of bandwidth will be placed at a lower priority for network access  
behind
users with less bandwidth-intensive traffic. The new system will not
replace or be related to the company's earlier installment of bandwidth
caps, which [2]limited a user's data intake to 250GB per month."

Discuss this story at:
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/09/24/1941221

Links:
    0. http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/123579,comcast-outlines-new-broadband-policy.aspx
    1. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/20/0255217&tid=230
    2. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/08/1410231&tid=95




On Sep 27, 2008, at 11:51 PM, Dave Sevick wrote:

> This was passed on to me from a fellow Apple user ....
>
>
>> Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,
>>
>> We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best
>> online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through
>> our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of
>> our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from
>> things that can negatively impact their experience online. This
>> policy has been in place for many years and we update it
>> periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our
>> service.
>>
>> On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into
>> effect at that time.
>>
>> In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth)
>> usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that
>> defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use
>> policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a
>> disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may
>> degrade the online experience of other customers.
>>
>> 250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very
>> likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that
>> amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater
>> than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to
>> 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage
>> in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:
>>
>> * Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
>> * Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
>> * Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).
>>
>> And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or
>> single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this
>> threshold over the course of a month.
>>
>> In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP
>> contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting
>> violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful
>> FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use
>> .
>>
>> Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet
>> provider.
>>
>>
>
>
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