Forum Moderators: open
[comcast.net...]
Today, we're announcing that beginning on October 1, 2008, we will amend our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) available at [comcast.net...] and establish a specific monthly data usage threshold of 250 GB/month per account for all residential customers.
More tidbits and details here:
[dslreports.com...]
the new system should only impact some 14,000 customers out of Comcast's 14.1 million users (i.e. the top 0.1%).
Wonder how many WebmasterWorld members will be impacted by this change?
What about 'gamers'.
Online games can eat some bandwidth over time, and some games (World of Warcraft, for example) have a lot of players that play for hours at a time, every day.
I did my share of Half-Life back in the day...
I just wonder how much of a chunk 'those' are going to take.
All communications companies, from Day One, give it away free to get customers, then tier the service (two party, etc), then individual service, then cut out service (long distance), charge separately, then (in this case) tier access. Their bread and butter is the don't use much but have been gently nudged into paying more for "standard service" (a cap), so they can TARGET with more fees those who use more than the average consumer. After milking that for what it is worth, have to get the average consumer to consume more by making "new" features available at special rates. The telcos knew this. Their business model is today's Inet model. All this is in preparation for net delivery of HD video and "if we can't get them to pay per play, we'll make'em pay anyway."
The tiers they have now are somewhat of a joke. The consumer isn't going to see the difference between the lower or top tier unless they are downloading huge files. Most servers are not going to go past the speeds of the lower tier anyway. Plus the cost difference isn't that much. What they need is tiered bandwidth or a combination of tiered bandwidth and speed and more diverse plans. Personally I'd like to see a cheaper plan with less speed and less bandwidth. I won't hold my breath though because most of their consumers are in the same boat.
The Internet is evolving and so are all the businesses associated with it. If you can't handle change and/or certain restrictions being imposed to protect the integrity of the whole then guess what? You're screwed aren't you? Buncha whiners! :)
Well, Mr. pageoneresults, it just so happens that some of us like to kick back and relax every now and then with a fine whine. ;)
@incredibill:
Even Spock knew the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the P2P ;)
Yet Bones believed that everyone - even P2P's - should get equal treatment regardless of their special needs and circumstances.
Take that!
I've been able to watch some of my choice shows from YouTube...now I don't have Dish...go figure.
That could translate out in the future to some heavy duty bandwidth.
4. All movies/TV available online direct to TV.
You can bet Comcast (and others like them) will offer their own selection of Movies downloading of which won't be counted towards their traffic limit, this is how they will shutoff competitors (basically price them out) and re-inforce their own monopoly. That's why Net Neutrality is important and traffic limits are the first step towards breaking it.
You can bet Comcast (and others like them) will offer their own selection of Movies downloading
They already do this, it's call Comcast "On Demand", but you do it through your TV cable box, not via your computer, tons of content.
They already do this, it's call Comcast "On Demand", but you do it through your TV cable box, not via your computer, tons of content.
Well, then one of the big motivations they have is to cut out competitors who could deliver same content via Internet connections - it's like mobile phone providers who would not allow VoIP traffic in order to avoid competition.
Anyway, it's not the issue, the P2P crowd is ruining it for the rest of us so now that it's a protocol neutral environment they just cap everyone.
P2P is a tiny part of the issue. Everyday, average Internet users do all kinds of high bandwidth things that would amaze the focused professionals here at WW :-P
One example is the rapidly growing online movie rental and download market. These days you can download most new release movies from a variety of legal providers. Blockbuster just bought one of the leading providers. Even Amazon has jumped in, although they've done a poor job of it so far which is probably why it hasn't been widely publicized.
250 GB per month? Exactly what does that equate to?
To use the movie example above... at the current average bitrate in the industry the file sizes are between 1 and 2 gigabytes (slightly more for very long films). So you're looking at a bit more than 125 movies per month.
More than enough. However...
Ah-ha, there's the culprit! I would never think of downloading 40-50 GB. I'm not a hard core movie person either.
Not right now you wouldn't but you have to consider the speed at which bandwidth usage is increasing.
The file sizes of the aforementioned DLable rentals have been steadily increasing over the past couple of years. Originally file sizes were well under 1 gig.
And how about Internet TV? Don't say it's still speculation!
Did you know that you can already rent TV shows online in addition to movies?
Did anyone take a look the the NBC Olympics site? They streamed countless hours of live and recorded events at very high bitrate (read bandwidth) using Microsoft Silverlight.
How about all of the free "TV" shows that are currently already available on the net?
How about the interactivity and bandwidth implications of the the kinds of apps that could come from compiled Javascript?
And what about when YouTube increases their currently tiny bitrates? It won't be long, they're already using a lower bitrate than almost everyone else, that's how fast standards are changing.
250 gigs seems like a lot now but it won't seem that way for long.
I suppose I can handle the cap as a consumer, but if the future of TV is headed online, some other options need to be explored! How many gigs of data does a month's worth of watching TV gobble up?
I wonder if phone companies are going to start capping their "unlimited" plans.
If they advertise their service as DSL connection with a 250GB limit all is well. You pay for a DSL connection with a 250 GB limit, you get one.
If they advertise it as "unlimited DSL connection" and impose a 250 GB limit, they don't fullfill their part of the contract. Unlimited means unlimited and not 250 GB or unlimited within reasonable amounts. Who defines "reasonable"? A few years ago 1 GB/month would have been more than reasonable.
After all you can not advertise "unlimited refills" in a restaurant and then limit it to 1 refill in the small print on page 32 in the menu.
[theregister.co.uk...]
The continual development of our internet infrastructure is absolutely critical in order to progress on many fronts, including social, economic, medical and cultural - not just technical. More and more devices are being built where bandwidth is as limitless as oxygen. And now, because of decisions like this, innovators are limited. Somebody thinking about creating a medical device that will relay medical vitals from your parents comfortable home to the doctors office on a continual basis has to stop and rethink - because 250 gigs/month is not enough to accomplish this. Your grandparents don't P2P and they won't upgrade to business accounts.
When looking at this 250 gig restriction, you can't think in terms of songs, emails and HD movies. You have to think beyond that stuff because the possibilities that the 250gig/month limit will have on your life, you're most likely not even considering yet - and having the limit in effect - will insure you never do.
You have to think beyond that stuff
Absolutely right and that's exactly what Comcast is doing. They can see from their own usage stats that bandwidth usage is getting ready to take another exponential jump.
However lexipixel made a good point... this has happened before and, at least in the US, the market corrected itself and we didn't end up with caps or metered bandwidth.
If another major ISP were to jump on board then there would be something to worry about.
A couple sits down to eat in a restaurant that has sign out front that reads: "All You Can Eat"...
After a few minutes, the waiter comes over, takes their plates away and says, "That's all you can eat".
We should thank them for protecting us from ourselves.
Comcast justifies going back on the "unlimited" aspect of the service plans they sold to millions of people by calling anything over 250GB "excessive use".
Towards the end of the notice they mention "125 standard definition movies"...
Isn't that what it's all about?. Making sure people can't watch HD movies on their basic ISP plan? Why don't they just say so?
Anyone know how many GB for a typical Hollywood feature length Hi-Def movie?
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 [help.comcast.net...]
Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider
In contrast a high definition movie on a Blue-ray disk runs at 40 mbits/sec. Which would give you around 4 movies/month at a 250 gig cap.
I don't think 40 mb/s downloads are going to happen any time soon though.
Instead lets use 20 mb/s. That's enough information to give you (slightly better than) HDTV quality. Now you get 8 movies/month. Probably enough for the average household but it doesn't leave them room to do much else.
HD internet TV is most definitely not a possibility at a 250 gig cap.
Now you get 8 movies/month. Probably enough for the average household but it doesn't leave them room to do much else.HD internet TV is most definitely not a possibility at a 250 gig cap.
Which is the only reason for the cap. Comcast wants to sell HD movie downloads, (which will only work through their "box" so it's controlled and not via generic IP access).
We (in the US) are just around the corner from "all digital t.v. broadcasting"... they will have millions of new customers waiting to fill their electronic t.v. guides with fresh HD content -- but only if they can't download it from "the internet".
They can easily identify the "excessive use" violators of their AUP -- the ones they describe who would either be email spammers or P2P audio / video sharing junkies.
I believe a typical Blu-ray disc are 24mps. HD-DVD weere in the 15mbps range. Half the titles available on BR discs available now are only on single layer discs so they are capped at a total of 25GB anyway.
There are much more efficient codec's available, you could probably get away with 6mbps or less for a very high quality encode using recent codecs.
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I'd have to agree though they are trying to head everyone off at the pass. As long as their internet and entertainment divisions remain separate I don't see a problem. Any media services offered by Comcast or other ISP's should fall under the same caps.
[ap.google.com...]
Comcast to beef up its Fancast entertainment siteBy DEBORAH YAO – 2 days ago
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Comcast Corp. has reached agreements with several major content providers to offer their shows on its entertainment Web site, Fancast.com.
The Philadelphia-based cable operator has inked deals with ABC, CW, Showtime, HBO and The Food Network to offer free ad-supported TV episodes and clips. The shows will start rolling out this weekend, except those from ABC, which went live last week.
Coincidence? Nope....
------edit-------
Here's something of interest too:
[nytimes.com...]
Comcast says Fancast, its online video Web site, will count against the 250 gigabyte limit, but its digital voice service will not.
I've seen some very good clips in the 6mbps range. Check the T2 clip out here, that's only 8.5mbps
[microsoft.com...]
So at 8.5 mb/s you could watch no more than 2.5 hours/day of online movies, video clips and TV with a 250 gig cap.
For your average American that doesn't even come close :-)
Note that at 8.5 mb/s it isn't possible for there to be enough information to provide real 1080 quality. At that level of compression the codec is just doing a really good job of fooling the eye into missing the lost information.
Which probably means that 15-20 mb/s will be coming soon after 6-10 mb/s.
I'd guesstimate if all media was delivered through the internet you'd have to keep the bitrate down around 2000kbps for the average home to stay under the cap. That's suitable to go beyond what DVD can do.
Note that at 8.5 mb/s it isn't possible for there to be enough information to provide real 1080 quality
Depends on the content, those are encoded using 2 pass variable bitrate. 8.5 is the average. The first pass examines the clip for where bitrate is needed, the second pass is the actual encode. If you have a clip with very little action then you can drop the bitrate considerably because the slow action scenes don't require much bitrate. This would be the reason 9800 would be more suitable for encoding home footage to DVD, the noise plays havoc with the encoder.
