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Comcast's Bandwidth Cap Is Likely Only the Beginning

As Internet usage grows, companies will continue to struggle over questions of how to fairly apportion bandwidth.

By Erica Naone

Comcast announced a 250-gigabyte cap on individual consumer broadband usage this week. The company takes care to demonstrate that this is a generous limit--the equivalent of roughly 125 standard-definition movie downloads. The move, however, is probably only the beginning of what promises to be a long struggle to balance growing Internet usage against limited infrastructure--a problem that TR editor Larry Hardesty described in depth earlier this year. As Hardesty's story makes clear, there's no easy answer to the problem. I expect to see a lot of change to Internet service as providers, companies, and consumers wrestle with one another.

Tags: Internet, broadband, infrastructure, Comcast

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Comcast's stated restrictions on Bandwidth Usage

The Service is for personal and non-commercial residential use only. Therefore, Comcast reserves the right to suspend or terminate Service accounts where bandwidth consumption is not characteristic of a typical residential user of the Service as determined by the company in its sole discretion. Common activities that may cause excessive bandwidth consumption in violation of this Policy include, but are not limited to, numerous or continuous bulk transfers of files and other high capacity traffic using (i) file transfer protocol ("FTP"), (ii) peer-to-peer applications, and (iii) newsgroups, whether provided by Comcast or a third party. You must also ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other person's use of the Service, nor represent (as determined by Comcast in its sole discretion) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you must ensure that your use of the Service does not limit or interfere with Comcast's ability to deliver and monitor the Service or any part of its network.

To read their full terms and conditions go to http://www.comcast.net/terms/index.jsp

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carbonmind
08/31/2008
Posts:7

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Re: Comcast's stated restrictions on Bandwidth Usage

If this is the case, should they put this bandwidth restriction in thier ads ? Let's says $40 per month / 15 mb/s - 250 GB per month.

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JoeTan1980
09/02/2008
Posts:1

Re: Comcast's stated restrictions on Bandwidth Usage

Remeber this phrase: "nor represent (as determined by Comcast in its sole discretion) an overly large burden on the network." That's one person today generating 1gb, and a thousand tomorrow, generating 1kb each. If Comcast never invests another penny in infrastructure, it can, at its sole discretion, determine that more and more of its captive users are creating a load, and therefore should be charged extra. Pure profit! This is where I think that a national policy is sorely lacking.

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z0rr0
09/02/2008
Posts:54

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Backdoor to anti net nuetrality

This is their way around net neutrality. They are determined to put toll booths on the info super highway. I for one plan on dumping them and switch to WOW.

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jmaximus9
09/04/2008
Posts:83

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Re: Backdoor to anti net nuetrality

They're thumbing the Comcast nose at the FCC -- as well as every municipality with which they've negotiated a monopoly agreement. I see this as the end of Comcast.

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rttedrow
09/05/2008
Posts:43

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Re: Backdoor to anti net nuetrality

Are there alternatives? I doubt. If there were alternatives, they would not be formulating such policies.

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gillyhans
09/05/2008
Posts:1

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Market Forces will Prevail

The cap only means that Comcast can put a customer in a headlock (or wallet lock) until someone new enters the market space they're occupying. AT&T will put in something, or a Cellular offering will become available or Meraki will make their widgets less costly and a free net will appear.

Once this happens, Comcast (or Cox, AT&T etc) will have to be more accomodating or lose customers.

Maybe even the users will get sick of the Internet and stop using it all together and keep their money in their wallets for a change.

Saving Money by not spending it on frivolous things like email, spam, viruses, internet games - even Cable TV ... GEEZ WHAT A SICK THOUGHT!

Go ahead and let them cap - it's a matter of time till they come around and see the light!

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mkogrady
09/05/2008
Posts:206

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