Comcast vs. BitTorrent, What’s Next?
Written by Ernesto on August 21, 2008Yesterday, the FCC ruled that Comcast’s network management practices that specifically targeted BitTorrent users, were unfair. The ruling is a small victory for Net Neutrality, but it wont stop ISPs from going after the heavy bandwidth users, not at all.
Comcast was ordered to stop slowing down BitTorrent users before the end of the year. In addition, the company has to disclose all “network managing” practices.
The FCC’s final decision came exactly a year after we first reported on the issue. Initially, Comcast flatout denied that they were slowing down BitTorrent users, but after AP confirmed our reports, mainstream media picked it up and the FCC got involved. FCC argues that Comcast’s actions are unfair because they specifically target BitTorrent, not any other protocols.
Good news right? So BitTorrent users will soon be able to download at blazing speeds again? Well, not really. A neutral net wont stop ISPs from slowing down their customers. Now they simply have to slow down everyone - and that’s exactly what their plan is. Comcast already said that they will move on, and throttle bandwidth hogs at peak times when needed. On top of that, they are enforcing a monthly bandwidth limit, not hesitating to disconnect people who use more than they should.
Comcast is taking these measures under the “reasonable network management” flag. However, what is reasonable now (if it is), might not be one or two years from now. The problem is that the ISPs are the ones who decide what the limits should be, meaning they can pretty much do whatever they want.
Several ISPs have already started to experiment with new tools to prevent customers from using too much bandwidth. Comcast will slow down all heavy bandwidth users, and Time Warner Cable is testing metered plans, where users will pay for the bandwidth they transfer. Worrying developments, to say the least.
Some might not see a problem with metered plans. We pay for water and gasoline in pretty much the same way. This is indeed true, but there’s also a danger in metering the Internet. It will restrict innovation (heavy bandwidth apps), and the use of high bandwidth video streaming may become something for the elite.
One thing is clear, BitTorrent users will be the main targets of these new “business models”. It was therefore surprising to see comments from Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer of BitTorrent, on these initiatives. “I think what Comcast and Time Warner Cable are doing is a great first step,” Klinker told Cnet. “It gets ISPs out of the business of deciding which applications are important and which aren’t. But there are enhancements to the peer-to-peer protocol, in particular, that can make it easier on all ISPs.”
Net neutrality is not the Holy Grail though - a neutral net is useless if it’s slower than a biased one. Klinker agreed on this, and told us that he doesn’t think that these new business models, or network management practices, are a good long term strategy. “This is a step in the right direction because ISPs are indeed making their networks more “neutral” without new legislation requiring them to do so,” he told TorrentFreak. “But make no mistake, bandwidth caps and metered plans are bad for the Internet and could stunt the adoption and growth of all broadband services.”
Network expert Robb Topolski, who was the first to document Comcast’s unfair network management practices, thinks that ISPs might experiment with new network management tools, but that these wont stick. When we asked him whether he thinks the FCC ruling will lead to more bandwidth caps and metered plans, he said: “If it does, then something has gone wrong with competition. Customers clearly don’t want metered plans and bandwidth caps. There might be some ISPs that experiment with these, but I don’t see it happening.”
Let’s hope Robb is right. Of course, we applaud the FCC ruling, but we have a strange feeling that ISPs will continue to fight their customers for a while. They should, of course, move on and invest in the future. BitTorrent is here to stay, files will get larger, and more bandwidth intensive services will surface, really.
Previously: UK Game Piracy: Propaganda, Evidence and Damages
Next: Noel Gallagher of Oasis Speaks Out on Piracy
76 Responses
My ISP Telus, is too stupid to throttle me, or cut me off after 60gb.
Viva Canada!
Dial up here I come
Its simple to prove that Cumcast is slowing down your speeds with the recent evidence brought forth. Depending on what kind of contract you hold with them (assuming youve read and understood all fine print), you can sue their collective half-retarded asses for breach of contract. In fact, im surprised there hasnt been a class action lawsuit against them already. I guess it just goes to show how meek and ignorant the American Public are.
My advice to those who can prove illegal bandwidth throttling: SUE SUE SUE. SUE UNTIL YOURE BLUE IN THE FACE.
It is, after all, the only way you can get any sort of justice anymore in these United States of the Criminally Insane and Ignorant a.k.a The United States of America.
Bell Sympatico in Canada is throttling torrent users still.
Wooow, fuck you comcast. I have been a Comcast user for about 2 years now, and you can definately see a difference in uploading. The speed goes really high, than just stops and goes to ‘0′, and this goes on and on…..
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
http://www.petitiononline.com/ccupload/petition.html
Australias internet has always been capped, due to our telecom monopoly (telstra) charging ISPs per unit of data going over their lines. You learn to deal with it
Metered plans … a capitalist agenda
　 _ 　∩
(　ﾟ∀ﾟ)彡　若槻åƒå¤ï¼è‹¥æ§»åƒå¤ï¼
　⊂彡
I think the CRTC Vs ROGERS\BELL… should be next..
“We pay for water and gasoline” sadly tho most ISPs do not allow one to buy more gigs instead they would rather charge insane rates per gig and gouge the consumer. How hard is it to not suck and be like teksavvy.ca and offer affordable plans for people use the internet, they can add +100gig for 10 bucks(for as much bandwith as you need or want). Which i consider very fair considering the only other competition here is telus and shaw and they have 60gig limits tho telus does not really enforce them like shaw does. Shaw makes me pay like 50% more so i can have 30 more gig(per month) by changing my account to buisness. Since shaw gives me shit each month now i will likly be a teksavvy user soon. I mean really how hard can it be to add the option to DL/UL as much as i did in 1999 in 2008. Almost ten years later and reasonable options that could profit both the customer and ISPs are just not an option from most major ISPs.
Good thing i do not live on the other side of canada where bell abuses their power in every way possible.
@9 That would be sweet. 9 hours a day cwe are throttled by Bell. AND we are charged ($30) for bandwidth over 60gb. Should be one or the other
“This is a step in the right direction because ISPs are indeed making their networks more “neutral” without new legislation requiring them to do so,” he told TorrentFreak.
—-
uhh what? Eric Klinker is either a fucking liar or thinks the internet is a series of tubes (in which case he shouldnt be CEO of any internets). maybe he forgets that big isp’s have been trying to blackmail google for more bandwidth money?
“Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google’s ‘Free Lunch’”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601624.html
if anyone from torrentfreak can pass this on to him, please do.
“This is a step in the right direction because ISPs are indeed making their networks more “neutral” without new legislation requiring them to do so,” he told TorrentFreak.
—-
uhh what? Eric Klinker is either a liar or thinks the internet is a series of tubes (in which case he shouldnt be CEO of any internets). maybe he forgets that big isp’s have been trying to blackmail google for more bandwidth money?
“Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google’s ‘Free Lunch’”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601624.html
if anyone from torrentfreak can pass this on to him, please do. (caught swear filter, posted again.)
#6 is right australia’s net has always been capped….and this is why video streaming and similar applications are impossible to undertake here
The grammar in the both synaptic lead-in is incredibly horrid
I’m an American living in Sydney. At first I was appalled to hear that there were bandwidth caps- but I’ve learned to deal, and it isn’t terrible. I use TPG Internet, they have a 150 GB plan (40 GB during peak hours (9am-3am) and 110 GB during off-peak (3am-9am)). Now those hours do NOT work with my schedule. But fortunately with most torrent applications you have your own throttling scheduler. So I almost all of my actual downloading while I sleep. The remaining 40GB for daytime use is more than enough for my wife and I (we use Skype, and do basic web browsing).
I don’t love the idea of caps, and miss my unlimited connection, but I would hesitate to call them a capitalist agenda…!
Furthermore, there isn’t much point in whining about it, because things are headed in that direction. They hold all the cards here- hell, they’re the ones who set up the poker table, employ the card dealer and pay the mortgage for the casino!
I’m from the states but I took a look at teksavvy.ca and I am really jealous of what they have going! I recommend Canadians have a look for themselves
As soon as FiOS is available in my area, Comcast is going to be thrown out of my house in the cold and then we’ll see who’s boss.
Двиньте к ÑоветÑкой РоÑÑии! Интернет пропуÑкает как Ñвободно как водочка и Ñдерные оÑнованиÑ
I hope my American friends get an option via some ISP who just gives them the best Internet possible. As it is, due to their ignorance & apathy they suffer a lot. But its their own doing.
In the UK, I could never pay by the GB or have an allowence. It’s to limiting.
Surely with all this wireless technology, some day we could come up with more independant ways of joining the net e.g. WiMax, even if it wouldn’t give an even bandwidth internationally
Most ISPs here in Australia have some pathetic limit ranging from $99/20gB (Optus) to $49/25gB (TPG).
We are in a monopolistic situation, with Telstra’s Bigpond Branch owning (it seems) the entire cable and phoneline network. All the other ISPs need to buy and re-sell off them.
I am yet to see - with the exception of wireless plans - a pay-per-gB plan.
My plan is essentially unlimited, as I pay 69.99 p/m for ADSL2+ 150gB on TPG, and once over this limit, your speed is (within 2 WHOLE DAYS) capped to a rate of 256/64. All excess usage is free.
TELSTRA CUSTOMERS: THERE IS A GLITCH IN THEIR SYSTEM - ON THE DAY THAT YOUR MONTHLY DATA ALLOWANCE ROLLS OVER/RENEWS, THE SPEED IS LIGHTNING FAST AND NO BANDWIDTH IS RECORDED AS BEING USED…
Try it, it’s been working for my mate for a few months now. This Tuesday is DOWNLOAD DAY!
Cheers and Peace.
I think the future of this kind of things is that people will start using multiple line routers and related software… have thougth of it myself too. The up time of most ISP’s in the (cheap) ISP’s is not the best around… thats when I started thinking about splitting in / out going capacity… will do so also when limiters kick in.
If you look at what competition breeds in Canada the smaller ISPS(tekavvy excluded)look at this ISP bandwidth policy
http://www.shockware.com/bandwidth.html
“Our average user uses approximately 1 Gig per month. Customers that display excessive usage will be asked to curtail that usage and/or convert to a metered plan that is priced to reflect the usage of Bandwidth they consume. As for now, ShockWare reserves the right to determine that the user is at a reasonable level and enforce an excessive rate of $10.00 per/Gig. It is ShockWare’s wish to not have to enforce this requirement if the user stays to a reasonable level, but once again ShockWare reserves the right to determine if a user is operating at a reasonable usage level.”
Seems to be the idea for most Canadian wireless providers to just overcharge instead of build any infrastructure. Not to mention telus/other company’s want to charge 15cents for a mobile text msgs(abuse of power much?). Good plan lock em into long term contract and make the technology only usable if you have deep pockets…
Step 1 Overcharge
Step 2 Fail your customers needs
Step 3 Profit?
@17 - rite on!
I have been stuck with Comcast for about 3 years now. In the Chicagoland area they hold a huge monopoly and they really are the only option in cable. When Verizon’s service come’s around I will be all up in that haha!
Screw ya Comcast!
Comcast users, sign this petition!:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ccupload/petition.html
This is retarded in every way. The broadband buisness is highly competitive (at least in the UK) and so one ISP introducing throttling and higher prices will only result in:
Fewer Customers -> Lower Profits -> The need to raise prices -> Fewer Customers…..
Is suppose this could be Comcast’s big plan to reduce the number of customers they have, and so not have the need to throttle the traffic. Clever! (way to fail!)
Comcast users, sign this petition!:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ccupload/petition.html
Wow, good thing to live in Switzerland. No problems with Bandwidth and they can’t disconect or slow down heavy users due to new laws :)
And the fact that there is a project to bring Glasfibre to every house till 2011 makes even more hope.
if there offering 20mb bandwith, they should givew you 20mb bandwith 24/7. if they cant handle it or afford to sell it customers, then simply dont sell it
@ 1
Lets hope they dont read this then!! ;-)
We’ve had bandwidth caps in Australia for years. From experience, I know how much they suck and I wish we didn’t have them. Usually, after the limits are exceeded, the user’s speed is throttled to a mind boggling 64kbps for the remainder of the billing period (though this may vary slightly between ISPs). I exceeded the limit on my own account far too often.
But since I moved to Europe last year, I’ve had uncapped broadband, and on some days here, I’ve managed to download more than I could in a whole month over there.
So what I’d recommend is once Comcast starts imposing bandwidth caps, switch to an ISP that doesn’t. It’s a long shot, but if they lose enough customers because of it, it might prevent other ISPs following suit.
I personally dont download material via bittorrent (except the odd linux distro) however all this capping and targetting of heavy use users could impact on me.
I watch alot of streaming media via the BBCplayer site due to missing my favourite shows when Im at work (I dont have a video recorder or sky+) I would estimate that my bandwidth usage is quite high and comparable to that of the average downloader on bittorrent. Am I going to penalized for doing what my service provider encourages me to do? that is watch multi-media streaming content at fast speeds? and if the BT community is sucking up the bandwidth, why are my streaming actions any better. It may not fall into the same category at downloading from BT, but Im still sucking up bandwidth.
Ask me if Im surprised the court allowed them so much interpretive wriggle-room… Why not give Comcast an award while they’re at it…?
Hey numbskull #1… Telus suspended me for bandwidth before. They keep track, believe me… You should go check the email address that telus gave you when you signed up w/ them… I think you’ll be surprised at how many infringement/bandwidth notices you have in that email addy… One day you’ll get a call from The Internet Abuse Desk with a warning and then if it persists, a call informing you you have been suspended for 30 days. I honestly thought I was going to die… I made it 2 days and called Shaw.. I now have two IPs and two ISPs in my residence. Telus is slow, btw…
@ 22… Shockware sounds like tomorrow’s has-been. 1GB, eh? Shit, I do that in email and FTP alone. In a week, even… Australia is still worse off than us. I get 100GB from Shaw and 60 GB from Telus. The speed of the Shaw connection is vastly superior to Telus, however the max 140/kbps up is lacking…. Once again Telus is worse.
The ISP’s are bassicly saying.. ‘we are so weak and behind in technology that we have to step back and throttle and cap our users like the old days’ …
let me just say.. other countries are laughing at you.
@ 32… I agree.
Americans have been spoon-fed the idea that NO ONE else in the world has it as good as them. I’m pretty sure most cold-war era Russians knew they were getting a raw deal. But Americans will blithely march into jail so long as they think they’ll look awesome doing it. Even us Canadians are a bunch of wafflers and self back-patters. Vanity is the biggest problem our North American societies have. I kinda think it’s what other cultures loathe so much about us, our ignorant arrogance. Thanks Hollywood.
http://beascener.com
Wow, that Shockware this is insane. 10$ a gig? A lot of people do that many many times over in one day.
To the ISPs: If you want to offer 10Mbit, let me use it. If your infrastructure isn’t developed enough to let me use it, don’t offer that speed or improve your infrastructure.
It’s silly to offer me a gym pass then get mad when I use it whenever I can.
Thank god i’m from Denmark, i’ve been using uncapped and unmetered broadband since the year 2000 (roughly). Now i’m sitting with a mindblowing 10/2 Mbits ADSL line, and if i wanted to, i could let it roll full capacity 24/7/365 and my isp wouldn’t say anything, oh, maybe they would wan’t to opgrade my line… for free, as they have done countless times by now ;D
The next thing i’m waiting for, is a fiber optic line, so that i get a synced line, and that would then be 10/10 mbits and up, alot of people here in Denmark got these speeds already, but thats mostly in the country side, us in the city have to live with ADSL2+, soon to be VDSL ^^
I guess it most look like paradise to the Americans :P
ahhhh they saw that bell canada gets away with it, rogers in canada gets away with it so HEY WHY DONT WE SCREW YOU ALL LIKE CANADA
i told you it was coming
soon north american speeds will be all at 30Kbytes , NEXT UP
LETS F EUROPE
and then a nice little lady sued telus ……
AND GUESS WHAT SHE WON
Ha, interesting situation you guys have in the US. Here in Russia in Moscow they have fast internet connection for a reasonable cost.
19,5 USD 2560 Kbit/sec
28 USD 7500 Kbit/seÑ
38 USD 12500 Kbit/seÑ
56.5 USD 25000 Kbit/seÑ
But once you set out of Moscow prices for the Internet access are increasingly high. In my area for example I pay 65 USD for 512 Kbit/sec see the difference?
Why not just change Isp? Must be some who is not throtteling or restrict the connection, right?
this site sux
tf is sh!!t
@44
Russia is sh!!t.
@44
19,5 USD 2560 Kbit/sec
28 USD 7500 Kbit/seÑ
38 USD 12500 Kbit/seÑ
56.5 USD 25000 Kbit/seÑ
whats that in mbit?
LOL, Rest assured they will find another excuse to block BT users. Its what big companies with deep pockets do!
JR
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
Funny how far the technology is behind normal standards in the USA. I have at least 2 TByte ( Yes 2000 GB ) a year here in Germany and i am not a hardcore Guy. “Kumpels” of me have RSS feeds on and have two to three the amount of data streamed to their PC´s ( just think of Wrestling Shows and all ( yes all ) movies just to be on the safe side type of guy )
Amazing that in the so called free country of USA this is happening….
Amazed and dazed in Germany ..
and asian and scandanavian countries ISP’s are what? oh yeah fiber and faster and what else? oh yeah cheaper. if these crooks spent their money on better infrastructure instead of viciously protecting their little pile of sand, bandwidth wouldnt be such an issue. but i guess hoard and punish is better than expand and upgrade. pathetic.
Another prime example of thieves (bit torrent users in this case) making life miserable for everyone. If they’d just buy thier movies, books, software and nusic like everyone else, this wouldn’t be an issue. Now go on, tell me all the other wonderful uses of bit torrent and how its legal and all that… c’mon, we all know if you weren’t getting free stuff (stealing) there would be no one using it.
@48
19,5 USD 2,560 Mbit/sec
28 USD 7,500 Mbit/seÑ
38 USD 12,500 Mbit/seÑ
56.5 USD 25,000 Mbit/seÑ
@47 Go f*ck yourself, bustard. But I would not say that Russia is heaven too.
The internet has become so unethical. You can steal music, steal movies, and a couple of days ago, I even stumbled upon this website http://freelancenotes.com that lets you steal other people\’s homework. I think ISPs should look into internet pirating.
We see how this affects bitorrent users, but what about gamers?
I know i play mmorpg’s and yes that does take a lot of bandwith. Just last night I was downloading a patch for the Wow Beta and poof uh oh I’m behind a “firewall”
With bandwidth throttling only the bittorrent protocol was being targeted. With the FCC ruling, ISP’s will indeed move to alternative means of exploiting their customers. This means that all heavy bandwidth users are now going to be punished regardless of the protocol/program being used to download (HTTP, FTP, Usenet, etc).
Due to where I live, my choices are pretty limited when it comes to television services. For several years now I’ve dreamed of the day when I would be able to choose an HD service from one of many online providers worldwide instead of being restricted to a local one (all of which are poor quality). Unfortunately it is starting to look like that may never happen. So much for innovation. ISP’s should be working towards having enough bandwidth so that everyone could subscribe to HD television services via the internet and even be a part of that entertainment market which I’m sure is just waiting to explode.
It seems to me that ISP’s these days would rather pocket any short term profits they make now rather than reinvesting it into the future like they should be doing. Fighting what their customers want is a really odd stance to take too. The only thing I can see happening if they stick with plans to meter bandwidth with outrageous overuse costs is the eventual loss of many of their customers. None of it makes any long term business sense at all.
I guess if you’re an affected customer you have to ask yourself if you really need what they’re offering. I know that if I could no longer download large files and there wasn’t an alternative service to take my business to, I would find the cheapest dial-up service I could and switch to that, provided I actually need the internet at all. The internet may be wonderful, but it’s not like we’ll all die without it. The best thing people can do is show they’re opinion by canceling their internet service, letting the ISP’s know why, and telling them point blank what it would take to get you back. Make sure they know that you will be suggesting to all friends and family they do the same as well. Things will never change unless people make a stand for what they believe in.
@Perrin J
I don’t know about “making life miserable for everyone” as anyone downloading content for free are probably not going to be feeling so miserable afterwards. But, sure, “if they’d just buy their movies, books, software” … but that’s not reality now, is it. Wish all you want but people won’t because people primarily function to serve their own interest. Say a prayer or something if you’re religious, maybe that’ll work for you? And to finish of; actually there would still be a fair number of people using BitTorrent technology even if nobody swapped illegal content. It’d surely be a massive drop in BitTorrent usage, no doubt, but it IS still a very useful technology that people and companies DO use for legitimate content distribution.
@ Kathryn
The “Internet” isn’t “unethical”, people are, in exactly the same way as they are in the ‘physical’ world. So-called “unethical” people utilise the capabilities of the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY to exchange information. So long as the capability exists people will continue to use it to satisfy their personal desires. That might be a shit pill to swallow, but it’s reality. Computer technology dropped a nice big bag of spanners into the gears of many information-based industries. Modern IT nullified the fucking traditional systems and there’s little you can do but adapt to it.
It’s not a fight between people, it’s a fight between technological systems, with humans virtually just tertiary actors caught in the battle.
…
Re: Comcast/FCC - I can’t help but be suspicious of some angle being played here. Seems to me that it’d be somewhat un-American NOT to bend primarily toward support for the corporate interest. I’ll assume that it is and I’m so far just too dumb to see it.
Cables done, DSL in.
Big pile of poop.
Once you hear about a starting ISP that will say “They do it but we wont” and froopty-loopty, suddenly that starting ISP will get popular and Comcast will do anything to get their precious costumers back.
Worrying developments indeed. I can already see that these companies are pretty much going to cripple the Internet. I’m really surprised that Companies like Microsoft, Sony, Google, etc. Haven’t taken a tougher stand against ISP’s looking for the cheap way out instead of doing the upgrades they should.
The U.S. is lagging behind in Bandwidth (way way behind) as it is because the corporations want to squeeze as much money out of us without paying to upgrade their services.
“3 Aug 22, 2008 at 00:11 by Dissent is Guaranteed”
Its simple to prove that Cumcast is slowing down your speeds with the recent evidence brought forth. Depending on what kind of contract you hold with them (assuming youve read and understood all fine print), you can sue their collective half-retarded asses for breach of contract. In fact, im surprised there hasnt been a class action lawsuit against them already. I guess it just goes to show how meek and ignorant the American Public are.
My advice to those who can prove illegal bandwidth throttling: SUE SUE SUE. SUE UNTIL YOURE BLUE IN THE FACE.
It is, after all, the only way you can get any sort of justice anymore in these United States of the Criminally Insane and Ignorant a.k.a The United States of America.”
I generally agree with the sentiment but if you look deeper, I think you’ll find the majority of people will have no case if they go to court.
The standard agreements for residential customers do not guarantee anything. In most jurisdictions your best “guarantee” is that Comcast will “do its best” to give you what you pay for. You may even see a mediation clause in there, meaning you’ll have a tougher time getting a case into court.
Yeah it sucks, but you DID agree to it, even if through 10 pages of fine print.
Most just don’t realize what they actually signed up for.
Business/SLA class customers who are “managed” against their agreements have a much better chance for successful litigation.
i swear people seriously change ISP’s Comcast needs to learn that we are not sheep we will leave if the service stinks.
Looks like I’ll have to be going back to Frontier. I download/upload about 50gb a day. If they are going to have caps I don’t know what will happen.
Best to make sure you got a good shell.
This is also Comcast’s way of undermining the budding streaming TV upstarts like Americafree.tv and TVUnetworks. They don’t want to risk losing the cable TV customer cash cow to Internet based entertainment platforms. If they are going to provide Internet service for a price then they should refrain from throttling bandwidth to curb competition. All this will do is force the supply and demand to favor other providers that don’t mess with their paying customers. But then Comcast was never famous for fair practices.
So what good are Concast’s 9Mbps connections going to be if they slow down streaming and file sharing? Will people go for it just to do super-fast spam downloads into Outlook?
@23
Your an idiot. I had Bigpond it was terrible and i had that glitch but you have been very smart to tell everyone.
So the next time they go through there system and check someone has extra large bandwidth they will charge your mate. So good idea moron and remember to tell your friend its only $110/gig over or nice lawsuit.
ISP’s that start slowing all traffic of setting some limits to how much you can download/upload will lose lots of customers. I dont think i will have that problem in few years but if/when it happens i will not wait one minute to change isp. If all isp’s limit speeds or download amounts then ill take the slowest and cheapest connection so i will be connected but wont pay much.
Hey comcast go suck your commie bros DICK!!!!!!!!!FREEDMON WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY ARE OWN!!! AND YOU ARE DAMNED SURE NOT ONE OF US….ps. rot in hell
ok
heres what i do not get
give every one 5 megabit internet , build the infrastructure so that 95% can use at unlimited speed
problem solved
move along
quite whining the fact is that this is what it is supposed ot be not some form a corporate schill cash
i swear i can see why osama blew up a corporate building sad yes the loss of life but these noobs have to realize:
A) they are destroying the planet , and not doing anyhting of value for any of us.
B) when cdrs reach 30$ again , then what. I will tell you. hacker wireless streams that bounce town to town with your lovely xvids and dvdrs, roaming little vans broadcasting out the cool shite, kinda like a reborn BBS of the days of old. YE can’t Stop er ARGGGGG Matey.
Here in Portugal, bandwith caps were (and still are) the market norm. Only very recently have some ISPs adopted unlimited monthly transfers into their available plans.
Funny to see how our market is slowly seeing the light as others previously seen as ground breakers are turning to these high-profit, who cares about the consumer, business practices. The only way to defeat this is to educate the average consumer to demand unlimited access. People in Portugal didn’t use to complain, until several years of campaigning from informed users made the average user base realize we were being exploited.
It would seem the US has gone through the inverse process. As the average consumer is depicted as consistently less informed/interested in his service conditions, the more aggressive the ISPs become to exploit him.
#19 — “As soon as FiOS is available in my area, Comcast is going to be thrown out of my house in the cold and then we’ll see who’s boss.”
Same here I already switched my phones over to verizon ^^
I have heard been watching all of the ideas of metering plans and what excessive data usage might be. Well say you own maybe WoW im sure that is a bandwidth hog all its own and with other games such as Warcraft, Starcraft 2 being played online what isp has the right to determine what an excessive usage. All that will be done is make things like the 56k dialup days where files were shared in a manor that there were 50 parts at 4mb or a so a piece take a 3gig file and break it down to 500mb segments and you still have the same file. Or with the uprising of Wifi A,B,G,N networks using WEP/WPA encryption or none at all are easy prey to obtain the network-key and waste their bandwidth racking up $100’s if not $1000’s about 70% of computer users are such novices they would never know someone has done this. It will be a great lose to the advancement of any furthering of technology. Once again it is an example of the rich wanting to get richer and the people who depend on a service taking the hit in pocket book.
Aug 26, 2008 at 06:04 by pirates ahoy be proud we have them worried
heres what i do not get
give every one 5 megabit internet , build the infrastructure so that 95% can use at unlimited speed
a reply to this is. their networks do handle it as cable is a shared network more people on it means lower speeds. however the RIAA and MPAA are losing over and over of getting peoples information from the ISP so the Major Record labels and Movie Company’s said fine we are holding the ISP’s responsible for this. If people really wanted to pirate things they will. It has gone on since BETA and VHS and tapes and has not stopped. When will the big guys learn that it never will stop.
that is my 2 cents anyhow
ComCast added VoIP, HD digital channels…and low-quality digital channels — cutting into total bandwidth shared between their cable internet customers. They don’t want to sacrifice another tv channel for more users’ bandwidth…so more users now have less to share! ComCast by my estimates has a contention rate of about 50:1 — that means they only have 1/50th as much REAL bandwidth as everyone running at 100% would use. Even at absolute best, they don’t top 20:1 contention rate…except maybe for very low customer areas. As bad as 20:1 sounds, few people use anywhere near 95% max 24/7 — certainly not down AND up at the same time! But during peak hours even 20:1 might be too little for each person. They are using up most of their infrastructure gains (DOCSIS 2->3) by increasing top tier from 16/2 mbit to 50/5 mbit and leaving little room for increased customer usage! Because of that, contention ratios might even get WORSE! So now they cap. Another ISP could offer slower speeds with no cap or throttling (beyond perhaps worst-case-scenario peak hours) and cost almost as much…and customers will flock to it once ComCast really starts enforcing the caps.
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.