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Blog: Internet Wanna Blow Your Bandwidth Limit? Buy Business Class
Tom Corelis (Blog) - November 19, 2008 1:10 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 27 comment(s) - last by MatthiasF.. on Nov 24 at 2:13 AM
Comcast’s 250GB limit only applies to residential customers

Bandwidth caps all the rage amongst ISPs nowadays, and internet users fond of downloading will find themselves forced to curtail their usage – or not?

With Comcast ramping up internet speeds to 50 Mbps for subscribers, more and more internet users will find that niggly 250 GB limit hitting closer to home. As some of you pointed out in my October Comcast article, it’s surprisingly easy to blow past this limit at peak speeds: at 50 million bits per second, one could consume 2 trillion bits (or 250 gigabytes) in about 667 minutes, or just over 11 hours.

While it’s unreasonable to suggest that a substantial amount of subscribers will actually cross the 250 GB mark so quickly – or even find enough data to download to satisfy that kind of need – the concept of such an easily-achievable threshold brings up a number of interesting concerns. What’s going to happen with the upcoming wave of high-def internet video? Or the fact that more and more videogames are purchasable and playable exclusively online?

But instead of going down that road again, I’d much rather offer Comcast subscribers a simple piece of advice: if you really, really see yourself crossing that 250 GB limit with your shiny new wideband service, then avoid the headaches and buy a business-class line.

I confirmed this with Comcast representative Charlie Douglas yesterday. In a brief e-mail exchange, Douglas repeated Comcast’s policy and pointed me towards the company’s Acceptable Use FAQ, which clearly states:

“Excessive use means bandwidth or data usage that is significantly higher than typical residential usage … As of October 1, 2008, data usage above 250 Gigabytes ("GB") per month per Comcast High-Speed Internet residential customer account is considered excessive.”

It’s not the cheapest option – the extra $30-50 a month isn’t easy to swallow – but it’s the secret flipside of rather simple, three-possibility choice: stay under the limit, cross the limit and let your story be heard, or purchase a tier of service where you don’t have to worry about it. I hate the fact that that’s how it’s got to be – the fewest rules only for those who can afford it – but, as they say, them’s the breaks.

Of course, as a business-class SBC DSL customer – thanks, Time Warner, for offering service to the house in front of mine! – sometimes the higher tier has its perks. My encounters with gold-tier (or whatever they call it) SBC technicians are, generally speaking, more productive and my inner server geek certainly loves the block of static IPs. I can’t speak for the people who run Comcast’s business-service unit, but it seems like there are certainly a few more perks then the lack of a cap.

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Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By 3DoubleD on 11/19/2008 5:17:15 PM , Rating: 3
Do you want to know how I know this? Say I buy cabled service... and say I have an HD channel. Typical HD program bitrates are on the order of 10-19 mbit/s (reference: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew... ). Say I left my TV on this channel for 24 hours a day for 30 days (720 hours, 2,292,000 seconds) and the average bitrate was 14.5 mbit/s (15,204,352 bits). I will have successfully downloaded 2,292,000 seconds x 15,204,352 bits = 3.4848 x10^13 bits = 3.9 TB (Terabytes, not bits). That is ~16 times more than the 250 GB limit. I wonder if there is anything in the terms of use for cable TV that prohibits the duration of my viewing? The funny thing is that you don't even need to turn your TV on to do this, you just have to leave your HDTV cable box on. I'm sure this is the case for many people with HD cable TV. They should probably work on a way to detect whether the TV is in use or not such that the cable box doesn't demand a signal, that would yield them much more bandwidth freedom than enforcing bandwidth caps.

I am skeptical of this calculation though, as it is a ridiculously stupid distribution method. Perhaps I don't fully understand how the cable TV signal is supplied to the home, but I imagine it is not much different than how cable internet is delivered to the home, hence my comparison. If anyone has a better understanding and can shed some light on the situation, I'd certainly appreciate it.

The only method of lessening the demand for the cable provider is to have "servers" in each neighborhood that receive all channels from the TV station and forward these stations at the request of local users. This works since the data being sent to each user is identical and greatly reduces traffic on backbone fiber optic lines. For Internet use, this data must be handled on an individual basis, thus must travel across the network to whichever server they are communicating with. So the 4 TB/mo of data transmitted in the previous calculation would only be from the local "server" and would only hog bandwidth on the cable running under their own street.

Anyway, I understand telecom companies make much more money selling TV than they do providing internet service. Not only do they get the customer to pay them outrageous monthly rates, but they also collect advertising money. Still, the distribution method (as I understand it) is incredibly inefficient, where people could be receiving a signal (hogging bandwidth) without even watching TV. I would think the On Demand distribution model would be vastly superior. Even if it means less commercial air time, the infrastructure needed is incredibly smaller.




By mindless1 on 11/19/2008 6:37:28 PM , Rating: 2
They have to be able to allocate enough bandwidth to serve everyone during peak periods of TV watching, like the evenings. Unlike with typical buffered or non-realtime internet surfing, the TV stream is constantly more time-sensitive.


RE: Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By Captain Orgazmo on 11/19/2008 11:42:18 PM , Rating: 3
Think of cable as sort of a wired form of radio. When you listen to the radio, you pick the station by tuning into a specific frequency. There are many stations transmitting at the same time, but you only pick up the station you are tuned in to.

Cable operates on the same principle. Most of the frequencies contain analog TV signals, some contain digital TV signals, and a very small section of the frequency "bandwidth" is dedicated to internet.

TV channels (digital or analog, but not video on demand) are transmitted whether you watch them or not, like radio stations. Internet is a two way data communication, being placed over an infrastructure which was never initially designed with it in mind (as it hadn't been even remotely invented when cable first appeared).


RE: Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By 3DoubleD on 11/20/2008 8:47:28 AM , Rating: 2
I suspected that was the case but after 20 min of searching I couldn't find proof either way. So basically, the bandwidth used by TV signals is dramatically larger than that of the internet. If the TV signals were cut down or eliminated, this *could* leave a dramatic amount of room for internet bandwidth. I say could because as you point out, cable was never designed with the internet in mind.

I just really wish a FIOS-like alternative was brought to my area... or Verizon came to Canada!

Thanks for the info.


RE: Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By CZroe on 11/22/2008 11:33:50 AM , Rating: 2
That's exactly what IPTV is supposed to provide. ONE huge data pipe with only the requested content using bandwidth.


RE: Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By MatthiasF on 11/20/2008 3:45:01 PM , Rating: 2
Most major cable providers don't offer analog service anymore, so your explanation is incorrect.

A channel is only streamed if requested, but can stream more than one channel at a time (allowing a DVR to record a station you're not watching).

Cable providers' push to digital has the same benefits as the broadcast television push to digital transmission. Less frequencies are wasted so more streams can be created. To take things a step further, a video proxy system is employed to spread the content into strategically/geographically chosen locations on the network to save on transmission costs.

All this effort was meant to open up a lot more bandwidth on the cable networks but it is unlikely we the consumers will be allowed to use more than a single stream for internet service.

Why? Because the real cost of the Internet is on the uploader or transmitter. All of the traffic mentioned above does not touch the Internet, so all it's costs are local to the cable provider.

When traffic hits the Internet, there's an unknown variable cost the cable providers need to accommodate. While they can use proxies to limit the cost on downloads, there is no way to proxy uploads (hence why upload speeds are generally lower).

Throw in customers that use always-transmitting, never-proxied applications like file-sharing services that cross between ISPs, and you'll see a huge part of their reason for not only despising music-sharing but also limiting service speeds.


RE: Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By 3DoubleD on 11/20/2008 8:02:05 PM , Rating: 2
I'm not sure why someone rated you down. That was one of the best explanations I've ever heard. Thanks


RE: Telecom Companies are Full of Sh*t
By CZroe on 11/22/2008 11:40:52 AM , Rating: 2
For one thing, he's wrong. Not only do all cable co's still offer analog service, for now, the FCC requires them to offer analog and unencrypted QAM streams digitally for the broadcast stations in their market. This means that, as the years go by, there will be a stronger push to get users on digital boxes (say goodbye to convenient multi-tuner media center PCs). That isn't to say that there isn't a current push... the current push is to free up the bandwidth dedicated to the hundreds of additional channels so that they can offer even more digital channels and telecom uses. Honestly, very few markets have more than 10 broadcast channels, so the bandwidth savings are still HUGE as is the incentive to just get the digital service.

His concepts are right. Going digital frees the cable for other money-making applications, but that's not the whole story. Digital stations still waste bandwidth if they aren't being watched, so the ultimate goal is IPTV, where channels only stream when you watch them.


By MatthiasF on 11/24/2008 2:13:36 AM , Rating: 2
The FCC requires cable companies to SUPPORT ANALOG TELEVISIONS, not transmit in analog, until 2012. Comcast and several other cable companies have already begun to cease transmitting analog in several of their markets. The speed at which they do so depends on the supply of convert boxes necessary to meet the FCC's demands.

Here in Maryland, Comcast dumped analog last summer. We were first because their HQ are here (not something I'm proud to admit).

The digital cable being rolled out by cable companies acts just like I explained. It is called "switched digital" and does not act like analog where all channels are streamed at once. A stream must be requested.

Here's a tutorial on the technology.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/switched-digi...


By PandaBear on 11/19/2008 1:51:01 PM , Rating: 2
So each of them get a dedicated IP and their own router. Problem solved.




By FITCamaro on 11/19/2008 2:04:26 PM , Rating: 2
Some neighbors do that.


By tastyratz on 11/19/2008 2:39:18 PM , Rating: 2
I definitely know more than 1 person with a wifi router that has neighbors that piggyback on and they all split the bill. Very common practice in close proximity housing.


By mjcutri on 11/19/2008 3:28:11 PM , Rating: 3
...and also illegal


By TomZ on 11/19/2008 4:01:20 PM , Rating: 2
What law is broken? It may be against the service terms and conditions, but I doubt it is illegal.


By mindless1 on 11/19/2008 6:33:47 PM , Rating: 2
Breech of contract will cause termination of service and possible lawsuit. They don't need to make a specific law barring sharing broadband service. However, obviously people do it without getting caught.


By marvdmartian on 11/20/2008 9:42:45 AM , Rating: 2
and also easy to act innocent, and say, "Gosh! They must have gotten the password for my router! How very upsetting!!"

It's only illegal if they can prove you intended to share, or re-sell, the bandwidth. Let's try to remember that the burden of proof is with the accuser, not the accused, shall we?


By Shining Arcanine on 11/21/2008 1:45:23 PM , Rating: 2
Why would it be illegal? You could start your own ISP using business connections you obtain via larger service providers. There is nothing wrong with that.


By EricMartello on 11/23/2008 3:22:22 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
...and also illegal


...and also no


Racialisticismal
By ggordonliddy on 11/19/2008 9:29:09 PM , Rating: 4
> niggly 250 GB limit

Why yo' gots be racialistic and such? Don't you know the country has come together and the world is ONE?




RE: Racialisticismal
By dtacct3 on 11/20/08, Rating: -1