Blog - Saturday October 4, 2008 - 9 Comments
Comcastic Broadband Cap Has Net Geeks Up In Arms!
Here’s a knee-slapper: “What did Comcast just say to its broadband customers?” Answer: “250GB of data per month ought to be enough bandwidth for anyone!” Get it? Sorry, it’s an inside joke.
In response to getting busted by the FCC for illegally throttling consumer Internet traffic, Comcast put a 250GB per billing cycle cap on consumer bandwidth. What does that mean? To exceed the 250GB cap you would need to watch about eight hours of online video every day for a month. Not likely, you say … perhaps. But, the International Data Corporation found that 81% of Americans questioned do not like the idea of establishing a broadband cap. While the sample size is rather small, 787 people, 51% of those asked claimed that they would change providers if their current service tried to enact a broadband cap. It should also be noted that according to John Donovan, CTO of AT&T, “One percent of the company’s customers account for 20% of the network usage; the top five percent account for 40% of the usage.” Other carriers have said that 5% of users can account for anywhere from 40-to-80 percent of bandwidth usage.
Comcast says that the 250GB cap equates to sending more than 50 million plain text emails, downloading 62,500 songs or 125 standard definition films at roughly 2GB each. Considering that the average user downloads roughly 2-3 GB’s per month, the 250GB cap doesn’t seem like it will affect that many people directly. But it will. There are very smart people, like Om Malik from gigaom.com, who have spent some quality time articulating why. Some of his reasons include: the high degree of dependency “interactions” between power users and the rest of the network, the growth trend due to consumers’ changes in content consumption and, the idea that carriers are taking the easy way out trying to protect the “walled garden” rather than figuring out how to innovate in service delivery and harvesting more value from the overall content and applications opportunity.
In its detailed response to the FCC’s August ruling, Comcast says that its “new approach will focus on managing the traffic of those individuals who are using the most bandwidth at times when network congestion threatens subscribers’ broadband experience and who are contributing disproportionately to such congestion at those points in time.” The Philadelphia-based company tested the new method this summer in five cities across the U.S. and reportedly received zero complaints. Comcast also notes that, according to current usage data, less than one percent of users will be affected by the limit.
While Comcast’s cap is rather generous, for the time being, there are other platforms currently being tested that aren’t so customer friendly. One specific platform is the pay-per-bit offer Time Warner Cable is testing in Texas. The platform test, currently being conducted in Beaumont, TX, offers users a 5GB and a 5-mbps connection for $30/month and 40GB at 15-mbps for $55/month. With consumer cloud services like Apple’s MobileMe and Amazon’s S3 becoming more popular, Netflix movie streaming service rolling out and BitTorrent and private clouds like RapidShare becoming more and more commonplace, it is conceivable that a relatively average consumer who occasionally likes to stream movies from Netflix and download music could exceed the 5GB limit month after month.
Comcast pays about the same amount of money for the bandwidth they sell you as you do. But, there’s a catch. They sell the same connection about 100 times. Have you ever noticed your Internet connection slowing down at peak times when you really need it … like 8pm on a weeknight? It’s because lots of people who have been sold the very bandwidth you have been sold are “contending” for the connection at the same time. Hummm …
When an Internet Service Provider, like Comcast, says that there is too much traffic on the network, you correctly assume that there is an infrastructure problem. But this particular aspect of the infrastructure has very little to do with the network congestion that Comcast is trying to solve with its cap.
It is this dramatic misunderstanding of the network topology that is causing all of the hoopla this week. You’ve got people who live in apartment buildings complaining that the cap is a good thing because it will preserve their network capacity. Wow, is that wrong? A lower over-subscriber ratio would help them right now without a cap.
However, the immortal words of whomever at Comcast said, “250GB of data per month ought to be enough bandwidth for anyone!” will be proven wrong in the long term. We are all going to need way more bandwidth than that. We’re going to want to watch HD video on a bunch of different monitors in different rooms at the same time (just like we watch TV), put our own creative material (including music and video we personally own) on servers in our homes and serve them to ourselves outside of our homes and much, much more. According to Nielsen Media Research, traditional television viewing exceeds eight hours per day per household in the United States. No matter how big our hard drives get, we seem to find stuff to fill them up with. Why should anyone believe that we won’t come up with zillions of ways to use bandwidth?
If we do, how will Comcast (or any provider) handle customers as they embrace all of the new technology being offered? They will do their best as they compete with telephone companies and broadband wireless providers for your bandwidth dollars. Bits and bytes are not dolled out by a monopoly, and if consumers push back hard enough, their dollars will buy what they want from someone.
What about Net Neutrality? That, my friends, is a bridge we’ll jump off when we come to it.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily news show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment, Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net
Comments
9 Responses to “Comcastic Broadband Cap Has Net Geeks Up In Arms!”Dean Collins October 5th, 2008 2:45 pm
Hi Shelly, I’m a strong supporter of bandwidth download
limits…..with a catch. If you want to introduce download limits
(eg time warner/comcast etc etc) it should be federally mandated
that you lose all rights to exclusivity. Thats correct - all rights
to exclusivity. So if Comcast wants to introduce an artifical cap
on download limits fine but they must give up exclusivity to their
isp infrastructure and their cable infrastructure and their content
delivery (eg tv) infrastructure etc. The rule of law enabling this
monopoly breakup should be that these artificial limits ‘restrict’
the growth of the American economy so for the good of the country
federally mandated fcc access right of way wholesale usage should
be offered to competing providers. In Australia where i am from
there is a long history of download limits with certain ISP’s (and
a user pay system to access higher download caps), however there is
nothing stopping another ISP coming along and offering a competing
ISP service with higher caps or lower prices or some other
tradeoffs. So any ISP wanting to offer ADSL internet access on
Telstra copper infrastructure has a government set wholesale access
price to provide a competing service over unbundled local loop.
This competition ensures that whilst people who aren’t affected by
download caps can stick with Telstra - other more advanced users
have other providers competing for their business. So Comcast make
your choice - net neutrality with no limits or restrictions
encouraging America to move forward with advanced services and
functionality or break up of your monopoly and giving p wholesale
access rights to your competitors. Choose. Cheers, Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net
Dave J October 5th, 2008 4:16 pm
I find ISP’s throttling and snooping on their client’s connections
to be absolutely intolerable. My current provider, Cablevision,
used to have a system by which they would place a ‘cap’ on your
connection if you uploaded at max (a paltry 230 or so KB a sec) for
any extended period of time. Depending on the time of day, or
traffic at your local node, you could get capped in minutes. Then
your upload would decrease to *15* KB/sec, and download would
suffer as well… for months and months. Here’s the kicker: they
wouldn’t tell you of this cap, unless you called them to complain.
Anyways, I have been to other people’s houses, who don’t even use
their connections much, and told them of their hidden cap. Even
though this is a different ISP than Comcast, I have to wonder what
ISPs can pull on your connection without telling you if
Cablevision’s actions went largely unnoticed. I know several people
who use their connections heavily, for 100% legal reasons. I ’seed’
Ubuntu Linux distros on BitTorrent all day and night, because I
feel forever indebted to the open source community for creating
said software, which is fantastic. P2P file sharing isn’t
inherently illegal. If I pay for a connection to the internet, by
golly, I’m going to use it! The only thing I can see
download/upload caps doing is slowing the growth of server-centered
file storage/distribution (or “cloud computing”). YouTube, google
docs, etc. included. We’re moving to a period where most data is
stored remotely, on a server. Obviously that entails using a lot of
bandwidth to access those files. That shouldn’t coincide with ISPs
throwing their hands up in the air because they are hesitant to
upgrade their infrastructure, which is already light-years behind
what other metropolitan communities like Tokyo have (100+ megabit
fiber on the cheap, anyone?).
James Hand October 6th, 2008 1:25 pm
it would be interesting if Comcast would include usage information
along with their internet service bill. i also don’t see VOIP
mentioned, but assume it would also go against the limit.
Paula Lynn October 6th, 2008 7:29 pm
I would like to hear some opinions about Verizon. In the high
traffic hours, I lose my connection. Speaking with Verizon techs is
like talking to a wall. Thank you.
Scott Berry October 9th, 2008 8:47 am
Shelly, Interestingly enough, Net Neutrality–in the absense of
last mile competition–is the biggest impetus to this kind of cap.
As you correctly note, oversubscription causes slower connections
for everyone. But the telecablecos won’t invest in new
infrastructure (or ease the oversubscription) without a visible
large return. Net neutrality prevents them ffrom erecting the kind
of walled gardens that could be used to extract additional profit
from either content providers or consumers. So in their myopic way
they’re forced to restrict usage. (BTW, I’m all for NetNeut, just
not for it being legislated.) And as I’ve written before on my
blog, Comcast isn’t even solving the right problem–it’s download
speed, not capacity, that’s the culprit. Capacity’s just easier to
deal with in a drunk-under-the-streetlamp kind of way. Until we see
real last-mile competition, the telecablecos will continue to play
these kinds of games, instead of delivering innovation consumers
want.
Mike Simon October 9th, 2008 10:33 pm
Unless ISP’s can guarantee 100% throughput to every customer
simultaneously, they should have no right right to cap connections.
It’s one thing to cap connections at the maximum you can download
with your connection speed in a 30 day period, but if an ISP can’t
live up to their end of the bargain in terms of guaranteed download
speed for the term of the pay period, they should lower their
guaranteed download speeds to let the consumer know what their REAL
download cap is. Overselling your bandwidth is akin to selling too
many seats on an aircraft than then kicking off the heaviest
passengers mid-flight to save on gas. If you can’t afford to fly
all the way with all the passengers paying for tickets, you have no
business selling that many tickets in the first place. The next
class action lawsuit should enforce a real cap calculated from
their (stated max download speed per second) x (seconds in a
month).
Scott Berry October 10th, 2008 8:38 am
Mike, There is no guaranteed download speed. Only advertised
maximums.
Joe October 28th, 2008 9:25 pm
And so it begins a 250gb cap can’t wait to see this number get
smaller and smaller over the years, that’s like having unlimited
minutes on your cell phone and your cell phone provider telling you
that they are going to charge you the same amount but now you’ll
only have 250 minutes of talk time…and here is just another way the
U.S. dollar is losing its value, at least on the consumers side
Geoff Whiting November 3rd, 2008 6:57 pm
I love those stats that Comcast put out with the initial release a
while back. The big thing will really be if Comcast decides to
extend these caps to small businesses and locations where broadband
usage is shared among a large group of people. There have always
been limits even in “unlimited” services. Most of the music
services that allow users to download unlimited songs have a clause
in their terms of service that say a user violates the terms if he
downloads an amount of music that he can’t reasonably listen to in
his lifetime. Concrete service caps are much nicer than the fluff
like the “reasonable” caps; and there’s no doubt that as the
technology rises, caps will rise. The thing to look for to herald
data caps increasing is more technology, from alarm-clocks to
set-top-boxes, that are constantly connected and can be used to
stream quality video at a moment’s notice.