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APG
Premium
join:2007-01-13
| reply to brianj6
Re: [Connectivity] Contacted by Comcast Abuse Dept Today...
said by brianj6  :pacamike, I agree, proper management of the network via traffic shaping and so forth seems like a much better way of addressing the issue. I disagree. Traffic shaping implies that every bit of a certain kind of traffic is throttled. By why penalize someone who occasionally downloads a Linux distribution via P2P because someone else is going 24/7 on p2p pirating?
I still think the so-called "invisible" cap isn't so invisible. I don't know this for a fact, but I still think it's more a matter of, "moving this much traffic means something's wrong. Either you're violating the AUP, or you've got a rogue program running you're not aware of." And Comcast -- or any other ISP -- isn't going to figure it out for the user. There's still a matter of personal responsibility... if a person is going to connect their computer to the internet, they ought to know what it's doing. And, if it is an AUP violation, the ISP isn't going to say, "If you cut your violation down by half, then that's okay."
Let's look it at it this way... imagine a person is called in for an IRS audit. The examiner sees the person drive up in a $70,000 car... while claiming an income of $5,000 a year. If the person is just borrowing the car from a friend (that is, uses it once in awhile) no one's going to care. But if the person is always using that car... there's going to be questions. And the IRS isn't going to say, "If the next time you come here, you're driving a $44,999 car, it's okay... but if you're driving a $45,000 car, we're going to investigate." | |
pacamike
join:2007-06-05
Palo Alto, CA
| reply to APG
Re: [Connectivity] Contacted by Comcast Abuse Dept Today...
said by APG :Let's look it at it this way... imagine a person is called in for an IRS audit. The examiner sees the person drive up in a $70,000 car... while claiming an income of $5,000 a year. If the person is just borrowing the car from a friend (that is, uses it once in awhile) no one's going to care. But if the person is always using that car... there's going to be questions. And the IRS isn't going to say, "If the next time you come here, you're driving a $44,999 car, it's okay... but if you're driving a $45,000 car, we're going to investigate." Imagine the IRS called you up and told you that you hadn't paid enough taxes. They refused to tell you how much you should pay or how much other people paid, but if you didn't send them enough additional money they'd put you in jail.  Sorry, these are stupid analogies. 
I'm a Comcast customer, paying for a service. If they don't want customers who use more than X GB per month, they should say what the limit is and provide a tool to tell you what you use. There are companies that manage this for webhosting, newsgroups, video streaming, and other internet services with no problem.
Comcast was marginally better than the alternatives when I started with them two years ago. However, I have no way to avoid exceeding an unknown limit, so their threat to terminate my contract if I do is unnacceptable. I won't be a Comcast customer next week. | |
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