 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | reply to TZi
Re: Don't assume anything Our uplinks are too small to blame any one or any few users on a performance degradation. It's like trying to blame a particular rainstorm or a particular sunny day on El Nino or Global Warming.
That said, in the past, I think they have acted reactively -- in just the way that you described. They either looked at nodes with high utilization or looked at nodes with a high number of complaints. Then they made "the warning call."
But within the past year or so, there has been a stronger campaign and it seems to me that they may have made "the warning call" to certain users proactively -- perhaps where they were about to add a 16Mbps tier or where they were about to launch Comcast Digital Voice.
said by TZi:As for a webpage that details your total transfer, there are several programs for windows (in fact windows itself) and some routers that can keep track of your total usage. While it is easy for satellite providers who have one central NOC to provide such usage statistics, it would be a nightmare for comcast who is constantly acquiring older systems, migrating recently acquired systems and building out new systems to aggregate all this data onto a webpage. Assuming that you are right, then fair enough. However after "the warning call," the user should be able to get some periodic self-monitoring feedback from the provider. Perhaps someone can manually grab the data each week and send it via e-mail to those under "the warning." This way, a user at risk can understand whether the high usage is something nefarious (like a virus or a leeching neighborhood) or accidental (a lousy remote-backup configuration, or someone watching an HD-quality video stream 24/7 and merely turning off the monitor before going to school).
Currently, the only feedback they get is whether or not you have Internet service 30 days after that warning call.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. |
