Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| reply to anony501
Re: This is pathetic...
Since most commercial bandwidth is bought by the 95th percentile method(google 95th percentile bandwidth), they do not by pay by the GB but by the Mbps. So downloading during off peak hours costs them nothing. Monthly caps do not address congestion either. Their throttling system addresses the issue of congestion. So why are they capping?
I think they have been developing this video for a long time (pre cap). Now that they have it developed they are in a bad situation with the cap. Since their video service would presumably live on their own backbone there would be no transit costs. |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
 ·voip.ms
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| said by Lazlow  :Since most commercial bandwidth is bought by the 95th percentile method(google 95th percentile bandwidth), they do not by pay by the GB but by the Mbps. So downloading during off peak hours costs them nothing. Monthly caps do not address congestion either. Their throttling system addresses the issue of congestion. So why are they capping? According to recent stories posted here there are a large number of people who don't even know what 1GB of data actually is, so hopes of explaining 95th percentile billing to the average customer is a lost cause. The cap is nothing more than a yardstick to allow the heavy users to gauge "how much is too much." The QoS system helps address the impact of congestion on the network, but in an ideal world you should queue as close to 0.0% of the time as possible. I believe the goal of the cap is simply to temper some of the demand to reduce the need to queue.
said by Lazlow :I think they have been developing this video for a long time (pre cap). Now that they have it developed they are in a bad situation with the cap. Since their video service would presumably live on their own backbone there would be no transit costs. With a provider the size of Comcast, the backbone costs represent a very minimal portion of the overall service costs. Whether it's hosted on the big bad Internet or on their own internal network is somewhat a moot point with the contracts they undoubtedly have in place. |
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S_engineer
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL
·Comcast
| But its the contracts they might have in place that make the whole bandwidth crunch a falicy. Comcast is now trying to sell you advertising via their psuedo " online tv" on bandwidth that wasn't supposed to be there. Wasn't this the justification for the caps in the first place?
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"When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair."---Sylvestor Stallone |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
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| said by S_engineer :But its the contracts they might have in place that make the whole bandwidth crunch a falicy. Backbone capacity is only loosely related to access capacity. I don't care how many 10GigE, 40GigE, or 100GigE pipes you have in the core, at the edge you're still limited to 38mbps 6MHz channels on a 750-1000MHz DOCSIS plant that has to be shared between video and data services.
You can have all of the capacity in the world at the core, and it doesn't help you one bit when you run into issues at the edge. |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
2 edits | reply to espaeth
espaeth
The 95th percentile mention was just to prove that during off peak hours there is no such thing as too much. It causes no (HSI) issues for the ISP and it does not cause congestion. This is why a monthly cap does absolutely nothing to address congestion. The heavy downloaders have been around since the start of cable HSI. For the most part they have always(in the past) told the heavy downloaders that they do not care how much they download as long as it does not cause problems on the network (ie download during off peak hours). Since most heavy downloaders are not dumb, they listened and were left alone. Those that did not listen, got the boot for abuse (rightfully so). |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
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| said by Lazlow :For the most part they have always(in the past) told the heavy downloaders that they do not care how much they download as long as it does not cause problems on the network (ie download during off peak hours). Since most heavy downloaders are not dumb, they listened and were left alone. Those that did not listen, got the boot for abuse (rightfully so). The problem with open-ended "if it does not cause problems" clauses like that is that people need literal and defined warnings. It's the reason we need ridiculous things like "Warning: beverage is hot" notices on coffee and little yellow signs on wet floors.
»www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL_IrjQoLK0
That guy is the quintessential heavy user who needs to have boundaries defined. He has a fair argument -- you can't tell people they're using "too much" unless you actually define what "too much" constitutes. |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Espaeth
I would bet if we could hear a recording of that individual's conversation that they hinted/suggested that he move his downloads to off peak hours. Generally, what happens is when a node hits a certain congestion level a red flag is sent up. The NOC looks at the particular node to see what is causing the issue. When they see that one particular user is causing the red flag(causing congestion) on a regular basis that user gets put on the ISPs "hit list"(abuse), this virtually always occurs exclusively during peak usage times. Congestion has nothing to do with GB/month. It is to about %load(Mbps) during peak usage hours. |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
1 edit | reply to espaeth
espaeth
Here is an easy way to demonstrate what I mean. Which of these two individuals is causing a problem?
1. A heavy user that downloads 750GB/month between 11pm and 8am exclusively.
2. A user that stays within the cap (250GB?), downloads at his full speed(16Mbps?) exclusively between 7pm and 9:30pm.
The first guy will be causing zero (0) congestion. The second will be using over 40% of the total shared bandwidth on his channel. Just three such individuals on the same channel using #2 will bring the channel to it's knees. |
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joetaxpayer
I'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA
·Comcast
·Comcast Formerly ..
| said by Lazlow :espaeth Here is an easy way to demonstrate what I mean. Which of these two individuals is causing a problem? So if Comcast offered a trade, 1GB peak usage will give you 2GB off peak, they can use that carrot to manage traffic, at no additional cost, and use up some of that unused evening bandwidth. They can work with NetFlix to allow an evening download for playback next night. Great idea I have here. |
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wev567
join:2006-02-25
Pittsburgh, PA | reply to Lazlow
Comcast is using caps and shaping traffic to keep both kinds of customers from causing troubles. |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
2 edits | wev567
That is just my point. The type #1 customer is NOT causing any trouble(for HSI) and the monthly cap does nothing to prevent the type #2 customer from causing a problem. |
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S_engineer
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL
·Comcast
| In addition, they get to reap the advertising revenues from streams that Comcast itself is pushing. This in its very form is monopolistic.
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"When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair."---Sylvestor Stallone |
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MrSpock29
join:2008-02-09
Hammonton, NJ
| reply to Lazlow
said by Lazlow :Espaeth I would bet if we could hear a recording of that individual's conversation that they hinted/suggested that he move his downloads to off peak hours. Generally, what happens is when a node hits a certain congestion level a red flag is sent up. The NOC looks at the particular node to see what is causing the issue. When they see that one particular user is causing the red flag(causing congestion) on a regular basis that user gets put on the ISPs "hit list"(abuse), this virtually always occurs exclusively during peak usage times. Congestion has nothing to do with GB/month. It is to about %load(Mbps) during peak usage hours. I'll take you up on that bet. Because I got the call, and it went just like his, as far as what they told me. Almost as if it's a script and maybe it is. My problem was due in part to a major service problem that they would not take into account. Mine was all about GB's and ONLY in 1 month out of over 7 years. The guy who called me also told me he couldn't give me a number because it also changed every month. I never mentioned suing them, but he dared me to sue them. He was quite belligerent and that whole dept. acted in a hostile manner. I didn't sue, but I have pursued other avenues, but I won't go any farther on that.
My node was really quiet. There was also not 1 complaint. I dealt with a couple of supervisors who were very nice that monitored things for me. Once my connection was fixed, I was down to a little over 2 Gigs per day. But no one could tell me if I'd keep my service, and since I telecommute (and their horrible treatment of me), I left them. I could not risk doing business with Comcast anymore. After being a customer of their's for so many years, and paying over 200/mo to them, they showed me they could care less about my business, even though they were an important part of the problem. And they know it. |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| reply to espaeth
said by espaeth :said by Lazlow :For the most part they have always(in the past) told the heavy downloaders that they do not care how much they download as long as it does not cause problems on the network (ie download during off peak hours). Since most heavy downloaders are not dumb, they listened and were left alone. Those that did not listen, got the boot for abuse (rightfully so). The problem with open-ended "if it does not cause problems" clauses like that is that people need literal and defined warnings. It's the reason we need ridiculous things like "Warning: beverage is hot" notices on coffee and little yellow signs on wet floors. (youtube clip) guy is the quintessential heavy user who needs to have boundaries defined. He has a fair argument -- you can't tell people they're using "too much" unless you actually define what "too much" constitutes. Ok first of all this video must be old because Comcast has a CLEAR limit of 250 GB for nearly 6 months. Second before they had a cler cap the "invisibe cap" they had I have not heard of a person getting a call unless they exceeded over 500 GB in a month. 500 GB is A LOT.
He says he "downloads" a lot. You've got to be super rich to "download" 500 GB of legal stuff. Which usually cost $$$$$$$$. I mean sure 500 GB is about 85-90 HD movies from XBL or itunes. Each movie is about $5-$6 to rent. So that's what $500 a month in rental fees. Doubtful he's paying that. 500 GB is about 100,000 songs. At 99 cents a song tha's $100,000 a month. Once again doubtful. Over 99.9% of youtube videos are incoded at a max rate of 350 kbps. Even watching youtube 24/7 would only use up 108 GB a month. most of Hulu's conetent is encoded ata max bitrate of 14 Mbps. Especially back when this video had to be made. watching Hulu 24/7 would use up 400 GB a month. Fact is that you have to really try hard to use up 500 GB or more in a month. Especially if your single and don't have kids. Which I didn't hear him mentioning about having a family. |
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joetaxpayer
I'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA
·Comcast
·Comcast Formerly ..
| said by BF69 :You've got to be super rich to "download" 500 GB of legal stuff. Which usually cost $$$$$$$$. NetFlix subscribers have unlimited streaming video. I'm told they run 4-5GB/2hr movie. |
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sturmvogel
Obama '08
join:2008-02-07
Houston, TX
| reply to BF69
There are legal sites with video content that are flat rate at about $60/month. Your calculations are based on the lack of knowledge of what is available.
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Obama '08. Will help resolve the terrible broadband issues we have that put us so far behind other countries. |
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