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IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

1 edit

IPPlanMan to DarkLogix

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to DarkLogix

Re: Bandwidth Limits/Congestion Management - All discussion here

said by DarkLogix:

Its real simple
...
Sounds entirely possible to me...

And we all know that hard drives haven't grown at all in size or come down in cost in the last 6 months...

Think that will ever happen with Comcast? I doubt it...

Every day that goes by, 250 GB gets you less and less of the internet...

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

Ya you can buy a 2tb drive for like $300 now
but many new computers are still sold with 80 and 160 gb drives
so some exec likely thinks he has a big 250gb drive and thinks thats plenty

as for me just pay for a busi account with statics and your set

joetaxpayer
I'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA
552.8 23.8

joetaxpayer

Member

said by DarkLogix:

Ya you can buy a 2tb drive for like $300 now.
I've seen 1.5TB seagate drives for $119. I'd think new PCs are shipping with 1TB drives. Can you even buy a 250GB any more? What do they cost? $15?

sturmvogel6
Obama '08
join:2008-02-07
Houston, TX

sturmvogel6

Member

said by joetaxpayer:
said by DarkLogix:

Ya you can buy a 2tb drive for like $300 now.
I've seen 1.5TB seagate drives for $119. I'd think new PCs are shipping with 1TB drives. Can you even buy a 250GB any more? What do they cost? $15?
Using 1.5 TB drives ? Hmmm, how many pictures and emails could that store ? What an "abuse", everyone knows that the "median" drive capacity is 40 GB, right ?

/sarcasm (just trying to be Comcastic)

EG
The wings of love
Premium Member
join:2006-11-18
Union, NJ

1 recommendation

EG

Premium Member

I don't think that the capacity of one's HD is really a factor here.. ?
Expand your moderator at work

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix to joetaxpayer

Premium Member

to joetaxpayer

Re: Bandwidth Limits/Congestion Management - All discussion here

said by joetaxpayer:

said by DarkLogix:

Ya you can buy a 2tb drive for like $300 now.
I've seen 1.5TB seagate drives for $119. I'd think new PCs are shipping with 1TB drives. Can you even buy a 250GB any more? What do they cost? $15?
at work we just bought a brand new computer with a 160gb drive (and added a 2nd drive for cloning)(uesr gets alot of dead drives)
it was also available with 80, 250, 320, 500
and laptops tend to still have smaller drives

sure most of us when we build a computer would but a 1.5 or a 2 TB but at a business we spend more for server storage not end-user storage (because more data thats on the server in raid and backed up daily the less that can be lost)

I don't think a 40gb can be bought anymore bust as for 250gb
»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· hInDesc=
DarkLogix

DarkLogix to EG

Premium Member

to EG
said by EG:

I don't think that the capacity of one's HD is really a factor here.. ?
ya but uper managment types don't think like normal people
Expand your moderator at work

btfgw
@comcast.net

2 recommendations

btfgw to DarkLogix

Anon

to DarkLogix

Re: Bandwidth Limits/Congestion Management - All discussion here

said by DarkLogix:

ya but uper managment types don't think like normal people
Neither do many of the posters in this thread, for that matter.

sturmvogel6
Obama '08
join:2008-02-07
Houston, TX

sturmvogel6

Member

said by btfgw :
said by DarkLogix:

ya but uper managment types don't think like normal people
Neither do many of the posters in this thread, for that matter.
Truth in advertising. Trying to use what we have purchased. Asking about the usage meter 3 months after the metered model went into effect.

Imagine the horror.

joetaxpayer
I'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA
552.8 23.8

joetaxpayer to EG

Member

to EG
said by EG:

I don't think that the capacity of one's HD is really a factor here.. ?
It may not, in reality, but perception is a lot.

I sit (a few years back) with my 120GB drive, and if I hear of a 100GB cap don't I think, "wow, I can download enough to fill the drive nearly every month. Anyone who demands more is either a pirate or streaming porn 24/7."

Now, with a couple TB drives, and legal streaming (I think we decided 5GB/2hr movie, no?) the 250GB seems not so large.
I happened to not be a NetFlix subscriber, but with TiVo in a few rooms, I could be one day.

I offer this just to illustrate how the drive can impact one's thinking, right or wrong.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

1 recommendation

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

said by joetaxpayer:

legal streaming (I think we decided 5GB/2hr movie, no?)
No.
HD stream is 1.5GB/hour (which is still a shade high, I believe, but could be possible for 1080p h.264 mpeg... 720p would run 1gb/hour. SD is .33 GB/hour)

So if all you do is stream legal video all day, you get
5.5 hours/day HD/1080p (1.5GB/hour)
8.33 hours/day HD/720p (1GB/hour)
25.25 hours/day (LOL!) SD (.33GB/hour)
Before you hit your 250GB cap.

Of course, you'll also be imaging your 3TB of hard drives to free cloud backup, and your 7 housemates will be streaming video, spending $600/mo on itunes, seeding every linux distro on bittorrent, and whatever else you can think of, so your actual use will be about 10-20X the cap
Expand your moderator at work

joetaxpayer
I'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA
552.8 23.8

joetaxpayer to JohnInSJ

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to JohnInSJ

Re: Bandwidth Limits/Congestion Management - All discussion here

said by JohnInSJ:

HD stream is 1.5GB/hour
I'll take your word on that. Seems low to me as TiVo recordings seem to run 5GB/hr and I thought that was already subject to some kind of compression.
Given your numbers, 133 hrs = 200GB. Is it so beyond believing that a family who just signs up for NetFlix (during the summer when nothing else is on) starts averaging 4hrs a day, between the parents and their 2.5 kids? Kids do crazy things (remember "Go Ape" the Planet of the Apes marathon, all 5 movies in one day?) My example is contrived a bit, but still in the range of a normal possibility.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

1 recommendation

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

Tivo records mpg2, or likely at a higher quality then you can stream from Netflix. Normal "HD" streamed is h.264 mpeg (mpeg4) which (as we posted elsewhere above) runs anywhere from 1 to 1.5GB/hour for 720p or 1080p. This is the "HD" video you stream from Netflix (after all, they pay for bandwidth too), or get from iTunes.

OTA Broadcast HD (as a counter-point) is anywhere from 5-8GB/hour (if you record the ts yourself.)

We've beaten this horse so many ways its not even funny. Sure, you can come up with ways a family of 4 does nothing but watch streaming netflix all day, each on their own PC (wow, sign me up for that family, sounds GREAT!)

They could do it, but they'd run out of HD content in 2.5 months, if they watched every last DOG on netflix.

Just do it.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan to joetaxpayer

Member

to joetaxpayer
I think you've made a great point....

Funny how all of these arguments come down to assuming that no one does anything else with their connection but stream HD...

I guess regular downloading is not considered part of residential use....
I guess online backups are not considered residential use....
IPPlanMan

1 recommendation

IPPlanMan to JohnInSJ

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to JohnInSJ
I'll say it again and again.... because I still don't think it's getting through.

Every day that goes by, 250 GB gets you less and less of the internet.... File sizes are constantly increasing as quality goes up for the content itself.

In fact, given the expansion of the internet's content, the dollar-value proposition of 250GB capped usage becomes worse and worse every day....

That, my friend, is an inarguable fact.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

1 recommendation

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

quote:
I'll say it again and again
No argument there!

A full and balanced life might include more then the internet

250GB is the cap today. No doubt the cap will go up. Heck, no doubt you can use more then 250GB today, and still might be just fine.

No one is suggesting that 250GB is going to be a reasonable cap in 5 years. I'm not, anyway. Higher speeds, more competition, upgrades to the network, and yes, broad demand from more then 1% of the user base will indeed drive the caps higher.

But it's not today. Today, the great massive bulk of users won't come near it, so its a non-issue for them and comcast.

That, my friend, is an inarguable fact.

And we do another lap around the dead horse.

joetaxpayer
I'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA
552.8 23.8

joetaxpayer to IPPlanMan

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to IPPlanMan
said by IPPlanMan:

I think you've made a great point....

Funny how all of these arguments come down to assuming that no one does anything else with their connection but stream HD...

I guess regular downloading is not considered part of residential use....
I guess online backups are not considered residential use....
Thanks, glad you got it.
John didn't care too much for my one example, I understand that. At some point IPTV will be real, and maybe the 4 hours a day for 4 people (total, not each) won't seem like I'm constructing some pathetic family. The MRS and I average 15 hrs a week, and half of those are while on a treadmill. I'm not glued to the set. either way, I am sure Comcast will have detailed statistics about how the median numbers are creeping up, and they'll have to make some tough decisions.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

quote:
make some tough decisions.
Not tough at all to move the cap up. It's just a number representing some point where 99% of the users comfortably are under it.

Like you said, it just goes up as overall demand does.

They have traffic shaping (whatever they call it, de-prioritized scheduling?) already in place to address the local neighborhood congestion. The goal likely is always to skim off the 1% who use way more then the 99%, no matter what "way more" means.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

1 edit

IPPlanMan

Member

said by JohnInSJ:

Not tough at all to move the cap up. It's just a number representing some point where 99% of the users comfortably are under it.

Like you said, it just goes up as overall demand does.

I disagree...

The cap has officially been at 250GB since October 1st of last year...

And before it was official, I'm sure that it was somewhere around that as well... for how many years going on?

I've seen the US Government move faster than this...
IPPlanMan

IPPlanMan to sturmvogel6

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Couldn't agree more....

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

1 recommendation

SpaethCo to IPPlanMan

MVM

to IPPlanMan
said by IPPlanMan:

The cap has officially been at 250GB since October 1st of last year...

And before it was official, I'm sure that it was somewhere around that as well... for how many years going on?
You might have missed it, but a couple pages back Sunny See Profile posted a FAQ link that includes post links to 2003 where people reported getting "the letter" (the precursor to "the call") for traffic volumes as low as 80GB/mo.

»Comcast High Speed Internet FAQ »Does Comcast have bandwidth use limits?

Clearly the situation has changed over the years.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to IPPlanMan

Premium Member

to IPPlanMan
quote:
The cap has officially been at 250GB since October 1st of last year...
Wow... nearly 6 months... it will NEVER change!

Check back in a year. It will be higher. Perhaps, really really, you are on the high end of usage among all Comcast customers? Naw, it can't be you.

sturmvogel6
Obama '08
join:2008-02-07
Houston, TX

sturmvogel6

Member

said by JohnInSJ:
quote:
The cap has officially been at 250GB since October 1st of last year...
Wow... nearly 6 months... it will NEVER change!

Check back in a year. It will be higher. Perhaps, really really, you are on the high end of usage among all Comcast customers? Naw, it can't be you.
Probably will change for the worse. Should we also hope when we check back in one year that the famed meter would be available shortly ?
sturmvogel6

sturmvogel6 to SpaethCo

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to SpaethCo
said by SpaethCo:
said by IPPlanMan:

The cap has officially been at 250GB since October 1st of last year...

And before it was official, I'm sure that it was somewhere around that as well... for how many years going on?
You might have missed it, but a couple pages back Sunny See Profile posted a FAQ link that includes post links to 2003 where people reported getting "the letter" (the precursor to "the call") for traffic volumes as low as 80GB/mo.

»Comcast High Speed Internet FAQ »Does Comcast have bandwidth use limits?

Clearly the situation has changed over the years.
It would be interesting to plot the growth/year of the CC cap, advertised internet access speeds (yeah, we know the up to disclaimer) and disk storage.

I have a feeling that the less steep curve would be ...

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to sturmvogel6

Premium Member

to sturmvogel6
quote:
Probably will change for the worse.
Change we can believe in, eh?

Seriously, why would you expect it to get worse? I get that you cannot grasp how 250GB is "just a number" picked such that 99 out of 100 comcast customers would never notice a cap. But if you could just, for a moment, assume that might be true, then as the average usage goes up (which you tell me MUST happen since everyone will be using more and more high-bandwidth services) then the cap will have to go up, since say 10 or 20 out of 100 will start bumping into it.