said by justin:I honestly think only a pirate is interested in approaching 250gb download, plus a handful of people who should re-consider their practice of pulling down their microsoft access databases from their office every night (or whatever it is that needs 250gb).
I agree with most of what you say in your original post, but it won't ONLY be pirates who crack the 250Gb limit, the way we're heading, and that's part of what Comcast is worried about. We're heading towards people legally downloading films and TV programs over the Internet, rather than renting or PPVing them. Comcast doesn't want to foot the bill to build out networks to support that, especially if they're not the ones selling the content. I know, 250Gb is more film than most families will watch in a month (I've metered my heavy net use which only includes limited media downloads, and I'm always under 10Gb a month-- a two hour, non-HD film downloaded from Netflix is about 6Gb), but the same people that get throttled by Netflix because they get a little piggy at Netflix's trough are the same people that will have problems with Comcast's limits.
I also echo the concerns expressed by the guy writing the article about this-- there is a very high risk that Comcast would start generous and then start tightening up. Pretty soon it's a 50Gb limit unless you bought the downloads from Comcast, because then they can avoid spending money to upgrade supply. Their pricing models for cable TV services suggest this is the way it would go.