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

1 edit

sturmvogel6 to Robert

Member

to Robert

Re: WOW! Comcast cut off Dave Winer ... again

said by Robert:

said by funchords:

Rob,

How many people have Verizon cut off for hitting their invisible cap? How much does Verizon throttle its users?

Answer: zero. It's on the record.

You're right, all ISPs oversell their bandwidth -- statistical multiplexing, I've heard it called. The difference is that Verizon somehow manages their network in a way that reasonably delivers it.
Verizon DSL or Verizon FiOS?

I'm assuming you're referring to the latter (If you're referring to the DSL service, well, it's no match for comcast ). In that case, FiOS is still too new and Verizon wouldn't dare to make any drastic changes that would upset investors - the last thing investors would want to see if Verizon kicking people off!

comcast was the first to offer powerboost, and other MSO's followed. comcast is the first to really kick off the .01% of the highest bandwidth consumers, and other's will follow. When? Who knows.

All I know is that I approve of comcast's methods. My approval has nothing to do with my relationship with comcast. I like the fact that they have invisible caps (set to somewhere around 300-600GB, depending on the market). My concern is that if they make the caps known, they would reduce them drastically (albeit comcast saying that they'd might make them 250GB, which is still "ok", but I'd rather have invisible caps of 300-600GB).

I just want to clarify although I approve of their bandwidth management practices, I do not approve of them using Sandvine and issuing forged packets. I know a lot of folks on this website see a connection between the two (i.e. bandwidth abusers are the only ones using P2P), but I don't.
We're discussing two, completely different issues.
600 gb "invisible" cap ? While at it, make it 6000 gb, really. There are consistent reports of users, including me, over 400 gb getting kicked off. Yeah, maybe 99.99 % nodes have the 300 gb cap while there is a node 200 feet from comcast HQ having the 600 gb cap, so let's say that line.

Some customers may be profitable for comcast, some not, that is why they choose to service an area and charge a FLAT fee for the service. If 0.01 % are not and the rest are and if comcast is all about the "experience" maybe they should not bump those users off.

If a "regular user" uses 5 gb or less a month, maybe comcast should leave the small percentage of heavy users alone. Those guys praising comcast would do a lot better in PR and future customers than the negative feedback they get now.

Robert
Premium Member
join:2001-08-25
Miami, FL

3 edits

Robert

Premium Member

said by sturmvogel6:

said by Robert:

said by funchords:

Rob,

How many people have Verizon cut off for hitting their invisible cap? How much does Verizon throttle its users?

Answer: zero. It's on the record.

You're right, all ISPs oversell their bandwidth -- statistical multiplexing, I've heard it called. The difference is that Verizon somehow manages their network in a way that reasonably delivers it.
Verizon DSL or Verizon FiOS?

I'm assuming you're referring to the latter (If you're referring to the DSL service, well, it's no match for comcast ). In that case, FiOS is still too new and Verizon wouldn't dare to make any drastic changes that would upset investors - the last thing investors would want to see if Verizon kicking people off!

comcast was the first to offer powerboost, and other MSO's followed. comcast is the first to really kick off the .01% of the highest bandwidth consumers, and other's will follow. When? Who knows.

All I know is that I approve of comcast's methods. My approval has nothing to do with my relationship with comcast. I like the fact that they have invisible caps (set to somewhere around 300-600GB, depending on the market). My concern is that if they make the caps known, they would reduce them drastically (albeit comcast saying that they'd might make them 250GB, which is still "ok", but I'd rather have invisible caps of 300-600GB).

I just want to clarify although I approve of their bandwidth management practices, I do not approve of them using Sandvine and issuing forged packets. I know a lot of folks on this website see a connection between the two (i.e. bandwidth abusers are the only ones using P2P), but I don't.
We're discussing two, completely different issues.
600 gb "invisible" cap ? While at it, make it 6000 gb, really. There are consistent reports of users, including me, over 400 gb getting kicked off. Yeah, maybe 99.99 % nodes have the 300 gb cap while there is a node 200 feet from comcast HQ having the 600 gb cap, so let's say that line.

Some customers may be profitable for comcast, some not, that is why they choose to service an area and charge a FLAT fee for the service. If 0.01 % are not and the rest are and if comcast is all about the "experience" maybe they should not bump those users off.

If a "regular user" uses 5 gb or less a month, maybe comcast should leave the small percentage of heavy users alone. Those guys praising comcast would do a lot better in PR and future customers than the negative feedback they get now.
Ahh another poster with this weird idea that comcast owes you something or that you have some type of right to use their services. I got news for you: neither is true.

Obviously you are a disgruntled customer ex-customer - no pleasing you.

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

sturmvogel6

Member

said by Robert:

Ahh another poster with this weird idea that comcast owes you something or that you have some type of right to use their services. I got news for you: neither is true.

Obviously you are a disgruntled customer ex-customer - no pleasing you.
Yeah, I guess paying for their services I should have no expectation to actually have a right to use them. You and them obviously share the same mindset. Cool, I like conformity.

CleanGene
Premium Member
join:2008-04-09
Culpeper, VA

1 recommendation

CleanGene

Premium Member

said by sturmvogel6:

Yeah, I guess paying for their services I should have no expectation to actually have a right to use them.
This is akin to complaining that you're not being allowed to "use" your car because you expect to be able to drive through the park and mow down picnickers. "Use" does not mean "do whatever I please, whenever I please, without regard to others".

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

1 edit

sturmvogel6

Member

said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

Yeah, I guess paying for their services I should have no expectation to actually have a right to use them.
This is akin to complaining that you're not being allowed to "use" your car because you expect to be able to drive through the park and mow down picnickers. "Use" does not mean "do whatever I please, whenever I please, without regard to others".
Quite off. I have regard for others and I was not affecting anybody. If my usage was overloading the node, the first that would have noticed would have been me, since I would have also been affected by flakey network performance.

Also, the vehicle I drive would not be considered a car by any means and I do not have any desires to drive through a park.
sturmvogel6

sturmvogel6 to CleanGene

Member

to CleanGene
said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

Yeah, I guess paying for their services I should have no expectation to actually have a right to use them.
This is akin to complaining that you're not being allowed to "use" your car because you expect to be able to drive through the park and mow down picnickers. "Use" does not mean "do whatever I please, whenever I please, without regard to others".
Since I have a liking for vehicles, I believe a comparison of my network traffic would have been driving at the posted speed limit a large percentage of the time a large vehicle compared to regular cars going back and forth with their usual activities. Not running stop lights or harassing others. Hardly what would have been something abusive. My "abuse" was approx 500 gb vs what is being "toyed" with 250 gb, so twice the data traffic allowed. Would you have a problem with somebody that drives twice the amount you would consider acceptable ? Not faster, just using the road twice more than expected.

Your comparison with the park seems a bit outlandish now, no ?

CleanGene
Premium Member
join:2008-04-09
Culpeper, VA

CleanGene to sturmvogel6

Premium Member

to sturmvogel6
said by sturmvogel6:

If my usage was overloading the node, the first that would have noticed would have been me, since I would have also been affected by flakey network performance.
That's not quite how it works. If you eat three whole pizzas by yourself, and then the other 20 people at the party have to split the fourth, then of course you don't notice a problem. That doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist.

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

EG to sturmvogel6

Premium Member

to sturmvogel6
said by sturmvogel6:

If my usage was overloading the node, the first that would have noticed would have been me, since I would have also been affected by flakey network performance.
Uhhh.. I don't think that it works that way..
EG

EG

Premium Member

Didn't see your post CleanGene, but my post will stand as uneeded reinforcement

CleanGene
Premium Member
join:2008-04-09
Culpeper, VA

1 recommendation

CleanGene to sturmvogel6

Premium Member

to sturmvogel6
said by sturmvogel6:

My "abuse" was approx 500 gb vs what is being "toyed" with 250 gb, so twice the data traffic allowed. Would you have a problem with somebody that drives twice the amount you would consider acceptable ? Not faster, just using the road twice more than expected.
One may certainly question the reasonableness or appropriateness of the limitations placed upon you. The notion that there should be no limits, or even that you can have a situation with no limits in the first place, is inherently unreasonable.

There is no such thing as a non-shared network. At some point, no matter what the network topology, protocol, or organization, there will always be a way for your use to adversely affect the usage by others, and hence there will always be limits. Whether those limits are imposed by the physical limitations of the network itself, or by someone stepping in and stopping you from reaching that point, there will always be limits.

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

1 edit

sturmvogel6 to CleanGene

Member

to CleanGene
said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

If my usage was overloading the node, the first that would have noticed would have been me, since I would have also been affected by flakey network performance.
That's not quite how it works. If you eat three whole pizzas by yourself, and then the other 20 people at the party have to split the fourth, then of course you don't notice a problem. That doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist.
I see. I believe what you are trying to say is that we should all share the food equally. I agree, but pray tell, how could I know how much the other node users were each using so I could adjust my consumption ? What is no one was using the service at all ? could I then use it or, since I would be the only user I would also abuse it ? Could I download FTP 24/7 at all ? 100k/sec ? 30k/sec ?

What if someone else was also heavily using the node ? Could I adjust my speed to match them ?

Should we have daily meetings in the neighborhood, run stats and decide what to do ?

The most important item: how comes that for years Time Warner did not have an issue and within 2 months comcast did ?

CleanGene
Premium Member
join:2008-04-09
Culpeper, VA

2 edits

CleanGene

Premium Member

said by sturmvogel6:

I see. I believe what you are trying to say is that we should all share the food equally. I agree, but pray tell, how could I know how much the other node users were each using so I could adjust my consumption ?
Flexible caps allow you to avoid robo-disconnects, where you get cut off for going even a single bit over some hard transfer limit, even if it this usage is not adversely affecting anyone else. As a result, if you would like to download X bytes per day, you can, so long as it does not adversely affect others. If you would like to download X + Y bytes per day, you can, so long as it does not adversely affect others. If you would like to download X + Y + Z bytes per day, you can, so long as it does not adversely affect others. How will you know if it's adversely affecting others? Well, one big hint will be someone from network security contacting you to see what's up.

Since I haven't heard of any cases where someone was disconnected without at least an attempt to contact them and work to mitigate the issue constructively, and I assume that you've been disconnected, what was your response when you were contacted?

Edit: nevermind. I see you were asked to adjust your habits "drastically". Did you?

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

1 edit

sturmvogel6

Member

said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

I see. I believe what you are trying to say is that we should all share the food equally. I agree, but pray tell, how could I know how much the other node users were each using so I could adjust my consumption ?
Flexible caps allow you to avoid robo-disconnects, where you get cut off for going even a single bit over some hard transfer limit, even if it this usage is not adversely affecting anyone else. As a result, if you would like to download X bytes per day, you can, so long as it does not adversely affect others. If you would like to download X + Y bytes per day, you can, so long as it does not adversely affect others. If you would like to download X + Y + Z bytes per day, you can, so long as it does not adversely affect others. How will you know if it's adversely affecting others? Well, one big hint will be someone from network security contacting you to see what's up.

Since I haven't heard of any cases where someone was disconnected without at least an attempt to contact them and work to mitigate the issue constructively, and I assume that you've been disconnected, what was your response when you were contacted?
I asked them regarding clear numbers so that there would be no problem, as stated before. I also told them I would transfer to their "alternative" competitor Earthlink, which I did. Then all of a sudden one day the modem went dead and Earthlink claimed all was well. After many hours of trying to figure what happened, they finally figured it was comcast and comcast refused to turn the connection back on.

Funny how Earthlink is a competitor when they are asked by anti monopoly regulatory agencies and a reseller when it comes to reality.

I did want to reach a reasonable understanding, I did not want my connection terminated. But it is quite difficult when the demanding party just accuses and would not give clear answers when asked exactly what they would consider acceptable.
sturmvogel6

sturmvogel6 to CleanGene

Member

to CleanGene
said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

I see. I believe what you are trying to say is that we should all share the food equally. I agree, but pray tell, how could I know how much the other node users were each using so I could adjust my consumption ?
I see you were asked to adjust your habits "drastically". Did you?
I did, unfortunately for only a month, until I thought I switched to Earthlink which asssured me that there is no way at all I would be affected my the comcast issue. I did ask, repeatedly, I still have the chat log. I then calculated to slow down my activity 25% just in case.

Well, according to comcast, I was never switched and I just slowed down from 505 to 460. It does show wilingness to work on the problem, but I guess for them that see this quite often anything over the limit that they would not disclose is a clear case of bad faith.

CleanGene
Premium Member
join:2008-04-09
Culpeper, VA

2 edits

CleanGene

Premium Member

said by sturmvogel6:

It does show wilingness to work on the problem, but I guess for them that see this quite often anything over the limit that they would not disclose is a clear case of bad faith.
I think the problem is that, while your desire for a number is eminently reasonable, there's no one-size-fits-all number that can be given. Maybe your area is fairly heavily populated with lots of techno-savvy DLSR readers, who all have eight computers, three XBox360s, a Slingbox, a robo-X-10-enabled partridge in a pear tree, and they're all running their own web spiders to create a home-grown version of archive.org, along with religiously gathering DVD .ISOs of every Linux flavor they can find, all 300-something of them. In that case, you might find that things are a bit more constricted.

Or maybe you live in the middle of nowhere. Your neighbors are mostly not online, and the ones that are stick pretty much to email and occasionally buying tea cozies on eBay. In that case, you'll probably have some more elbow room, so why should you be treated as though you live amongst a zillion other power users?

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

sturmvogel6

Member

said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

It does show wilingness to work on the problem, but I guess for them that see this quite often anything over the limit that they would not disclose is a clear case of bad faith.
I think the problem is that, while your desire for a number is eminently reasonable, there's no one-size-fits-all number that can be given. Maybe your area is fairly heavily populated with lots of techno-savvy DLSR readers, who all have eight computers, three XBox360s, a Slingbox, a robo-X-10-enabled partridge in a pear tree, and they're all running their own web spiders to create a home-grown version of archive.org, along with religiously gathering DVD .ISOs of every Linux flavor they can find, all 300-something of them. In that case, you might find that things are a bit more constricted.

Or maybe you live in the middle of nowhere. Your neighbors are mostly not online, and the ones that are stick pretty much to email and occasionally buying tea cozies on eBay. In that case, you'll probably have some more elbow room, so why should you be treated as though you live amongst a zillion other power users
I am in a fairly rural area, so that is why I have no DSL alternative, therefore the anger with the whole issue since now I have to use a cellular connection.

My question them was in order so I have an idea what they want, a ballpark. When the guy said that I used "hundreds of times" what a regular user uses, of course that is upsetting. Should I use 2 gb/mo ? Would 200 be acceptable ? He would not answer and that is a bit sticking point why there is now an issue.

CleanGene
Premium Member
join:2008-04-09
Culpeper, VA

CleanGene

Premium Member

said by sturmvogel6:

My question them was in order so I have an idea what they want, a ballpark. When the guy said that I used "hundreds of times" what a regular user uses, of course that is upsetting. Should I use 2 gb/mo ? Would 200 be acceptable ? He would not answer and that is a bit sticking point why there is now an issue.
Well, let me say that I'm sorry you got caught up in this. Obviously more transparency is better than less, and everyone wants to feel like they have enough information to make good decisions and adjust where needed, and I understand your frustration at not getting what, in your eyes, constituted enough information to proceed without running into a problem again. I'm with you there, and all I can say is that if it were up to me, I'd do things a bit differently. I'd make sure you had access to some sort of meter for your own usage, and I'd probably institute some sort of throttling before cutting someone off completely, but it's not really up to me, so there you go

That being said, I also understand why the rep was a little bit fuzzy when asked for details of acceptable usage - acceptable usage depends as much on your area as it does on you. Maybe this month 500GB (or whatever) is just fine and doesn't cause a problem for anyone. And then next month, your evil twin (and his twin, and his twin) all move on to your block, and they all want to download 500GB too. So now you have a problem - or more accurately, Madge next door has a problem, because she couldn't properly snipe that floral-pattern tea cozy she had her eye on, and so she calls to complain. And then, when you're told you have to cut back, you (rightly!) say "but I was told 500GB is just fine!" and (rightly!) complain about how those sonsaguns at comcast are going back on their word, when they just said last month that 500 gb was okay.

Yes, they should split the node or whatever. Yes, they should invest in increasing downstream capacity. And they do, but as someone else pointed out earlier, those things don't happen overnight, and in the mean time, you have to do something.

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

sturmvogel6

Member

said by CleanGene:
said by sturmvogel6:

My question them was in order so I have an idea what they want, a ballpark. When the guy said that I used "hundreds of times" what a regular user uses, of course that is upsetting. Should I use 2 gb/mo ? Would 200 be acceptable ? He would not answer and that is a bit sticking point why there is now an issue.
Well, let me say that I'm sorry you got caught up in this. Obviously more transparency is better than less, and everyone wants to feel like they have enough information to make good decisions and adjust where needed, and I understand your frustration at not getting what, in your eyes, constituted enough information to proceed without running into a problem again. I'm with you there, and all I can say is that if it were up to me, I'd do things a bit differently. I'd make sure you had access to some sort of meter for your own usage, and I'd probably institute some sort of throttling before cutting someone off completely, but it's not really up to me, so there you go

That being said, I also understand why the rep was a little bit fuzzy when asked for details of acceptable usage - acceptable usage depends as much on your area as it does on you. Maybe this month 500GB (or whatever) is just fine and doesn't cause a problem for anyone. And then next month, your evil twin (and his twin, and his twin) all move on to your block, and they all want to download 500GB too. So now you have a problem - or more accurately, Madge next door has a problem, because she couldn't properly snipe that floral-pattern tea cozy she had her eye on, and so she calls to complain. And then, when you're told you have to cut back, you (rightly!) say "but I was told 500GB is just fine!" and (rightly!) complain about how those sonsaguns at comcast are going back on their word, when they just said last month that 500 gb was okay.

Yes, they should split the node or whatever. Yes, they should invest in increasing downstream capacity. And they do, but as someone else pointed out earlier, those things don't happen overnight, and in the mean time, you have to do something.
You are absolutely correct. I am sure eventually comcast will institute these changes. I, for one, will try to subscribe back to their service once my blacklisted period will expire. I doubt that they will allow me back on due to my influence after this debacle, but time will tell. If I had a choice of Internet access as DSL or FiOS, of course I would never do business with comcast again, but I doubt they will be available in this area anytime soon.

Robert
Premium Member
join:2001-08-25
Miami, FL

1 edit

Robert to sturmvogel6

Premium Member

to sturmvogel6
said by sturmvogel6:

said by Robert:

Ahh another poster with this weird idea that comcast owes you something or that you have some type of right to use their services. I got news for you: neither is true.

Obviously you are a disgruntled customer ex-customer - no pleasing you.
Yeah, I guess paying for their services I should have no expectation to actually have a right to use them. You and them obviously share the same mindset. Cool, I like conformity.
The only mindset we share is that both comcast and I realize that comcast is here to make a profit - not provide you with Internet access. I think you're missing that. They don't provide TV, Phone and CHSI because they enjoy it, they do it to make a profit. You weren't profitable to them - regardless of how many years you've been with them.

It has nothing to do with conformity - it has everything to do with business.