Comcast to 'Manage People, Not Protocols'Watch CTO speak vaguely about new plan... ( old news - 10:57AM Friday May 23 2008) tags: business · bandwidth · cable · ComcastIn a brief video interview with Cable Digital News, Comcast CTO Tony Werner talks about the company's new "protocol agnostic" plan to manage bandwidth, by specifically targeting high consumption users. According to Werner, the company's planning to "manage people, not protocols." Translated, they'll be targeting just high consumption users, as opposed to the current approach -- which is to throttle upstream P2P for all users, 24/7, whether they are heavy users or not (something they've denied, but remains true all the same). Of course you know Comcast also plans to target high consumption users specifically with 250GB caps and overage fees thanks to inside information I obtained last month. The company is also considering booting users who receive four DMCA warning letters per year. Shortly after my original story appeared, this e-mail talking point made the rounds within Comcast, It contains language confirming the plan is being considered: Please be aware: Customers may call in to inquire about the possible implementation of a 250GB monthly bandwidth cap on our online services. Please use the below statement to address these inquiries:
"Comcast is currently evaluating this service and pricing model to ensure we deliver a great online experience to our customers. We have not made any changes to our current service offerings and have no new announcement to make at this time." The plan numbers could obviously change. I'm particularly wondering if they really want to make themselves liable for incorrectly attributed DMCA letters. We'll find out when the official announcement is made at the end of this year. Until then, Comcast continues to use forged packets to "manage protocols, not people."
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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
 ·Comcast
| GOOD! Just as they should!
For the people not trying to download the entire server/list of files... let them fly!
For the people lit up all day and night trying to build a DVD collection... Throttle City!
Don't like it? Back off! Simple really. 
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Think outside the Fox... Opera | |
|  | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | Re: GOOD! Throttling users vice protocols/applications is the obvious short-term solution to exploding bandwidth requirements. Everyone wins except for the small percentage of users that drove this more stringent management of network resources. | |
| | OverModded
Premium
join:2002-03-03 | Making the bandwidth hogs pay more is the best solution. Something I have been saying here for a couple years. I'm hoping this new policy comes off as predicted at year end. | |
| | | backness
join:2005-07-08
K2P OW2 | Re: GOOD! only if the money is taken and spent on upgrades not more marketing.
Billing by the bite is a management accountants wet dream. | |
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DaveNJ
No Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey
·Comcast
1 edit | said by OverModded  :Making the bandwidth hogs pay more is the best solution. Something I have been saying here for a couple years. I'm hoping this new policy comes off as predicted at year end. I think its both , throttling there connection, and have them pay more. But it should be a tier, not a surprise charge at the end of the month. As long as Comcast provides a meter, and an email to the customer they have exceeded (or close) to there allotment i dont have a problem with this.
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“Say no to fear. Don’t let anxiety crush your life. Live life free and unfettered.”
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SRFireside
join:2001-01-19
Houston, TX
| My only concern is in the future when you see streaming movie service like those from NetFlix become more popular and also start streaming HD content. Eventually 250GB won't be enough for an average user. I'm cool with trying to tame the bandwidth hogs out there today, but will they adjust to the times when times change? | |
| | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | Re: GOOD! As infrastructure improves and bandwidth availability grows, I would expect that the caps will increase as well. It will be no different than the ever-increasing xx Mbps offerings that we have today. | |
| | BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Everett, MA
clubs:
·Comcast
| Id rather see a more fair FAUP put in place.
Break 300 gigs at say 16 mbit get bumped down to 5 mbit break 50 gigs at 5 mbit get bumped down to 1.5 mbit , which wont affect the node much.
If they say that folks are killing the node that would be the way to go. If they go this way give me more upload. Id like say 20/5 for my $65 and 250 gigs , then throttle me down to 1.5/768 afterwards. Reduce my abuse of the node.
Personally I usually never break 200 gigs. Average about 40 at most but I also don't want to be affected by the kids with p2p running constantly.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" | |
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ninjatutle
Premium
join:2006-01-02
San Ramon, CA | Better then caps for all Using more then 8GB a day on a basic home connection is alarming. | |
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shoe1
join:2007-09-28
Colfax, CA | Re: Better then caps for all That's as much as Wildblue caps me at...a month. 
Honestly their 90gb cap is honestly a fairly large cap. | |
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ninjatutle
Premium
join:2006-01-02
San Ramon, CA | This is what Sprint should have done instead of making everyone suffer for the 1% who abuse as they claim.
Comcast = reasonable
Sprint = irrational | |
| openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
 ·AT&T Southeast
| What Liability I'm particularly wondering if they really want to make themselves liable for incorrectly attributed DMCA letters. What's the liability? The only thing that Comcast will need to do is reinstate customers' accounts if the DMCA warning letters are retracted. Personally, I think ISPs should continue passing on the DMCA letters to their users and then let the copyright holders work with the alleged violators. | |
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Calabria
join:2007-11-06
Lansdale, PA
| Throttling This is the reason why I dropped Netflix.I pay for a service,if I don't get what I'm paying for,I drop it and move on.This is BULL$%#%!If you pay good money for something and can't fully use that product then your getting #$%#@#!! PLAIN AND SIMPLE 
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9929 | |
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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
| Re: Throttling Pay more for an actual data line, run it 24/7 if you wish!
Might cost a bit more than $40-$50 per month though... 
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Think outside the Fox... Opera | |
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herdfan
Premium
join:2003-01-25
Hurricane, WV | But I pay for the service as well, and if I get slow speeds because the kid up the street is pulling 5 steams full tilt, then I am not getting what I paid for. | |
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VZ FiOS
@verizon.net
| Re: Throttling If networks were designed properly the way they should be in the first place, you wouldn't be affected by that kid up the street pulling 5 streams, everyone would have their own dedicated line and you would get your full speeds 24/7 regardless of how much your neighbors use. | |
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VZ FiOS
@verizon.net
| Re: Throttling said by espaeth :If networks were designed in this matter, you'd be paying $1000+ for your 8mbps connection. Not quite. FiOS customers have their own dedicated fiber to their building. These fibers are connected together at the ISP and then to the backbone network overall. What you said about the backbone carriers is true and they can upgrade their networks more faster than any last-mile provider can.
However, my point was that if the last-mile providers would stop oversubscribing more and more customers to their networks and take the time to actually upgrade and improve upon them like Verizon has done with rolling out new lines all together; we wouldn't see as much saturation in the networks and people who use their bandwidth to its fullest potential would not have as huge of an impact on those saturated networks as they currently do.
ISP's like Comcast wouldn't then have to "manage people" because the network would be able to handle that kind of bandwidth.
Plus, as we as a society rely more on the internet, these networks would be future proofing themselves to be able to handle additional bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth an average user consumes is only going to increase over the years. If ISPs can upgrade their networks ahead of time, instead of trying to squeeze all the bandwidth they can out of their current layouts without shelling out some cash for an upgrade, we will see speed tiers that countries like Japan and Korea have. | |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·Embarq Now Century..
 ·VoiceStick
·Vitelity VOIP
·Comcast
·Comcast Workplace
·callwithus
·voip.ms
·Callcentric
·ViaTalk
| Re: Throttling said by VZ FiOS :said by espaeth :If networks were designed in this matter, you'd be paying $1000+ for your 8mbps connection. Not quite. FiOS customers have their own dedicated fiber to their building. These fibers are connected together at the ISP and then to the backbone network overall. Not entirely correct here either. The individual subscriber fiber connections aggregate at a BPON/GPON optical splitter/combiner. The downstream signal is simply split 32 (BPON) or 64 (GPON) ways to reach the ONTs. Every ONT off that mux receives the same downstream signal (meaning your neighbor's downloads hit your ONT, but your ONT just ignores it). For the upstream, every ONT on the mux is transmitting on the same optical fiber leading up to the head-end. The transmissions are managed using TDMA to ensure that only 1 ONT is transmitting at any given time. It's the TDMA negotiation and sync overhead that limits the upstream BPON channel to 155mbps, whereas the downstream is 1 transmitter (headend) to multiple receivers (ONTs) so the downstream channel runs at 622mbps.
This is nearly identical to how DOCSIS plants work today, only DOCSIS 2.0 is restricted to 38/27 for down/up channel capacity and FiOS is 622/155. The density is also significantly different, where current DOCSIS plants extend out to 400-500 homes per HFC node, and Verizon is limited to 32 - 64 homes per neighborhood optical distribution.
said by VZ FiOS :
However, my point was that if the last-mile providers would stop oversubscribing more and more customers to their networks and take the time to actually upgrade and improve upon them like Verizon has done with rolling out new lines all together The problem is there is no financially viable application driving that upgrade. Verizon is not rolling out FiOS solely to build kick-ass broadband services, though that is a nice marketing addition. The leading driver for Verizon is getting into video distribution. All of the PSTN providers are aware that the future of local dialtone services continues to decline. Video is a clear place to make money -- look at FiOS TV: $40-50/mo for service. From a capacity planning standpoint, the bandwidth to deliver TV channels is all in the "to-subscriber" direction, the capacity is known and fixed, there are no head-end carrier capacity requirements, the trouble calls are less, and any additional traffic beyond the fixed video content (ie, On Demand services) present yet another opportunity to collect revenue.
Cable MSOs don't have the same drivers. They're already providing video, they're already doing OnDemand, and they have an entire support infrastructure already in place to manage these things. It's not the same "greenfield" Verizon and ATT situations where they are starting with no existing video user base, and they have the benefit of deploying nearly a decade after cable MSOs rolled out the now ubiquitous HFC network.
said by VZ FiOS :
we wouldn't see as much saturation in the networks and people who use their bandwidth to its fullest potential would not have as huge of an impact on those saturated networks as they currently do. Every network can be saturated with the right mix of traffic. Large websites can be taken out by Denial of Service attacks, most of which are just HTTP GET attacks that obey every single standard for IP communications, they just generate a quantity of requests that the service is incapable of fulfilling. If more users start gaining 15+mbps connections and P2P use continues to increase, even FiOS is going to start running into capacity issues at some point in the not too distant future.
said by VZ FiOS :
If ISPs can upgrade their networks ahead of time, instead of trying to squeeze all the bandwidth they can out of their current layouts without shelling out some cash for an upgrade, we will see speed tiers that countries like Japan and Korea have. You can't forecast for network growth that has an exponential growth curve. At some point we're going to have to come to the realization that our ability to grow bandwidth is less than our ability to create apps that consume it.
Using Japan and Korea is an interesting example, because while there are indeed many people with higher speed connections, the individual user experience is still hit-or-miss just like it is here in the US. Congestion is as much an issue in those countries as it is anywhere else. | |
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knightmb
Everybody Lies
join:2003-12-01
Franklin, TN
·AT&T DSL Service
| said by espaeth :said by VZ FiOS :
If networks were designed properly the way they should be in the first place, you wouldn't be affected by that kid up the street pulling 5 streams, everyone would have their own dedicated line and you would get your full speeds 24/7 regardless of how much your neighbors use. If networks were designed in this matter, you'd be paying $1000+ for your 8mbps connection. There is oversubscription at every level of the Internet, including carrier backbones. The difference is that backbones have fewer points of presence to upgrade, they can add more capacity in a shot (10GigE at a time vs 38mbps downstream channels), and the hardware is cheaper because Ethernet & SoNET are more prevalent technologies than DOCSIS so there is more vendor competition to keep equipment prices down. Backbone carriers can scale their networks to meet demand much more rapidly than any of the broadband last-mile providers can. A bit of exaggeration on that, a properly designed network in which it's possible for link saturation would simply do a pipe shaping setup (where their traffic as a whole is shapped, not individual ports or protocols).
If you and the kid have 16 Mbps of bandwidth and the kid down the street is using 16 Mbps and you can't get anything to hit google.com then that is not a properly designed network nor is the gateway handling the session traffic properly. All equipment has finite limits and it's just a matter of making sure the limits can never be reached by a single user, otherwise I have to agree, "poor network design and setup" is to be blamed. | |
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SRFireside
join:2001-01-19
Houston, TX | At 250GB caps you would have to stream over 70 movies a month before you start seeing any additional charges. If you have that much spare time on your hands how can you even afford the services? | |
| | | nanoflower
join:2002-07-14
30876
| Re: Throttling Depends on the quality of the movies. With HD streaming starting I can see people eating up the bandwidth. Especially if you consider that you may also be looking at more than one person in a home pulling down data from various sites. It's entirely possible for people to cross that threshold while still getting only legal content. I agree that not many will do it, but it's definitely doable. | |
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SRFireside
join:2001-01-19
Houston, TX
| Re: Throttling Currently the NetFlix offering Hog is talking about streams only in standard definition. Thus my response to the short-sighted reaction of cancelling services. We won't really see HD streaming happen on a consumer level for at least a few years. My concern will be what Comcast does at that time when the 250GB cap is no longer sufficient.
It's just like back in the DSL heyday where some ISP's capped the transfers at 6GB and such. When content demand went up those caps were removed. Will CC follow suite? | |
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Calabria
join:2007-11-06
Lansdale, PA
| Re: Throttling Never have a problem with V*!Constant 15/15.not are problem if C* can't get it right.If people are going to stick with C* they should stop there bitching.If you haven't learned by know the way C* operates then you deserve to get the royal shaft  | |
| | Kearnstd
Elf Wizard
Premium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ
| over subscribing, over booking, etc are all policy at customer fronted businesses. from what i hear many airlines overbook the plane because they know a certain percent dont make it. just as an ISP over subs a node because they know there is a few heavy users and then that user that check the email after work and then rots in front of reality TV on the networks all night.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
| damox
Premium
join:2002-01-07
Olympia, WA
·Comcast Formerly ..
| Tiers I'd like to see various tiers that not only include bandwidth, but caps as well. Our household includes three heavy users and five computers. At this point I'm not sure how much we download every month, but I just bought a new router which has a bandwidth meter, and I expect to be able to determine that fairly soon. Obviously every household and every user's idea on how to use the Internet is not the same. If I need a higher cap, I'd like to pay for it, but I don't think it should come down to "heavy fines" for going over by 10 megabytes, for instance. That's how the wireless phone companies gouged users for so many years. Not because a user's going over was any great cost to the phone company, only because they saw this as a way they could get rich! Unfortunately, even though broadband providers are increasing their total available bandwidth, they will use caps as a way to stick it to the customer.
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DAMOX Proud to be a member of Team Discovery | |
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26 | Pick a plan - any plan - stick with it and STFU, please!
--
"Employer lays off thousands; stock market rallies"
Anyone see a problem here?
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Pv8man999
@wideopenwest.com
| Ok, i've got sort of a theory for all of you How many times have any bit torrent users downloaded a large file (1 - 3GB), then it either did not work or was a different and/or fake file. Then having to keep trying, or download multiple torrents of the same thing to better your chances?
My point is, 250GB is not so much, On average I might say i'm somewhere around 3 - 14 GB a day. Bandwidth demand will grow in the future, count on it. | |
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JamesPC
join:2005-10-12
Orange, CA
| Re: Ok, i've got sort of a theory for all of you Of course it will, 20 average homes in the future will demand more bandwidth than the internet does as a whole today. Every bit of information will come down the internet (HD TV, video phone, and of course internet). Video phone is the big pusher, once we can get a "REAL-TIME" video connection into every house, the internet will change as we know it. Everything will be HD in future, WHY NOT. Personally I think the companies are just being cheap, i don't blame them for wanting to save money. But they act like they don't have any. Reminds me of oil companies...lol. SPEND MONEY ON INVESTMENT INSTEAD OF THE CEO retirement package. | |
| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| said by Pv8man999 :
My point is, 250GB is not so much, On average I might say i'm somewhere around 3 - 14 GB a day. (3+14)/2*30.5 = 259.25 GB
Looks like if you download two less DVDs per month then you'll be fine. The proposed 250 GB cap is enormous for a vast majority of consumers. | |
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Viper007Bond
Premium
join:2002-09-26
Portland, OR
| I agree. I've been doing 200-230GB a month down, 100GB up each month this year and I'm on a friggin' slow ass 1.5mbit DSL line.
And before anyone says it, no I am not downloading tons of movies. 95% of what I download is the nightly TV shows or older shows I'd like to see again (A-Team, Miami Vice, Magnum PI, etc.). Hell, even if I streamed it off sites like Hulu or whatever, I bet I could get fairly close to what I'm using.
Although I am above the average now, I won't be for too long. Netflix, Hulu, etc. are all streaming movies and TV shows and high bandwidth media is definitely becoming the norm.
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I have a signature. | I also have a website/blog. | I even have a computer! | |
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jimbo48
join:2000-11-17
Hayward, CA
·AT&T DSL Service
·EarthLink
| Caps limits and such The problem I would have is that they do not disclose a cap or limit then they come back and threaten you with the CAP.Its like being sold a car advertised and capable of 100 mph and the mfg/seller not telling you that going over 45 mph will result in a shutdown. If your intentions/requirement was to be able to go 100mph you wouldn't have purchased a car that could only actually go 45 mph- you wouldn't have paid for it. Truthful, factual information on a product is necessary for a contract to be legitimate- You can't come back and say oh BTW I neglected to tell you that our product/service product really won't perform like we say it can. I call that mis-representation at the least and criminal fraud at the worst.
Time to require "full disclosure" from these cretins and fines for willful misrepresentation and those fines going to the people that were victimized. No gift certificate or free service for a month cash money no checks please. Keep the blood-sucking lawyers from cashing in on the process or limiting their "take" say 1-5% of the fine.. | |
|
drdonutman
@bellsouth.net | a culture In my opinion, people who break this 250GB caps belong to a group of people, so managing people like this would boot a culture of people off the Comcast network. | |
| |
Sturm
@alconlabs.com
| Re: a culture If Comcast would deliver the service their SOLD they would not have to "manage people" ,meaning double speak for convincing ripped off customers and observers that they are not ripping off customers.
They are not supposed to "manage people" except maybe for their subpar technicians and customer support, but to manage networks and deliver service, which obviously they cannot so they cover behind all the double speak. | |
| 
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
| Atta Boy, Tony-- That video is just about the best commercial opportunity that DSL and FIOS has had.
In that video, he aptly explains the focus the company is putting on making sure that the United States continues to fall behind the rest of the world in speeds and access.
Comparing my 6 Mbps/384 Kbps to Japan's 100 Mbps access? What a crock of crap!
And, by the way -- yes, Japan says that a good fraction of their bandwidth is consumed by P2P. But they also ARE NOT throttling it. See, in Japan, the future is the future. They don't attempt to throttle progress back to the 1990's client-server model.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
HTTP is the new Bandwidth Hog...
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See 18 replies to this post | |
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Floral Park, NY
| Offload to a cheap service.. I think Comcast should survey these subscribers and find out if Video content is their main objective in pinning out their connection day & night. If so, Comcast could sell an all you can eat streaming plan at the server edge to give customers what they want & save a bundle in transport costs.. they still are not off the hook in widening their last mile pipes, BUT this could turn out to be a win-win situation for the end users who wouldn't see network wide fee increases and Comcast makes a thin profit by giving consumers what they want without it COSTING them a bundle in internet transport. (A streaming all you can eat rental service can essentially put netflix, blockbuster, and others out of business though... tough luck). What Comcast CAN'T do is force customers to do this though.. it's more the carrot & stick approach. Don't think a broadband connection will stay current levels per month IF more & more subscribers want to MAX OUT the connection for content. Think of it as the railroad approach to putting gas guzzling cars out of business & it helps fund widening last mile pipes. | |
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