 | | Could be perfect... This could be a perfect system if it's transparent. If Comcast tells you what qualifies you as being a heavy user then people who are heavy users can avoid the slowdown. There are already cable companies that will slow you down if you use X amount of bandwidth over a certain period. These slowdowns are usually temporary as well.
Also, a lot of ISPs will tell you that they're only going to meter during the day, and from 10PM to 8AM or whatever you can use as much bandwidth as you want. If Comcast is fair and transparent I don't think you'll have too many users complaining.
The cap, at the current time, is fair at 250GB. I upload and download a lot of stuff and have been trying to see if I can hit 250GB this month and I'm going to fall about 100GB short so I am not worried.
The one thing that ticks me off is Comcast pulling the plug on the newsgroups so I guess I'll need to spend an extra $8-$10 a month if I want to keep that service with a 3rd party.
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Alt-This -- My Tech Podcast | |
|
 | Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Re: Could be perfect... said by gwbuffalo:This could be a perfect system ... a perfect system for what? avoiding upgrades? slowing upgrades? charging more money?
it seems to be a perfect system for promoting artificial scarcity - is that what you mean? | |
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| |  Smith6612Premium,MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY
kudos:21 | Re: Could be perfect... Comcast is already upgrading to DOCSIS 3.0 so you can throw the avoiding upgrades out. Who knows, they may only be capping until they finish with the roll outs. | |
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| |
| | | quote:
The one thing that ticks me off is Comcast pulling the plug on the newsgroups so I guess I'll need to spend an extra $8-$10 a month if I want to keep that service with a 3rd party.
Well to be honest their newsgroups suck. They always have. Between the 2g limit & the abusive way they measured that amount was crap. Many users seek the torrents due to their lame excuse of newsgroups. Providers like Verizon offer unlimited newsgroups and are far better. But their are many for the 8-10 range that are excellent sources. | |
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 DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | FAP and CAP If they have a FAP there is no need to cap. | |
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| | | Re: FAP and CAP What is the issue with the biggest providers wanting to cap and such... I don't understand the reasoning behind it, didn't they say that 1% of their customers are causing the bandwidth issues.. | |
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| | | | Re: FAP and CAP said by bobjohnson:What is the issue with the biggest providers wanting to cap and such... I don't understand the reasoning behind it, didn't they say that 1% of their customers are causing the bandwidth issues.. That's exactly the reason. It's 1% using a massive amount of bandwidth so the caps make the other 99% happy. | |
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| | | DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: FAP and CAP Then why FAP? Caps should be enough to keep those heavy users "under control". Or conversely, FAPping keeps the traffic flowing for non-heavy users at all times.
One or the other. Both aren't necessary for network management. | |
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| | | |  Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: FAP and CAP said by Dogfather:Then why FAP? Caps should be enough to keep those heavy users "under control". But until they hit their cap, they could make life miserable for other people on their local node and slow their uploads. And that is why there are caps and a QOS scheme as well.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
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| | | | | DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: FAP and CAP Then if they have a FAP, why cap? The FAP accomplishes by itself what they're claiming (their claims haven't been substantiated) is necessary.
IOW, if the goal is to insure fair access and smooth sailing for all users, the fair access policy by itself accomplishes that. But it doesn't matter. The corporate kissasses and cable shills will excuse anything Comcast does, whether justified or not. | |
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| | | | | |  espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
 ·Clear Wireless
| Re: FAP and CAP said by Dogfather:Then if they have a FAP, why cap? The FAP accomplishes by itself what they're claiming (their claims haven't been substantiated) is necessary. The FAP takes care of point in time congestion concerns.
The CAP is still useful to make sure that people don't force the requeuing to constantly go into effect. | |
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| | | | | | | DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: FAP and CAP That's irrelevant. The traffic shaping is always in effect. The only difference is who is traffic shaped and who isn't.
If you have a FAP, a cap is totally unjustified. | |
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| | | | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Re: FAP and CAP said by Dogfather:That's irrelevant. The traffic shaping is always in effect. The only difference is who is traffic shaped and who isn't. First off, it's not really traffic shaping. If you're a heavy user and you get tagged into the best effort class, your traffic will only be impacted so much as light users are trying to get packets on the network. If you're a heavy user, the channel is getting busy enough to start to implement the tagging, but never actually reaches a point of saturation, there is no impact to anyone's traffic.
Second, this isn't in effect all the time. I suggest you re-read the technical details of the proposal; the requeuing only takes place when the channel reaches a near congested state. The overwhelming majority of the time there is no action taken at all by the system.
It's the solution for 2 distinct problems: reduce the impact by chronic heavy users (CAP), and reduce short term bottlenecks that can occur during times of peak demand (FAP). | |
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| | | | | | | | | DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: FAP and CAP That makes zero sense.
The FAP alleviates network traffic issues for casual users. If there is no congestion, then no cap is warranted. If there is network congestion, the FAP is all that is warranted.
IOW, the FAP reduces the impact of chronic heavy users if they're impacting other users and the FAP reduces the impact of extended use during periods of peak demand. The FAP is all that is needed. Caps are unjustified if you already have a fair access policy in effect. If chronic heavy users aren't affecting other users then it shouldn't be a concern. | |
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| | | | |  pspcrazyAnime Freak
join:2008-02-06
San Diego, CA | Comcast just wants to spend less time upgrading their service and more time counting their cash. Sorry TK but this is just wrong no matter how I look at it.
I feel for you comcast users out there, you guys are truly worse off then the dsl users everywhere else. I'd suggest you switch since this means you'll be at dsl like speeds most of the time anyway.
To the comcast poster, i love how you AVOID all the bad posts and go for the 1 pro comcast post. Show's how you guy's handle customer feedback as well. Thanks for giving the finger to all the other feedback we give on here.
I did like comcast at one point, but that's all in the past now. | |
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| | | | | | | | Re: FAP and CAP And you'd think with FiOS eating their lunch they'd want to retain customers! | |
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| | |  KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| said by gwbuffalo:That's exactly the reason. It's 1% using a massive amount of bandwidth so the caps make the other 99% happy. Except that's a lie.
Some of these ISP's are saying 5GB is enough, or 20GB, or 40.
That's way more then 1% now, and it's going to be a lot nearer to 100% as video usage grows.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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| | | | | | Re: FAP and CAP Agreed. Comcast is pushing their Fancast site a lot in the past few weeks. That's a site where you can see all sorts of shows from the various networks in high quality. If you have a number of members in your family it's very possible that you could cross the 250GB barrier if, say, you have a few teenagers that are into watching various TV shows off the site. | |
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| | | | | DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: FAP and CAP Who knows...Fancast may be magically excluded from their caps. This rush to caps has always been about defending their own video revenues (either things like Fancast or PPV VOD) from video competitors like Nextflix, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. | |
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| | | | | said by gwbuffalo:said by bobjohnson:What is the issue with the biggest providers wanting to cap and such... I don't understand the reasoning behind it, didn't they say that 1% of their customers are causing the bandwidth issues.. That's exactly the reason. It's 1% using a massive amount of bandwidth so the caps make the other 99% happy. Which, obviously, is bull.
dont be fooled by these companies. | |
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| | Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| said by bobjohnson:What is the issue with the biggest providers wanting to cap and such... they would like to have metered broadband where we pay by the bit, but to do that they first are going to pretend there is a "bandwidth crunch". Because there is a "bandwidth crunch", it's necessary to do all these things to "save" bandwidth.
incidentally, this will also allow them to slow down upgrades, eventually making the "bandwidth crunch" a reality as their network fails to keep pace with demand.
implementing all these caps and throttles also sets them up for the next step - prioritizing their content over other content. Watch something on Hulu? that's gonna cost ya! on the other hand, you can get this other programming free from the comcast portal!
without competition, they do whatever they want. | |
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| | | Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: FAP and CAP said by nasadude:implementing all these caps and throttles also sets them up for the next step - prioritizing their content over other content. Watch something on Hulu? that's gonna cost ya! on the other hand, you can get this other programming free from the comcast portal! They won't do that because it will set off a firestorm of "network neutrality" issues with the FCC and others(including content providers).
--
My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk? | |
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| | | Reviews:
·Sprint Mobile Br..
| said by nasadude:said by bobjohnson:What is the issue with the biggest providers wanting to cap and such... they would like to have metered broadband where we pay by the bit, but to do that they first are going to pretend there is a "bandwidth crunch". Because there is a "bandwidth crunch", it's necessary to do all these things to "save" bandwidth. incidentally, this will also allow them to slow down upgrades, eventually making the "bandwidth crunch" a reality as their network fails to keep pace with demand. implementing all these caps and throttles also sets them up for the next step - prioritizing their content over other content. Watch something on Hulu? that's gonna cost ya! on the other hand, you can get this other programming free from the comcast portal! without competition, they do whatever they want. Ahh... That all makes sense...
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Any unauthorized copying or distribution of the opinion above constitutes stupidity and you should probably be punished
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|
 KickrootJava HeathenPremium
join:2002-11-24
Glassboro, NJ | Eh, whatever I just ordered Fios yesterday. Two more weeks and then goodbye Comcast!
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Only through the criticizing of others can we learn to love ourselves. | |
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|  ztmikeMark for moderationPremium
join:2001-08-02
Michigan City, IN | Re: Eh, whatever said by Kickroot:I just ordered Fios yesterday. Two more weeks and then goodbye Comcast! I hate you.
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ZZPERFORMANCE | |
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| | | you can have this all you want until VZ is the next one to put some sort of cap or FAP in place. They're just playing the sit and watch game before they jump in. | |
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| | | | Re: Eh, whatever I agree. This is new territory for Verizon, where they're competing on pretty much level ground with cable providers.
I have no doubt there'll be caps/FAP on FiOS in the future. | |
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| | | | | Re: Eh, whatever same here especially after VZ spoke at that Think Tank some time ago regarding caps and how they think they're a good thing. | |
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|  rloconeHonor Our Heros, Our Armed ForcesPremium
join:2002-04-10
Kokomo, IN | Lucky you! However, every system/company will have issues. Maybe not today but there is always room for tomorrow. | |
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| | Not to be trusted Past history shows one thing. That CC lies. Allot. They denied about Sandvine blocking P2P and later again denied its existence when presented the smoking gun. Then when they finally fessed up to using Sandvine they lied again that they only used it at times of congestion.. which was a total lie.. they used it 24X7 and I don't thing to this day they have admitted to this fact. They have millions of HSI users and they are saying that no one is complaining? That most likely, is a lie as well. I think at this point no one should trust anything these guys say. Question everything and keep them on a very short leash. I think CC needs to earn any respect or trust at this point. | |
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| | What a joke FAP and caps. What a joke FAP and caps. Other ISP do it in better way like have A download threshold when if you go over it you get slowed down for as long as it takes for you to Recover it but they also have FAP free times and / or a Pay for the data over the limit with no CAP. Some ISP do have FAP free zones but COMCARP dose not even want to do that. | |
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| | Sounds Like a good plan As long as everything mentioned is the truth, then this will be a pretty good plan. I don't believe there were no complaints about the testing though... seriously, someone will always complain. Did the people in those cities know they were under testing... and could have complained that they were having issues because of the testing? If packets stop getting f'd with on their network (RSTs), and I can actually use the connection like I did several years ago, I'm happy. If I get throttled, oh well, its temporary. | |
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| Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: Sounds Like a good plan said by swhitney2003: Did the people in those cities know they were under testing... and could have complained that they were having issues because of the testing? The areas tested had email sent to all customers explaining the test.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk? | |
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| | | | Re: Sounds Like a good plan thanks, was unsure if this happened or not. | |
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|  jlivingoodPremium,VIP
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA
kudos:1 | said by swhitney2003:As long as everything mentioned is the truth, then this will be a pretty good plan. I don't believe there were no complaints about the testing though... seriously, someone will always complain. Did the people in those cities know they were under testing... and could have complained that they were having issues because of the testing? If packets stop getting f'd with on their network (RSTs), and I can actually use the connection like I did several years ago, I'm happy. If I get throttled, oh well, its temporary. Thanks for the positive reaction. As to your question:
In advance of each trial market starting (two weeks ahead I believe), we contacted all customers in that area by email to advise them of the trial. We monitored local customer service on an at least daily basis, as well as our customer support forums and external forums like Broadband Reports.  And those local customer service teams were briefed on the trial activities and instructed to escalate to the trial engineering team (and we got regular updates from them). Any time something remotely looked like it could be related, we investigated. Certainly, we found the normal range of technical support issues you’d find anywhere else, but we did not link any reported problems to the trial activities themselves.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Jason
Comcast
National Engineering & Technical Operations
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JL
Comcast | |
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| | Why not just cut to the chase? I wonder why US ISPs haven't simply gone to the $1 per kb billing system yet? It's rather obvious this is where it's heading, so why not just run a BS ad campaign and scare people with another fake bandwidth apocalypse, then reap obscene profits?
Really, internet should be considered a public utility by now (after all, you don't NEED electricity, and yet that's a public utility), and should be regulated as such. | |
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| | So is it a CAP or a FAP? If it's a FAP, then if you go over 250GB, you are slowed to DSL speeds, but you can still surf? If it's a CAP, then why the hell shouldn't I be able to use my 16mb for the first day and a half every month. Comcast has to pick one or the other. If they are CAPPING at 250GB, then by noon on the 2nd day of the month, all the heavy downloaders will have run through their quote. If they are FAP'd, then the heavy downloaders won't be able to hit their cap until the 5th of the month. But comcast has to choose one or the other.
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The happiest countries are the most secular. The struggle AGAINST corporations is the struggle FOR humanity! | |
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| Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: So is it a CAP or a FAP? said by karlmarx:If it's a FAP, then if you go over 250GB, you are slowed to DSL speeds, but you can still surf? If it's a CAP, then why the hell shouldn't I be able to use my 16mb for the first day and a half every month. Comcast has to pick one or the other. If they are CAPPING at 250GB, then by noon on the 2nd day of the month, all the heavy downloaders will have run through their quote. If they are FAP'd, then the heavy downloaders won't be able to hit their cap until the 5th of the month. But comcast has to choose one or the other. No they don't.
»Re: FAP and CAP
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tiger9
join:2005-08-01
Ont,Canada | It's reasonable. 250GB + DSL speeds past that is pretty reasonable. This is how network management should be run. | |
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 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5
2 edits | nevermind nevermind | |
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| | 250 GB is predatory and unreasonable Comcast is very fortunate they have not yet been the subject of a class action lawsuit for their predatory throttling as well as their previously undisclosed predatory cap, in opposition to the falsely advertised "unlimited" they promised their users. They even went so far as to target power users and to vilify them as "abusive."
I, for one, am fortunate I have never had to suffer through their deceptions and PREDATORY behavior.
A 250 GB cap is totally ridiculous and highly predatory. In today's day and age, 250 GB is inappropriate for single users or families, and it can be used in a week. This may mystify some who think it is generous for a whole month (!), but it is far from generous. If Comcast wishes not to be seen as a predatory and deceptive business, loathed by serious net users everywhere, I suggest they raise their bandwidth cap to something more appropriate. I might suggest 1 - 1.25 TB. That seems to be more fitting with all the downloads and video streaming available. In addition, as they themselves are often wont to point out, most people don't even come close to 250 GB, so I doubt very many would utilize 1 or 1.25 TB a month. If someone is somehow using 2 or 3 TB in a month, I can understand putting a cap on that. I can also understand having a separate upstream cap of maybe 75-150 GB, or even less. If someone is using any more than that for upstream, they are most likely a commercial venture and should get a T3 connection, but a 250 GB limit for downloads and video streaming? GET REAL! This is 2008, and that number is a sick joke! It would be totally unnecessary with the network management policies outlined on their web site, as well as deploying a separate upstream cap. A bandwidth cap of 1-1.25 TB would be more reasonable, and Comcast would then be championed and respected by users everywhere. And maybe that would need to be raised in 5 or 10 yeas, but for 2008...THAT is what is appropriate, not a ridiculous and predatory 250 GB!
For the record, I feel the network management outlined on the Comcast site is appropriate. It is the obscene bandwidth cap I object to.
By the way, I posted a message very similar to this on wired.com last night, but it was removed shortly thereafter. First and only post at that site. Evidently they are big proponents of censorship, or Comcast has influence over there. | |
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See 6 replies to this post |
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| | Huh? I don't get it. They are implementing a cap in addition to throttling? So, as you use up more and more of the 250G cap you are going to be throttled? Or is it if you go over 250G cap? If they are going to throttle users who get near 250G then there is a soft cap that is less that 250G. I knew that 250G cap was too good to be true. Bastards. | |
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| | 250GB cap is OK now, but in future...? They should raise it 50-75GB every year or something. 250GB for 2008, 300-325GB for 2009 and so on... | |
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| damoxPremium
join:2002-01-07
Olympia, WA Reviews:
 ·Comcast Formerl..
| Re: 250GB cap is OK now, but in future...? Yeah at some point you'd think they have to raise it, but 50 gigabytes a years seems a bit high given that it's 1/5th of the entire amount. Maybe adjusting it say every three years or something, taking into account that they are probably looking at how much bandwidth is available. I'm sure that the 250 gig cap leaves a great deal of room for future expansion, or at least it should.
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DAMOX Proud to be a member of Team Discovery | |
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| | | said by crese24:They should raise it 50-75GB every year or something. 250GB for 2008, 300-325GB for 2009 and so on... 250 gigs will not be enough in the future. Its just a matter of time really. I don't see any reason why physical media should be used. Many reasons to move away from that but the most important reason is its the green/environmental thing to do. The problem is there is no standards or regulations moving forward to allow for this growth. What we have are huge corporations thinking they can decide what the internet should be and how it can be used. Some might be ok with letting companies like CC decide. And they will no doubt put brakes on what the future can provide in favor of upgrading infrustrature and they will no doubt allow their own HD content to be downloaded without restrictions. I see is a fight coming on in the future from the consumers, legislators, and corporations. Hopefully an end to the payoffs in congress to buy corporate policies will end in Washington.. Otherwise, I am afraid matters will only get worse with physical media being used far longer then need be. | |
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| | | | Re: 250GB cap is OK now, but in future...? I agree and disagree, I prefer physical media over downloads. But, I don't buy much physical media either so... I like to download most of my stuff, but every once in a while I will buy the physical media, I want the option of both physical or download to be the norm. Physical media needs to stay around for as long as it can. | |
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damoxPremium
join:2002-01-07
Olympia, WA Reviews:
·Comcast Formerl..
| Checking it out So today I started metering our household bandwidth. However, I don't seem to be able to set a limit higher than about 99000 megabytes on the router, a netgear fvs338. I tried 250000 megabytes, but it wouldn't take, and then I tried some lower amounts above 100,000 but that wouldn't take either, but the 99000 worked. Since I'm not sure how much we are using at this point I don't know if 99 gigabytes will be enough. Which brings me to a question. How are they measuring a gigabyte? Are they counting the full 1024 megabytes to a gig or are they doing what hard drive manufactures do and figure 1000 megabytes to a gig. The difference is only about 6000 megabytes. I suppose if someone is using that much it probably won't make much difference but it could in some cases be the difference between going over and not. In any case since I can set limits on my router, I won't have to worry about this family going over! I tested it and it works great! I think the biggest worry for some families would be not knowing how much they are using, especially if they have teenagers or young adults and several computers.
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DAMOX Proud to be a member of Team Discovery | |
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Reviews:
·Charter
| Really? 1%'ers. 1% of the users can ruin EVERYONE'S bandwidth.
I just don't believe it.
Comcast says that no one complained during their testing.
Are there comments from Comcast execs stating that before the caps, there were thousands of customers who called in?
"My internet is REALLY slow today. Could you find out why?"
And then this call is repeated thousands of times all over the country, with concentration on specific nodes. For example, in 2007, node 11-2456 had 800 calls about slow speed with no other reason possible. This sounds like some kindle of capacity issue! Not enough, because 800 calls were made and they all live on that node. So the network geeks did some looking around and it could only be traced to heavy uploaders on that particular node. And we are talking about uploaders, right? 500gb of download via DC++ or FTP or newsgroups would not be an issue pre-cap, right?
Or is it all manufactured?
It all comes back that 1% as the number given who are the bad apples. 1 out of a 100. 10 out of 1000. That 1mb upload 24 hours a day sucks dry the available bandwidth for 100 people. Really? The infrastructure is so bad that the upload side for those 100 people (lets say max available is really only 25mb for all 100 users. 25mb - 1mb leaves 24mb upload for 99 people), their connection slows to a crawl? 24mb for 99 people is still 248kb/s per person. That's plenty for e-mail and surfing. Even youtube addicts.
I just don't see where there could be a problem. Unless I am missing something, which I'm sure someone will point out... | |
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| | not a full disclosure Comcast disclosed as little as possible information on how they manage P2P traffic. They only disclosed what is already known/anticipated by people and there are a lot more they do to manage P2P traffic, which we haven't figured out and they think they don't need to disclose.
this is not an honest disclosure of their unfair practice. | |
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Details/links on the plans from Comcast sources
Why must Comcast cap customers to 250GB per month?