Now that Comcast has made their half-decade old invisible monthly cap completely clear to users, Torrent Freak wonders if other carriers with similarly nebulous connection limitations will begin offering more concrete details. The first carrier that comes to mind is Qwest, which, as we discussed last December, has an "excessive use policy" in place that features a monthly cap. Unfortunately, nobody actually knows what that monthly cap really is, likely because it varies depending on regional congestion (Qwest employees tell me Torrent Freak's 250GB guesstimate isn't accurate for just this reason).

Customers who hit this cap find their accounts locked out, and are directed to a website where they're warned about excessive usage. The company's (EUP) points customers to this pdf, which only gives a generic representation of how much is too much. As is the standard operating procedure these days for companies who are trying to make their limitations seem more than generous, the company measures the caps by e-mails sent and websites visited -- largely meaningless measurement criteria in the age of high-definition video:While Qwest no longer advertises their service as unlimited, forum posters note that several resale partners do. According to Qwest, the majority of their customers consume "1-3 Gigabytes per month," a number that is "slightly higher for business customers." While the limit imposed by Qwest will likely never be seen by most customers (at least not in 2008), it would still be nice to see the baby bell be completely clear about precisely what level of usage constitutes gluttony.