The Consumerist has an article about Comcast’s download cap. I found this part very interesting.
Comcast even has a system ready to go where if you exceed the limit a popup will ask you to purchase additional gigabytes, our source says. The graphical user interface is completely designed and everything, but Comcast hasn’t deployed it, because they’re waiting for either another ISP to do it first, or to figure out how to do it without angering their customers, whichever comes first.
CEO Brian Roberts is said to have seen a demo and given his thumbs up.
[Fixed. – ed.]
This is a far better solution than extorting money out of YouTube or other Internet services. I hope other ISPs adopt this solution.
Remember, when ISPs started offering all you can use Internet, BitTorrent was not in common usage and speeds were so slow that video downloads were not practical.
It is a much better idea to ask people to pay for high usage levels than to cut then off or throttle their service when they cross some limit they did not even know about.
Internet users have always paid for their usage, initially you paid more for a direct connection than for dial up. Today you can pay more for faster access.
This requires no legislation to maintain Net Neutrality, it lets market forces solve the problem.
Ask you provider what the rules are BEFORE you join up. I spoke with my current ISP to make sure that they did not filter BitTorrent and they did not have bandwidth limitations before signing up. This is when you still are in control, when you are a POTENTIAL customer. Make sure the ISPs know these are issues you care about.
In order to implement this without alienating their customers Comcast should provide a utility so the user can monitor their monthly bandwidth usage.
This may be the first time I agree with Comcast about anything. I still can’t forgive them for buying and dismantling TechTV.
#33, LB,
You make a good point. Unfortunately, the telecoms and cables companies don’t play fair. They might verbally promise you the moon, but are only beholden to the signed contract. So it doesn’t matter if the sales rep promised 10 M/s download speeds, the contract will limit you to whatever they give you. It won’t matter if if the sales rep promises you unlimited d/ls, the contract might have a limit. You want a special contract? Ya right.
Oh, BTW, there will probably be some clause in the contract that says they may unilaterally change the contract without notifying you. It is your responsibility to visit their web site and read the contract every month to find out what has changed. If you don’t object within 30 days and continue to use the service then that means you accept the change.
Our elected representatives have let us down by nor protecting the consumer from these predatory practices.
If this happens, advertisers should pay me for the 1 MB animated flash ad with audio that downloads without my consent.
Seriously, a lot of these flash ads are bandwidth hogs because everyone has broadband today.
That advertising guy who said using adblockers is stealing is crazy.
yup, if this gores through I’ll just break my contract. I can get faster internet for cheaper but comcast was easy.
The end customer shouldn’t be penalized for what the webpages do as advertizing. A lot of today’s webpages have gone from small static thumbnails as ad. To video clips. I’ve had to block a few of these shockwave ads comming from pages I frequent. Simply because they jam up my dialup connected browser, waiting for them to fully load and play. I have no problem see the old Jpeg and GIF ads. So wouldn’t us receiving all these video ads also go toward maxing out the download limit? If these carriers are going to charge anyone for eating up bandwidth, it should be webpages that supply these video ads, and video clips, in place of text articles. Like your local news stations, that just don’t want to take the time to transcribe their reports.
So this ‘story’ is based on rumor and speculation.
Come on, does anyone with a brain think this is real?
Grow up and start using your heads people, instead of letting your rash emotions get the best of you.