Insider says should only affect 14,000 of its 14 million customers, but new policy that terminates accounts who receive 4 DMCA letters in a 12 month period may have more dramatic effect.
Broadband Reports has a posted an interview with a “Comcast insider” who swears that the ISP has new network traffic management plans in store. After having been reprimanded buy the FCC and skewered by network neutrality advocates, BitTorrent users and companies, and almost everybody in between for throttling BitTorrent traffic in order to free up bandwidth, it now seems the ISP has decided on a formula of overusage fees and disconnections for persistent troublemakers.
Set to begin in a “month or two,” the plan would mean that all subscribers get a 250GB per month cap with one free “slip up” a year. Violators would be charged $15 for each 10GB over the cap.
“The intent appears to be to go after the people who consistently download far more than the typical user without hurting those who may have a really big month infrequently,” says an insider familiar with the project, who prefers to remain anonymous. “As far as I am aware, uploads are not affected, at least not initially.” According to this source, the new system should only impact some 14,000 customers out of Comcast’s 14.1 million users (i.e. the top 0.1%).
Comcast also targets file-sharers with stepped up enforcement of DMCA letters.
“Up until now, letters sent out to account holders have not been tracked,” the source says. “This will change, with progressively increasing penalties, up to disconnection of the account after four letters within a 12 month period,” continues Broadband Report’s insider.
Overall I’d have to say that that this proposed plan sounds like a good one. It doesn’t single out BitTorrent traffic nor does it target file-sharing specifically. Plus, a 250GB cap is pretty darn generous considering it works out to about 8.33GB per day.
As for the DMCA letters, well if you’re getting 4 of them a year you really shouldn’t be file-sharing.
Most importantly, at least they’re upfront about it right? And not they’re interfering with programs or protocols that have legitimate uses. It really just comes down to levels of use.
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I don’t think any of those 14000 subscribers have anything to complain about. 250GB per month is very generous considering Cox Communication’s is 60GB down / 15GB up on their “Premier” tier.
I think this plan at least sounds honest. You know what your paying for in advance and when you run though it you either pay for more or you cut back. No lofty promises of infinite bandwidth just a fair amount based on what a person pays. If they can make it easy for subscribers to track how much they use per day (say on an account page) this could be a great compromise idea for the ISPs and their customers.
As for the disconnections based on DMCA notices they sounds reasonable but is there a simple appeals process? Many people are targeted by accident and no one should be disconnected (or pay any sort of penalty) if there was no grounds for them to receive the notice in the first place. And if someone is disconnected on poor grounds dose that mean they can sue the ISP and/or **AA for defamation of character and/or if its a business material damages?
@Gamer
Well u get 4 a year so if you’re getting that many in a 12month period you’re doing something wrong right? At the very least you ought to switch up to Usenet or BitTorrent if u havent already right?
Hopefully they provide some sort of web interface or something to keep track of your bandwidth. Especially if you got multiple computers behind a router.
I can’t imagine capping @ 250 gigs per month- if you are an online gamer or watch youtube with any regularity you are screwed- I am glad I am on DSL because I listen to around 1gig a week in podcasts alone- that is 4-5 gigs a month- add youtube views of another 10-20 gigs of transfer- online gaming of about 5-10 gigs and it’s starting to add up- and that’s just me and not counting anything else in transfer (like skype or stuff for work software updates which can be upwards of 100 megs a pop or kits that I grab to do mixes for other artists) there are other ppl in the house using the connection as well – the fact is that if there are only 14k people being affected by the transfer cap comcast should be building that into their cost structure- I suspect there are a whole lot more than the # that they have mentioned and a large group that are not filesharing that will be affected.
I think your right entropyman some people need alot of gbs per month who may use comcast.. but maybe finding a new isp may do some good.. which i have nooooo idea if anyone is really good.. however comcast has been good to me so far however that may change… It seems as though its nothing but comcast in the news alot.. what is wrong with them?!!!!!