Comcast to install throttling

Comcast’s plan:

Customers’ accounts must exceed a certain percentage of their upstream or downstream (both currently set at 70%) bandwidth for longer than a certain period of time, currently set at fifteen minutes.

A significant amount of normal Internet usage by our customers does not last that long. For example, most downloads would have completed within that time, and the majority of streaming and downloading will not exceed the threshold to be eligible for congestion management. And the majority of longer-running applications, such as VoIP, video conferencing, and streaming video content (including HD streaming on most sites) will not exceed these thresholds either.

I still think it sucks. It’s about time that Comcast built up their networks to a specification that allows not only for present usage but near future usage too. More and more data of all kinds is going to be transmitted via the Internet, much of which isn’t illegal P2P either.

I watch video, stream audio (internet radio stream). Comcast wants to dissuade its users from these kind of activities as they want subscribers to sped huge amounts of money on ever more premium rate TV channels.

With ISPs with an attitude like Comcast, it’s no wonder the US is 16 or 17th in the world league table for Internet speed and reliability.