22 Jan 09 Crafty Comcast?
What are they up to now?
Back in August, Comcast got their knuckles rapped by the FCC for throttling specific P2P programs.
Now the FCC is asking Comcast in a letter filed on January 18, to give “detailed justification” as to why the new network management system they put in place since last August appears to affect the quality of third party VOIP services such as, for example, Vonage; yet doesn’t seem to have any effect on Comcast’s own Digital Voice Service.
I used to have Vonage here myself, but switched away from it last year to considerably reduce costs, and switched to a combination of Skype and MyFax, and this saves over $500 a year.
I’ve not had any noticeable degradation of service myself, and the fax service is noticeably better. (There is a class action suit happening right now regarding Vonage’s Fax service, but that is for another article).
The bottom line regarding Comcast though is this:
If they’re using different technology to provide their Digital Voice Service, then it could become a telephony service and not simply VOIP, and could be taxed as such; if they’re not doing that; then they need to explain why their service is getting priority over other IP based services on their network, contrary to what they’ve told the FCC after last August.
FCC logoIn a letter filed January 18, the US agency asks Comcast to provide “detailed justification” on why its new network management practices affect the quality of competing VoIP services, but apparently doesn’t degrade Comcast’s own Digital Voice Service.
The ISP recently switched its traffic management plan in response to an August order from the Federal Communications Commission demanding Comcast stop throttling specific P2P programs like BitTorrent, eDonkey, and Gnuetella.
Tags: bottom line, class action suit, comcast, digital voice, edonkey, fax service, fcc, federal communications commission, gnuetella, justification, knuckles, management practices, myfax, network management system, p2p programs, skype, telephony service, traffic management plan, voice service, vonage
19 Sep 08 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.
Tags: audio internet, comcast, congestion management, fifteen minutes, hd, internet radio, internet speed, internet usage, isps, p2p, period of time, plan customers, premium rate, radio stream, threshold, thresholds, tv channels, video conferencing, video content, video stream
29 Aug 08 Comcast Caps Coming
So it’s official.
Comcast have publicly announced what they’ve been denying they’ve been practising for ages. No, not blocking P2P traffic – but download capping.
From October 1, all residential customers will be subject to a 250GB cap. Ok, it’s better than some North American operators that have caps as low as 60GB in place, but in these days of audio and certainly video downloading it still stinks.
Comcast say that less than 1% of users will be affected. This again is perhaps true, but as more and more folks use online video, that is going to increase.
Surely it would be better to bring the network up to modern standards, rather than limiting users, but then that would encourage more users to download TV and video from the Internet, than pay for numerous premium rate channels.
My opinion is that everything will eventually come through the net. The technology is there already; it’s just the likes of Comcast that don’t want to see the true convergence of Television and Internet. If they did, it would be widespread now. There would be media centers in very many living rooms. After all, if a viewer can afford a 40-50 inch HD TV, then they can probably afford a computer with HD output to drive it all. It makes sense too. It’s still not easy to get the downloaded movie from your PC to your TV – not nearly as easy as it could be, for the majority of folks.
Meanwhile, the Twin Cities are getting 50mbps download speeds, with 5mbps upload, albeit at a price. The service is to come on stream shortly for $149.99 a month. Then again, if you have Comcast Internet, and all the TV channels they offer, the bill is currently around $200 anyway – so why not simply have a bigger pipe, and get the whole lot off the net? It would be easy to build charging model in – what’s happened to smart cards that go into your computer to unlock premium channels? Wasn’t there some law that mandated that a few years back?
Mind you, will these wideband users in the Twin Cities be subject to the 250GB cap as well? That would truly suck.
Tags: caps, comcast, comcast internet, download speeds, hd tv, premium rate, residential customers, smart cards, Television, traffic, true convergence, tv channels, twin cities, whole lot
