Well, the unsurprising has finally happened. Comcast have annouced their bandwidth caps. They're surprisingly reasonable, coming in at 250 gigs a month. Compare that with the 2-40 gigs a month I've read about other providers proposing as their own caps. A few things still haven't been made clear...
1) Is that cap 250 gigs up and down or just down?
2) What happens if you exceed 250 gigs? Do you get shut down? Will Comcast impose some sort of over-bandwidth charges?
3) Will Comcast provide some sort of web-based tool to check out your bandwidth consumption for the month? Call me cynical, but when it comes to things like being charged for every gig over the limit, I'm not a "take their word for it" sort of guy.
I can only imagine what'll happen to Comcast customers not computer savy enough to secure their wireless connections.
Then there's unwanted annoyances like Flash video commercials that play on websites. Not just banners, but actual TV commercials. Don't think the bandwidth from those doesn't add up.
So, while limits like these seem tolerable now, as more things go online they're going to chafe more and more.
The two biggest reasons for these sort of caps are to allow cable companies to continue to oversell their nodes without putting money into upgrading their infrastructure and to shut out their on-demand video competition. Think about it. Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon, just to name a few are all offering HD video on-demand services. Those services will be crippled for users with bandwidth caps. Where will they have to turn for on-demand programming at that point? That's right, back to their cable company.
Read about this story at the following links...
It's official: Comcast starts 250GB bandwidth caps October 1
Comcast Metered Broadband Official — Beware What You Download
Comcast 250GB Cap Goes Live October 1
Comcast's own Announcement Regarding An Amendment to Our Acceptable Use Policy
1) Is that cap 250 gigs up and down or just down?
2) What happens if you exceed 250 gigs? Do you get shut down? Will Comcast impose some sort of over-bandwidth charges?
3) Will Comcast provide some sort of web-based tool to check out your bandwidth consumption for the month? Call me cynical, but when it comes to things like being charged for every gig over the limit, I'm not a "take their word for it" sort of guy.
I can only imagine what'll happen to Comcast customers not computer savy enough to secure their wireless connections.
Then there's unwanted annoyances like Flash video commercials that play on websites. Not just banners, but actual TV commercials. Don't think the bandwidth from those doesn't add up.
So, while limits like these seem tolerable now, as more things go online they're going to chafe more and more.
The two biggest reasons for these sort of caps are to allow cable companies to continue to oversell their nodes without putting money into upgrading their infrastructure and to shut out their on-demand video competition. Think about it. Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon, just to name a few are all offering HD video on-demand services. Those services will be crippled for users with bandwidth caps. Where will they have to turn for on-demand programming at that point? That's right, back to their cable company.
Read about this story at the following links...
It's official: Comcast starts 250GB bandwidth caps October 1
Comcast Metered Broadband Official — Beware What You Download
Comcast 250GB Cap Goes Live October 1
Comcast's own Announcement Regarding An Amendment to Our Acceptable Use Policy
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