Comcast undecided on new p2p policy
Comcast has made no final decisions on how to manage network congestion, despite news reports Wednesday that it will slow traffic for heavy users for up to 20 minutes during times of peak network use. Comcast has been looking into new network management practices after the furor caused by an Associated Press report last October that said the cable modem service provider was quietly slowing BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) traffic as a tool to fight network congestion. Comcast has been conducting tests on new network management techniques since the end of May, said Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman. Among the leading options is to slow all Web traffic from heavy users for up to 20 minutes during times of heavy network traffic.
When the congestion is resolved in under 20 minutes, the heavy users’ traffic would be slowed for shorter times, sometimes for only a minute or two, he said. Heavy users’ traffic would still move over the Internet, but it would “become de-prioritized” during times of congestion, Douglas said. This approach would be “protocol agnostic,” Douglas added. By not blocking specific applications, Comcast likely would comply with the FCC’s Aug. 1 vote. Asked why Comcast doesn’t slow all users’ traffic during times of congestion, Douglas said it’s not fair to subscribers who aren’t clogging up the pipes. “It’s the heaviest of users that are directly contributing to the degradation of the service for the other people on the network,” he said.
Source: NY Times
Comments(23)
yay effin comcast…the corporative degradation sure isnt visible but yup its the “heaviest users” alright…hah
So, the power-user suffers so that grandma can check her email and play slingo? What a crock of sh!t. Comcast sux donkey ballz.
Why do users even bother with comcast ?
change ISP
Comcast should not be allowed to manipulate speeds unless they manipulate the billing. They can not charge me the same they do today if they start to take away bandwidth. So you get “blast”, which is another fraud, but they slow you back down when you use it? Just use your neighbors wireless networks one after another until they are all slow, then finish downloads on your own unthrottled connection.
if you think that sucks
use virgin media….they really strangle your connection
its shocking!
expanded the pipes and save time to apply it and buy new routers
N0ize, most places only offer ComCrap. Here, it’s them for 60 a month for top level speeds, or AT&T for double that amount for 2 down .5 up. Plus you have to sign a term agreement and pay for the install and modem up front.
if you buy vigin fiber here in the uk, that 20meg bandwidth, you can use the full capacity of your line for 7 minutes a day before they their bandwidth managment throttles you, thats a fact btw.
and thats legal, well come to ripoff britain, where if you defend yourself from a mugging you get a criminal record if you buy internet service, they are allowed to lie 93% of the time.
Ummm Gates are you really that gullable? In most states (and soon to be in all) theft of a neighbors internet is looked upon as just as bad as theft of cable services and treated as same if caught. That means doofy, that you can shell out some money and volunteer to spend a few weeks in the greybar hotel for doing this. Not to mention now you have a record and name me one well paying company that will take a chance on you after seeing this…
So why ruin your life just because you are mad ay your ISP?
You really are not that bright are you? If you were you would not have made that idiotic statement.
for up to 20 minutes?!
most uk ISPs put you onto an incredibly crap server, that’s insanely slow, disconnects often if you’re caught using extra bandwidth between 5/6pm-11/midnight
Thank god for my 30Mb Fios connection, I can DL from usenet at my full speed for 24 hours a day without it ever dropping below 29.9
AOL (UK) cut my speed to 0.5meg every night from 6pm-midnight. Been doing it for a year and a half. That said, they dont bother me the rest of the day, so all my juicy RS steals are done between 00.01-1759 @ around 6.9meg from my 8MB line
They don’t seem to understand that what they need to do is improve their capacity. Just shows how greedy they really are. Over here an ISP that slowed people down deliberately wouldn’t exist for very long. I can max my 100/100 connection all the time for the fraction of the cost you guys have to pay. That’s not exactly fair.
I actually got a call from Comcast Corporate office about a month ago. The guy told me that I was over the limit for a residential user. I asked him what exactly that limit was and he said that he couldn’t tell me that, but that I was over it at 500GB down in a month.
He also said that this was the only warning I would get and they would cut off my internet without further notice! Not sure if it was some kind of hoax, but my connection doesn’t seem to have changed.
Who cares about P2P? I download from FTP server with 256bits TLS/SSL encryption.
If comcast cannot supply what they advertise they should just get out of the business. It is not a customers fault if they advertise high speeds and then a user actually uses those speeds to their advantage.
It’s total crap that Comcast is BLAMING THE CUSTOMER for their network’s SCALABILITY PROBLEMS. During peak usage they need to provide ADDITIONAL CAPACITY! Not LIMIT USERS TO SAVE MONEY. The customers are paying for a service that was promised to them and nowhere in the agreement did it say their traffic was to be slowed down.
THIS IS WORSE THAN BEFORE NOT BETTER.
I LOL though @ the fact that now not just warez puppies but all users get screwed.
@Barry: If you live in TX then it might of been legit.
Blunden (13), nice connection. Where do you live? And what ISP are you with?
Comcast is still angling to move to tiered pay system base on usage. Watch these micro-steps because they all have the end results.
The underlying problem is this:
The corporations simply don’t want to shell out their ‘ripped off’ customers cash to improve their capacities and simply want to slow customer’s speed down to deal with their so-called overloads. This is not fair, not right and certainly not healthy for a business model…
The simple fact is that they should be forced by US regulations to drastically improve their capacities and provide the services which they advertise so freely. We [in the USA] are already falling leagues behind the rest of the world in terms of connection speeds. The Japanese have DSL service that is 10-30 times as fast as our fastest Cable provider service… Korea, Europe, Asia and elsewhere also far exceed our capacities. The USA is falling behind in one of the most lucrative fields, Internet Service Providing… and we as a populace sit idly around with our thumbs up our butts and just let it happen…
Speaks loads for the USA as a whole, I think.
Comcast is still throttling bandwith blocking certain port
ranges and so nothing has really changed. Therefore the FCC ruling has had no effect.
so if they throtle your connection will they throttle your bill too? Contracts made with costumers usually are about a maximum bandwith. If that bandwith is not being supplied on purpose then someone should sue them to kingdom come…