High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

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phyco126
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High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by phyco126 »

So its official, Comcast is slapping a Download cap on 250 GB per household per month. if you excede/hit this limit, they will call you to give you (1) warning. If you hit it again at any time in the next six months, they revoke your service.

Comcast isn't the first to think of limits, however. Timer Warner is testing a metering system to charge those who excede their limits, and others have similiar plans.

I honestly feel this brings us back to the archaic days when Dial-up was charge per use, and people ended up with bills that where in the high hundreds per month.

Now, I'm not to spiffy on how it works. Does this only include info that is downloaded from the internet, such as music and movies? Or does it include all bandwidth sent to your computer, such as looking at pictures or playing MMORPGs? If it includes the latter, then I am royally screwed, because if I am not at work or sleeping, I'm on the net streaming videos, songs, looking at pictures, etc.

So far, I am not happy with this move of ISPs, though their reasoning is that heavy users slow down the internet for everyone else. Now, maybe if the money they make from heavy users went toward constructing the ultimate network, such as what they did in Europe for the particle excelerator, then I would be all for it. As it is, it won't.
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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by Kizyr »

I really doubt this will last. Given how much competition Comcast faces, if they start kicking off users, they'll just switch to another ISP.

Basically, for me it'd go like this:

Comcast: Yes, you've exceeded 250GB for this month
Me: So?
Comcast: You can't do that
Me: F@)(# off.
-six months later-
Comcast: You've exceeded 250GB again. We're cancelling your service.
Me: Hey, you know what? Verizon Fios just got expanded into my area. Laters. Oh, and F@(# off. KF
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phyco126
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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by phyco126 »

Yeah, but this isn't limited to just Comcast. All the big players are jumping onto charge per use and metering. I'm hoping this doesn't last at all for any of them.

Also, the only other high-speed in my areas is DSL, and they suck.
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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by Werefrog »

phyco126 wrote:If it includes the latter, then I am royally screwed, because if I am not at work or sleeping, I'm on the net streaming videos, songs, looking at pictures, etc.
You might be surprised by the amount of bandwidth that is used for these activities due to compression. I'm assuming that you're using Comcast now, right? You should call them up and ask what your usage was last month if you're that worried about it.

I don't particularly like this move either. However, this could seriously lower the cost for the ISPs since (apparently) a very low percentage of Internauts use a very high percentage of bandwidth (I can't remember the exact stat).

I'm much more concerned with Comcast denying their customers the ability to use file-sharing programs. That's a pretty big violation of net neutrality in my opinion.

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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by phyco126 »

If I remember correctly, I think it's 4% of the users use 85% (maybe 95%) of the bandwidth.
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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by White Shadow »

phyco126 wrote:Does this only include info that is downloaded from the internet, such as music and movies? Or does it include all bandwidth sent to your computer, such as looking at pictures or playing MMORPGs? If it includes the latter, then I am royally screwed, because if I am not at work or sleeping, I'm on the net streaming videos, songs, looking at pictures, etc.
In terms of Internet traffic, there is no dfiference between downloading movies, MMORPGs, viewing websites, etc. They are all packets for some specified application's protocol being bounced around in frames over network hardware. Data is transmitted over the Internet by encapsulation into larger and larger packages, which is then communicated over a series of protocols. There are five 'layers' which describe these different functions, the collection of the layers is called the 'network stack'. The lowest layer--the physical (hardware) layer to the highest layer the application layer (games, movies, websites, etc.) Routing equipment and other network hardware typically has a specified layer that they work at; they work at that layer and the layers below it but not the layers above it.

Routers generally work at the 'network layer' (layer 3), which is in the middle. Since they do not work at the application layer (layer 5), they cannot tell the difference between HTTP packets, FTP packets, BitTorrent packets, MMORPG packets, etc. The router sees a packet with a source address and a destination address and the router's goal is to help it get delivered. The packet's purpose is irrelevant to the router; the only thing the router cares about is sending it in the right direction so it can get to its destination.

That said, some routers (e.g. hardware firewalls, Network Address Translation boxes) do work at layers higher than layer 3. I suspect Comcast does have things operating on layer 5 because of their bittorrent throttling policies. That said, whether they will roll out such devices to monitor traffic is unlikely, since it does impede performance a bit, even with really sophisticated equipment.

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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by phyco126 »

I'm gonna have to assume you are an IT major?

And isn't all of what you are talking about basically bandwidth?
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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by Werefrog »

I was under the impression that the Internet was a series of tubes.

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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by Benevolent_Ghaleon »

Depending on the file quality of whatever it is that you get, just add up the prices of all of the CDs, DVDs and video games together and the subtract the price of your bill from it. If you're still in the positive numbers then you're doing alright.

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Re: High Speed Internet Hits the Archaic Ages of Dial Up

Post by White Shadow »

phyco126 wrote:I'm gonna have to assume you are an IT major?

And isn't all of what you are talking about basically bandwidth?
Was. International business and economics now. But I'm still a computer hobbyist.

Werefrog wrote:I was under the impression that the Internet was a series of tubes.
What do you think fiber optic cable is?

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