Comcast Beginning 'Net Neutrality' Testing

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Starting this Thursday, Comcast says it will start testing what they are calling a "protocol agnostic" approach to managing traffic during high-peak periods. If you are downloading large files, watching lots of videos or downloading just about any new game off of Steam, your bandwidth will be throttled back.

"At the busiest times of the day on our network (which could occur at any time), those very few disproportionately heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends."
 
So what does that mean? "Instead of fucking only torrent users, we'll fuck everybody now."?

Or am I just reading that wrong? :p
 
There's a very large difference between throttling non interactive connections to maintain QoS in ones that do require realtime performance and in killing certain types of connection all together.
 
It is easier to limit bandwidth, instead of increasing it. People are using the internet for more than just email and basic browsing. Instead of meeting the challenges of the ever evolving internet, they 're holding it back. I do not see how the bad habits of the few downloading hundreds of gigs a months, can set a companies policy for the other 97% of users. Good job Comcast.
 
Looks like I'll be getting a new ISP, no contracts holding me back.

Fuck you, Comcast :mad:
 
I guess all those people on youtube are in for a treat. Comcast only wants customers that use the web for email, chatting, and reading the news. >_>
 
It's hard to deny that a few users will consume most of the bandwidth. I download my fair share of torrents and I'd have no problem with the bulk of the downloading occurring during the late, non-peak hours. Depending on how much they're scaling back the bandwidth this could still work.

It would be better if they assigned a port specifically for torrent throttling that people could use with their clients. That way QoS or some form of throttling could be applied based on network congestion. Working with the downloaders would be a much better approach IMHO. As long as the throttling didn't completely kill off the transfers I'm sure most heavy downloaders wouldn't have a problem.

Also it says that only the heavy downloaders will be having the connections throttled. So this won't apply to everyone.
 
I hate how companies like Comcast only care about profit. It's companies like this that are causing the U.S. to be so far behind other countries when it comes to broadband service. Greedy bastards.
 
If enough people say Kiss My A##, and drop them. I would believe that the lost
dollars would provide the motivation to pull their collective heads out of whatever
A## it is currently buried in. :eek:
 
If enough people say Kiss My A##, and drop them. I would believe that the lost
dollars would provide the motivation to pull their collective heads out of whatever
A## it is currently buried in. :eek:

I would of dropped them, but my only other internet option is 1.5mbps DSL and I'm pretty sure with my location, that's not what I'll be getting. TV, though, I just dropped Comcast for Directv.
 
I hate how companies like Comcast only care about profit. It's companies like this that are causing the U.S. to be so far behind other countries when it comes to broadband service. Greedy bastards.

Well now hang on there, profit is a great thing. If you invest in a 401K at work, or anything, you definitely want companies to be making money. My major issue with Comcast has been their inability to produce any kind of actual rules for subscribers. Instead they just smack you around when you've violated some limit they never told you existed.

If they're up front about what they're doing, then you know the facts and can decide whether or not you want to use their service. I'm perfectly fine if the company produces a few millionaires. You don't get a lot of innovative new technologies from companies that don't make any money.
 
Comcast is horrible. Some people have no other choice. That is another problem, lack of competition in many markets causes situations like this. They don't care who they piss off because they are the only decent choice in some areas.

I no longer use their service, Wide open west is good here in michigan (if you can get it, they dont have coverage in many areas yet).
 
Well now hang on there, profit is a great thing. If you invest in a 401K at work, or anything, you definitely want companies to be making money. My major issue with Comcast has been their inability to produce any kind of actual rules for subscribers. Instead they just smack you around when you've violated some limit they never told you existed.

If they're up front about what they're doing, then you know the facts and can decide whether or not you want to use their service. I'm perfectly fine if the company produces a few millionaires. You don't get a lot of innovative new technologies from companies that don't make any money.

Hey, I agree with what you are saying about profit. But I'm just saying that maybe they have enough. Maybe it's time to lose a little bit of profit to expand and to make your customers happy. A happy customer will always come back. And since they started throttling bandwidth without any kind of announcement, that tends to piss off their customers that feel they aren't breaking any rules.

Starting a while ago my internet has been faster. And I assume it's from Comcast throttling customer's bandwidth. It's nice that it's been faster, but now it makes me feel that if I start using lots of bandwidth, then I will be limited. What the hell is wrong with just upgrading their network? I pay to use the bandwidth. I don't pay to get throttled.
 
ill get mad when they throttle me. im a regular user, and from what i read they are only talking about the 5% of people who leave their bandwith maxed out 24/7..... but even then, it is supposedly an "unlimited" service- they should expect EVERYONE to use all their bandwith all day long.
 
You pay for like 7Mbits, but you get far less I'm sure. When i was with comcast I never reached the max speed for a second. I have a 2Mbit connection now, which by my calculations is about 250KB/s. I can use that full bandwidth any time I am online.

That to me is false advertising on the part of Comcast.
 
it is supposedly an "unlimited" service- they should expect EVERYONE to use all their bandwith all day long.



more false advertising. Its always on high speed internet unless you use it too much, i guess
 
So what does that mean? "Instead of fucking only torrent users, we'll fuck everybody now."?

Or am I just reading that wrong? :p

I don't live in the US and don't have any first hand experience with this so I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me from what I've been reading that US ISPs and US phone operators enjoy to fuck their customers very much.
 
I bet they don't do this in communities where Verizon has deployed FiOS. Comcast just left a flyer on my door letting me know about their fiber network (which terminates four blocks from my house) and their 16/2 tier. Hahahahahaha. My 15/15 fios laughs at comcast and their non-existant yet advertised speeds.

Seriously, they gotta get a clue: the only way to compete is to build out the network. Verizon has been investing mad cash in their FTTH effort and it will pay off big for them.
 
Im glad I am done with Comcast in two months when I move. I can get myself a good connection here that isn't this throttled crap.
 
I don't live in the US and don't have any first hand experience with this so I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me from what I've been reading that US ISPs and US phone operators enjoy to fuck their customers very much.

Yeah, that's pretty close.

Find a market demand - provide a marginal product - charge and outrageous fee for it - farm out customer service to a foreign country - lobby (grease) politicians for tax breaks and government contracts - pull golden parachute rip cord when shit hits the fan. Go capitalism!
 
Yeah, that's pretty close.

Find a market demand - provide a marginal product - charge and outrageous fee for it - farm out customer service to a foreign country - lobby (grease) politicians for tax breaks and government contracts - pull golden parachute rip cord when shit hits the fan. Go capitalism!

and people still have hate for labor unions. :rolleyes:
 
What sparks my curiosity are how sites that thrive on users viewing their video's and downloads are going to respond. Youtube.com, apple.com/trailers, ect ect
 
I don't live in the US and don't have any first hand experience with this so I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me from what I've been reading that US ISPs and US phone operators enjoy to fuck their customers very much.
^
I believe you've hit the nail on the head there sir. ;)

...they should expect EVERYONE to use all their bandwith all day long.

Ahh, but that's the 'beauty' of ISP's overselling a product that they can't provide!! :eek:
They *count on* people not doing that.
 
I think this is a better way to do it than putting up caps, but all I see in both this solution and Time Warner's solution is a way for the companies reduce services to their customers by oversell their lines without having to increase their bandwidth, or on the flip side, cutting costs by reducing their total maximum bandwidth. Either way, the customer ends up screwed.

It'll be interesting to see how both of these tests turn out.
 
I've noticed in the past week with general web browsing that everything seems slower. I'm a Comcast customer unfortunally.
 
I've noticed in the past week with general web browsing that everything seems slower. I'm a Comcast customer unfortunally.

me too! Is it just me or it seems like they are lowering the bandwith for when you visit youtube? I use DU bandwith meter and seems like now most of the time i only download youtube videos at 20KB/s*off peak* and sometimes if im lucky i get 120KB/s on youtube but when i go over to cnettv and watch their vids, i get around 760KB/s :rolleyes: oh and comcast lost me! :D Switching over to Windstream(dsl) :) and i don't think they have bandwith limits and throttling.
 
I believe my apartment complex is on Comcast internet. I got into Lost this season so I been catching up on the first three seasons on ABC.com and after the 8th or so episode, it was a lag fest on those computers. Obviously some kind of throttling is going on there.

All this is doing is upsetting people some more instead of solving the issue :rolleyes:

Comcast get your head out of your ass!!
 
me too! Is it just me or it seems like they are lowering the bandwith for when you visit youtube? I use DU bandwith meter and seems like now most of the time i only download youtube videos at 20KB/s*off peak* and sometimes if im lucky i get 120KB/s on youtube but when i go over to cnettv and watch their vids, i get around 760KB/s :rolleyes: oh and comcast lost me! :D Switching over to Windstream(dsl) :) and i don't think they have bandwith limits and throttling.

Well not getting into the hacking incident, but my homepage (comcast.net) loads slower than ever and that's THEIR website! If these FiOS contractors didn't do so much damage to your yard when installing it, i'd switch over ASAP.
 
Doesn't Comcast have that that "speedboost" "you get it when you need it most"?

Doesn't this totally fuck that feature? Wow.
 
I bet they don't do this in communities where Verizon has deployed FiOS. Comcast just left a flyer on my door letting me know about their fiber network (which terminates four blocks from my house) and their 16/2 tier. Hahahahahaha. My 15/15 fios laughs at comcast and their non-existant yet advertised speeds.

Seriously, they gotta get a clue: the only way to compete is to build out the network. Verizon has been investing mad cash in their FTTH effort and it will pay off big for them.

Qwest is also starting to offer FTTH, I beleive in 10 and sometimes up to 20Mb/s. Im supposed to have it set up by the end of this year, I just hope they arnt BS'ing me. Although they arnt offering as much upload bandwidth as verizon, 5Mbs is better than the laughable 1/3Mbs of cable.
 
I honestly don't understand the point of "throttling". Why not offer only lower bandwidth options instead?

-Try out our new 24Mb option, it's blazing fast... Oh, unless you actually try to *use* all that bandwidth. Then we'll throttle you to an average of 2Mb.

What's the point of having a high-bandwidth option when they apparently don't have the capacity to support it? Sure, you get "bursts" of 24Mb, but if you were to download large files all day, the average would be much lower than 24Mb due to throttling
 
Compared to cutting off excessive users, having a cap with overage charges, and/or interfering with certain traffic, I'd say this method is the lesser of the evil "traffic management methods" that have been proposed recently.
 
I honestly don't understand the point of "throttling". Why not offer only lower bandwidth options instead?

-Try out our new 24Mb option, it's blazing fast... Oh, unless you actually try to *use* all that bandwidth. Then we'll throttle you to an average of 2Mb.

What's the point of having a high-bandwidth option when they apparently don't have the capacity to support it? Sure, you get "bursts" of 24Mb, but if you were to download large files all day, the average would be much lower than 24Mb due to throttling

Marketing. Need I say more?
 
if I had any other choice besides dial-up or satellite i'd have already switched...
 
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