Coma

Okay, okay. Here's one good example that you can't possible turn down:

The Blizzard Downloader. 10 million (WoW) players have used... some turned to direct download, and some continue to use it, and guess what, it uses BitTorrent as its main method of transferring!

Also, when you have an immense user base like this, there's always somebody seeding the torrents, so you never have to worry about it and it doesn't cost you much to run it.

RickJS

Right, except they're not dying at all.

RickJS

WTH. I didn't know cox did this too. It seems like every ISP is getting into this. =|

gooddog

Phone service has no physical entity and they can meter that just fine.

It does have a physical entity in the sense that they need to build the plant to provide a standard level of service to their users.

Do they build the plant to accommodate 2-3TB/day for everyone or do they build it to accommodate 1G/day for everyone?

Tiered pricing models make a lot more sense than what they have today otherwise you have the email/web surfer subsiding that heavy user and that makes no sense.

Pay for what you use sounds the fairest approach.
Do it in tiers so it is easy to understand.

Raziel

Personal opinion, they should provide the level of service that they advertise. No caps, no limitations, no restrictions. that's the service that I agreed to, and Comcast just doesn't produce that. With the "behind the scenes" approach to "traffic shaping" and the BS that they are feeding the FCC. I say fine them into oblivian!! they are doing nothing more than finding ways to charge more for a sub-par service without putting forth the effort to increase capacity to handle the users that they are trying to sign day after day.

And some places don't have an option. It's either sub-par DSL, sub-par cable, or satallite. Well, I'm stuck with the sub-par cable and not liking it until FiOS is available at my location. That is a service that I'll pay for because the simple fact that it's no restrictions!! I have friends that have it and the cable service through FiOS, and it's 100% better than anything that Comcast offers.

customers need to speak with the wallets when possible. Down with treating the customer like a 2nd rate person while making the fat-cats fatter by squeezing every last dime from us without increasing quality of service.

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gooddog

[QUOTE=Raziel;3873334]Personal opinion, they should provide the level of service that they advertise. No caps, no limitations, no restrictions. that's the service that I agreed to,
QUOTE]

I am not sure that your statement is correct. The Comcast Terms of Service are clear on this.

From the TOS

"The Service is for personal and non-commercial residential use only. Therefore, Comcast reserves the right to suspend or terminate Service accounts where bandwidth consumption is not characteristic of a typical residential user of the Service as determined by the company in its sole discretion. Common activities that may cause excessive bandwidth consumption in violation of this Policy include, but are not limited to, numerous or continuous bulk transfers of files and other high capacity traffic using (i) file transfer protocol ("FTP"), (ii) peer-to-peer applications, and (iii) newsgroups, whether provided by Comcast or a third party. You must also ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other person's use of the Service, nor represent (as determined by Comcast in its sole discretion) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you must ensure that your use of the Service does not limit or interfere with Comcast's ability to deliver and monitor the Service or any part of its network"

This will probably evolve to a point where people who use a lot more than average will pay more. Tiered usage model is the only one that makes sense.

ZionEx

What in the hell are you downloading???

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gooddog

not just that, but hope you don't live in my neighborhood

Raziel

Oh, with the quoting here, I'll ask this, what is the "typical residential user"?? Is that someone that sucks on the teet of comcast and pays fees for PPV movies, or someone that pays for online distribution of same content for better rates?? Is that someone that plays WoW, or is that someone that only uses the internet for the explicit use of e-mail only?? This is the area that they don't state. I'm a residential user, and refuse to pay for the PPV movies that they offer, so I get them through netflix online, and I download them. Does that mean I'm not a typical user?? does that mean I'm doing illegal activities??

Personally, it's a way to make anything that they want to classify as excessive and cut your service, throttle your service, and do whatever they feel is necessary. There is no way to classify a "typical residential user" because there's not any!! It's a way for the business to restrict competition with the lines of netfilx online that you can stream your films directly without paying for their (Comcast) additional services Heaven forbid we don't pay for everything from Comcast!!

nothing like conducting business which will PUSH your present customers to the competition when it's available. FiOS FTW!!

__________________
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Genibus Nitito Canis
Oderint Dum Metuant

... I don't believe in violence, I'm just good at it...

... Fanboy arguments are like uninating into the wind, the only people that get wet are themselves...

I'm validated!!
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gooddog

No one said anything about using more than average is "illegal" so you are over-reacting.

I think you are overly optimistic that FiOS will create a world in which everyone can download as much as they want for one low price. It may start that way, but it will go to metered or tiered usage eventually. Pay for how much bandwidth you use sounds reasonable to me.

The idea of "typical" user is clearly something that evolves over time based on how applications are being adopted and how the network is built (and priced to support that). But as an example, the person who downloads 2T/month is probably not typical. i would probably also argue that the 250g/month number that comcast mentioned covers a vast percentage of users.