Comcast Has Begun Throttling the Bandwidth Hogs

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January 6, 2009, 02:40 PM —  PC World — 

Use too much bandwidth and pay the price. That's the word from Comcast, which has launched a broadband throttling system to prevent power users from hogging its network. The plan slows traffic for heavy Net users, such as fans of P2P networks, during times of heavy Internet congestion.

Broadband Reports has a fairly detailed summary of how the new Comcast policy works. Basically, sustained use of 70 percent or more of your downstream or upstream bandwidth triggers the usage delays, during which time a bandwidth hog's traffic may be delayed, or even dropped.

But wait, there's more. Comcast also recently implemented a 250GB monthly download cap, so heavy downloaders will need to monitor their activities closely. The usage caps come despite a recent report indicating that P2P traffic is decreasing online. Despite its aggressive throttling, Comcast is busy promoting faster broadband service in some markets, including its Extreme 50 offering, which has download speeds of up to 50 megabits per second.

It's likely that Comcast's throttling strategy will impact only a small percentage of power users. But with the rise of video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive applications, it's only a matter of time before average users get snared by usage caps too. Meanwhile, ISP continue to market pricey and powerful broadband services-Extreme 50 costs up to US$140 a month in parts of Oregon and Washington-and it's doubtful that many customers are reading the fine print.

To be fair, Comcast isn't the only ISP capping power users. AT&T, for instance, is testing monthly data caps as well.  

» posted by ITworld staff

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Comments

You think that's bad try HughesNet!

Out here in the sticks where I live we only have the availability of high speed internet is via Satelite. HugheNet only allows 435 Mb or 500 Mb (depending on the plan) per 24 hours from your highest point of use to the cap, then they slow you down to a 56 kbs and only allow 20 Mb within the next 24 hours as a punishment for going over the cap, the worst part is they give you no accurate usage reporting other than a weak usage report that is only updated every 4 hours. It is like being pulled over for speeding without any way of knowing how fast you were going.
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