Reader Jason just sent us this e-mail he received from Comcast outlining their excessive use policy change:
Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,
We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers’ use of our service.
On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.
In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it’s very likely that your monthly data usage doesn’t even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:
* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.
In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use.
Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.
This is a service-related email. Comcast will occasionally send you service-related emails to inform you of service upgrades or new benefits to your Comcast High-Speed Internet service.Copyright 2008. Comcast. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Comcast respects your privacy. For a complete description of our privacy policy, click here.
Comcast
One Comcast Center
10th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Attn: CHSI
Notice they only talk about standard definition movies.
This is a strategy to force HD movie downloaders to pay up for all that “excessive” bandwidth they will be using.
Comcast thinks people are clueless and will swallow this baloney whole. Bandwidth is growing faster than use. There is no real degradation of other people’s “user experience.” It’s all propaganda with a long term (greedy) purpose.
And to make it fully ComCrapTastic, here is what the web page they refer you to says about how you can find out how much service you’ve used:
Q: How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoid exceeding the limit?
There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search – for example, a search for “bandwidth meter” will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account.
In other words, err… they DON’T. You can’t find out how much bandwidth you’ve used unless you have a single PC in your home that communicates only with Comcast. I have an Apple Macbook and an Apple Airport Extreme, the Macbook resets its network counters every time I close it to take it to work and the Airport Extreme has no network counters, so Comcast’s response to me? The middle finger. Up the a$$, long and hard.
Comcast “service”. What a stallion does to a mare. Alrighty, then!
This is stupid
i use around 1-2 TB a month just downloading….
i guess everyone should get ready for the comcast boycott sites!!
Time to dump Comcast, greedy bastards. I am looking elsewhere.
I posted this on their forums just now… I wonder what’s going to happen to me!
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Outrageous. I simply cannot comprehend anything around this new 250GB cap.
So… now there’s a limit on the internet? Are we not paying you enough? Now you have to go and limit the amount people can use their connections.
Oh, I forgot that you guys are sooo poor that you cannot afford to upgrade your network! So its OUR problem that you cannot meet the demand for bandwidth.
I see you don’t offer any tools to have customers monitor their bandwidth usage… And this load of **bleep** is going into effect in October? So you are putting a limit on something, but we don’t know where we are in regards to that limit.
Smart!
99% of your customers aren’t going near 250GB? Oh, so you’re OVERCHARGING 99% of your customers!
You don’t interfere with P2P traffic… You just send reset packets to make the connection drop. I get it!
Also, running a business T1 line at FULL CAPACITY FOR A MONTH doesn’t equal 250GB?
IDIOTS! DO THE MATH!
T1 capacity: 1.544 Mbps
1.544/8 = .193 MBps
.193MBps x 60 seconds = 11.58 MBpm
11.58 MBpm x 60 minutes = 694.8 MBph
694.8 MBph x 24 hours = 16675.2 MB per day
16675.2 MBpd x 30 days = 500256 MB per month
500256 MBpM / 1024 MB = 488.53125 GIGABYTES PER MONTH
I REALLY hope that a class-action lawsuit is filed against you guys. You have no idea what doors you are opening for other ISP’s.
I thought you learned your lesson from the FCC… Perhaps another reprimand is in order.
Earthlink failed so I switched to Comcast-bad move! I have a Mac and use Apple Mail which I learned after the fact is not supported by Comcast. Also the phone connection is intermittent. I’m switching to AT&T.
Jack
anybody know if they use the real GB or if they could be sued on the same grounds that people sued hdd manufacturers.