The Fight For Net-neautrality Has Begun First Up - Comcast

[amirborna 0]

If you live in some places such as Warrenton, Va., Chambersburg, Pa., or Beaumont, Tex, and many other places, you will soon be limited of your bandwith. That's right, the fight for net neautrality has begun!

First of all if you don't know what net neautrality is, you better learn here -> http://www.savetheinternet.com/sti-home

So this new thing comcast is doing is that they are going limit your bandwith to the highest tear of 40GB (Gigabyte) per month.
To put that in terms :

1024 * 1024 (1MB) = 1,048,576

1MB * 1024 (1GB) = 1,073,741,824

1GB * 40 = 42,949,672,960 bytes

40GB * 8 bits per byte = 343,597,383,680

Since Internet connections are rated in bits...

343,597,383,680/7,000,000 = 49,085 seconds

So not accounting for overhead and whatnot...

13.63 hours of sustained max throughput to reach the limit.

And that's their highest plan! Clearly this is wrong

They are trying to fight torrent which is just stupid. They will slow your connection if you use too much bandwith and pass the 40 gigabyte mark and your service is cut off for the month. That means less than 20 minutes of playing XBOX LIVE or of anything downloading everyday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/error.html

[Live-Dimension 0]

Your maths seems a bit wrong.

 

1024 * 1024 (1MB) = 1,048,576

1MB * 1024 (1GB) = 1,073,741,824

1GB * 40 (40GB) = 42,949,672,960 bytes

40GB * 8 bits per byte = 343,597,383,680 bits

 

This is all correct. then you seem to go somewhere weird.

 

343,597,383,680/7,000,000 = 49,085 seconds

 

Where the hell does 7,000,000 come from?

 

30 days * 24 hours = 720 hours

720 hours * 60 minutes = 43, 200 mins

43, 200 mins * 60 seconds = 2,592,000 seconds.

 

So it can't be anything to do with the time of the month, yet your answer is in seconds. Where does 7 million come into this, and in what form? Comcast has always been a bad ISP from what I've heard. Companies like this who try to bully the customer around do so - but they never last. Just look at Microsoft's falling with Vista. No one liked it, plus there was the high cost and there were alternatives, hence people have migrated to other OS's or stayed on XP. I understand little of the US broadband market, but from what I've heard, it isn't good. However, sooner or later there will be something that topples Comcast and it's bad competitors. The question is when.

[amirborna 0]

There already is something that topples comcast. ATT DSL and Verizon FiOS.ATT and Verizon both have Fiber Optics now, their price is fantastic and their packages are great.Comcast was orignally time warner cable and road runner but when they became comcast they went into *BLEEP*

[tricky77puzzle 0]

343,597,383,680/7,000,000 = 49,085 seconds

 

Where the hell does 7,000,000 come from?

The 7,000,000 comes from Comcast's advertised speed of 7 Mbps. It's usually a bit less than this, however, so the answer is more like 60,000 seconds, which is still only 16 2/3 hours, which is outrageously low by your standard. The problem is, however, that most people don't use 40 GB of bandwidth when browsing the Internet. So to Congress, their actions are justified, because it's usually the people who go on Bittorrent that use more than 40 GB of bandwidth.

 

I have unlimited service, but I know Bell (a Canadian company; they have no service in the US) limits their bandwidth usage to 1 GB per month (day? Not sure), which is even more outrageous.

[Inhuman 0]

I hate Comcast with a passion. WITH A PASSION! (I want that noted, btw )First of all, the prices are terrible, for both internet and digital cable. Hell, we don't even use their On Demand service, yet we still have it. The internet speed is decent....I mean I got by when my laptop was working (my mother has since smashed it), but on my home comp...I feel slow....then again, it could be the comp itself. I do remember one early morning when I got locked out of my internet for some reason....I dunno why. I'm thinkin my mom hadn't payed the bill. When I woke up, it was back up. I personally want to switch to Verizon's internet service, but alas I won't have it till I'm out of here. (here being home)

[Live-Dimension 0]

The 7,000,000 comes from Comcast's advertised speed of 7 Mbps. It's usually a bit less than this, however, so the answer is more like 60,000 seconds, which is still only 16 2/3 hours, which is outrageously low by your standard. The problem is, however, that most people don't use 40 GB of bandwidth when browsing the Internet. So to Congress, their actions are justified, because it's usually the people who go on Bittorrent that use more than 40 GB of bandwidth.

 

I have unlimited service, but I know Bell (a Canadian company; they have no service in the US) limits their bandwidth usage to 1 GB per month (day? Not sure), which is even more outrageous.

Unless I'm missing out on something, your telling me that they advertise 40gb/month with a 7mb download speed? Yet, your saying that isn't acceptable?

 

Please tell me your joking, because if your not, your showing a severe lack of understanding in how all this broadband and data works and is priced out.

 

It's usually a bit less than this, however, so the answer is more like 60,000 seconds, which is still only 16 2/3 hours, which is outrageously low by your standard.

By who's starnded? Australias?

[amirborna 0]

People play games, XBOX 360, Watch movies online, play online games, have work online, instant message, all of those add p man.

[Live-Dimension 0]

There is not unlimited bandwidth in the world amirborna.

 

When you pay for an ISP - your paying for three things. Speed, Data, and Service Quality.

Speed - from 256kb/s to over 25mb/s.

Data - sometimes 1GB to over 100gb.

Quality - If you find a cheap speed + data package, quality is usually skimped on. This could mean loss of "freebies aka features". My ISP offers free internet radio, free usenext account and over 5.6TB of files unmetered, as well as other popular sites. The connection is top-rated, stable, fast. It doesn't come cheap because of this.

 

Sure, lots of people would just love to have unlimited bandwidth. Why pay for something when you can get it for free? To understand where this money is put into, it's essential to understand how the internet works.

 

It's cheap and easy to network a country that's totally land-based. Simple, you just put cables in the ground. But what happens if you want to network your country to other countries? There's two choices.

 

Satellite - But it's expensive to maintain, has limited bandwidth and high ping.

Cables across the sea floor aka "Submarine Cables" - Even more expensive then Satellite (I assume) but you can shove more data through it and there's much less latency. It's simple in theroy - You get specialised ships with huge reels of cable on the back, and they just go through the ocean, dropping the cable as they go.

 

The first "idea" of an internet started out as this. Basically, instead of using radio, the military tried putting a cable underwater and transmitting through that. It worked but was expensive and slow, used copper cabling, etc. Currently, the choice is fiber-optic, as it's able to punch alot of data through a small amount of space. Fibre optics degrade over distance, so power lines are combined with the fiber lines, and attacked to repeaters, which boost the optic signal. At each end, there's specialised receiver stations. They have to power the line, and keep backup power on standby. Huge generators and batteries as well as 24-hr crew. Also, cable breaks can happen, where specialised ships go out and fix them.

 

Of course - all of this costs money, and that money has to come from somewhere. Sometimes a government might help out, but usually it's thanks to the ISP's. They tend to split the cost of the cable, and then forward the cost onto thier customers and other ISP's which piggyback the line, and thier customers. Fibre-optics are fast, but even so, they only add on (if I remember correctly) a few GB/s worth of data.

 

This is the entire point of data caps - there just isn't enough capacity to let everyone use unlimited. For a cable to be even close to commercially viable, it has to transmit x amount of data over y amount of time.

 

Back to where this goes from. My family uses a lot of Youtube (dad and brother mostly), a lot of other high-bandwidth sites. So, we pay for a high speed and alot of data, but we pay extra. Actually, we have a 55gb plan, and usually have some left over, but before we were on a 40gb plan before the ISP upgraded for free. My family of four could happily live on 40gb. Other familes might only pay for 512kb /10gb and be totally happy with it. So, let them be happy

 

If you don't feel like your current plan is giving you enough data, then upgrade or cutback on usage. It's hard to use 40gb as it is, unless your doign alot of p2p, or running youtube constantly, etc.

Edited June 7, 2008 by Live-Dimension (see edit history)