Over the limit

[question everything]

Modbee.com
Over the limit

By BEN van der MEER

Ken Glover admits he's on the Internet a lot: downloading movies and songs, surfing sites, playing "World of Warcraft." Comcast says he's on too much, and they'll cut him off if he doesn't cut back. "To me, 'unlimited' means whenever I want," said Glover, 35. "When I'm not at work, I'm on my computer." When his $55 monthly service was shut down last month, Glover said, he called Comcast to find out why.

A company official told him that he'd gone over the "limit" for using Comcast's high-speed Internet service. So the company was exercising its right, listed in the contract's terms and conditions, to shut him down temporarily. He'd be cut off for a longer period if the problem continued, Glover said. Comcast and some other Internet providers say their service isn't "unlimited" in the way customers think. Customers who use too much bandwidth, or space for transmitting data, may either have to upgrade to a business account, which costs more, or be disconnected.

(snip)

A Comcast spokesman said the company tracks usage to keep the system working well for all customers. "The customers who are notified of excessive use typically and repeatedly consume exponentially more bandwidth than an average residential user, which would include, for example, the equivalent of sending 256,000 photos a month, or sending 13 million e-mails every month (or 18,000 e-mails every hour, every day, all month)," said Comcast spokesman Bryan Byrd in an e-mail.

Such high usage, according to tech experts, indicates a customer using the Internet for something like hosting a server or sending spam e-mails. Glover said he doesn't use his cable Internet in any such way. One expert said online gaming and video downloads could take up an excessive amount of bandwidth, too.

(snip)

Comcast isn't the only company that has limits on customers' Internet use. A technician with AllDial.net, a national Internet service provider, said his company doesn't limit bandwidth use. But the Michigan-based firm does cut off customers after six hours to keep company servers from being overused.

(snip)


Posted on 07/12/07 00:00:00
http://www.modbee.com/business/story/13780352p-14360865c.html

[Tesha]

1. Comcast needn't worry in our neighborhood.

Every night, once the neighborhood is at home
and on the computers, Comcast's broadband runs
at dial-up speeds. No worry about any of *US*
consuming too much bandwidth :( It also flat-out
fails to load on about 5% of the requests.

Comcast shared-bandwidth service blows.

Tesha

[question everything]

2. I think that this is the reason why so many prefer DHL (nt)

[Tesha]

3. Switching to DSL's on the "honey-do" list. ;-) (NT)