Re: IMPORTANT!! ALL COMCAST Subscribers!! PLZ READ! COMCAST COMCAST

Not true.

The issue is are you in the top % of your node - 'max' is relative.

Reply to
Rick Merrill
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snipped-for-privacy@NOSPAM.gmail.com (Rick Merrill) wrote in news:sOOdnSy59vrWGnjbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

So there really is no maximum; it's completely arbitrary.

It's hard to obey the speed limit when you have no idea what it is.

Reply to
Bert Hyman

Why don't you just test it? Make a little batch job that uploads a file then downloads the file and repeat until they call you? Simple.

Reply to
Rick Merrill

As Bert smartly pointed out, people who would keep their usage below a stated limit are not abusers, by definition.

No, that's not the issue at all. The real issue is that no one should use the network in such a way as to negatively impact others. Comcast has chosen to enforce that simple premise by going after the top users, but there is no evidence to support the proposition that the top users are [solely] responsible for negatively impacting anything.

If you use a helluva lot of bandwidth, but you do so at times that don't impact anyone else, you haven't violated the AUP/TOS in the least, but Comcast apparently doesn't have the tools needed to differentiate 'heavy' usage from 'impacting' usage, so we're stuck with the lame procedure that's in place today. Either way, it has nothing to do with total bandwidth used. Even the AUP/TOS agrees with that.

Reply to
Bill

You're mistaken. The premise was, if Comcast provided a stated bandwidth limit and you didn't exceed it, would you still be an abuser. The answer is clearly no.

It's important to note, however, that total monthly bandwidth limits don't resolve the problem of users potentially impacting other users. They only mitigate the symptoms somewhat.

Reply to
Bill

LOL!! What a crock of crap. AT&T is going to prosecute me for downing mp3s from the mp3 groups? LMAO!!

Reply to
AuldPhart

That wouldn't tell you what the limit is because the limit is constantly changing. The strange this is, you already knew that, but you made your suggestion anyway. Weird.

Even if the limit was unknown but static, your test still wouldn't discover what the limit is. It would only tell you that you've exceeded it, but not by how much. Worthless from any angle.

Reply to
Bill

Well, that's what the thread is about. It's about volume, not content.

I don't see how you reached that conclusion, to be honest.

Reply to
Bill M.

That was for Bert; what's weird is that Bill replied;-)

Reply to
Rick Merrill

Exactly, and as I indicated, I don't believe a singular maximum value is the problem. The problem is those that chronically hog bandwidth. One should have the ability on occassion to massively download data if there is good reason for it (there are many), without fear of disconnect. However, one should NOT believe they should get massively downloaded data every period, it doesn't make sense and we all know the consumer pricing model based on % overselling [it is no secret]. If you want that kind of service, then you shouldn't be purchasing residential broadband, but instead, dedicated bandwidth [usually commercial in nature]. Comcast does offer a commercial class product for about $110 / month if that is your real desire.

I am not trying to defend Comcast in particular here, it is just common sense and the industry has a well established model. You can complain all you like, but this model is a decade old and going strong ... and I find it better than any of the models used in other countries.

Reply to
Thomas T. Veldhouse

In my mind, what makes one an abuser is if one is downloading to the extent that:

  1. Others are impacted on a regular basis by abuser
  2. Chronic and excessive consumption, defined in part by (1).
  3. Cost to Comcast is significantly higher than revenue generated by abuser, again, subject to (1).

This is fairly quickly drawn up, but it is easy to see that a fixed monthly cap would not solve the problem. For instance, if a person were to max out their bandwidth during prime time every day and then leave it idle (or worse yet .. not idle) during non-prime time, it would be far more likely to be labeled as abuse in my book.

Reply to
Thomas T. Veldhouse

I am not kidding. Why do you think so many USENET providers are offering SSL now?

Reply to
Thomas T. Veldhouse

You know how Usenet works, right? ;-)

Reply to
Bill

To keep ones ISP from seeing what one is downloading.

I was laughing about AT&T prosecuting me for downloading copyrighted material. What copyrights do they hold that they can prosecute me for? AT&T is not the RIAA or anyone else. AT&T can't prosecute anyone. It's the copyright holder that would initiate any prosecution.

Reply to
AuldPhart

Rick Merrill wrote in news:sOOdnSy59vrWGnjbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

If that is the issue, it's poor administration by Comcast, not abuse by a serious user.

It's supposed to be a formula: total available bandwidth on a node divided by amount of bandwidth to be used by each user gives you the number of users that can be on a node. If they aren't calculating in that order, they're stupid.

Reply to
Christopher Jahn

I wasn't referring to AT&T prosecuting you. I was referring to the fact that they turn over that information for prosecution. It is in the works and is public; feel free to use your favorite search engine for details.

Reply to
Thomas T. Veldhouse

I am sorry, but there is and I have already defined it. The industry pricing model is built around it and it has been working for more than a decade. If you don't like it .. buy DEDICATED bandwidth.

That is the point, it isn't a specific number that meets the criteria for abuse. For one, different parts of the network have different capacity, and thus less prone to abuse. Highly built out and deployed infrastructure is far more susceptible to abuse. If Comcast were to tell you, you can download

400GB per month because that is all your local network can handle ... and you better not do it all during prime time, would you accept that? Even if the guy down the road is on better network infrastucture that can handle more additional load and thus he can download 800GB per month and if he wants he can do it all during prime time ... would you be happy with that? You are asking for a fixed number, but there isn't one. The comcast and all consumer ISP models are based on overselling the infrastructure, thus abuse has differing thresholds based upon localized conditions.

Duh ... this isn't about crime, so the 'innocent until proven guilty' crap doesn't fly here.

Oh, they have a limit, but you you might consider it a "formula" based upon multiple variables. They probably also have a soft tolerance meaning that their may be local descretion to let it fly (perhaps they intend to buildout more infrastructure in a very competitive market).

I made no such accusation, but your response does seem paranoid.

packet sniffing is not illegal. They are not recording content, but they often do scan for patterns. The FBI has been doing it for years, and there was a bit of an uproar about it many years back.

A very vocal minority. The satisfied majority is usually quite quiet.

Reply to
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Charles Newman said the following on 9/4/2007 3:42 AM:

IMHO: no one user can effect bandwidth on a node to the detriment of everyone on the node. I think that the ISP overloads a node to the point that at times when there are many users the node (at the same time) bandwidth is overloaded. At that point the ISP is faced with the problem of expanding the node or reducing the number of users on the node. Guess who are the first users to be removed from the node? Yep - it is the users with the most bandwidth use. Anyway, that is my best educated guess.

Reply to
pop

That's what I've been saying. For 1 and 3 above, the customer has no clue where they stand on those points. There is simply zero visibility. One customer can be generating 400GB of traffic a month, but scheduling it for when the network is quiet, and therefore has impacted no one. A second customer can generate a fourth of that amount, 100GB, but be doing it all on weekdays between 7-10PM, perhaps the busiest time for this kind of network. In this example, the first person hasn't impacted anyone while the second person has, yet based on the higher total usage Comcast will only look at the first person.

Reply to
Bill

You're omitting the standard practice of oversubscription. Not everyone will use their service at the same time.

In the dark ages of the Internet, I worked for a small ISP that launched their service with a 100:1 user to dial-up modem ratio. As the service took off and people discovered email and the web, they dropped the ratio to 20:1. By the time I left they had dropped the ratio to 10:1 because people were using their connection more often and were staying connected longer.

The times have changed, but the practice of oversubscribing is still with us as a way of keeping build-out costs down. I don't know what the current ratio might be, but for sure it's not 1:1 on a shared medium like cable, DSL, or the rural/municipal wireless systems that are springing up.

Reply to
Bill

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