Posted June 5, 200816 yr Comcast and Time Warner cable companies to start limiting internet usage. We don't normally post this type of stuff in the news here at myg0t, however this is pretty closely related issue to many of our online entertainment and social-networking lives. I don't want to turn this into a big rant of mine, I'm more curious what the users of our site and the ones who just lurk it think about this. If you have yet to read the news articles for yourself, just follow this Google News link to a plethora of coverage about this topic: http://news.google.com/news?q=comcast+time+warner For the TLDR'ers, basically Comcast now admits they were "slowing down" P2P traffic, specifically BitTorrent packets. Now fearing the wrath of the FCC amidst the recent net neutrality proceedings, a consortium of cable operators are instead going to BLOCK and LIMIT the usage of the top 5-15% of heavy bandwidth consuming users. They have already started their "tests" in certain parts of the country. I'm not trying to be a fear monger here, these tests only apply to new customers and not existing ones, but we all know if they deem their "test" successful then we will all be fucked in the end. Would you leave your current broadband provider if they started imposing such limits on you? No more flat fee rates for internet usage? Would you leave the cable company and switch to slower but comparable broadband speeds with a phone company? These are the questions I'd like to hear the answers to. Please reply with your comments, opinions, and ideas.
June 5, 200816 yr That doesn't bother me for now. I think there will be enough competition between companies (AT&T, Covad, (Various cable companies), etc... etc...) that you will be able to change providers if you aren't happy with your current provider. We'll see...
June 5, 200816 yr Author As in many areas of the United States, where I live there is an unfair advantage given to the cable company, that being there is only allowed to be one in this region. I happen to work for the company that serves the majority of my state and the four states surrounding mine. If they did this I would have no option but to switch to a phone company. I refuse to pay usage rate fees on the internet. The internet has always been meant to be unlimited and free to access. You pay for the rate of speed by which you are able to access it via the internet providers networks. I absolutely refuse to pay a higher rate for a faster speed tier only so that I am able to reach my allotted bandwidth usage for that billing period quicker than other customers. Internet access should not be allowed to be turned into another tool to steal the hard earned money from our pockets. I have a unique perspective here as I work for such a company and my living is paid for by people just like all of you and myself (yes, I still pay for my cable access, not even a discount), but I am also a consumer first and foremost.
June 5, 200816 yr I hope Qwest doesn't slow my downloads more than they already are. 125 kb DL rates are hell when you are downloading mass amounts of music and pr0n :naughty:
June 5, 200816 yr yeah tons of other companies are putting on limits now. my isp (sprint pcs) just put on a 9GB limit. they just released a new ToS this week. really fucking lame and ridiculous but i should be getting a new isp this week because of this. no way im accepting that shit.
June 5, 200816 yr Comcast motherfucking sucks, thier technical support couldnt find out why my xbox live wasn't connecting and kept cutting out and they literally gave up. All of thier technical support was some faggot who couldn't speak english. They limit torrent ports, and anyone else they feel uses too much bandwidth WHICH THEY SAY is because they fear the MPAA and FCC, which of course IS NOT FUCKING TRUE BECAUSE THEY GO AFTER USERS, AND DOWNLOADERS, NOT THE MOTHERFUCKING ISPs. Comcast are fucking assholes and they should burn in hell for robbing thier customers. I have SBC internet, and i've never been bothered with threatening letters. Switch your motherfucking ISP and shut down these faggots.
June 5, 200816 yr As long as there is an option to have have internet access with no limit on usage, this is the option I will choose, even if it means sacrificing speed.
June 5, 200816 yr I have Comcast right now and after seeing Verizon's FiOS expanding, I am just waiting for the day to come when I finally am able to get it. Fuck you Comcast.
June 5, 200816 yr I have Comcast right now and after seeing Verizon's FiOS expanding, I am just waiting for the day to come when I finally am able to get it. Fuck you Comcast. Verizonis available in my area as well. Don't get to excited. Their prices are higher then comcast for the same shit. I currently use comcast, but they do suck, they keep raising the prices. DSL is not available to me becuase I live to far "from the switch". People are correct about thier tech. support, it leaves a lot to be desired. When feb 2008 rolls around and regular tv's no longer work becuase of the HD switch, then comcast will jack thier rates up again, I'm sure. It sucks to be at the mercy of 1 or 2 high speed internet providers.
June 5, 200816 yr I dislike all this relatively "clandestine" blocking. Why doesn't Comcast have the courage to admit to their customers early on that they lack the bandwidth, and instill bandwidth caps openly? (Yes, they are admitting it now, I am aware of that.) I'll remain as a Verizon DSL subscriber for the near future; hopefully there won't be any bandwidth caps. As far as I can tell, there aren't any. And one day, should FIOS ever come to my neighborhood, I may subscribe to that. I am happy that Verizon is making an effort to upgrade their infrastructure, unlike Comcast and other cable companies who lazily rely on half-measures such as bandwidth caps to compensate for a poor and aging infrastructure.
June 5, 200816 yr ...When feb 2008 rolls around... Oh shit. Divide by zero? I have Verizon DSL right now and it's not bad. No complaints except download is only around 200 kb/s and upload is like 90something kb/s, but good for ordinary shit/gaming/raging/etc. I THINK though that originally they did have some sort of fucking cap and I got charged an extra $20 or some shit, but it's a business line, might be different for home. I just paid an extra $2 a month and got unlimited. Luckily I have been watching the Mexicans in my front yard digging and placing boxes for FiOS. I stole a shovel to get back at them stealing jobs, but hopefully the real Americans come soon and stick the FiOS cables in. Then I will be switching phone/intarwebs/tv totally over.
June 6, 200816 yr Neko;566074']yeah tons of other companies are putting on limits now. my isp (sprint pcs) just put on a 9GB limit. they just released a new ToS this week. really fucking lame and ridiculous but i should be getting a new isp this week because of this. no way im accepting that shit. Agreed 100%, We either accept the ToS or gtfo and find another ISP. Anybody using 3G in most places has already been capped at 5GB. I'm w/Comcast, haven't noticed any caps yet, but the traffic shaping crap has to stop. Sad how the wild and free Internet is dying. If they would have spent more money on infrastructure i.e. getting their fat wallets out like Verizon and FiOS they wouldn't be crying about lack of bandwidth, and the so called "hogs". They are starting DOCSIS 3.0, so wtf is the problem? Oh yeah, that's right, they are still trying to wring that aging dump of a network they have for every last penny and passing the cost/inconvenience to us. Behavioral advertising and targeting ads are also worrysome, especially if you goatse it up on google.
June 6, 200816 yr Some companies are even going as far as doing packages for certain sites. Like you do with tv and HBO or Cinemax. You pay 35$ for all the basic sites but if you pay 45$ then you can visit youtube or my space etc... Shit is getting out of hand. Im getting tired of people fucking with my shit. I give it another 5 years before there's mass anarchy everywhere and we nuke the entire planet.
June 6, 200816 yr I hear about this about a year ago. I'd only seen a couple cases of people complaining about their providers cutting their internet because they had gone over the bandwidth limit, which the cable companies don't give out. Last I heard it was something like 100gb a month. Maybe it's changed since? Yes it does suck that they're pulling this crap. At the same time, it's better then no internet what-so-ever. In some areas most people only have the choice of one provider.
June 6, 200816 yr vein;566080']As long as there is an option to have have internet access with no limit on usage' date=' this is the option I will choose, even if it means sacrificing speed.[/quote'] The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters.
June 7, 200816 yr Yeah, I live in New York City and I have IO cable. I pay for tier 2 with my family its getting to be bullshit over here too. Lemme give you a time line of whats been going on. 1. The internet slows down at random times- I found this out to be caused by multiple connections at once. Although I pay for tier two service IO limits my broadband to something lower because Im using almost HALF my max bandwidth. What the fuck Im paying for it why can't I use it? 2. Now my internet is shutting off at random times. No it is not my modem because people have been experiencing the same thing around my block. I think im getting to the point where im just going to cancel my internet until I can find a company who will not rip me off and not give me a bullshit excuse that im "taxing" the server. I pay to tax the fucking server. Why not just use the profit money to expand it instead of giving yourself a million dollar raise every fucking day. BTW just a note on why they are doing this, Much like the gas crisis, The internet has become a necessity. They did not realize this until now and much like the gas, they are raising prices so that in the future people will think OH GEEE WIZ 3 WEBSITE DEAL FOR 100 DOLLARS IMMMA BUY THAT!!!11!@1. Sorry not falling for it. I rather quit the internet all together. Not like it servers much use besides porno.
June 7, 200816 yr Yeah, I live in New York City and I have IO cable. I pay for tier 2 with my family its getting to be bullshit over here too. Lemme give you a time line of whats been going on. 1. The internet slows down at random times- I found this out to be caused by multiple connections at once. Although I pay for tier two service IO limits my broadband to something lower because Im using almost HALF my max bandwidth. What the fuck Im paying for it why can't I use it? 2. Now my internet is shutting off at random times. No it is not my modem because people have been experiencing the same thing around my block. Sounds vaguely like what's happening to me with Cox communications. Intermittent times of it working flawlessly, then other times it just dies. It says it's connected, but there's really nothing happening. Quite annoying. Likewise, one of my friends has Cox as well, and he gets fucked over sometimes too. BTW just a note on why they are doing this, Much like the gas crisis, The internet has become a necessity. They did not realize this until now and much like the gas, they are raising prices so that in the future people will think OH GEEE WIZ 3 WEBSITE DEAL FOR 100 DOLLARS IMMMA BUY THAT!!!11!@1. Sorry not falling for it. I rather quit the internet all together. Not like it servers much use besides porno. I had no idea they were limiting access to youtube and such sites... That's a bit ridiculous and disturbing that this is happening... the free sharing of information isn't so free anymore... I guess to share it it's free, but to access it you're going to have to pay. Thank you capitalism.
June 8, 200816 yr http://www.memphisrap.com/cgi-bin/content/pub9990263694155.cgi?itemid=9990290121643 For the past week you may have been hearing about Comcast and Time Warner either running throttling tests or charging for bandwidth usage when you go over your allocated amount, now AT&T Broadband which was acquired by Comcast in 2002 is announcing usage-based pricing which will reportedly begin this Fall. The company's chief technical officer, John Donova, told Wired that it doesn't practice in packet shaping, slowing down or blocking certain applications' data packets to render them less efficient and they don't view any of its customers as pirates, but as users. "A heavy user is not a bad customer," Donova stated. While some broadband companies are avoiding upgrading its infrastructure, AT&T is planning a 3-G upgrade, based on HSPA technology. The upgrade will take over-the-air download speeds from 1.7 Mbps now to 7 Mbps and finally, to 11 Mbps. The company has already mapped out when most of their upgrades will take place, which may even be sooner than the expected date of 2012 or 2013 for the fourth-generation "Long-Term Evolution" (LTE) technology, which speeds are expected to hit up to 100 Mbps. AT&T most recent upgrade of its wired internet access is capable of 40 Mbps. Donovan states AT&T is in the process of deploying fiber optic networks to people's homes, which will begin with all new housing developments. When Donovan was questioned on whether they have possible plans to monitor network traffic for violations, he stated that it is possible and could be targeted at specific applications or at specific copyrighted content, via deep packet inspection, however the company isn't currently monitoring such usage on an individual customer level. just thought id throw this out there, for any at&t users or anyone that cares in general.
June 8, 200816 yr I have SBC DSL.. I can download at around 300 kb/s and upload at around 50 kb/s It's not really all that bad I guess, but I usually have to leave my tiny underpowered computer running 24/7 if I want to get anything large downloaded/uploaded. *Stupid Linux distributions on private trackers* I tried running bittorrent (On utorrent) at my friends house that has comcast.. It uploaded at around 500 kb/s for about a minute, then cut back to 5 kb/s then died, even though there were 40 peers connected to me. I called comcast for him and asked them what the problem was and they put me on hold and then hung up. Called them back, and they said that it was my problem and that I shouldn't be pirating things. Guess they don't know Linux is free and bit torrent traffic is legal.
June 8, 200816 yr Some companies are even going as far as doing packages for certain sites. Like you do with tv and HBO or Cinemax. You pay 35$ for all the basic sites but if you pay 45$ then you can visit youtube or my space etc... Shit is getting out of hand. Im getting tired of people fucking with my shit. I give it another 5 years before there's mass anarchy everywhere and we nuke the entire planet. what fucking company is doing this??? and wow proxies
June 8, 200816 yr Some companies are even going as far as doing packages for certain sites. Like you do with tv and HBO or Cinemax. You pay 35$ for all the basic sites but if you pay 45$ then you can visit youtube or my space etc... Shit is getting out of hand. Im getting tired of people fucking with my shit. I give it another 5 years before there's mass anarchy everywhere and we nuke the entire planet. That uh... actually never happened.. It was a mock-up of what COULD happen if net neutrality never went into place... http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7254/5z6vt4n14bbe543pl6.jpg
June 9, 200816 yr See, I'm not entirely worried. I have Cox cable internet shit. I've paid 35/mo for a year now and my download speed has done nothing but increase. Right now I'm at 12-13m/bit with a lot of shit going. I'm hoping to move soon and get a T3. When/if chrono reads this ask him about Cox and what they do. It's not as bad as Comcast or Time Warner, but me and him have the same shit happen. There used to be days, before I got glined for the 7th time, that mIRC wouldn't even pick up irc.myg0t.com. From that day on I started using lobb.lcirc.net. Fucking Cox. [/offtopic some] [/ontopic] Sucks for you guys. And SX, I forgot what you do, but you announced you don't get a discount. When your company doesn't give you a discount for interfail or cable, might be time to pack it in.
