Comcast's usage cap: Is the sky really falling?

When Comcast announced last week that it was instituting a formal usage cap for residential customers--a total of 250 gigabytes of data transfer (uploading plus downloading), as described here--I didn't think much of it, except to be happy they finally defined a critical element of their service guarantee. The previous level of ambiguity was annoying and arguably unlawful, as I described here last October.

Few Comcast customers will ever consume that much bandwidth, and in fact it's probably several times what Comcast's network can provide to all users anyway. If a large fraction of Comcast's customer base is now encouraged to start sharing its own high-definition home movies on peer-to-peer file-sharing services, network congestion will impose a much lower limit.

But over the weekend I read some of the news coverage and blogger opinions of the cap, and I have to say that some of it is just astonishing. People are making claims and demands that violate the basic rules of mathematics and the laws of physics. It looked like a digital form of mass panic, like the sky was falling.

In this story, the falling acorn was represented by Karl Bode at Dslreports.com, whose article announcing the cap (here) was highly speculative but still reasonable.

Blogger Om Malik volunteered for the role of Chicken Little in calling the cap "the end of the Internet as we know it," assuming other carriers follow Comcast's lead.

But Malik's analysis is preposterous. The video-on-demand services Malik claims Comcast is trying to block barely exist yet, so most of us have no experience with them. This isn't the Internet "as we know it," it's the Internet as it might develop if bandwidth were free.

But obviously bandwidth isn't free. Comcast's network wasn't a gift from God. Comcast spent a certain amount of money building it, and it continues spending money to maintain it. Nor does Comcast's network have infinite capacity. Like any other digital-cable network, Comcast's system has intrinsic capacity limits on multiple levels from neighborhoods up to cities.

If some other company institutes a service that relies on dramatically increasing Comcast's network traffic--and therefore the costs of constructing and maintaining its network--why should Comcast have to swallow those costs?

Would Malik let me upload videos to Gigaom.com and charge customers for downloads, all without giving him a share of the revenue? Of course not, because he isn't an idiot. He's just not thinking clearly.

(Though Malik went on to use a disgusting excretory analogy to criticize Comcast's announcement--which was, honestly, a very clear, specific, and forthright statement of the company's intentions. What was that about?)

Many other bloggers fell in behind Malik, rushing out to tell the world about the impending disaster.

Running the numbers
But seriously, is there anything to worry about? Let's look at the math. The cap of 250 gigabytes per month works out to a continuous stream of data at over 96 kilobytes per second. Medium-quality digital music works out to 16 kbytes/s, so the cap can't possibly interfere with any amount of music streaming or downloading for personal consumption. Do you listen to Internet radio? That usually operates at even lower data rates, so you're safe. Leave it on 24 hours a day if you like.

Do you watch a lot of videos on YouTube? That's safe too. Even high-quality YouTube videos come in under 90 KB/s, and most of the content there isn't high quality in this sense. If you're on YouTube 24-7, you won't hit the usage cap.

Full standard-definition (SD) video uses a lot more data--usually more than ten times as much as audio. I checked the SD movies at the iTunes Store, for example. The iTunes download of one of my favorite movies, "Blade Runner: The Final Cut," in standard definition is 1:57:28 long and 1.21 GB in size, or 618 MB per hour. At that rate, you could download more than 400 hours of standard-definition TV or movie content in a month without exceeding Comcast's usage cap, even if you do a normal amount of other activity. (Comcast says its median usage for residential customers is less than 3 GB/month.)

There are about 720 hours in a month, so if you spend your whole life watching one new movie after another, you will exceed the cap. Well, at least this is a good reason to spend the usual amount of time eating and sleeping.

Of course, the data rate for HD movies will usually be several times higher than that for SD content. You might only be able to download 100 hours of HD movies per month without raising Comcast's ire.

But c'mon, I know you don't want to watch that many hours of other people's home movies. If you're going to spend that much time watching HD video, you're going to do it with commercial content instead, most likely movies downloaded through Apple TV, Xbox Live, or some similar service. And that means you're going to be spending quite a bit of money, because this content is generally going to cost you $2 to $3 per hour.

If you're doing that, you can afford to spring for Comcast's commercial Internet service, which has no usage caps. It's only around twice the price of residential service--under $100/month. That's a fairly good deal for a service that gives you way more bits per buck than your neighbors are getting.

Still, some people have raised serious objections. CNET's Josh Lowensohn pointed out (here) that online backup services work by transferring large amounts of user data to and from central servers.

In practice, this won't be a problem for all Comcast customers, since these services usually involve much more uploading than downloading and the upload speed for most Comcast customers is just 384 kilobits per second, or less than 125 gigabytes per month, even with uploads running continuously at this speed.

But yes, if you have a service of this type, you'd better keep an eye on it. If you're seeing a daily transfer rate over 6 or 7 gigabytes per second, you'll have to find a way to throttle your bandwidth (often a feature of these services) or upgrade to one of Comcast's commercial Internet packages.

(In the same blog post, however, Lowensohn also made the ridiculous claim that Comcast customers can reach that median monthly usage of 3 gigabytes in "minutes." Although Comcast's best residential service has a peak throughput of 16 megabits per second- giving 3 GB in 25 minutes--there isn't a server in the world that will provide that kind of download speed. So even the fairly sensible people still suffer from a certain level of innumeracy here.)

The facts show that Comcast's usage cap is necessary, reasonable, and high enough that it will never be encountered by most users. Anyone who might be flirting with 250GB/month of usage in the next few years probably ought to be thinking in terms of a commercial account anyway. And after that, as bandwidth gets cheaper and new high-bandwidth services come on line, Comcast (and other ISPs) will inevitably increase the residential usage cap accordingly.

So the sky is safe after all, at least for now. And Chicken Little is still blogging, so I'm sure if he perceives another threat, we'll hear about it.

[cmstratton]

Great article Peter - you really broke down the details very well and made a lot of sense. I have to admit at initial glance, it could be easy to follow the hype-bloggers without really getting into the details. In other words, it'd be easy to say "Comcast is putting a limit on usage, that's not what the Internet is supposed to be about." But when you break it down, the limits really do make sense and I agree, it's easy to see if you're using the Internet in a typical way, you won't come anywhere near those limits. And if you are using that much bandwidth, you do need to be on a commercial account. The thing to keep an eye on will be as bandwidth continues to increase and average people are doing more bandwidth-intensive activities online, will Comcast raise those limits. I imagine they will, but it will be something to look out for.

[Renegade Knight]

"If you are using that much data you need to be on a commercial account". That doesn't flow. You bought a consumer account for consumer uses and are limited to the bandwidth the pipeline provies. 3megabits per second, or whatever. That's a consumer cap right there. If 3 were the magic level for a commercial account then why are they selling it to consumers? The answer. It's not about the pipeline.

As a consumer you really can't do much in the way of commercial work using your account. They don't give you the tools. You have to host elsewhere and that host caps your data (though I'd rather they capped the bandwidth).

[Fil0403]

@ Renegade Knight: ""If you are using that much data you need to be on a commercial account". That doesn't flow. You bought a consumer account for consumer uses and are limited to the bandwidth the pipeline provies. 3megabits per second, or whatever. That's a consumer cap right there. If 3 were the magic level for a commercial account then why are they selling it to consumers? The answer. It's not about the pipeline." So you consider spending 250+ GB/month "consumer use"? I'd like to know what kind of "consumer use" one does that surpasses 250 GB/month. And btw, the pipeline provides at least 16 megabits per second, not 3.

[infernalman7]

The real deal is Australia's internet cap. I'm on 3GB per month for 29AUD. That's like $25 a month.

[c|net Reader]

How is that a good deal relative to $45-50 for a 250GiB/mo cap? If you don't need more than that, then paying less is good, assuming the bandwidth is at least as high. If you need more than 3GiB/mo, what then?

[cpfort]

Did you even bother reading Om's assessment? The problem isn't with your average single person who only buys iTunes tracks and watches the occasional YouTube video. The problem is that in the very near future we'll need lots and lots of bandwidth to deliver HD video and multi-channel audio over the internet.

You aren't thinking far enough ahead into the not-too-distant future where we'll be streaming video and audio at higher and higher bit rates more often. Why should I stream an HD video from Hulu or another site if Comcast will count that against me and Comcast OnDemand won't? It's simple a way for ComcASS to get around the net neutrality rules...plain and simple.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Yes, I read Malik's piece. It's a fantasy. Comcast's network can't support that kind of activity anyway-- no matter who is supplying the content.

We can imagine a world where real-time Internet HDTV distribution is common, but that doesn't mean it's possible yet.

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[Lerianis]

They aren't going to get around the net neutrality rules like that. I have already made a complaint to the FCC saying that this bandwidth cap is 'unlawful non-competition' because a lot of people will be unable to use the services that they wish to use because of this.

[pedrolawrench]

I agree with this comment. My elderly mother-in-law is even a high consumer of bandwidth. She's got the Roku Netflix box and streams several movies daily, and I wouldn't be surprised if she reaches the cap. She's not mobile, so don't tell her to go to the movie theater. And being retired, she doesn't have a lot of income. I find it insulting to suggest she should get commercial-grade service...she's not a business. I look forward to a time when all shows are in HD on the Internet, I'd probably watch everything on my computer and pitch the TV. While I agree their bandwidth is not unlimited, there should be some sort of tiering plan for home users.

[Jailton]

Anybody working with the infrastructure of the internet backbone - and even with the infrastructure of any computer network - knows that bandwidth demand more than doubles every year or so. Also, in the computer world you can't say NEVER as that words just means "IN 6 MONTHS". IBM once said that the world would only need about 4 or 6 computers, Bill Gates thought that 640 Kb of RAM was way more than anybody would ever need. In 1994, 14.4 Kbps of internet bandwidth was fast. Today, the world has hundreds of millions of computers, minimum RAM is over 2000 times what Gates thought was too much, and 3 GB of broadband is considered OK. So when somebody in the computer world says NEVER WILL YOU NEED 250 GB, translate it as IN SIX MONTHS YOU WILL NEED MORE THAN 250 GB.

[oceanbug]

September, I think the problem is that, even without a cap, the current networks wouldn't be able to support as much bandwidth as your describing. Which means that new technology and a new infrastructure would have to be available to support users streaming HD video and multi-channel audio. Pointless to worry about capping bandwidth with today's networks, if that's indeed the basis of Om's complaint.

[TooladyonCNET]

Yesterday I downloaded one of CNETs recommended bandwidth meters and installed it on my laptop. Last night I had my browser open on yahoo, just sitting there, not downloading anything and the meter showed my usuage at 1GB in-between 3 and 4 am.
I use a slingbox to watch TV in other rooms around my house, I turned it on and metered it for 4 hours and used almost 5GB's of bandwidth.... So, I can either stop doing the normal "consumer" things I enjoy now, or give in and call Comcast to upgrade my account before I am thrown off of their network. So what you are really saying here is that I should just pay more for a service that constantly drops my VOIP calls, drops my internet connection, sends me TV shows that are garbled 10% of the time, who provides me with the worst possible customer service available.... As far as I'm concerned Comcast is seriously over charging me now, I'm still not sure what I'm paying $150.00 a month for, it certainly isn't for service!
Comcast is clearly thinking ahead, considering they followed up their Managed Network emails with an advertisment encouraging us all to buy a WII system to use with our Comcastic internet service so we can all hit our 250GB limit faster. Bunk you say? Are you sure you don't work for them?

[Penguinisto]

Here's a question: Why is it that my use of Vonage automatically means I would use more traffic towards the cap than I would if I used Comcast's voice service (which doesn't count)? While VoIP itself is fairly light on traffic, I can see how a heavy SOHO user could eat about 1/4 of that cap in the space of a month.

Another question: Why is it that downloading a movie from Netflix counts towards the cap, but ordering a movie through Comcast OnDemand doesn't?

Another still: Why is it that watching a TV show downloaded from a site counts, but not Comcast's video?

The answer: It's a cheap and easy way to slap a tarriff of sorts onto the competition, without having to put up with an antitrust investigation (yet).

Add in gaming, hobbies which use a ton of bandwidth (3D/CG hobbyist art, for instance, where an .obj file or content package can very easily weigh in at hundreds of MB each), and it all adds up very quickly.

Yes, there was once a time when Internet usage was metered. I remember paying $10/mo for 200 hours of modem time, with $1 for every 10MB over that... in 1995. AOL once charged $5/hr. In the US, those days were supposed to be dead.

The nanosecond that Comcast sends me any sort of warning, I will happily call Verizon and give them a new customer. Not everyone has that luxury...

/P

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Seriously, you don't see a relevant difference between buying video from Netflix or Comcast?

How about the fact that Netflix gets the money in one case, and Comcast gets it the other way?

If you buy additional Internet services from Comcast, Comcast gets the money; you're paying them more, so you get more service. What's wrong with that?

If you're a "heavy SOHO user" you probably ought to get a commercial account, right? But seriously, VOIP is never going to approach the usage cap anyway.

And seriously, how many 3D files are you going to download at "hundreds of MB each"? You'd need to download 33 per day at 250MB each in order to hit the cap. Not going to happen.

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[Penguinisto]

You make my point exactly: If I rent from Netflix instead of buying an OnDemand flick, then I get penalized towards my bandwidth cap. Now if I pay Comcast for an OnDemand flick instead, then no penalty. Can you say "violates Net Neutrality"? How about "illegal monopolistic practices" (in applicable markets)?

"But seriously, VOIP is never going to approach the usage cap anyway." Agreed, but it does reduce the effective cap by that amount, whereas using the more expensive Comcast Voice does not. Again, violating Net Neutrality and monopolistic practice (again, the latter depending on market).

"you probably ought to get a commercial account, right?"
Sure - let's pay $$$ more per month for a slower service without the other (e.g. video and channel) features you would otherwise normally get as a home customer. Let's pay for features (e.g. Microsoft commercial products and services) I'll never use. Let's get charged for a high installation fee. Let's get metered for bandwidth. Makes perfect sense from the customer side... oh, wait - it doesn't make any sense at all, especially when Verizon doesn't require that I do any such thing to get faster speeds and no bandwidth cap.

"And seriously, how many 3D files are you going to download at "hundreds of MB each"?"

Depends on the project (and the number of revisions) - it can reach into gigabytes per week in files tossed back and forth for projects of a decent size (not counting the source material acquisition).

That said, nitpicking at individual filetypes is not the point - it's the aggregate 'nickel-and-dime' approach you take that, in toto, pushes the user into either buying Comcast-only services to make room for the cap (and avoid disconnection), or consistently worry about hitting it (if not now, then eventually as files get larger and/or use gets higher).

Like I said before: I live in an area where I can give my money to a competitor if it makes more sense to (and this cap is making much more sense to IMHO), but in many markets, Comcast is the monopoly. I fully expect more than a few lawyers (probably egged on by Vonage, Netflix, et al) pushing for the DOJ to eyeball the way Comcast handled this one...

[DrtyDogg]

Verizon isn't to much better though. I got a letter from comcast a couple of months ago, I replied to them via email pointing out their advertisement of unlimited internet, and I reminded them that I pay a higher price because I refused to sign a 2 year contract with them. I got no response from them and 1 month later I had FIOS installed.

The worst part of FIOS is they block port 80 unless you have a business account. A blanket statement in the TOS states that you cannot run any kind of server on their internet.

[Penguinisto]

@DD:

I don't run servers from my house... and it wouldn't make sense to (I don't have my computers latched to a UPS, having a 24/7 service eating bandwidth would interfere with my own downloads, etc.) So that part doesn't bother me.

OTOH, I agree with you that pretty much any large ISP has at least a bit of evil in them... it's a question of preferring to patronize the lesser evil whenever possible (sort of like voting for a political candidate, really...)

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Penguinisto, aren't you paying attention?

If you pay Comcast to download a video, you're paying Comcast for the bandwidth you use to download the video.

If you pay someone else for the video, Comcast has to pay for the bandwidth on its network, but it doesn't get a share of the revenue from the video. So someone else is making money at Comcast's expense.

That's wrong.

And I'm glad to see you've backed down from those silly claims about VOIP and 3D model files using up 250 GB/month.

But you still need to follow the link I provided to Comcast's commercial Internet services, where you can see for yourself that you're completely wrong about the other services they support with a commercial account. Why not look up the facts before posting, huh?

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[DCoates2]

Peter, Are you saying that because Comcast isn't making money off of what I do on the internet they should limit my activity on the internet? If so, that only demonstrates the point that Comcast has continually abused its customers. Unfortunately for me, I live in a "Comcast" only area (meaning that I am so far from the CO that DSL just doesn't make sense) so I know that I won't hit 250Gb/month on the sheer fact that my internet isn't working enough.

In any case, where is my usage meter? I hate the term bandwidth here because bandwidth is measured in Gb or Mb or Kb/s (I know you know) so where is this 250Gb? Temp files on a server in the midle of nowhere? Where? If I use 5Gb or 250Gb/month how do they know that I did it? If that is the case, I can I be a good little customer and stop at 249Gb if I don't know how much I am using.

Wait - I know. Like the Comcast Customer Service Manager I talked to last week -
Me "My phone service and internet has been going in and out."
Them "Sir, we sho your modem online and processing"
Me - "Really, because the modem says it has an upstream on 55db/mv, not good"
Them "Right sir, but next your phone goes out, call us so we can monitor it"
Me "How can I if my phone isn't wokring?"
Them "Don't you have a cell phone?"
Me "No. I don't. I have a home phone."
Them "You should ask someone to use their phone so we can monitor what is going on with your phone'
Me "can't you just send someone to check it"
Them "Sure, but it will cost $35"

Haha. Charge me for using the internet I pay a charge for then charge me for the mess up you made with your stuff.

I love America!!

[dcamiso9]

I cant agree more! I especially think Verizon will get another
new customer soon.

[Penguinisto]

Peter:

Yes, I'm fully aware that I'm paying Comcast for the video, but no, I'm not paying for any extra TCP/IP bandwidth to do it - OnDemand is packed solid with free movies, shows, and other bits and bobs. I can watch those to my hearts' content and not have to be "paying for the bandwidth" to deliver them.

QED: You are not correct when you say that I'm paying Comcast for additional bandwidth to deliver something to me using OnDemand. (In this case, perhaps it is you who should have learned the facts and backed them up before pontificating, eh? ;) ).

"So someone else is making money at Comcast's expense."

Err, what?

Comcast provides a network connection with their ISP service. That's all they do. That's all they should do. What I do with that connection (as long as it's legal) is my business, not theirs. What I do with others while I use that connection is my business, not Comcast's. I'm already paying them for the bandwidth I use - it's implicit in the contract that I'm paying them for this. How much I use or do not use is the only quibbling point, but for some odd reason they neglected to add that language to it.

I find it funny that in spite of their changing the terms of the contract radically (e.g. inserting capacity-limiting language), I doubt that the contract would become null and void in their estimation.

"And I'm glad to see you've backed down from those silly claims about VOIP and 3D model files using up 250 GB/month."

I don't know how else to tell you this, but you missed the point entirely, or are being deliberately obtuse: I never claimed that individually, they would break the cap. However, taken in total, they very well can. That's was the point - that they all add up.

Mis-characterizing what I wrote in order to score debating points is rather unprofessional on your part. Please stop doing that.

[wzone]

@Penguinisto,
Please stop your ridiculous argument. When you pay comcast for the video that you download on OnDemand (free videos are covered in the cost of your cable so dont bother bringing that up.) the cost of the video includes the cost of the extra bandwidth required to download it. Same for the phone service. The cost of a Comcast phone service covers the cost of the additional bandwidth not just the phone. I have used Comcast for the last 4 years and have my own gripes with them, but this is not even a mild concern for me.

@ Peter,
Great article, too many people getting upset over no reason. I am a very heavy Internet user. I have 4 computers, XBOX 360, Wii all connected and most of them switched on all the time. I also use VOIP+ Netflix Streams+ XBOX Live+ XBOX HD Movie Downloads etc. My usage is still at about the 100 GB per month range.

250 GB is quite a bit people, so get a grip.

[ICU812]

I completely agree with Penguinisto on this matter. I have Comcast Internet, DirecTV, and Vonage. My Vonage and DirecTV VOD bits count toward the Comcast cap. If Comcast doesn't count their own VOIP and VOD bits towards the cap, then in my opinion, this amounts to an anti competitive practice and possibly a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I think that Comcast is trying to stick it to their competitors who have to use someone else network for their VOD and VOIP services, making money off this while at the same time trying to get their (Comcast) internet customers to switch to their phone and Cable TV services.

I think that if Comcast is truly concerned that some people are bogging down the bandwidth for others, then maybe they are oversubscribing their Nodes and should stop that practice.

[davidwb]

I agree, the sky isn't falling - but Comcast's announcement warns us all that the sky exists and that Comcast has the ability to drop it. A cap that is 250GB today could become 100GB tomorrow and 5GB the day after.

And while we are doing the numbers, is Comcast's claim that the median account uses 3GB a month credible? That?s a 100MB a day, on average. I eat nearly that much in a day just in email and looking at the news. Comcast must have lots of users who log on infrequently and just for email. I wonder what Comcast shows as the mode? I'm sure that it is much higher than 3GB.

But the real significance of the cap is two fold. First, Comcast drops the cap on us while at the same time blithely suggesting that users Google to find software to track their usage. I don't think so. Granted, I live in a moderately affluent community (we have two Hondas or Fords in the drive way but certainly not BMWs) but the norm in our community isn't a single networked computer. We have 3 computers in the house plus a TiVo. Across the street, every member of the family - 2 parents and 3 teens - have an online computer. And so it goes. Run your stats with multiple devices and the cap feels less comfortable. But more importantly, tracking usage with software run on the client computers becomes meaningless. A cap without a reasonable means of tracking usage is unreasonable.

But the real damage of the cap is yet to be seen because it is in how it will affect the future. Comcast, and the other providers that follow suit, will now have a tremendous influence on how innovation plays out. It isn't just a matter of physics - it is in the spin the service provide uses. Just consider this possibility. TimeWarner opens its own online movie store in competition with Apple's iTunes. For about the same price, I can download movies from TimeWarner...and those downloads don't count toward my cap. This is the future I fear.

[Lerianis]

You have a point. Frankly, Comcast should automatically discount the heaviest users and the lightest users, and give us a mean based on the 90% of the rest of us. If they did that, their 3GB per month definitely would NOT fly. This is not going to fly as well, because Comcast doesn't give us a way to monitor how much bandwidth we are using in an easy way on their website.
The first time I get a warning..... that's the instant I file a lawsuit against Comcast.

[Jedi!Punk]

I think the author is missing one thing. He is assuming only one machine is doing the streaming or video, etc.

We currently have 4 computers: 1 server, 1 tv, 1 for the kids, 1 for the wife. Even then are we seldom doing only one thing at a time. My oldest kids may be listening to music while downloading a game and still have youtube going cause she is a goofy kid. We also watch netflix through one computer and soon two computers.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Sorry, but you just can't expect to use a greatly disproportionate fraction of the total bandwidth available in your neighborhood while paying the same price as everyone else, any more than you should expect to run a bandwidth-intensive home business while paying residential rates.

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[mcsenerd]

I one hundred percent agree with this statement...

What is unreasonable today...will be blase tomorrow (Please see behavior of LiLo, Brit Spears, etc)...This includes Internet access. When everything in your home is chewing bandwidth phoning into some distant server or downloading today's latest patches or viewing streaming media from some other location...on every family members device...how low will that 250GB be then? Two computers? How about a family of 6 with an almost equal number of PCs... Slippery slope my friends...

[Penguinisto]

That's nice Peter - but why not say so up-front, where the consumer knows up-front, instead of springing it onto them after they're locked into a contract? Why the exceptions for Comcast-only services?

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Comcast does say this up front. It's in the terms of service. The only thing that was missing before was the precise amount of the usage cap. I and many other people criticized Comcast (and its competitors) for having these caps without being willing to define them. So they changed that policy and defined the cap. Give them some credit.

[4schler]

just because it doesn't affect *most* people doesn't mean it won't affect *any* people and there's nothing for anyone to worry about; take people who work out of their home, for instance. they'll be sending possibly huge amounts of business data over that connection as well as using it for 'everyday, residential-type' tasks. this is not limited to internet-related audio and video as 'most people' see them.

as for Lowensohn's "...ridiculous claim that Comcast customers can reach that median monthly usage of 3 gigabytes in 'minutes'." they can, and they have. i know i have, downloading games over steam, for instance. 25 minutes is still minutes, not hours or even days. don't attack someone for using correct measurement comparisons.

the only reason comcast's new cap is "necessary" is so that they will not have to upgrade their infrastructure to support the impending surge in growth of web use, for everything from audio and video up&downloading to system backups to video-conferencing to web apps. it may not seem this way now, but it will end up being a bad business decision that will scare away customers (if their service isn't downright cancelled first) and empower their competition in the broadband market.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Sorry, I just don't believe Steam can deliver more than a tiny fraction of 16 megabits/s to any ordinary residential user. And even if it's possible to hit 1.6 megabits/s (which I doubt), that's "hours" not "minutes" by any reasonable interpretation.

And once again, the bottom line here is that Comcast's network isn't designed to provide that kind of bandwidth to every user, and no residential customer is, in fact, paying for that kind of bandwidth.

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[cgsboy]

Very good article. I am curious about console gaming and movies. I use the comcast highspeed connection to both play games through an xbox 360 and download HD movies through the 360 console. Any estimates on the bandwidth usage?

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

It looks like each HD movie represents about 2% of the usage cap. Games aren't a problem; you get almost all the content through the game DVD, and the stuff that comes in over the Internet is pretty small. Plus, all games are designed to operate over fairly narrow network channels, so there's no risk of exceeding the cap that way.

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[Migraine]

I have to ask how much did comcast pay you?

I feel the main thing users are thinking about is what they will need in the future not now, I can remember when I was told I would never fill up a 40 meg HD!

Now 2 shots from digitial camera would fill that up.

250gigs a month my seem like a lot now but ina few years it will be Nothing!

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

I don't even LIKE Comcast. Look back through my blog, you'll see I haven't had much good to say about them.

I just really dislike it when people make crazy, stupid, or (in your case) personally insulting statements without any rational basis for them.

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[gerrrg]

I find it preposterous to state, as a matter of fact, that Comcast's bandwidth is limited. The backbone of their network, as laid out by AT&T, is fiber. It is merely a matter of splitting light into infinitely smaller portions of the spectrum. Anyone that has paid attention to fiber in the least, would know that the technology to split light into usable, separate channels is continuously improving, thereby increasing capacity along the same rate as speeds for CPUs based on Moore's Law.

Further, it is ridiculous to matter-of-fact state that VOD for HD barely exists, and therefore is irrelevant. Comcast's own On-Demand service has pay-per-view HD content. That puts it directly in competition with streaming HD content from DailyMotion, Hulu and Netflix, to name a few sites. The criticism is justified that Comcast is trying an end-around to the principles of net-neutrality.

Whereas capacity increases and prices decrease on cellular networks that have direct competition, broadband is barely competitive, if at all, in most markets except for the largest metropolitan areas. For now, 250 GB seems far more reasonable than 25 GB that others are capping at. However, if you believe in Friedman's flat world, this cap portends the further declination of American innovation. Of course, I don't think the cap will last very long. Eventually market pressure (from wireless) will force Comcast and others to renege on their usage caps.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Yeah, so you're one of these people who doesn't seem to grasp how the laws of physics work. Of course bandwidth is limited. I don't have the numbers, but it's very likely that the actual amount of bandwidth each user could get from Comcast-- if everyone was downloading as quickly as possible all the time-- is just a small fraction of the 250 GB/month usage cap.

You also seem to be one of these people who believes that "net neutrality" is more important than fair and sustainable business models. Why should video providers on the Internet be allowed to force Comcast to pay for the most expensive part of their services?

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[78cherche]

here isn't a server in the world that will provide that kind of download speed???
I can name plenty!

I could provide the illegal file argument (whole series of TV shows etc) from available servers that do provide that speed, however to argue legitimate use, I do need to upload and download original graphics in the area of 3 or 4 gigabytes and even more if I do a bit of video editing. I have easily reached 120 GBs in one day.

But I guess I should mention I don't use Comcast, nor am I currently in the United States, and the price here is 30 dollars a month for unlimited fiberoptic connection with up/download speeds around 6MBytes (not bits) per second and the only thing slowing it down is because my harddrive can't cope with it.

[cfuller2]

I think what everyone fails to see is the fact that lots of households have several people who download stuff not just one person.

Example:
Child 1: Downloading Music and High Def Movies /Playing WoW
Child 2: Downloading Music and High Def Movies/Playing WII online
Child 3: Downloading Music and High Def Movies/Playing Xbox Live
Parent 1: Downloading Music and Browsing Internet
Parent 2: Uploading Pictures and Web Surfing.
General Use from all computers: Patches/Virus Updates/Weather Updates/Web Surfing/Email/IM

Also, don't forget the fact that a good deal of appliances like Fridges/Toasters/Alarm Clocks are starting to become internet ready.


With that in mind I see these caps being hit very often over the next 1-2 years. No I don't think the sky is falling but I do think that creating a CAP is going to cause heart ache to people who adopt new services.

[nickj1088]

Internet ready Toaster? ***?

[metomjr]

I hope all those music downloads are legal. Probably aren't.

[tikoro]

What you are failing to see is that regardless of how many people are doing how many things simultaneously, you still have a maximum "pipe" size for your service. So if your cap is 600mbits/sec downstream and you are downloading from one computer at 400mbit/sec, you're going to have a maximum of 200mbit/sec left over for any of the other machines in the house. You won't exceed the 600mbit/sec pipe size of your internet connection.

[umbrae]

I used to work for an ISP. Once you really understand the business of bandwidth, it becomes very clear that this cap is ONLY to protect Comcast's Media Business. First off, the cap has ALWAYS been there. They only "announced" the cap and added it to the TOS because they lost a lawsuit (on nearly the same day as the cap announcement). If the cap is necessary it is only because Comcast has increased end user speeds to steal DSL customers without growing capacity at the same rate. In the end, this may not affect many of Comcast's customers now, but this is because they can "introduce" this cap now with limited resistance (like the author). However, do your math again... If the average TV viewer watches 8 hours of SD content a day, and they get an IPTV from a Comcast competitor they will EASILY hit that cap. Add in 8 hours of HD content and you might not last a weekend. However, all of Comcast's provided services (IPTV, VOIP, etc.) are exempt from the cap.

In the end, its not about the network or usage its about Comcast's continued anti-competitive nature. Since Comcast has a blessed monopoly in many regions, users don't have many alternatives to switch either.

[cestmoijeff]

Just to give you folks an idea - albeit this is from another ISP and in Canada... our family of four uses about 40G/month... that's with some of us using Slingbox (look it up if you're not familiar), some of us reading news reports online (realtime videos) daily, occasional downloads of mp3s, web surfing, emails. We have four computers online. This is liberal usage.

My company that I used to work for had a staff of 40 and our corporate ISP usage was at most 120G/mth. That's with FORTY computers online performing online backups, email attachments constantly plus another 10 servers running 24/7 getting MS updates, Antivirus updates, etc.

I guess, my point is - the 250G is nothing to be worried about for the average home users. 90% of them will never even reach 50G, however, the median stat of 3GB/mth usage by users is preposterous. I call BULL on that one.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Thanks for the data. I agree that your figures represent the high end of realistic usage patterns.

But I think you underestimate how many home Internet users are only light users. Lots of people have a life that has almost nothing to do with the Internet.

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[only_truth]

Your company must be as tiny as your brain. I backup a terabyte RAID system every two weeks. Handle that Comcast.

[Renegade Knight]

That's fair. Consider:
I have 2 Terrabitys of Storage on my computers at home. A recent crash shows the need for better methods of backing up. The first month of affordable cloud storage...I've blown the cap. The first time I restore a computer after a crash and I've blown the cap. We are just starting the video streaming. More and more schooling is net intensive along with classroom bandwidth needs.

A flat data cap with a growing demand for data transfer is just not going to work in the long run. It's not like conserving water or elecricity.

[Catnap23]

Comcast is taking this step to protect their network which does not have sufficient capacity. I have a Comcast account and a far cheaper, low-end Verizon DSL account. Whiles a speed test is run with tanear-by server the Comcast service come close to the advertised speed but when the same test is run with a server located further away there is very little difference between the high-priced Comcast service and the far-cheaper Verizon DSL service. It's true Comcast does up its advertised speed to meet competition but most of its network doesn't come close to supporting increased speed.

I'm not able to get Verizon fiber as yet, but the reviews I've seen are glowing. Hopefully that service will become more widely available and provide a welcome alternative to Comcast.

[umbrae]

Too comment on cestmoijeff:

Slingbox "slings" content from one source to another. Do you get your content outside your network? If not, then it never hits your ISP only your internal network. Same with your corporation as most of your backups and email are going through the internal system, and not outside.

250gb is a lot for an average person right now, but that is not for long. AT&T is just rolling out a big IPTV product and others are there as well. I do not think this is a Sky is falling thing: it is more of Comcast "again" making a more to eliminate access to competition to their customers. Remember, Comcast does not currently provide ANY WAY for users to monitor their bandwidth: especially we Comcast not really being straight forward on WHAT bits are counted. Obviously they don't count their own VOIP or video services, so how can a user accurately track their usage.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

As far as I know, bandwidth monitoring tools are built into Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. These would be sufficient for most users, though they probably wouldn't provide useful information for a home user with network-attached storage or other high-bandwidth network peripherals.

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[bruscol]

The problem is not streaming or downloading video or music. It is with cloud storage. The best method yet for backing up data is the emergence of services such as Syncplicity and Carbonite which constantly back up all the files that you want to back up in the background. When a file's contents are changed - Carbonite will back it up online. You can do that for each computer - imagine if you want to back up every video program you record on a Media Center PC! Also - Syncplicity synchronizes all your files to all the computers you want - so if you have 4 computers on a network - and change a file on one computer - it will upload it to the service then download it to three separate computers - so one file will count 4 times in your monthly allocation. If you include something like your Thunderbird email files in the Sync - which change constantly - you may upload and download the same file multiple times in the same day.

If they offer an unlimited version that is not too expensive - fine - but if they don't then I would switch to an ISP that does not offer limited service.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

I think you'll find that Internet backup services don't actually generate anywhere near 250 GB/month of traffic. As I said when I addressed this specific issue in my post, most users have connections that CAN'T achieve that much traffic on uploads, which is the dominant direction of traffic for these services.

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[moorechi]

I think usage caps are a bad idea. However, they (the broadband companies) should selectively contact those who use excessive amounts of bandwidth on a regular basis. From what I've read that it only takes a few bandwidth hogs to slow down big pipes.

To add another twist to this - how are usage caps going to be managed for those who telecommute and/or need to perform MS-Windows, other O/S, and security updates for more than one computer?. I telecommute with VPN connection occasionally and could get to the cap limit within a 7 day period - even though I am not playing any games, or downloading videos or music.

Usage caps is like telling us you can only drive on road so many times per week.

Lastly, its possible that usage caps could also slow Internet / e-commerce growth.

[coderxpert]

Come on man, just say COMCAST paid you to write a good article about their cap and everybody here will be happy...

Do you remember 10-15 years ago using dial up? Yes, that's what they want you to go back to. Bandwidth is so cheap these days (and it's going to get cheaper), that whatever their "excuse" might be, just don't justify their actions.

I had commented on another post before, and to me, they are basically saying. "Since we can't block Bittorrent, we will cap everyone". It's their way of getting back at their customers and the FCC...

BTW, I'm don't even use COMCAST!

[MediaMania247]

I disagree. I'm a comcast subscriber for cable internet. I'm married and we have 2 teenaged sons. On any given day one or both of my sons is playing Halo, COD4 or GTA on xbox live (both sons have their own xbox 360's). My Wife blogs, watches television/ movies on the net as do my sons. I play Tribes 2 on-line using teamspeak or vent to talk to friends.... I betcha that cap will effect me and my family next summer when school is out.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

I betcha it won't. Nothing you've discussed is even remotely capable of threatening the usage cap.

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