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So, when will we have fiber to every home so we can become a first-world tech nation again?
Comcast FCC filing shows gap between hype, bandwidth reality
Comcast has come clean to the FCC about its secretive traffic-management practices… not that Comcast thinks it has been keeping secrets. According to its 57-page filing, “experience suggests that Comcast needs to ensure that its disclosures on matters such as network management are timely and in sufficient detail to ensure transparency while not providing a roadmap to those who would seek to defeat its efforts at reasonable network management.” While that doesn’t explain the months of stonewalling from the company, at least now we have some official answers to how Comcast’s Sandvine network management system works.
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The question that many users are probably asking themselves right now is, “But didn’t I pay for a certain level of bandwidth? Can’t I use it however and whenever I want?” To which Comcast says, simply, “No, you cannot.”
“Comcast Explains How & Why It Won’t Let You Access The Interwebitubes ‘Your Way’”
Because they make more money having it their way!
Duh-Oh!
Cheers
Because they are liars and thugs. Role models for politics and profit in Amerika in the 21st Century – so far.
NEVER ! It’s not the companies that are cheap, it’s the people.
You guys are all rich enough to pay out of your pocket for your own fiber optic.
Why should the Internet be cheap for YOU? Who are YOU? If you are ‘someone’ of importance, then you should have sufficient funds to pay 150$/month.
But no, you need McMansion’s and multiple cars.
How much do you pay per month for Comcast? Not enough.
Alternatives :
– Commercial service, starts at 150$/month
– Buy a pizza box server w/Linux ;
Pay 100$-150$ for dedicated 1U hosting
Setup as Linux LAMP & Proxy & Bittorrent
Visit your server & swap 1TB USB drives
Why should Comcast pay millions in infrastructure to upgrade 10yr old routers?
They are nickel & dime at 20$/month Internet for Tom, Dick & Harry.
Compare to other countries that start this year from scratch with cabling. Of course they won’t use Coax from pole-to-pole.
I think Comcast is late in the game to start filtering. Filtering is a good thing for cheap Internet.
#2 Moss No, this is not some new condition for the 21st century. This has been going on for centuries …so what else is there to say but “boy aren’t we just stupid or what?”
Cheers
Where do you get off Mark Derail?
Judging by your post I assume you’re from someplace “better” than the US, Europe perhaps. People claim that one reason the world hates America is that we don’t know much about other places. Fact is other places have misconceptions about us too.
Were not all millionaires here. Most of us are just people, like you, trying to make a living. Trying to feed our families, do well in our jobs and have some fun here and there. Most people would find $150 a month for net access a heavy burden.
So lets stop with all the primitive “My City-State is better than your city state” bullshit. I think you find that being an asshole cuts across all nations, races, religions, and creeds.
The issue is filtering and limiting bandwidth.
Which DOES happen here in Quebec, Canada, for the cheap Internet.
If you don’t want to pay 150$/month of true high speed and nearly unlimited bandwidth, then perhaps you should by CD’s and DVD’s.
#5 Ya, I agree I came a little strong there.
However, I do pay 150$/month for commercial service. It’s amazing the difference compared to my friend’s cheap 30$/month.
Yet that friend complains to his provider about a 10$ surcharge for 10Gigs of “extra” he downloaded, which is mostly Bittorrent (videos and music).
$150/month is not a burden when you piggyback TV, VoIp, Internet, movies.
Thanks for being reasonable Mark. =)
I don’t think the issue is filtering so much as advertising. If comcast is upfront about their practices and dont lie blatantly in their commercials people could make a rational choice.
They advertise 6Mb unlimited downstream. Both claims are a baldfaced lie. Forging a reset packet is dirty and underhanded.
Post your capabilities, limitations, and prices. Then let the market decide.
Mark, I agree that the US system of paying a flat-rate fee can be a deal for some users, especially those who use a lot of bandwidth. But what outrages most people, and what tcc3 says, is that Comcast has covered up its broadband management methods by allowing people to assume they are not being restricted from getting bandwidth.
I take issue with this (from the ars technica article : “To drive home its point, Comcast says that no public network (roads, telephones, etc.) are built to allow everyone to use them all the time; even tollways use lights to meter traffic at on-ramps during busy times of day.”
I think it is another purposefully misleading statement by Comcast to compare itself to a public good like roads. It is not parallel to public roads, which are paid for by taxes by all, but instead closer to toll roads, where richer people can pay for access to a less congested route. Comcast’s business model is certainly not shared access for “everyone” and not at all altruistic, as Comcast would like it to seem.
Last year I could average 300kbs on bittorrent downloads. This year, I never break 100kbs for more than one minute and average around 50kbs. Slightly better at 4AM. While that is happening, I can get 3-400kbs from a dedicated server with no effect on the bittorrent.
I’d love maximum speed and be happy to download at certain times with monthly caps. Instead, my ISP says they don’t know what their own standards are and would I like a service technician to check my lines?
I’m paying $150/month for tv, voip, and broadband. I’ve asked what the expected download speeds would be for a T-1 business line and the tech department says they don’t guarantee anything.
What a fine service.
Who is paying $30/Month for broadband? yeah there are some deals where you get a couple of months at a cheaper rate, but if you just get Broadband internet, you are talking close to $60/month, if not more….
The only way you really pay $30/Month is if you get the Cable TV/Phone/Internet package where you’ll pay close to $150/month.
And those McMansions are mostly for sale now. So if you’re so jealous of people who live in them, why not buy one at a discounted rate.. Half of them are being foreclosed on.
Once again the Telcos STRANGLE THE BROADBAND ECONOMY !!! I guess we will have to wait for the old guard, “by the minute” telco execs to die off before we will see the new Broadband Economy of bandwidth abundance come to fruition !!! It seems to be happening in countries OTHER THAN AMERICA, but it may not happen in our lifetimes !!!
http://21centuryconnections.com/node/98
At home I have the 100$ all-inclusive cable package. 3Mb Internet.
My office, with same cable company, pays the full 150$ just for Internet, voip separate.
Full 10Mb at the office. No bandwidth cap.
When I do use bittorrent, I get a huge 500+ because of my sharing ratio & speed.
So I think Comcast is also slowing down your upload rate, resulting in poor sharing ratio.
At home bittorrent is low like the other posters. I often pay extra $ per month when I go over, and gladly pay it, since my Internet “portion” is only 30$/month for broadband. 1$ per gig. Cheap service, cheap price.
When I downloaded Google’s Ubuntu clone, at the office it took about five minutes for the ISO.
The T1 equivalent line isn’t guaranteed, but check out my ping from Montreal.
Bandwidth is just part of it. Dedicated, like T1’s, have low latency.
Pinging http://www.l.google.com [72.14.205.147] with 32 bytes
Reply from 72.14.205.147: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.205.147: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.205.147: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.205.147: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=239
Ping to http://www.dvorak.org 69.50.231.160 is 94ms.
Considering East coast to West coast.
Ping to Yahoo, probably routed to East coast, is 23ms.
Pings to Toronto servers is 15ms, Montreal 10ms.
Same cable technology, different routing priority based on monthly plan.
Let’s compare similar ping’s with someone with Comcast at home. Curious.
DSL is $30 a month. Comcast tv/phone/internet is 99 a month.
Wow 2-3 years ago, the tech blog’o’sphere had power and influence and comcast would have backed down eventually. But now… no one is listening anymore, all the credibility was spent on things like the iPhone and bashing Vista, and now Comcast is single handedly taking out bit torrent, and the tech blog’o’sphere can make barely a whimper anymore.
Great job guys!
I know lately my Usenet has been really slow, Nothing showed up in a trace route, an email to the NNTP host revealed nothing. I called my ISP (not comcast) asked if they were using traffic shaping, the “tech” flat out would not answer the question. So then I asked if they were limiting NNTP traffic, he had no idea what NNTP or Usenet was, he went and asked (I assume his Dad) and came back and said “They did not support NNTP on their network”. I said that’s fine but are they limiting NNTP traffic? then he got a little snotty and I told him to have a nice day.
Thing is, like every other utility it is a monopoly, you’ll either buy their crappy service or do without.
Their policy seems entirely reasonable to me.
Throttling would be fine if the floor were reasonable, say 100Mb to the home, 100GB per day downloads for $25.00/mo. (Internet only – phone and TV extra)
Just a question, is there really any legal content on the torrents?
#18,
Yes, there are all sorts of legal things on bittorrent. And for what its worth, bit torrent is still working fine for me on Comcast. But then I’m not pegging my bandwidth usage 24/7/365.
If there was some soft of … conspiracy … on Comcasts part here to maintain a monopoly over video content, then it seems like AppleTV, Tivo and xbox users would be complaining about slow download speeds, but I havent experienced any and haven’t hear about any anecdotal problems.
In my real life experience it is only the people using bit torrent to the point of abuse (imo) who are having any issue what so ever.
Also, Comcast has started rolling out their 20Mb down plus 5Mb up service, and I suspect this is part of that, because at those types of speeds video piracy becomes a real problem.
Comcast offers 1/2 the service of a traditional ISP at twice the price. But I think cable still beats DSL for quality so every 4 months I threaten to quit and they “lure” me back with a reduced rate.
Frankly, I am not personally bothered by throttling because I don’t download pirated movies. As long as my ping rates are low for gaming and my legitimate downloads are reasonably quick, I’m happy.
Now I admit, I’m out of touch with DSL so I don’t know how DSL is these days. AT&T is offering service without having to sign a 1 year contract, which used to be the biggest roadblock for me. After all, why would I sign a contract that said I had to pay to quit even if the service is bad? So, I’d love to hear an educated opinion on the state of modern DSL.
It’s a monopoly. They will get WHATEVER they want. Hell, they’re not even subject to the law.
By the way those untold fortunes they ‘spent’ ‘building’ our infrastructure – it’s a lie. We paid for that long ago. Profit margin on sending a signal from point A to point B is MASSIVE.
Remember what were actually being ‘given’ for our money….. nothing. They perform only such services as to ensure their profits, nothing else.
Nothing worth pirating that I can’t just Netflix.
Gave up the online gaming addiction, so my net access has gone to DSL Lite. No cable TV, if they want me to watch #$%&@?+! commercials, they’ll give it to me free or they can bite my ass.
Think about it, a very few years back, in any metro area, they were several separate TV stations that managed to stay in business selling advertising and broadcast the signal over the air for FREE. And each station had Newscasters, technicians, salesmen, cameramen, writers even news helicopters and other mobile news units. Many still have all that. And satellite receivers for national feeds. And what does Comcast have in your local area?
A couple of minimum wage counter people to swap equipment and remotes, maybe one local tech guy, and a coupe of guys in a pickup truck with a ladder, a crimp tool and reel of coax and a six pack. And you’re paying a hundred bucks a month ( Or MORE!) for that AND commercials. No wonder people think Americans are freaking retarded.
a semi-monopoly selling you a service but then no fulfilling it, then telling congress that it’s okay?
who’da thunk such a thing could ever happen?
shocked, i tell ya, shocked!
DUH, Bite me. Anything but Comcast.
can you say DSL?
and yes, where is my Fiber?
This from Tokyo,Japan.
100Mb/s Fiber for around $60/mo. But really. I sometimes can get about 1.5mb/s dl and 1.2mb/s ul for bittorrents. Mostly slow loading pages because of ads and throttled servers. I was blocking ads with Peer Guardian and adserve tried to hit every port. Pages get hung from loading while the ads try to load first. Poor design, or ads pay the bills. You decide. Latency is a bit high to US & Europe. Honestly, I can’t see much difference between 1 & 2 Mb/sec and the 100Mb/s Fiber I have now. Anyway, this is average speed. I checked and it is being shaped. Traffic almost goes to zero and then up to 6mb/s.
http://www.dvorak.org
Reply from 69.50.231.160: bytes=32 time=136ms TTL=54
http://www.google.com
Reply from 72.14.205.147: bytes=32 time=162ms TTL=243
In Moscow, Russia. I have a Broadband connection for $20 per month, unlimited. Here is a link to my speed test this afternoon (Moscow time) http://www.speedtest.net/result/234695518.png
Works fine. Some friends have even better connection speed and price – just depends on where you live here.
No reason why the US could not be offering the same.
Screw those guys, I’ll run my own fiber.