HEY! GEEKY PEOPLE! COMCAST USERS! So I just found out about this 250gb cap that comcast is about to put on all it's users.. and well, I'm a naughty girl and I torrent the fuck outta the internet... I've up/down a total of 1tb in the last year.. that's just in torrenting... am I gonna be screwed when it goes into effect? (also see long thing inside)
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12 commentsReplies
Corey Hart said, (94 days ago)
I don't like the idea of capping internet usage. How is this going to affect gamers?
Do you know about what different plans offer?
beccah. said, (94 days ago)
@tj: It is 250 a month - but if I've done a TB in a year just in torrenting (that's not even upping to flickr, or anything else I might do).. but I don't know how much data an email does.. and if that thing up there I quoted is right, then people trying to connect to me counts, and I don't even know what that is, number wise!!
@corey: I think it's complete and utter tripe. Gamers were mentioned in the article I was reading (or the comments anyhow).. it was saying gamers downloading demos to their ps3/xbox were gonna get hit too...
And as far as other plans, I believe the next thing I could do would be a business one.. and I just cut my cable teevee off so I could afford internet. FUCKERS.
Centropomus said, (94 days ago)
Because bittorrent uses centralized trackers, you won't get a flood of traffic after you stop seeding, because they'll check the tracker, and the tracker will give them a list of seeders that are online, and you won't be on that list. Decentralized p2p systems will have much more of a problem with this.
You'd have to saturate your link for 8 hours a day, every day, to hit this.
beccah. said, (94 days ago)
Someone tell me if I've got this one right..
Comcast claims it does not restrict speeds for all users, but has announced that it will slow top speeds for up to 20 minutes for its highest-bandwidth users during periods of network congestion. In practice, this means that for customers who typically only use 3 GB of bandwidth per month (the median usage), but whose usage spikes while sending a lot of large photos to friends, Comcast will degrade their service until that activity is complete. Customers who don't frequently use bittorrent, but may decide to download a Linux distribution via the protocol may find their download speeds artificially limited.
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So if I'm upping/downloading, they're gonna throttle me? Is that what this is saying?
Isn't that contrary to this?
Comcast has been given 30 days to comply with a Federal Communications Commission order to cease its traffic throttling actions aimed at P2P file sharers.
Following complaints by Net neutrality advocacy group Free Press, Comcast, America’s largest cable company, should be punished for violating principles that guarantee customers open access to the Net, said FCC chairman Kevin Martin recently.
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(the FCC thing was posted 8/1/08, so by 9/1/08 they're supposed to stop throttling, right? And the capping thing starts 10/1/08, so doesn't that mean comcast will be doing something illegal?)
Centropomus said, (94 days ago)
@beccah: The capping is okay with the FCC because it's application-neutral. Just don't saturate your download bandwidth all the time and you'll be okay. It's impossible to hit the limit just with your upload bandwidth.
Centropomus said, (94 days ago)
@beccah: Yes, but it's okay as long as they're throttling all of your traffic equally. The FCC only has issues with throttling connections unequally, because that would allow ISPs to prioritize their own add-on services at the expense of competitors, harming competition in the market.
Also, I found this:
If I flood your IP address, 250 GB can disappear pretty fast, and there's really nothing you can do about it. Whether your router drops the packets or not, they'll still be counted against your quota.
Similar if you fire up a p2p program, and download a video or game level or whatever. Once you end it, thousands of other people are still going to be sending packets to your IP address, checking whether you're back online and can share the file.
And it gets worse -- it doesn't even have to be you. Someone else might have done heavy file sharing, and then in the periodic reassignment of IP addresses that Comcast does (to prevent people from running servers), you get that IP. And all the request traffic, which can continue at high volume for days or weeks.
These are all weaknesses with the IP protocol, but it hardly seems fair not to have a system that takes this into consideration.
Is this a problem? Well, according to my router, I have had 18 GB in traffic (in + out) for the month of July for one of my WAN lines. According to the provider, it's been 27 GB. That's a rather big discrepancy. At the same ratio, if your router tells you you have used 180 GB out of the 250, you won't have 70 GB to go, you will already have exceeded the quota and are subject to whatever disciplinary actions Comcast might have in place.
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Is that true? Even if I stop torrents from seeding, am I gonna be getting data hit points b/c ppl are still trying to connect to me? If so I'm prolly gonna be internetless soon. =(