[ale] WARNING - RANT Re: Comcast Caps Data at 250G/Month

[Robert Reese~]

> Robert Reese~ wrote:
>> Oh, do I need to remind you that standard-def television consumes
>> about 4GB per hour per video device?  Anyone here want to add in
>> the GB/Hr rate for 1080P?  For just ONE television?

> I assume you are speaking of digital SDTV.  If you are, I find the
> 4 GB number terribly unlikely.

Analog, at least after conversion.  Have you ever downloaded a TiVo movie?


> Thats a bitrate of nearly 10
> megabit.  That's about the max bitrate for a video DVD, and that
> would only give you about an hour on a single layer disc. 

Exactly.


> I sure
> don't know of any cable or satellite providers that are actually
> providing anywhere near DVD quality digital SDTV channels.

Pretty much they all are, or are supposed to be delivering that quality.


> And the number certainly isn't for one television.  All the digital
> tuners in your neighborhood are just listening in to the same
> stream, all the TVs aren't getting their own.

Perhaps I should have been more clear: we are not talking about cable television but about VOD, whether it be directly from content providers or the ISP or from non-commercial entities.


> Here's the part you should be upset about, no matter how you
> receive your broadcasts.  It makes little difference what
> resolution the channel you are watching is coming to you in.  I can
> send you 480p video encoded at a higher bitrate than 1080p if I
> want to.

Which, for VOD, eats up more bandwidth and gets you closer to that cap.  Part of the conspiracy?  Maybe.


> I don't know about you, but my HD channels seem to look worse and
> worse every year.  If they only need 10 megabit for a decent 720p
> broadcast, that really means they can shave off 1 megabit off of 9
> channels and they can add another for free.  Once they realize
> everyone thinks 9 megabit is good enough, they can repeat the
> process and add another channel.  Comcast really seems to use a low
> bitrate for most of my 480p channels up here.  The only thing they
> have going for them is that they aren't fuzzy or wavy anymore :p.

You're right, for now.  They're not going to be able to do much more of that in the future, IMO.  The satellite providers and possibly cellular providers, and perhaps even FiOS will find it more tempting to compete.  TiVo and Amazon are already starting to offer competing VOD products for everyday television shows, and some content providers such as NBC are already offering their shows via the internet and soon for DVR, if not already.  There's already a plethora of providers for movies with more on the way.


> Nowhere does it tell you what bitrate (quality) you're getting on
> any channel.  They can also change it at any time.  I keep seeing
> ads for Dish Network saying they are going to offer 1080p on
> demand, I believe. There is no way they will be pushing anywhere
> near bluray bitrates on that.  They keep talking about using some
> sort of new technology they call something like "turbo hd."  I am
> hoping they are using mpeg4 to save bandwidth, but I have no idea
> if they actually are.

My guess would be 720i just so they can be technically accurate.  I don't trust anything Dish Network says; I'm of the opinion they'll say anything to lock a new customer into a contract.  Just the same, most content providers are already creating everything in HD anyway; the 'cable' varieties for the most part have been doing that already for years and the networks have been pushing it big-time with the switchover next February.

I'm curious how Dish is going to offer 1080P via satellite, though, and do it for their entire (albeit dwindling) customer base.



>> The ISPs are effectively creating a toll to force you to pay them
>> for the privilege of not using their services.  Very Mafia-like
>> behaviour, and certainly anti-competitive, and possibly
>> monopolistic.
>>
>>
> The only problem with what Comcast is doing is that they have been
> calling their service "unlimited" when it really isn't.  Going
> forward, it won't be a problem.  It isn't unlimited anymore.

There are many, many more problems than that single issue.  It will continue to be a problem going forward; in fact it will grow as a problem.


> If comcast feels they can't provide more than 250 GB per month to
> their customers at their current prices they really have two
> choices.  They can cut everyone's speed so that it is impossible or
> difficult to overload their network, or they can keep the speeds
> high and cap you.

That's not the problem.  The problem is that they see another revenue stream.  If they can't provide service for their customers, stop signing up customers until they invest in the infrastructure to serve those new customers; you don't sell 300 movie tickets to a theater that seats 200.  The third unmentioned choice is to stop trying to fleece your customers; if they don't want to offer higher speeds, so be it... but don't even THINK about cutting my speed without also cutting my bill proportionally.


> The caps aren't evil.  I can't say I agree with switching people to
> a capped plan when they were sold an "unlimited" plan.  I'm sure
> the contract allows for the change, but it still doesn't feel very
> friendly.

Many contracts, and many laws, prevent a forced detriment to the contractual agreement without a clause to sever the contract without penalty.  And yes, caps and metering ARE evil.  At least as evil as Microsoft's "standards".


>> Remember, only cable currently gives you the bandwidth and the
>> opportunity to do VOD; satellite companies don't have the
>> hardware yet to roll it out to the general populace in the
>> quantities that we are going to quickly become accustomed.
>>
> Dish Network commercials are claiming we can have 1080p on demand.
> I have a friend with an old dish network plan and I am pretty sure
> he gets some sort of on demand.  Bandwidth doesn't limit the amount
> of content that can be offered on demand, it limits the number of
> customers who can be using it at one time.

The satellite companies are able to offer very limited VOD.  Let me restate my original contention: only the cable companies are able to offer everyone access to VOD because they are the only ones that have the bandwidth, other than FiOS, to do it for everyone simultaneously.  DSL can also do it, but only at about half the speed which means it takes twice as long to download the content.


>> VOIP is not yet a big deal, but it really is just around the
>> corner to have the infamous Video Phone VOIP hit mainstream.
>
> VOIP is terribly low bandwidth.  I remember testing some
> Grandstream phones with Asterisk.  They used something less than 20
> kilobits per second max with the right codec and sounded great.
> You'd need a lot of phones to generate any significant bandwidth.

You're missing the point and the issue.  VOIP is just an example of a current IP-driven third party service.  Regardless of how much or how little bandwidth it consumes, it still consumes bandwidth.  Furthermore, your 'significant bandwidth' is not objective, and your use of VOIP may be atypical, especially when VOIP is mainstream.  Lastly, you miss the point of if they can impose an arbitrary and artificial cap what prevents them from trying to impose another fee to access a VOIP or other third party service?


> As for video phones...  No one wants them.  It would be very rare
> that I want to actually see the person I'm on the phone with.  If
> we could, we'd really only be able to talk.  Multitasking would be
> out the window, it'd be rude to rarely make eye contact :p.  I'm
> also pretty sure nobody wants to see my ugly mug.

You are not a woman.  And parents and grandparents DO want them.  Employers and customers want them.  Probation, parole, and DFACS officials would love them.  Tech support for most anything want them.  People do want them and today's etiquette rules probably won't apply with the new invasive technology.


>> FiOS will do it, obviously, but still suffers from the Last Mile
>> syndrome, leaving cellular to start to compete.  Let's face it:
>> who is possibly hated more than cable? Cellular companies.  (And
>> I hate Dish Network more than any cable or cell company).
>>
>
> FIOS has a speed edge on cable, but cable already has the last mile
> covered nearly everywhere.

For now.


> Cellular can't compete.  Not by a long shot.  I use EDGE all the
> time. I get about 5KB/sec and pings of over 800ms.  I used a
> Verizon card for a project about 2 years ago.  It could reach 10s
> of KB/sec but still had a ping over 500ms.  That kind of ping is a
> killer.

For now.


> Wikipedia tells me 3g HSPA is 14.4 mb down by 5.8 up.  That's less
> than half of cable's DOCSIS standard.  Way more people have to
> share a single cell tower than they do a cable node.  Wired always
> seems to be 10-100 times faster than wireless.

But wired costs thousands of times more to install.  ;c)  Once the technology and the service density for acceptable wireless speeds and bandwidth are put into place, the you are going to see wires go away, at least to residential areas.


>> Let's not forget 10+ Megapixel cameras that hold tens of
>> Gigabytes of shots per birthday party and HD video cameras with a
>> intravenous connection via wifi to your YouTube channel.
>> Speaking of YouTube, how many Gigabytes of HD YouTube,
>> Facebook/MySpace (etc), music videos and such is a teenager going
>> to suck down on a monthly basis? How long does it take to suck
>> down 350MB of HD YouTube video?  I think it's under an hour.

> I know I don't know much about youtube's future plans, but current
> video is mostly horrendously low bitrates.  Something in the
> 350kb/sec range. That's 150 MB per hour.

Check out the new HD service.  And the new-fangled tabbed browsers that let you watch more than one video at the same time (handy if you have a YouTube downloader).


>> For all you spam-lovers out there, remember your spam will be
>> charged against your craptastic 250GB/Mo. cap as is any attacks
>> against your network and connection.
>>
>
> Just taking a quick check, my mail server seems to use about 500MB
> worth of traffic each direction every week.  It isn't a huge mail
> server.  I host about a half dozen domains and probably three times
> as many email accounts.  There is about 12 gig of email stored up
> there right now if that gives some kind of rough idea.  I bet the
> majority of that bandwidth is all IMAP connections.
>
> Spam is minor compared to the rest of the traffic a home user
> generates.

Again, you miss the point.  It isn't the amount of traffic, it is that the cap charges you for services they have nothing to do with, AND you have no control over.  Email is a third-party service for many people, and people are depending less and less on ISP email.

Besides, from your example you are using 4GB per month on email alone.  That's 1.6% of your total allotted amount.  Not significant to you, perhaps, but that leaves 98.4% for other things.  How much of that 1.6% is spam?   How quickly are people going to discover that if someone launches a DDOS attack against a user that the user's effective cap is greatly reduced? Now, how much of your traffic is used for the scanning and attempted or completed unauthorized access to your network?  Do you perform remote assistance?  If so, how much bandwidth does that take?  If you are a resident, how much bandwidth does allowing remote assistance take?


>> Might not seem like much, but for those power users that are
>> running their own mail and/or web servers, that could be a
>> detrimental amount of usage.

> This is a bit unrelated, but I don't understand why people want to
> run mail servers at home.  You can rent virtual servers that are
> plenty big enough to do the job properly for less than 10 dollars
> per month.

It is completely related.  I've had plenty of experience with third-party servers, and I don't trust them.  Too often they have failed, and more than once I've tripped some kind of poorly programmed spam trigger.  NOT a fun experience.  Not only that, that's ten bucks a month I get to keep and I have NO limitation other than harddrive space as to the quantity of storage I have.


>> That reminds me, I already have morons tacking on 5 or even 10
>> megabyte attachments to email (hint: email is not, and never will
>> be, designed as a File Transfer system.... that's what FTP is
>> for, LITERALLY!) as well as the ever-useless HTML email.
>
> How do you go about finding someone's FTP server so you can drop
> off a file for them?

Why do you expect someone else to bear the burden of YOUR email package?  Use your own ftp space.


>  If I put the file on my own FTP server, how
> do I make sure only the recipient is going to pick it up?

What's to stop someone from intercepting the email or from gaining access to the recipient's email?  But to answer your cleanly and easily to the point of embarrassment, use good encryption.  Huh, what's that?  Your recipient isn't using a good encryption system?  No problem.  Have your recipient call you for the passphrase to the self-decrypting file or agree to one up front.  If you are really paranoid, to add to the security use HTTPS, use a login with good password strengths, use long random strings in the URL to point to the package, and expire the URL and/or package using a cron job.  But really, good encryption is more than enough for most anything you want only your recipient to obtain.

Of course, that goes for anything  as well as any delivery system where you only want the recipient to access.  Once in a while I get some moron send confidential information to me by way of sending it to the wrong email address.  Included you almost always will find the disclaimer at the bottom about how you are prohibited from reading it, disseminating it, and so forth, and that I have to delete it.  I write them back telling them that the bogus disclaimer is worthless except to agitate the recipient, and if they didn't want me to see the confidential information the only way to prevent this is to use encryption, followed by using the correct email address to which to send their confidential information (though that still won't stop the mail servers from sending an email on an errant path on occasion).


> I understand that both can be accomplished, but I'm already
> likely to have the recipient's email address.

Duh.  How else would you email them?  Simply drop the attachment on your ftp site and send a link to them at that thankfully accessible email address.  How hard is that??  "Just attaching it" is laziness disguised as convenience for the sender frequently defended erroneously as being convenient for the recipient.  Not to mention a disrespect to all the other email users out there whose emails are delayed behind the attachments, and a disrespect for those that have to manage and maintain the recipient email servers to which are bearing the burden of those attachments.  Further it is a great disrespect for your recipient, whose bandwidth, time, and email allocation space you are forcing them to endure.  FTPing the file and sending a link does not waste any bandwidth, time, or email allocation space any more than any other simple email.  The recipient's email box does not get filled and bounce messages, and the recipient decides if and when is the best time to access the file for them.  How hard is it to get the file?  A single click usually works, followed by a second click to save or open the file.  Funny, that's the same amount of clicks it takes to open an attachment; not that a couple more clicks would be too much of a hassle for anyone.

Ironically, using FTP allows anyone who doesn't have access to their email at the time to still get the file.  Recently I had a call from a client who was sitting with a buddy at his buddy's computer.  He needed me to send them a file that both of them required.   I simply dropped the file onto the server and told them the URL over the phone.  In all it took less time than emailing the file and it was faster and easier for all of us; in fact it took less than a minute from start to finish for a 4MB file to get to them and end the call after the initial, "Hey, I need such-and-such file but I'm here at my buddy's computer".


> We aren't running mail servers with tiny disks anymore.

We are running tiny disks, and running more and more of them in the form of personal internet access devices such as smart phones.


>  The only
> reason I can think of to not want to send large emails is because
> they are about 15% bigger because of the mime encoding.

As you read, I've given plenty of sensible reasons above for not sending large emails.  Here are two more reasons: Email servers were never designed for that task.  And it is rude and inconsiderate.  How dare you fill up my allotted email space and risk bouncing other emails out of my email box!  Did I ASK you for that attachment?  No.  And if I had I would have instructed you to find another way to send the file other than email.


>> But with so many people switching to SaaS models for document
>> handling, processing, and emails that bandwidth use goes through
>> the roof with each and every email message you send and receive.
>
> I have no real data here, but I can't imagine that synchronizing
> documents that you are working on is going to require more
> bandwidth than streaming video.  By comparison this is likely
> barely a blip on the radar.

Again, point missed.  The shift to IP-driven technology is just starting.  What the future holds, no one knows.  The ISPs know that they want a part of the action, and if they can't get it they'll force you to pay the grift.


>> By the way, show of hands all those that hate the lazy web
>> programmer that uses Flash for needless things as well as
>> stupidly for necessary things like navigation?  I thought the
>> late 90's were bad for MIDI files, animated GIFs, and the crass
>> BLINK tag.  Those seem like to good ol' days compared to today's
>> Flash-infected webpages. What used to be a hundred or so KB per
>> page, we are now inundated with megabytes or even tens of
>> megabytes per page.  Thank you, flash-loving idiot web developers
>> and advertisers.  (Special thanks to those Grand M! arshall
>> Morons that reign over the web divisions at the networks like
>> Fox, ABC, and the rest.)  Developing for IE and ActiveX was the
>> plague, and Flash requirement is nearing Apocalyptic proportions.
>
> All of this is certainly orders of magnitude less bandwidth than
> streaming video.

.:sigh:.  Points missed again.


>> To re-ask your question, How fast can you churn through 250GB?
>> Very quickly... that isn't even 10GB per day!  I expect to hit
>> that per hour before the next summer Olympics (being held in
>> London, apparently).
>
> We can all math out how fast your CAN chew through 250GB.  The
> better question would be something more like "How fast *WILL I*
> churn through 250GB?"

Whether or not you will churn through 250GB should have NO BEARING on whether I can or will.  If you don't use it, fine, but don't you dare decide that what's enough for you is enough for me.


> The answer will be very different for
> everyone.  Fortunately for 99% of their customers, that answer is
> greater than a month.

For now, and until they decide to either lower the cap (no surprise) or technology starts to eat into that quickly.  Remember, ten years ago a 12GB harddrive was more than enough for everybody.  Now my thumbdrive capacity is that and its filled.  When's the last time you've only needed 12GB?  Oh, wait... you need all that just for your insignificant email.


> There are two things about the Comcast cap that surprise me.  The
> cap is the same for all speed tiers and there is no way to pay for
> more.

If the third-party IP-driven services are not included, then there's no need to pay for more unless you are a bittorrent user going through entire libraries each month.


>> Speaking of which, how much of those games are going to be
>> available as streams and downloads?  My guess is all of it, all
>> in HD.  I pity the poor sports lover that tries to download the
>> all-you-can-eat Olympic coverage with a measly 250GB cap.

> I would be very surprised to see much streaming HD video in 4 years
> time.

I wouldn't.


>  If we're lucky the bitrates will be up over 1 megabit for
> the average video stream by then.

They're going to be much higher.


>  That isn't enough for a good
> looking 720p h.264 video.

Which is why they'll be higher.


>  They may be able to pull it off if there
> are proxy-like servers very local to everyone.

The only economical way to do that is to make each recipient a bittorrent server as well, feeding it to other users.  Oops.  That increases the necessary bandwidth usage that much more.


> The question would ask you is why you would think the 250GB cap
> will still be the same in 4 years time?  As more customers start to
> approach the cap they will have to move it.

What in the cable cabal' history leads you to believe they will do so voluntarily?


>> Doing the math using your numbers, my internet connection
>> currently is capable of downloading 5,400MB per hour.  If the cap
>> was 350MB per hour, my service is now rated at just 6.48% of what
>> it is capable.  I have 12Mb/Sec but I'm only allowed to use that
>> at capacity for 93 minutes and 20 seconds per day.  An hour-and-a-
>> half to go through the equivalent of a single dual-layer DVD.  If
>> my service was suddenly only 6.48% of what it was, I expect my
>> bill to be 6.48% of what it was... in my case that would be under
>> $6 per month.  An! other comparison: my lowest cost per GB per
>> month (average 30.42 days per month) at 12Mb/Sec (1.5MB/Sec)
>> (coming out to just under 4TB per month) of is roughly $0.02.
>> (someone check my math... it's late after a week of 20-hour
>> days).  Under the cap, the math is easier: $80/250GB = $0.32 per
>> Gigabyte.
>>
>
> Network connections aren't sold this way.

You contradict yourself: they are sold that way via "unlimited" connections as you already stated.


>  If you want to break it
> down as far as you are you really need to do it in a way more
> comparable to business class leased lines.

You know, I failed to mention another bandwidth-intensive service: gaming.  With the proliferation of console games that now do what PC games have done for years, the bandwidth demands for online gaming is very heavy.  The limit for that right now is the asynchronous upstream bitrate, otherwise the proliferation of gaming SERVERS would really tax the limits of the bandwidth.  And you know that every game manufacturer would heavily rely on upstream if they could in order to enhance the games and gaming systems.


> If you get yourself a T1 or T3 there are two major parts to the
> monthly bill.  You pay for the line and you pay for the data.  The
> cost of the line goes up with the distance.  I have no idea what
> the ratio of cost for the line vs the bandwidth should be on a
> cable modem, though :).

T1 is too slow; my downstream is 8x greater than that and my upstream equals that.  T3 is too expensive, though I'd love the faster connection.  FiOS promises to make obsolete the T3 and for a lower cost.


>> My suggestion?  Get Congress and the FTC/FCC to force IP-related
>> technology as well as third-party services such as VOIP, Netflix,
>> and whatever other form they appear in the future to be EXCLUDED
>> from the cap; only non-SaaS and non-IP-related technology bits
>> should be considered for capping.  Watch how quickly the ISPs
>> attack that idea, since it directly impacts their hidden agenda
>> of the grift.


> Please no.  Why do we need laws for this?  The ISP advertises a
> service and when you sign up there is a contract.  If the
> advertisement doesn't match the contract, there is a problem.  If
> you don't like the terms of the contract, you shouldn't sign it.

Wait.... isn't a contract a special type of law?  And a bit one-sided one at that.  If there were more than one cable company offering services, then I'd say you were right.  However, this is a local monopoly, and therefore the consumer needs protection.  You'll note, too, that I didn't call for the cable industry to become regulated.  In fact, I'm calling for a more free market system... you are free to enter into a business relation with a third-party without interference from the cable company.  That too will lead to more innovation and more businesses, and you with more money to purchase services and goods.  That's why monopolies are bad - they inhibit free markets and artificially destroy assets of there customers (the customers' money goes to them rather than other places, and more of it that otherwise would.)


> In your example, who pays for this free netflix traffic?  Is it now
> Netflix's cost?

>The consumer already pays for the traffic as does Netflix.


>  If it is, that means that if I am under my 250GB
> cap and I sign up for Netflix that means I am either paying for
> some of your bandwidth or you have to be charged more.

Not at all.  In fact, that doesn't make any sense.


> I don't think I understand the problem.

Yeah, we kinda noticed.


> I think you're inadvertently touching on the old
> net neutrality argument. 

Nothing inadvertent about it.  That's the CORE of this.


> In your "third party services" case, the
> third parties will be charged twice for their bandwidth.

Not at all, just as they now are not charged twice.  In fact, NOTHING will change.


>> By the way, the very same rant goes for METERING! </rant>

> I have no problem with metered bandwidth.

Why am I not surprised?


> Sometimes I get a better
> deal metered, sometimes unmetered.  It depends what I am hosting.

So goes the story with any kind of dealing.  Doesn't make it a good thing, however.


> I assume you mean metering on home consumer connections?

Any kind of connection.


> If so, the 250GB cap of which you speak is exactly that, a metered
> connection.

Nope.  Metered is per MB, GB, TB, etc. no matter how much or how little you consume.  250GB is a block, whether you use it or not, and you yourself pointed out that you cannot buy another 250GB block if you use it up within 30 days.  Two completely different animals.

We are going backwards.  Prior to being busted up, Ma Bell used to charge for every call plus service charges, not to mention renting the phone (buying and selling phones were illegal as all phones were property of the phone company).  Cell phones for the most part still charge for a block of minutes and another price for additional minutes.  However, landlines long ago went to an unlimited calling system, both for incoming and outgoing.  Thankfully, the trend now is toward unlimited calling in and out regardless of the network for a set flat rate.  Over in Europe they use caps and metering systems.  For a long time, and as far as I know they still are, charged per email and per minute in many places.  Ironically, in Germany you can get your unlimited telephone, your television, and a 30Mb/Sec internet connection for about US $30.  I haven't heard that their ISP is having any difficulty offering that.  In Japan a 100Mb/Sec connection is commonplace.  No grumbling there about using too much bandwidth despite having the population of half the U.S.  Brazil is apparently the most "wired" country in the world now.

So why are we going backwards from flat rate?  With minimal exceptions, economically for the consumer it makes no sense.  It does make cents for the ISP... a lot of cents.

Cheers,
Robert~