4 ms·

This is generous. I download plenty of things, as well as offsite backups of a multi G database every night, and MMO's, and I don't think I'll blow this. But

by KevinMS 18y ago

This is generous. I download plenty of things, as well as offsite backups of a multi G database every night, and MMO's, and I don't think I'll blow this. But I'm also a little worried I'll be surprised by how much I actually use. I've never understood the comcast hating. I've been using their cable modems since the beginning and its easily been one of the best consumer experiences of my life. Mosty likely they set it this high to frustrate the real hardcore users, the people using enough bandwidth to be their own ISP.

ojbyrne 18y ago
I think its mostly set that low to disrupt potential competitors to Comcast like Netflix streaming movies and Hulu.
- mdasen 18y ago
  Might be. Just to put it in perspective, to hit the 250GB cap, you'd have to pull 809Kbps every second of a 30-day month. Considering that standard-definition Hulu is 480-700Kbps, you couldn't hit the cap no matter how much Hulu you watched. The 480p video on Hulu is encoded at 1Mbps peak H.264. Remember, that's 1Mbps peak. So, it is theoretically possible if you watched 480p Hulu for every second of every day that you could run into the cap. Even if you share an internet connection with 3 other people, how much video can one watch? All four of you would each have to watch about 8 hours per day of Hulu to hit the cap. That's tough to do. It's more against file-sharers. File-sharing is what really sucks bandwidth because people leave it on perpetually. It's also against people who should really be buying a fractional T1. At 809Kbps, you're using more than half a T1. Plus, video is only going to become better compressed. H.264 is a great codec, but I'm sure we'll do better in another decade. So it isn't like it even hedges against higher definition video in the future. edit: source of Hulu info: http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=400000040&blog_post_id=1350025735 http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=4000000...
  - modoc 18y ago
    While codecs might get better, 480p is small potatoes compared to 1080p. Moving 100kB/sec (when adding both upstream and downstream) all the time is pretty easy. Seeding legal torrents on the "unlimited" line I signed up for, could easily exceed that. If you're doing VOIP, running a couple legal torrents, and watching HD content from unbox, etc....
    - mdasen 18y ago
      You have an "'unlimited' line" from Comcast? Did you get that in writing, because their website doesn't seem to indicate anywhere that it's unlimited. In fact, in the first 5 pages of google results, the only time Comcast uses the term unlimited with their internet service is to say "High-speed bandwidth and network resources are not unlimited." (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Klr&q=unlimited+site:comcast.com&start=0&sa=N http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&..., http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?ID=4567 http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?ID=4567). In fact, it's impossible to be unlimited since that would imply infinite bandwidth per second. Once it isn't infinite bandwidth per second, you can interpret "unlimited" in a number of ways. You want it to be unlimited in terms of bandwidth transfer. Comcast could argue (if they ever used the term unlimited) that it is referring to how long you are allowed to be online and not how much you can transfer. There are lots of legal things that cost money. Running your computer 24/7 costs more money (in electricity) than running it 8 hours a day. Go yell at the electric company! This isn't a matter of legality vs. illegality or proper use vs. improper use. The fact is that resources (whether it be bandwidth, electricity, or food) is limited. With bandwidth, it's easy to accommodate heavy users which is awesome (unlike electricity and food which generally scale up linearly in costs). That's great! It doesn't make bandwidth magic and there are still limitations. Yeah, limitations suck whether it be the fact that bandwidth needs some sort of metering or the fact that I can't transport myself across the country Star-Trek style. To be successful, one needs to understand, accept, and work within limitations to create and act in ways that work.
      - modoc 18y ago
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  250 gigabytes is about sixty DVD-quality movies. That's two a day. I'd think you would run out of movies worth watching pretty fast at that rate.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    Ha, the way Hollywood is these days, you'd run out in two days.
  - silencio 18y ago
    My problem with this argument is that nobody does 10000s of emails and nothing but...all movies and nothing else...et cetera. You don't have to watch 250gb of sixty DVD-copy-quality movies - all you need is a small and active household doing everything from movies to ordinary streaming video, regular surfing and other miscellaneous downloads, and hitting 250gb may not seem so unrealistic then. 250gb is also sort of generous now, but consider that bandwidth usage can only go up from here as doing things like renting HD movies from iTunes becomes more popular. Also that a lot of people don't have a choice over who they can get service with. Right now on my 10/1 cable (thankfully not comcast) connection, my router tells me I've used up about 195gb down and 40gb up for a total of 235gb since August 1st. I don't think we've even come close to 60 DVDs..

by KevinMS 18y ago

ojbyrne 18y ago

I think its mostly set that low to disrupt potential competitors to Comcast like Netflix streaming movies and Hulu.

mdasen 18y ago
Might be. Just to put it in perspective, to hit the 250GB cap, you'd have to pull 809Kbps every second of a 30-day month. Considering that standard-definition Hulu is 480-700Kbps, you couldn't hit the cap no matter how much Hulu you watched. The 480p video on Hulu is encoded at 1Mbps peak H.264. Remember, that's 1Mbps peak. So, it is theoretically possible if you watched 480p Hulu for every second of every day that you could run into the cap. Even if you share an internet connection with 3 other people, how much video can one watch? All four of you would each have to watch about 8 hours per day of Hulu to hit the cap. That's tough to do. It's more against file-sharers. File-sharing is what really sucks bandwidth because people leave it on perpetually. It's also against people who should really be buying a fractional T1. At 809Kbps, you're using more than half a T1. Plus, video is only going to become better compressed. H.264 is a great codec, but I'm sure we'll do better in another decade. So it isn't like it even hedges against higher definition video in the future. edit: source of Hulu info: http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=400000040&blog_post_id=1350025735 http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=4000000...
- modoc 18y ago
  While codecs might get better, 480p is small potatoes compared to 1080p. Moving 100kB/sec (when adding both upstream and downstream) all the time is pretty easy. Seeding legal torrents on the "unlimited" line I signed up for, could easily exceed that. If you're doing VOIP, running a couple legal torrents, and watching HD content from unbox, etc....
  - mdasen 18y ago
    You have an "'unlimited' line" from Comcast? Did you get that in writing, because their website doesn't seem to indicate anywhere that it's unlimited. In fact, in the first 5 pages of google results, the only time Comcast uses the term unlimited with their internet service is to say "High-speed bandwidth and network resources are not unlimited." (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Klr&q=unlimited+site:comcast.com&start=0&sa=N http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&..., http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?ID=4567 http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?ID=4567). In fact, it's impossible to be unlimited since that would imply infinite bandwidth per second. Once it isn't infinite bandwidth per second, you can interpret "unlimited" in a number of ways. You want it to be unlimited in terms of bandwidth transfer. Comcast could argue (if they ever used the term unlimited) that it is referring to how long you are allowed to be online and not how much you can transfer. There are lots of legal things that cost money. Running your computer 24/7 costs more money (in electricity) than running it 8 hours a day. Go yell at the electric company! This isn't a matter of legality vs. illegality or proper use vs. improper use. The fact is that resources (whether it be bandwidth, electricity, or food) is limited. With bandwidth, it's easy to accommodate heavy users which is awesome (unlike electricity and food which generally scale up linearly in costs). That's great! It doesn't make bandwidth magic and there are still limitations. Yeah, limitations suck whether it be the fact that bandwidth needs some sort of metering or the fact that I can't transport myself across the country Star-Trek style. To be successful, one needs to understand, accept, and work within limitations to create and act in ways that work.
    - modoc 18y ago
byrneseyeview 18y ago
250 gigabytes is about sixty DVD-quality movies. That's two a day. I'd think you would run out of movies worth watching pretty fast at that rate.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Ha, the way Hollywood is these days, you'd run out in two days.
- silencio 18y ago
  My problem with this argument is that nobody does 10000s of emails and nothing but...all movies and nothing else...et cetera. You don't have to watch 250gb of sixty DVD-copy-quality movies - all you need is a small and active household doing everything from movies to ordinary streaming video, regular surfing and other miscellaneous downloads, and hitting 250gb may not seem so unrealistic then. 250gb is also sort of generous now, but consider that bandwidth usage can only go up from here as doing things like renting HD movies from iTunes becomes more popular. Also that a lot of people don't have a choice over who they can get service with. Right now on my 10/1 cable (thankfully not comcast) connection, my router tells me I've used up about 195gb down and 40gb up for a total of 235gb since August 1st. I don't think we've even come close to 60 DVDs..