Comcastic Broadband Cap Has Net Geeks Up In Arms! – Shelly Palmer Report

Hereamp8217s a kneeslapper amp8220What did Comcast just say to its broadband customersamp8221 Answer amp8220250GB of data per month ought to be enough bandwidth for anyoneamp8221 Get it Sorry itamp8217s an inside jokeIn response to getting busted by the FCC for illegally throttling consumer Internet traffic Comcast put a 250GB per billing cycle cap on consumer bandwidth What does that mean To exceed the 250GB cap you would need to watch about eight hours of online video every day for a month Not likely you say amp8230 perhaps But the International Data Corporation found that 81 of Americans questioned do not like the idea of establishing a broadband cap While the sample size is rather small 787 people 51 of those asked claimed that they would change providers if their current service tried to enact a broadband cap It should also be noted that according to John Donovan CTO of ATampampT amp8220One percent of the companyamp8217s customers account for 20 of the network usage the top five percent account for 40 of the usageamp8221 Other carriers have said that 5 of users can account for anywhere from 40to80 percent of bandwidth usage amp160amp160Comcast says that the 250GB cap equates to sending more than 50 million plain text emails downloading 62500 songs or 125 standard definition films at roughly 2GB each Considering that the average user downloads roughly 23 GBamp8217s per month the 250GB cap doesnamp8217t seem like it will affect that many people directly But it will There are very smart people like Om Malik from gigaomcom who have spent some quality time articulating why Some of his reasons include the high degree of dependency amp8220interactionsamp8221 between power users and the rest of the network the growth trend due to consumersamp8217 changes in content consumption and the idea that carriers are taking the easy way out trying to protect the amp8220walled gardenamp8221 rather than figuring out how to innovate in service delivery and harvesting more value from the overall content and applications opportunityIn its detailed response to the FCCamp8217s August ruling Comcast says that its quotnew approach will focus on managing the traffic of those individuals who are using the most bandwidth at times when network congestion threatens subscribers39 broadband experience and who are contributing disproportionately to such congestion at those points in timequot The Philadelphiabased company tested the new method this summer in five cities across the US and reportedly received zero complaints Comcast also notes that according to current usage data less than one percent of users will be affected by the limit While Comcastamp8217s cap is rather generous for the time being there are other platforms currently being tested that arenamp8217t so customer friendly One specific platform is the payperbit offer Time Warner Cable is testing in Texas The platform test currently being conducted in Beaumont TX offers users a 5GB and a 5mbps connection for 30month and 40GB at 15mbps for 55month With consumer cloud services like Appleamp8217s MobileMe and Amazonamp8217s S3 becoming more popular Netflix movie streaming service rolling out and BitTorrent and private clouds like RapidShare becoming more and more commonplace it is conceivable that a relatively average consumer who occasionally likes to stream movies from Netflix and download music could exceed the 5GB limit month after monthComcast pays about the same amount of money for the bandwidth they sell you as you do But thereamp8217s a catch They sell the same connection about 100 times Have you ever noticed your Internet connection slowing down at peak times when you really need it amp8230 like 8pm on a weeknight Itamp8217s because lots of people who have been sold the very bandwidth you have been sold are amp8220contendingamp8221 for the connection at the same time Hummm amp8230When an Internet Service Provider like Comcast says that there is too much traffic on the network you correctly assume that there is an infrastructure problem But this particular aspect of the infrastructure has very little to do with the network congestion that Comcast is trying to solve with its capIt is this dramatic misunderstanding of the network topology that is causing all of the hoopla this week Youamp8217ve got people who live in apartment buildings complaining that the cap is a good thing because it will preserve their network capacity Wow is that wrong A lower oversubscriber ratio would help them right now without a capHowever the immortal words of whomever at Comcast said amp8220250GB of data per month ought to be enough bandwidth for anyoneamp8221 will be proven wrong in the long term We are all going to need way more bandwidth than that Weamp8217re going to want to watch HD video on a bunch of different monitors in different rooms at the same time just like we watch TV put our own creative material including music and video we personally own on servers in our homes and serve them to ourselves outside of our homes and much much more According to Nielsen Media Research traditional television viewing exceeds eight hours per day per household in the United States No matter how big our hard drives get we seem to find stuff to fill them up with Why should anyone believe that we wonamp8217t come up with zillions of ways to use bandwidthIf we do how will Comcast or any provider handle customers as they embrace all of the new technology being offered They will do their best as they compete with telephone companies and broadband wireless providers for your bandwidth dollars Bits and bytes are not dolled out by a monopoly and if consumers push back hard enough their dollars will buy what they want from someoneWhat about Net Neutrality That my friends is a bridge weamp8217ll jump off when we get to itShelly Palmer is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2006 Focal Press Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences NY the organization that bestows the coveted Emmyamp174 Awards He is the ViceChairman of the National Academy of Media Arts ampamp Sciences an organization dedicated to education and leadership in the areas of technology media and entertainment Palmer also oversees the Advanced Media Technology Emmyamp174 Awards which honors outstanding achievements in the science and technology of advanced media You can read Shellyamp8217s blog here Shelly can be reached at shellypalmernetCheck out the Shelly Palmer Report archive

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Comcastic Broadband Cap Has Net Geeks Up In Arms! – Shelly Palmer Report

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