The biggest debate in tech right now is whether or not Comcast (CMCSA) is pure evil. The cable giant says that starting Oct. 1, it will cap its residential customers' Internet usage at 250 gigabytes of data.

On the surface, that seems kind of reasonable. The limit is about 100 times greater than the amount of data an average Comcast user downloads per month. You'd have to download four standard-def movies a day or 62,500 songs a month to reach 250 gigs. Comcast argues that in most cases, the limit will shut down pirates who illegally download gobs of movies and songs and slow the whole system for everyone else.

But the tech community is absolutely hammering Comcast over this. GigaOm declares it's the "end of the Internet as we know it" -- well, for Comcast's customers, at least. (For Verizon (VZ) and its FiOS high-speed Internet offering, Comcast's decision must look like manna from heaven -- a strategic hole in Comcast's business the size of a small planet.) ZDNet similarly argues that bandwidth caps will kill innovation on the Web -- since a lot of innovation is about taking advantage of broadband speeds and high-capacity hard drives. The Slashdot crowd is typically apoplectic about anything that smacks of repression of their Internet freedoms.

To be honest, Comcast's decision seems to me to be about television, not the Internet. Comcast's business is still centered on providing cable TV at $100, $150 a month. Internet video is starting to challenge traditional television, whether its reruns on Hulu or live convention coverage on MSNBC.com. Comcast wants to sell movies on demand over its cable system, but Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN) and others are selling movies over the Web for less. And video and movies, of course, are the largest bandwidth hogs on the Net.

So Comcast -- like *** and other cable companies -- is in the position of providing a service that enables one of the biggest threats to its core business. That's one heck of an internal conflict. For now, the decision seems to be in favor of protecting the TV side of the business.

A Comcast cable installer told me the company is jerry-rigging to save money, and the infrastructure is in bad shape.

There is no competition where I live, cable wise, so its Comcast or satellite only. That's not what I would call a "choice."

As the author pointed out, they are putting the screws to the users (and this is just the beginning) in order to maintain control. They have a conflict of interest internally between cable TV and high speed access, which is like getting hungry and eating your own foot. This is inefficient and stupid, and typical of what "the market" does when individual companies have too much local control.

I don't know why no other ISPs are available on Comcast's lines, but you can bet that Comcast wants to keep it that way, and will do so if they can get away with it. (When I lived in San Diego, you had a choice of four ISPs over the Time Warner lines - this is the way it should be.)

If anyone is stupid enough to think the "Market" is efficient is taking care of these kinds of issues, when there isn't enough competition, I feel sorry for your attempts to make money in the marketplace.

And User 208762, you are really naive. You think Comcast is going to lower their prices for users who use less bandwidth? What planet where you raised on? HD Video is coming full bore over the internet and today's speeds and capacity will soon look like the old days of 28.8 modems. Open your mind and start looking long term. You sound like a corporate puppet.

We should all be very careful about the idea that what's good for Comcast is good for us. It isn't. Bandwidth caps and tiered pricing will make them richer, but will lesson the experience of the internet for the rest of us. These companies should be indentured to us, not us to them.

New Comcast Throttling System = 'A Really Good DSL Experience'
Welcome to the new age of broadband "transparency"
(old news - 10:44AM Thursday Aug 21 2008)
tags: business · bandwidth · networking · caps
As insiders have informed me, by the end of the year, Comcast is considering implementing a clear 250GB cap, increased DMCA enforcement, and will begin throttling high-consumption users back to "above DSL speeds". Comcast has stated their goal is to make these new network management processes "as transparent as possible," but hasn't specifically said what will trigger the throttling, since they're still testing the system in several markets (Chambersburg, PA, Warrenton, VA, Colorado Springs, CO and East Orange and Lake City, FL). Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president and general manager of online services, this week did state the throttling will last between 10 and 20 minutes.
In trials, Comcast has found the fair share system to be effective if the slowing lasts for "roughly between, probably, 10 and 20 minutes," Bowling said. The user's Internet speed would then return to normal. "If they continue that, we would have to manage them again," Bowling said. A user being impeded would have Internet speeds equivalent to "a really good DSL experience," Bowling said.
That's a bit better than, say, HughesNet satellite broadband, which throttles customers back to between 7-14kbps if they cross established daily download limits. HughesNet calls their restrictions a "Fair Access Policy," and Comcast will be calling their system "fair share." Bowling did mention usage-based billing, stating "I think everyone's looked at something," but noting "we haven't made any decisions." It will be interesting to see if consumer advocacy groups prefer the new age of Comcast "transparency," which will come with significant, but very clear, connectivity limitations.