Fogview Podcast

The current buzz on the Internet is Comcast's formal policy about capping customer's Internet bandwidth at 250 GB/month (Comcast calls this excessive use). Customers who exceed this monthly bandwidth will get a warning notice and those that exceed it twice within a six month period will have their account canceled and banned from the Comcast service for one year. This policy goes into effect October 1, 2008.

I have heard stories in the past few months about users having their Comcast service suddenly stop, forcing them to call customer service to hear that they exceeded their monthly bandwidth. I'm a Comcast user and have read through my customer agreements and didn't see anything about bandwidth limits. It does state that they can change the "terms of service" but that's it. Frank, who has @ComCastCares on Twitter, says that this policy has been in effect for a while now and Comcast is just making the number public after getting requests from Comcast users. Comcast is also saying that if you haven't received a warning under the current policy, you have nothing to worry about.

Well, I'm worried for the following reasons:

1. They are telling you that you can't exceed 250 GB/month but don't give you any way to tell what your current usage is. They did give some guidelines about what this limit means but that doesn't cut it in my book. It's like your electrical company saying you can't exceed a certain amount of electricity per month but not telling you how much you consume per month. Instead, they tell you how many lights, TVs, radios, and computers you could use that may exceed the limit. Comcast's answer is to search the Internet for bandwidth meters. I'm sure the general public is going to do this and install some unknown software on their system that has the potential to be a major spyware/virus source.
   
   
2. "If you haven't received a warning under the current policy, don't worry." This doesn't mean that my usage will not change in the future. Content is moving more and more to the Internet. Streaming video, streaming audio, movies, photo sharing all consume lots of bandwidth. Multiply this by the number of people in a household, and I could see you getting close to, or even exceeding the 250 GB cap. It goes back to the first point of Comcast not telling you what's you're consuming.
   
   
3. Is there a conflict of interest here? Who are the users that are consuming high bandwidth? They are the ones who are consuming content on the Internet instead of Television. These users are also using the Internet to replace their telephone service through services like Skype and Vontage. What other services does Comcast offer: Television and Telephone.
   
   
4. The last issue deals with shutting down your service if you exceed the cap. If I exceed the number of cell phone minutes, I get charged for the excess minutes. They don't threaten to shut off my service (or shut it off and force me to call customer service). Comcast has stated that there is no tiered service and users who exceed the cap twice in a six month period, will have their service terminated. What about moving these users to a higher data plan? Maybe they don't want the additional Internet revenue, but instead want to reverse the downward trend in their Television and Telephone business.

In many areas of the country Internet users have very few choices for Internet providers and I'm afraid if Comcast is allowed to continue this policy, it will push back technology explosion we are seeing now. I'm involved in what some are calling "new media" and that would not be possible without the Internet and the ability to consume/deliver high bandwidth content.

If you are not on Comcast you may think this doesn't affect you, but you're wrong. I'm sure other Internet providers are looking at this very closely and will follow suit if Comcast is able to make this stick.

Todd Cochran, of GeekNewsCentral, has called for a Comcast boycott and you should call your Internet provider NOW and let them know this is not acceptable!