“Comcast Corp., the nation’s second-largest Internet service provider, Thursday said it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month,” The Associated Press reports.
“On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site,” AP reports.
AP reports, “Customers who go over the limit are contacted by the company and asked to curb their usage. ‘We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily,’ the company said.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Patrick” for the heads up.]
Who moves 250 GB of data per month??? No one I know…
Does anyone know how many iTunes HD movies = 250GB?
Wow. Sarah Palin is quite impressive:
typical choice. Govenor of a STATE of less than the number of dissplaced citizens in Iraq. Yeah that’s the ticket. Mcsame is just a loser trying to so anything to win. Might as well have Cindy Crawford as VP
250GB is equivalent of a constant average of about 5.8 MB per minute (24/7, for 30 days).
That blows.
Since they are the largest ISP- they should be able to deal with infrastructure- so the little guys are sure to follow suit. The internet gets crippled by such non-sesnse. It’s a money grab is all.
That being said- I DL movies regularly (not 24/7), but don’t hit 250GB- with out worry. And there’s no way I am going back to DSL. I mean- c’mon- hmmm 784K (you never get the 1.5) or you get bonded and still get under 6MB top on that. I’ll stick to my 10MB speeds I’m getting now.
They should just increase the fucking infrastructure. It’s not like people aren’t getting more sophisticated about their internet usage thus vastly increasing the amount of bandwidth they need.
doesn’t seem like much of a problem. I’ve got a 6 mbit/sec connection, I actually get 750 kbyte/sec download rates max. If I ran this 24/7 for a month, I think I could download 200 GB.
now their rate is combined up/down, but still, I don’t see how many people are going to run up against this.
I would buy “unlimited” if that amounts to full time full rate usage.
– gws
“Wow. Sarah Palin is quite impressive.”
Yes, especially facing an ethics investigation and the complete lack of foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. But she will be handy for changing McCain’s adult diapers in between cabinet meetings.
I wonder if Apple’s contract with these carriers specified unlimited data plans? If so, I then wonder if Apple could cite breach of contract and then remove the exclusive carrier restriction?
TRD,
So, you’d rather have your complete lack of experience at the top of the ticket?
Obama questioning Palin’s experience is political suicide. But, so was picking Joe “Serial Plagiarist” Biden.
BTW, Sarah Palin is the only one in the race with Executive experience.
The last I checked, the President and Vice President head the Executive branch.
Face it, Libs. It’s over.
In a 31 day month that comes out to a constant transfer rate of 23.7Mbit. Isn’t that more than the actual speed of their current service? Perhaps they’re getting ready to roll out the 100Mbit service they talked about last year.
zaxxon4:
Your math is bad.
250GB per month =
8.33GB per day =
347.2MB per hour =
5.8MB per minute =
96kB per second (as in kilobytes), which is around 1Mbit per second.
An average ADSL speed.
Sigh. I thought this thread was about Comcast. Please take the ill-informed political screeds somewhere else. Anywhere else.
All of this is a result of the Federal Communications Act of 1993 that deregulated the cable industry to “foster competition”. 99.7% of all cable companies still have NO competitors. So much for the free market place! Instead we have a monopoly and is what happens with monopolies.
Crappy DSL is the only alternative.
who’s number one if comcast is second
According to my calculations, if you do NOTHING else by download movies from iTunes and play them on your Apple TV (like I do), you will only be able to rent about 70 movies in 30 days before you are OVER the Comcast limit. I have noticed that most HD movies average about 3.5 GB from iTunes at 720p.
Now if you want to surf and download on top of that ?????
Not many (if any) people would rent this many films, but adding/transferring files and photos (8MP) to iWeb and your gallery, I suppose one could eat up 250GB without trying too hard.
Anyone who has ever experienced torrent speeds greater than 100kBps (as in kilobytes, not kb, kilobits) should be so lucky. For all other torrent downloaders, this limit should be business as usual.
Now, on the other hand, if you are downloading legal files from legitimate sources, such as iTunes, and your HD movie of 2GB saturates your 5Mbps line, this could get you over the limit. You’d still be able to download over 100 movies in one month before hitting that limit (and spend $400 in the process).
As much as I believe this is foolish, realistically, we aren’t going to be bumping against this limit. If it does for Comcast what they would like it to do, then fine, as long as it doesn’t affect anyone.
Mystic33:
I guess I got my movie size wrong, but the point is there; the only way to bump against the limit would be by legally downloading movies from a very fat (Akamai) pipe; not from LimeWire or Torrent.
Predrag:
No, I may have estimated a little high as well. I have noticed that iTunes HD movies that last more than 2 hrs will bump the 3GB mark or a little more.
I think you are correct that most people will have plenty of leeway before they get to the limit.
To iphone:
“who’s number one if comcast is second”
1. SBC (AT&T)
http://www.isp-planet.com/research/rankings/usa.html
I am so outta there with Comcast, You can book it!!!
This isn’t about torrents, it’s about Compost nipping their future competition IPTV in the bud.
Time for a class action lawsuit. If they place limits they should provide a way to monitor usage.
I wish there was a hi-speed alternative to Comcast in Salt Lake City. 🙁
250 gig a month is a lot
A LOT
Be one serious, 24/7, download junkie to bump into that each month – I’ve only done it 4 times in past 2 years w/giganews
And then have to put it all somewhere
“Honey, get me some more dvd blanks while you at Wal-Mart, or a couple new hard-drives”
AND – as I knew to expect, and you’ll discover same in time, since most of what we download are Movies/TV anyway … well, have you seen what’s on TV or at the Movies ?
Good luck finding 250 gig worth of something TO download each month
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BC
(how that ol’ Springsteen song go – 567 channels and nothing’s on – or 3,486,239,192 web sites and most of ’em suck, present company excluded)