It's official: Comcast starts 250GB bandwidth caps October 1

News Type: Event — Seeded on Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:08 PM EDT

Article Source: Ars Technica

technology, internet, web, broadband, comcast, bandwidth, caps

Comcast has announced that it will in fact be introducing bandwidth caps to all residential customers. The cap, which will go into effect as of October 1, will be 250GB per month. Comcast justifies the decision by saying that it's "an extremely large amount of data," and that a very large majority of customers will never cross it.

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{"commentId":2625244,"authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

Michael Sautter

"If the United States had genuine broadband competition, Internet providers would not be able to profit from artificial scarcity‚ they would invest in their networks to keep pace with consumer demand," said Free Press research director S. Derek Turner. "Unfortunately, Americans will continue to face the consequences of this lack of competition until policymakers get serious about policies that deliver the world-class networks consumers deserve."

but . . . but, this is the American way - isn't it?

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2 votes

#1 - Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:16 PM EDT

{"commentId":2639118,"authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

Michael Sautter

{"commentId":2639118,"threadId":"342457","contentId":"1798509","authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

1 vote

#1.1 - Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:25 PM EDT

{"commentId":2625802,"authorDomain":"Sem0lina"}

Sem0l1na

This is outrageous - will Comcast next dictate a monthly cap on TV watching, or the number of tvs that can run simultaneously in a subscribing household?

Why don't they instead consider investing in adequate infrastructure to support the services they purport to offer (unlimited broadband access) and price the service higher, in order to recoup the investment costs, and simultaneously provide customers with the value and service that they want?

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1 vote

#2 - Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:06 PM EDT

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Jay Butler

The real issue from the FCC's standpoint is that Comcast is both a content provider and a service provider. Placing a bandwidth cap into effect will make it more difficult for the IPTV content providers, NetFlix, iTunes movie purchases, etc. That would naturally give an advantage to Comcast's content being delivered over their 'digital television bandwidth'.

I would expect Comcast's broadband competitors (e.g., FIOS, DSL, satellite) would either use that as a scare tactic to woo customers, they will petition the FCC, or they will put caps in place too. I suspect that the competition would love to wrest some customers away from Comcast, but I would fear that they will just follow suit.

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3 votes

#3 - Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:05 AM EDT

{"commentId":2633482,"authorDomain":"kylen"}

KyleN

Comcast's competitors will do all the above. They will simply try harder to keep the cap secret for as long as possible.

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2 votes

#3.1 - Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:44 AM EDT

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MICHAEL SAUTTER

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It's official: Comcast starts 250GB bandwidth caps October 1

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