[Update: Charlie Douglas, the Comcast spokesperson cited below, contacted Wired News to say that figures given in the GameDaily story were meant only as examples and we have changed the headline to reflect that. Based on talking with Douglas and comments below, the limits for Comcast users appear to be considerably higher than our estimate. However, Comcast continues to say it does not have a hard and fast limit and "excessive use" could be well above, or, in some cases, below the cited figures. As you can see from reading the comments here and elsewhere, the bandwidth considered excessive, varies by location as well. Douglas also said that Comcast calls customers to inform them about excessive use, so if you haven't been called, there's no reason to worry.]
Comcast has revealed some details about its mysterious bandwidth limitations. Previously the company had only said that it would shut down customers who went over what the company considered average use. But given that the company doesn't seem to have a definition of average use, it's difficult to know whether you're in danger of being shutdown.
GameDaily has managed to get a sort of definition out of Comcast, though the limits aren't actual numbers. GameDaily quotes Charlie Douglas, a spokesperson for Comcast Corporation, who says that Comcast's definition of “excessive use” is any customer who “downloads the equivalent of 30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures or 13 million emails in a month.”
Obviously Comcast is avoiding the issue by failing to give an actual figure, but this statement does give a ballpark estimate. The standard assumption in the industry seems to be that a song is 3 MB, or at least most MP3 manufacturers seem to use that figure when they talk about storage capacity.
Using that ballpark figure, Comcast's definition of excessive means that you're limited to 90 gigabytes a month if you want to keep on the company's good side. That actually seems like a reasonable number to me, but of course we routinely see comments from folks who've been capped by Comcast, so whether or not the company really abides by these figures is open to debate.
And that's part of the problem isn't it? It's tough to abide by the rules when the rules are open to debate. Would it be so hard for Comcast to give a specific number? Apparently the answer is yes. The most likely reason there's no hard limit is because “too much” bandwidth isn't a constant. The measurement changes based on the infrastructure limitations of your particular locale, what are your neighbors are doing, and how steady and consistent your high usage periods are.
So while we may not have a hard limit now or ever, take the above statement as a rule of thumb should you be a Comcast customer. And if you're unhappy with your ISP, have a look at the list of bad ISPs on the Azureus wiki, a handy way to see which companies to avoid, should you decide to switch.
[via Slashdot]
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