As the internet grows there is only one thing that we currently know: the current networks cannot handle the bandwidth needed to support the current rate of growth. As such some companies have decided to invest in new networks while upgrading their old ones, these programs cost billions of dollars a year for the companies, and since the goal of any company is profit, large ISPs have begun to limit bandwidth in both speed and total usage per month in order to avoid upgrades.
Unlimited Usage
Comcast has recently become a popular target since their advertising originally promoted “unlimited usage” and now makes no mention of a bandwidth cap. Comcast has refused to put out an official limit; however, company employees have anonymously claimed that it is 200GB a month, while industry experts have predicted that it is approximately 90GB a month. Their main rival, Cox Communications also caps their network. Their five plans each provide different speeds and caps ranging from 3GB a month to 60GB. Without any illegal downloads many users use 4-6GB a month, which means to be within the capped range most users are automatically forced to buy one of their top two internet plans.
So at this point you may have noticed that both of the examples here are cable companies, this is because a cable network is shared by a town, as such if one user is doing excessive downloading then the entire network will slow down and these companies will have thousands of upset customers, thus it is in Comcast’s best interest to stop these users downloading excessively. ISPs which use DSL don’t have this problem, however almost every request will travel over a cable line at some point, just as almost every request will hit a fiber optic line as well.
The Issue
The issue of canceling customers who are downloading four full movies at day or 50,000 songs a month doesn’t seem like much of a problem. Even if you were to buy a service which let you download and watch TV (A legal version of sharetv.org for example) and you would still get eight hours a day of video before reaching your caps. The real problem is in the future. Since Comcast wants to profit off of customers who are increasing reaching the limits of their service they are planning to roll out ‘additional GB’ packages, much like cell phones.
It could get worse
Are you ready to pay $60 for internet and another $5 a month for every additional hour of video you want to download? Yet it could get worse, much like cable TV channels, ISP companies could sell you packages which provided access to a limited number of websites. Buy basic and you only get MSN, The New York Times, and Gmail. Buy the larger package and you get those plus Yahoo’s services. Buy an even larger package and you get 1,000 sites! Yet the most ironic part is that this wouldn’t hurt consumers so much as developers. Such a program could cripple even large sites. For example take a look at your sites, are you in the Alexa 1,000? If not then you would no longer receive traffic from Comcast or Cox; assuming that Verzion and AT&T didn’t instantly follow along.
That is the majority of the Eastern coast as well as the Midwest of the United States, over half the country could no longer access your site! Perhaps it’s time to get involved in Net Neutrality and secure your future as a web developer.
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September 25th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I doubt they can just block sites. All you need is a proxy service and/or a different DNS solution.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Nomar, a lot of your analysis is very good, but I’m disappointed by the end. I should note, I work for the group Hands Off opposing new regulations on NN, which does include ISPs, but no cable companies specifically.
Anyway, you’re spot on about there being a bandwidth crunch, especially with so much video out there. The ultimate answer, of course, is to invest in more broadband. But tiering has nothing to do with which sites you can access, just whether or not certain kinds of traffic can be sped up by ISPs. For VoIP and video, this makes sense, so they should be able to do that. Text-based websites, static images and e-mail doesn’t need this. Not all packets are the same, after all.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Thanks Dave for your explaining Comment!
September 26th, 2007 at 11:03 am
The answer to net neutrality is not more bandwidth it is getting ISPs out of the content business. If at&t and the cable companies were not selling their own VOIP and video services over the Internet there would be no need for Net Neutrality.
September 26th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
HMTK, there is no inherent problem of ISPs having their own content. There is certainly a risk that some will get dumb ideas about trying to degrade competitive VoIP services, that’s true.
But what happened when Madison River tried blocking Vonage in early 2005? The FCC came in and smacked that down, and there hasn’t been any trouble since.
So the FCC exists for a reason, even if there is much to criticize about it, it’s been doing its function here well enough. Another reason why there’s no need for new laws here. The current regulatory system is more than able to deal with any problems that might arise.
September 27th, 2007 at 6:58 am
If governments weren’t run by old people that don’t understand technology.