2008-08-29

Comcast limits customers to only 250 gigabyte per month starting October 1, 2008

Wow... I guess Comcast is really committed to defining fair use. Granted 250 GB is a lot of data, this would be analogous to telling each American they could only drive on US roads 10,000 miles a year... That may seem a lot to you and me, but if the limit is so high, why even have one?

Comcast does not offer business grade service in my area, even though I work at home. This effectively prevents anyone in this area from getting more than 250 GB of data a month no matter what their reason is, business or otherwise.

Perhaps they've not heard of data formats like Blue Ray at 8 Gigs a disk or VMWare images for virtual appliances. Really what they're likely trying to do is find another angle to limit bit torrent traffic which can easily crest their "fair use" limits.

However, I say to Comcast, you are short sighted. Offer your high usage users more service for more dollars or wake up and smell the Internet.

The future is massive bandwidth with increasing interconnectedness even among your existing customers.

Don't limit them, learn from them and figure out how you can handle staggering quantities of information. Perhaps it's time to start running localized bit torrent servers in major "hot" spots relieving some of the pressure from your clients many of whom could use bit tunnels between your locations.

Invest in the future, because I guarantee you... The Internet won't get any slower.

And tomorrow's application bandwidth requirements are gonna make today's 250 GB per month seem like a fond memory.

Don't start losing customers like you lost me a few months ago.
We'd hate to have to replace you with an ISP that actually offers unlimited use, NOT what you think is "fair".