Discussion Forums > Technology
Justice Department antitrust probe could benefit consumers
Freedom Kira:
--- Quote from: billlanam on June 20, 2012, 06:09:24 AM ---Wrong way to use the road analogy, the correct way is the number of lanes the roads have, and the number of delivery trucks giving you your data.
So if dial-up is a one lane road, DSL is four lanes, Comcast is 20 lanes for example, so if a neighborhood has Comcast connections, and if the main trunk line of the neighborhood isn't any better than an individual's connection, then the road can get congested easily if enough people use a lot of trucks, whereas if the main trunk line is a 200 lane road, then Comcast wouldn't need limits for that neighborhood.
I certainly understand why they want limits, since then they wouldn't have to spend a lot of money upgrading their roads to 200 lane roads serving neighborhoods.
--- End quote ---
Allow me to correct your correction. Naru's complaint is not about the speed limits that Comcast sets. He has no issue with them - in fact, he has not even mentioned speed limits. The problem is the data caps. Comcast should have no problem handling high levels of traffic if they limit bandwidth properly. The limit on how much you're allowed to move through each month is the issue here.
Think of it this way. Comcast should have set their speed limits based on the number of "lanes" they have available. However, lanes are lanes, and each customer gets its own set of lanes (this is a bit of a stretch of an analogy to an actual highway, since most highways don't actually have enough lanes for every single car or small group of cars on the road to have its own lane, but this would be more like how an Internet connection works). The speed limits should have been set in such a way that if everyone is using bandwidth at the average speed at any one time, there should be no congestion.
It should therefore be clear that it makes no sense to limit the customer's use of the lanes to a certain amount of traffic each month, which is akin to the government charging you for driving too much.
NaRu:
--- Quote from: Freedom Kira on June 20, 2012, 08:16:13 AM ---
--- Quote from: billlanam on June 20, 2012, 06:09:24 AM ---Wrong way to use the road analogy, the correct way is the number of lanes the roads have, and the number of delivery trucks giving you your data.
So if dial-up is a one lane road, DSL is four lanes, Comcast is 20 lanes for example, so if a neighborhood has Comcast connections, and if the main trunk line of the neighborhood isn't any better than an individual's connection, then the road can get congested easily if enough people use a lot of trucks, whereas if the main trunk line is a 200 lane road, then Comcast wouldn't need limits for that neighborhood.
I certainly understand why they want limits, since then they wouldn't have to spend a lot of money upgrading their roads to 200 lane roads serving neighborhoods.
--- End quote ---
Allow me to correct your correction. Naru's complaint is not about the speed limits that Comcast sets. He has no issue with them - in fact, he has not even mentioned speed limits. The problem is the data caps. Comcast should have no problem handling high levels of traffic if they limit bandwidth properly. The limit on how much you're allowed to move through each month is the issue here.
Think of it this way. Comcast should have set their speed limits based on the number of "lanes" they have available. However, lanes are lanes, and each customer gets its own set of lanes (this is a bit of a stretch of an analogy to an actual highway, since most highways don't actually have enough lanes for every single car or small group of cars on the road to have its own lane, but this would be more like how an Internet connection works). The speed limits should have been set in such a way that if everyone is using bandwidth at the average speed at any one time, there should be no congestion.
It should therefore be clear that it makes no sense to limit the customer's use of the lanes to a certain amount of traffic each month, which is akin to the government charging you for driving too much.
--- End quote ---
You understood me ^-^
billlanam:
Data caps are not speed limits in any way whatsoever, (so you could have a ridiculously fast service with a data cap of 10GB, you would still be able to download almost instantly, just not very much, like being able to order a couple of rocket propelled truck deliveries at most), they might enforce a data cap by limiting your speed if you go over, making it hard for you to download a lot of data, they could shut you down for the rest of the day if you download more than an imposed daily data cap, they could also shut down your account for the rest of the month.
As far as I know Comcast warned you first, and if that doesn't work, they suspend or cancel your account, and you would have to call them to get it up again.
Currently they are testing simply charging you for the extra data in some places, data cap has been suspended for now.
Freedom Kira:
--- Quote from: billlanam on June 21, 2012, 06:09:20 AM ---Data caps are not speed limits in any way whatsoever...
--- End quote ---
That was the point. I'm glad we agree. I have to wonder why you pointed this out though, since I had never implied they were the same.
--- Quote from: billlanam on June 21, 2012, 06:09:20 AM ---... they might enforce a data cap by limiting your speed if you go over, making it hard for you to download a lot of data, they could shut you down for the rest of the day if you download more than an imposed daily data cap, they could also shut down your account for the rest of the month.
--- End quote ---
Except Comcast doesn't do throttling. There would be much fewer complaints if Comcast only ever applied throttling (within reason - i.e. if your bandwidth usage was significantly affecting other customers) instead of charging you for using more data than they want you to. AFAIK, though, they don't shut your account down - they charge for overage.
--- Quote from: billlanam on June 21, 2012, 06:09:20 AM ---Currently they are testing simply charging you for the extra data in some places, data cap has been suspended for now.
--- End quote ---
Tell me how this is any different than what we were discussing. Being charged for using more bandwidth than the cap is exactly what the original complaint was about.
billlanam:
I was only going by what their terms of usage says, which says shutting down the account if you go over, and nothing about charging for extra usage, the trials where they are charging for extra usage with a cap of 300GB, I got from a newspaper article, which is evidently new for Comcast, so I naturally assumed that prior to that trial they probably shut you down when you go over, don't know what they actually normally do, since I never investigated that.
Apologies for misunderstanding what Freedom Kira said earlier.
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