Another Broadband Tech Exec Says There's No Bandwidth Crunch
from the move-along-now dept
We've pointed out in the past that whenever you hear warnings about a coming broadband crunch, it almost always comes from consultants and politicians. If it comes directly from companies, it's inevitably from the CEO or lobbyists. Yet, when you talk to execs who actually are technologists (even at telcos) they're quite willing to admit that the whole broadband crunch issue is something of a myth. All you need to do is regular upgrades to the network, and most recognize that there's no risk to a network getting overwhelmed. The latest to add their voice to this crew is cable company Cox's VP of technology, who admits that the company's latest upgrades mean that there shouldn't be any bandwidth problems for at least a decade. Yet, how much do you want to bet we'll be hearing that we're running out of bandwidth from a politician or a lobbyist well before a decade is up?
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Filed Under: bandwidth crunch
Companies: cox
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How do you monitor and limit your BW consumption?
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Re:
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Cox is not Comcast
Comcast's claims of bandwidth shortages are artificial and intended to justify its actions. Like Bush's claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, it's spin.
Comcast refuses to invest in technology upgrades like Cox implemented, so customers are forced to suffer.
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Re: Cox is not Comcast
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Re: Re: Cox is not Comcast
And there is no "next tier" when it comes to the cap; you breach it, they turn you off for a year. I think THAT is the most ridiculous thing in the world. They don't want to be bothered.
I think a broadband ISP that is STRICTLY an ISP with no conflict of interest in its business would be less likely to limit its users and more likely to embrace new technologies instead of worrying how to protect other parts of their business. Let's face it... streaming video over the Internet directly competes with their (overpriced) On Demand movie service... they get $3.99 for a movie (same movie I can get for $1 for an overnight rental from Redbox) but if I subscribe to Netflix for $17 a month I can do unlimited streaming at no extra charge. Now, what would a sane person use? I know the streaming flicks are older. But in the case of iTunes movie rentals, it's the same price (3.99 for a night), so again, Comcast is limiting competition by saying "you can only download so much and then we cut you off... and, by the way, if we deem that you are a 'heavy user' [which is not clearly defined] we will also slow your connection so those movies take forever to download." It's a joke.
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Waves bigger than most can imagine.
These companies are currently building, or already have bulit the infastucture for the future of inforamtion and technology. Optical Fiber is the future and every year the amount of bandwidth we can engineer out of it grows expontially all without having to replace the fiber itself.
So why do i have to pay extra to get reliable internet service?
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Re: Waves bigger than most can imagine.
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*is quite literally laughing out loud*
here in australia, a country that really isn't that primitive, there is no such thing as unlimited broadband, ALL broadband is throttled. and the highest limit before throttling? as far as I have found, for houshold use,60GB on ADSL, the main service, 120GB on better services, only available in 3 cities I beleive. So you're complaining and worrying about having to turn off flash video because your internet might be throttled at 250GB? get a life.
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You've got way too much time to waste buddy.
And complaining again because, OH MY GOD, they will throttle heavy users like that, for whom 250GB/month is not enough. Get a life.
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Come on, you're joking right..!!?? At around 2.5MB per minute on Youtube, you would need 110GB/month if watching video non-stop 24/7 : (2.5 * 60 * 24 * 365 / 12 = 110000MB = 110GB) roughly...
Oh, but you're right, I guess the 140GB left isn't enough for emails, browsing, and other stuff you do while watching Youtube (or other video service) 24/7, and playing on your Xbox...
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As another poster indicated, when I signed up for Comcaqst I signed up under the "unlimited" premise. Not that I ever approached 250GB/month, but when a company sells you something under a bill of goods, they're fraudulent. It's like GM advertising a car that gets 50 MPG and, after a year, the mileage drops to 10 MPG and can't drive over 30 MPH.
Netflix announced today that they are starting HD movie downloads. Apple has HD movie downloads already. A full length HD movie can take up to 7GB of download. More and more services are going online... Xbox 360 Online, Wii Online, Playstation Online, the list goes on. A majority of websites use Flash for video and banner ads. If you think that doesn't utilize bandwidth, think again. And, if Comcast arbitrarily slows down your connection because you decided to get several HD movies streamed from Netflix (which makes you a "heavy user") wouldn't you be upset if the movie that downloaded in 25 minutes last week took 2 hours today, or, in a streaming scenario, the movie paused every 5 minutes to download more content over your now-slow connection?
Comcast, in pafticular, is doing what it can to stop the competing technologies from functioning properly. Yes, maybe (MAYBE) the cap is ok for new customers (who were NOT promised "unlimited service") but the throttling is just wrong. They want no competitin for its digital TV services.
And in the event you interpret "unlimited" the way Comcast does in an email to me ("it's available 24/7") I suggest you look up the meaning of the word.
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Bandwidth Limit
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Re: Bandwidth Limit
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Naturally...
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Limits
You should be bitching to your ISP's and gov't officials (as if they'll actually listen) about your capped bandwidth, especially if you were led to believe it was "unlimited" when you signed up for it.
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I have had Cablevision repair tech's out to my house 5 times in the last month. They replaced the cable from the pole twice (wonder why it didn't work the first time?) and then replaced the modem 3 times along with some other things I didn't care to inquire about.
So either there is actually a last mile problem or Cablevision just sucks.
Well, actually, both of those could be true.
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The "last mile" maybe the bottleneck, but that doesn't take down the remainder of the network. In Comcast's case, unike Cox, they are avoiding shelling out profit to improve their infrastructure (which is just fine for cable TV but is nowhere near adequate for Internet services) and takes the cheap way out by simply capping service.
It's like their approach to people who exceed the cap... just cut the, off for a year. No accounting headaches, like figuring out a higher bill... just terminate them.
I think that, if Comcast even offered a "bump" price of $5 for every 5GB of overage it would be one thing, but they don't.
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Unlimited use vs unlimited bandwidth
The cell phone carriers use the exact same tactics when they throw around the term "unlimited" knowing people think bandwidth and the company is referring to usage.
Bothers me to no end!
TBK
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Re: Unlimited use vs unlimited bandwidth
I have a Sprint data plan, so-called "unlimited", but I know it's capped at 5GB, which I use MAYBE 200 MB a month. No problem.
The "pipeline" has to catch up with the rest of technology. People are no longer just sending emails or surfing text-based websites. There is a lot of "rich content" out there which will be stifled by the ISPs.
I still think that letting cable companies provide Internet access also creates a kind of conflict f interest. It's like Comcast getting involved in WiMAX by investing in Clearwire; they'll try to impose the same limits on its use.
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Re: Unlimited use vs unlimited bandwidth
Although, once you cap and throttle a person's usage, it's not even unlimited use, is it... nor is it unlimited access.
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Re: Unlimited use vs unlimited bandwidth
Glad you mentioned Sprint's cap - I use to work for a company that did Verizon AND Sprint activations for wireless 3G service. Actually it's still unlimited access because you can access it anytime day or night while your contract is in effect. Except during outages, of course, which the provider expressly stipulates they are not liable for in any compensatory manner. They will infer that it is their mission to keep the service up and running at all times but there is typically no actual stated guarantee of up time for the network. A phone call to customer service will usually get you a credit just as it does with the cable companies (Cox Cable specifically here in San Diego).
~TBK
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Last Mile Bottleneck
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I disagree
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As for the network, if the last mile is still broken, I really don't care if the network is up and running fine, my services still won't work.
If FIO's were available in my town, I would of course sign up. It won't be here until 2010, and that is in NJ. Wonder how long it will take to get to the less populace states.
One nice thing about Cablevision though, their contractors all have different colored work orders, so we have a nice rainbow of zero balance invoices. Oh, and another thing about Cablevision. They like to advertise that their regular speed is 15MB down and 2MB up, "faster than phone service high speed Internet." I regularly go to Cablevision's own site to test my speed and it has never been above 8. On the other hand, I get 4 up, of course, I don't up all that much, but that is a different story.
The moral of this story? Cablevision must just suck.
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