Cable and Phone Co. Delay Data Traffic

Hi Everyone,
I was reading through my usual news articles when I came across this.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071023/comcast_data_discrimination.html

I am a little confused, about all this net neutrality stuff. A little discussion Pros and Cons will help me decide where I should stand on this.

On the surface I think shame on Comcast, but again, doesn't ISP have a right to control traffic for the benefit of all users. Still I don't like the sound of this. Is it a lack of Net Work upgrades in order to make the bottom line look good to stockholders? What gives?

 

Apparently the membership either feels this is not a worthy topic of discussion or doesn't have any knowledgeable information to share. I was going to let it go until I read this. Apparently two Senators think it is worth have a hearing about.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071027/data_discrimination_senate.html

 

Hi Mercurie, I didn't see your post until today. As a victim of a network shaping it's traffic for the benefit of all, I have some strong feelings. It's all about the bottom line and greed. They installed a Quality of Service Enforcer on our Cebridge/Suddenlink cable system in Jan. 2006. I was using p2p at the time for mp3s. The company denied traffic shaping and still does to this day. For a year and a half afterwards, the QOS enforcer install and an oversold network, meant our bandwidth was stretched to the point that after any 20MB download, you were throttled back to 256k. Sorta hard to upgrade your security programs huh? That also would mean that if I wanted to try Linux, I would have to download all night with my 3 meg download connection .

Our network was finally upgraded not to long ago and I have a 6/256 connection. I'm told they have now lifted the caps. I can't help but wonder how long until they start limiting us again.

I just want what I paid for. I've been online since before the internet. Email and buying things at Amazon and Ebay aren't what I'm into. I want to use my bandwidth. The internet was made to share/exchange files, not buy a sweater on the LLBeans site. It's just turned into a commercial machine and with it comes the bad guys trying to get their share. And now we have the greed from the ISPs and it's getting worse.

IMO, an ISP should be just that. Someone who provides a service for internet connection period. If they can't provide that service, then they need to upgrade. I pay my bill every month!

 

Thanks Innerpeace, sadly this is what I thought. They are filling the pipes with lots of customers (to much traffic) for the network to handle without enough system upgrade. So they throttle everyone with long stop lights in order to keep things flowing. Sad. As you say, I pay my bill. I should expect a quality of service, without fear of purposeful ISP slow downs.

In the case of my ISP they brag about "power boast" is this all advertsing hype or are they really allowing it? My needs on internet are simple but I want speed I hate to wait. And now when I wait what is causing it? This will always be the question in my mind.

I wonder is this different between Cable and DSL? Since they operate differently. Cable share the line with each waiting their turn. Where DSL is slower but dedicted line (so to speak).

Sounds like you were on the net before me. I never used 256k modem at home (at work yes in the old days) couldn't stand the wait. But in June 2001 I was the first in my area to get High Speed in those days it was truely very fast.

If someone has more links to information of this topic I would welcome them.

EDIT NOTE: Due to the information in the second link the new title is more appropriate. Apparently this is more wide spread then I thought.

 

Hi mercurie, If you live in a heavily populated area and have plenty of ISPs competing for business, you should be safe from heavy throttling practices. You will also find higher speeds are available in those areas.

I've read many people switch to dsl because many cable companies use traffic shaping. With DSL, the closer you are to the CO, the faster your connection. I think the limit is around 5200ft. I'm currently right at that limit. Cable doesn't have that problem. Also, DSL normally has the higher upload speeds.

I've only had broadband for 2 years and I don't think I could go back to dial-up. I remember the days when I had a 2400 baud modem hooked to my Atari computer. That was very slow and no internet in my area. I had to dial up to a server some dude had at his house. It was cool at the time.

It seems all ISPs have this secret policy about how much you can download in your area. Some people get notices to cut back or else, others are told they have to pay for the business package to keep pace with downloading habits.

I'm not sure If you if you have heard of dslreports.com, but they have a lot of info on ISPs and well as many (269) boards. Some of them are related to individual ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, Charter etc.). As a matter of fact, they have an article about Comcast on their frontpage. You should get a feel for what people are thinking their.

 

If it is clearly stated in the service (like my cable does), that they do throttling/traffic shaping, then there is little to complain about.

But, if the service becomes practically unusable OR is not clearly stated that they do throttling/shaping, then that is bad.