Comcast bandwidth caps now in effecg

Effective today, Comcast is now limiting the amount of bandwidth – or data traffic – that consumers can use each month. Those who argue for unlimited Internet access see the cap as the beginning of what will surely be even more restrictive controls that will limit technology and the open exchange of information online.

For most of us, though, it’s probably no big deal.

At least for a while. But just as 1MB or memory on our computers seemed way more than we needed a dozen years ago, technology demands have a way of growing exponentially. And a massive traffic limit today may seem crippling tomorrow.

As of today, Comcast has amended its Acceptable Use Policy in what it says is an effort “to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online.”

One of the things that cause such problems is from what the company claims is “a fraction of one percent of our customers (who) use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month.” Such bandwidth hogging slows down the whole network, claims Comcast, necessitating the change in its policy.

That change now sets a monthly limit of 250 Megabits of bandwidth. ANything over that amount of traffic is considered an “excessive use of our service.,” says Comcast and will result – for now – in the customer being contacted by a Comcast representative and notified that they’re using too much bandwidth.

Critics are steamed. they see this as having a chilling effect on technological innovation on the Net, especially as interactive gaming, high definition video on demand and digital downloading services and programs continue to explode.

Although scores of tech websites and bloggers have been blasting Comcast over the caps in recent weeks, an media reform advocacy group called Free Press has been leading the protests.

“Though the proposed cap is relatively high, it will increasingly ensnare more users as technology continues its natural progression,” said Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner.

Comcast says the caps are 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. “250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it’s very likely that your monthly data usage doesn’t even come close to that amount,” said the company in a statement sent its subscribers announcing the caps.

The statement continues:

“To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

“And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.”