Comcast unplugs downloaders
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Comcast has deliberately blacked out an unknown number of users, accusing them of what it describes as excessive downloading.
The “abusive activity” adversely affects “everybody else’s experience,” Charlie Douglas told AFP (Agency France-Presse).
“I can’t give you a number” for clients who have been disconnected,” Douglas says in the story, but customers whose plugs have been yanked are “very rare.”
The story also quotes the Washington Post as saying someone who’d downloaded the equivalent of 1,000 songs, or four feature films a day, would “trigger” a disconnection warning.
“Comcast gives customers a month to fix problems or upgrade their service before they are disconnected, the Washington Post said,” states AFP.
“Upgrade” means opening a more expensive account.
An unplugged client in a Washington’s Montgomery County has filed a complaint saying his contract with his service provider states he’s entitled to unlimited Net access, says the Washington Post in the AFP story.
A recent report warned the growth in demand for “bandwidth-hungry services such as HDTV and online gaming is leading to a critical lack of capacity” in US cable operators’ networks, it adds.
Does of the Draconian move mean Comcast has opened the door for itself and other ISPs to begin intensive collaboration with the entertainment cartels, who’ve been demanding they act as upfront industry copyright cops in the so-called file sharing war?
And are you one of the Comcast Unplugged?
Also See:
at andAgency France-Presse – Heavy Internet users unplugged by US cable company, September 8, 2007
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September 9th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I have went through something like this. Exact same excuse was used too. But I never believed I abused anything. I only used eMule and even capped it at 80 kb/s and yet I was disconnected despite the fact my internet ran fine even my neighbor’s whom he has a unsecure wireless network ran fine. I don’t believe that Comcast is facing an issue of “abuse” but more of an issue of censoring those downloaders.
September 9th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
A thousand song loosy compressed will amount to 3gb/day. it is not small but it is not abusive. I believe that Comcast is testing the water and also playing with fire. If they continue to do so we will have to boycott Comcast. Anyway their service kind of suck and the speed they are advertising is a ly. They are not faster than DSL and not as consistent. Plus they are expensive. I think I am going to ditch Comcast.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Funny. A major Russian ISP did exactly the opposite a year ago, lifting the dreaded “20 gigs per month” barrier (after which they reserved the right to throttle you at 16 kbit/s for the rest of month), then began to double their speeds quarterly, and there are still no apparent effects of oversubscription. So Comcast must be traveling back in time – expect special 14.4k dialup offerings for the Christmas season!
September 9th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
I think the key statement is the option to “upgrade their service”. They are testing the waters for a more expensive Internet usage and our tolerance for a service that they CAN charge for. This will eventually replace the revenues they are “losing” through P2P file sharing.
September 9th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
xforce: “I don’t believe that Comcast is facing an issue of “abuse” but more of an issue of censoring those downloaders.”
Good to see this major ISP looking after our interests. More will follow. I take it you now can only access the internet from your public library, which doesn’t have any of that nasty file sharing stuff on their computers.
Remember everyone: every song downloaded is a lost sale. Always. We *will* extract maximum profits from our ‘customers’, however fat our wallets get in the meantime.
And to quote Jon: stay tuned!
September 10th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Plain and simple. The ISP’s, all of them, not just Comcast, desperately want to go to the pay per minute cell phone cash grab extravaganza model instead. Unlimited is dead.
I got a call from ma bell last May saying the DSL unlimited was going out the window for “heavy” users like me and I would have to pay per gigabyte starting this fall. I have had unlimited DSL for over 12 years now and I have been the one who paid for all their fibreoptic infrastructure that previously was advertised as having unlimited and tons of unused bandwidth.
The unlimited data Blackberry plan that I got last year is now no longer available, instead they are charging nearly double what I am paying for an 8gb/month plan. It is an epidemic coming our way.
Welcome to the new and improved world. Open yer wallets or become a luddite!
September 11th, 2007 at 3:09 am
Comcast bites. I can get a phone line and internet from the phone company for about half the price of Comcast’s cheapest internet. I can get DirecTV with tons of premium channels for the same price as Comcast’s basic service. Comcast stinks and I’m glad I don’t use them.
September 12th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
SEE NOW COMCAST IS NOW WORSHIPPING THE NAZIS.
COMCAST WANTS TO CENSOR US AFTER NET NEUTRALITY GOT STRUCK DOWN.
LETS ALL GOTO SAVETHEINTERNET AND START A PEACEFUL WAR AGAINST THE ISPS.
LETS ALL START COMPLAING TO OUR ISPS, OUR SENATORS, OUR FCC, THEN LETS COMPLAIN TO OUR PRESIDENT ABOUT WHY WE NEED NET NEUTRALITY.