Comcast's New Plan

[Skuzzy]

This link discusses the new method Comcast will be deplying to manage its network.

Basically, it is the same exact scheme they had before the FCC ordered them to stop, except they will not block content.  The impact to Aces High II will be felt if you are a medium to heavy user on thier network.

I have not found where they describe what a heavy user is or at what levels this triggers.  They seem to be vague about it.

[bustr]

Do you know if SBCGlobal has plans like this or already do their own version of it?

[Animl]

This link discusses the new method Comcast will be deplying to manage its network.

Basically, it is the same exact scheme they had before the FCC ordered them to stop, except they will not block content.  The impact to Aces High II will be felt if you are a medium to heavy user on thier network.

I have not found where they describe what a heavy user is or at what levels this triggers.  They seem to be vague about it.

Comcast sucks beyond suck, I know I have it. It's pathetic for online gaming.
Remember comcast cable was bought by comcast when all they had was cable TV services, they had not clue one what they were doing when they bought into internet cable. If you go to their support page you will see just how clueless they really are.

DSL has always been best for online gaming,.. IMO

[lasersailor184]

Comcast sucks beyond suck, I know I have it. It's pathetic for online gaming.
Remember comcast cable was bought by comcast when all they had was cable TV services, they had not clue one what they were doing when they bought into internet cable. If you go to their support page you will see just how clueless they really are.

DSL has always been best for online gaming,.. IMO

I've never had a problem with Comcast Cable, especially for gaming.  Perhaps these problems are region specific?

[Skuzzy]

There are areas of any nationwide ISP which are bad.

A lot of that comes from the ISP's choice for backbone as well.  Many have jumped to Level 3 lately and while Level 3 is cheap, they are also horrible if you want solid connections with no packet loss.

[CAP1]

This link discusses the new method Comcast will be deplying to manage its network.

Basically, it is the same exact scheme they had before the FCC ordered them to stop, except they will not block content.  The impact to Aces High II will be felt if you are a medium to heavy user on thier network.

I have not found where they describe what a heavy user is or at what levels this triggers.  They seem to be vague about it.

thank god i still play on verizon dsl

[Vulcan]

This link discusses the new method Comcast will be deplying to manage its network.

Basically, it is the same exact scheme they had before the FCC ordered them to stop, except they will not block content.  The impact to Aces High II will be felt if you are a medium to heavy user on thier network.

I have not found where they describe what a heavy user is or at what levels this triggers.  They seem to be vague about it.

If they impliment a decent traffic shaping system there shouldn't be any problems (we sell Allot boxes to NZ ISPs which do a fairly good job). However if they use what they did before (tcp rst's) it'll be chaos

[Bodhi]

We told Comcast to stuff it in their collective ear last week.  Switching over to DSL which is cheaper and faster.

I hope Comcast goes belly up....  wait, no I don't, because then the government will just bail them out.

[trax1]

Yeah I just got an email from them that I posted here a few days ago that said they were limiting me to 250GB a month.

So Skuzzy do you have any idea whats the average bandwidth used for say an hour of Aces High is?

[mensa180]

I asked this question awhile ago and bighorn PMed me some results from monitoring his bandwidth while playing AH, since the PMs got cleared I can't go look it up but it was not too much, you would have to play the entire month solid for it to hit you hard.

I asked this question awhile ago and bighorn PMed me some results from monitoring his bandwidth while playing AH, since the PMs got cleared I can't go look it up but it was not too much, you would have to play the entire month solid for it to hit you hard.

[Skuzzy]

You could be connected to the servers for the entire month and be in good shape.  For the entire month, in crowded arenas, it would amount to around 2.2GB of data.

[MORAY37]

We told Comcast to stuff it in their collective ear last week.  Switching over to DSL which is cheaper and faster.

I hope Comcast goes belly up....  wait, no I don't, because then the government will just bail them out.

Only if the republicans de-regulated the industry, then realized they screwed it up in the end.


On the whole, I've been ok with comcast high speed.  Had DSL from two different providers that wasn't up to the speeds and consistency I see now.  I'm not a large bandwidth utilzer, so if Joe Porno downloader or the kid next door who pirates 50 songs a day online gets knocked back a peg, and I get to see even half a frame rate increase in Aces because he gets a lower priority, I'm ok with it.

The slippery slope is what the cutoff is, as far as utilization.  A company can quickly become over manipulative if this becomes standard.  

It's kind of funny.  When a company shows some form of self-regulation, you scream injustice.  Isn't this a company attempting to make it a more fair balance to the low end user who gets mediocre response from the system?  i don't see many other types of business where you don't buy a certain alotment of service for a certain price.  At least when I went to the store today, I only got a 12 pack of Yuengling, not the keys to the brewery.

Besides, if I don't like it, I switch.  End of story.

What are the alternatives, without a mass overhaul of the infrastructure in cable, ie going to all fiber optic?  It seems to be a quick bandaid for an issue, for the present.  Maybe my take is wrong... feel free to correct me.... this is something I don't know a great deal about.

[Skuzzy]

Actually no, this is a company whose infrastructure is oversold and instead of increasing the bandwidth of it, they are trying to figure out how to get rid of the heavy user so they can put more light users on the network.

In most of the country they have already switched to a lower cost backbone provider to increase the profit margins.  This step is another attempt to increase the profit margins as well.

Whether they are being ethical about it is something I cannot nor will not address.

However, the slope is very slippery.  So they decide to cut the bandwidth and then all of a sudden a medium use user is a heavy user.  Guess what happens?  I hope the FCC sees through what they are saying.  It is pretty transparent to anyone who works or has worked in that business.

[Bodhi]

Only if the republicans de-regulated the industry, then realized they screwed it up in the end.


On the whole, I've been ok with comcast high speed.  Had DSL from two different providers that wasn't up to the speeds and consistency I see now.  I'm not a large bandwidth utilzer, so if Joe Porno downloader or the kid next door who pirates 50 songs a day online gets knocked back a peg, and I get to see even half a frame rate increase in Aces because he gets a lower priority, I'm ok with it.

The slippery slope is what the cutoff is, as far as utilization.  A company can quickly become over manipulative if this becomes standard.  

It's kind of funny.  When a company shows some form of self-regulation, you scream injustice.  Isn't this a company attempting to make it a more fair balance to the low end user who gets mediocre response from the system?  i don't see many other types of business where you don't buy a certain alotment of service for a certain price.  At least when I went to the store today, I only got a 12 pack of Yuengling, not the keys to the brewery.

Besides, if I don't like it, I switch.  End of story.

What are the alternatives, without a mass overhaul of the infrastructure in cable, ie going to all fiber optic?  It seems to be a quick bandaid for an issue, for the present.  Maybe my take is wrong... feel free to correct me.... this is something I don't know a great deal about.

Seems to me this is just more of a way for Comcast to make a buck.  In our area, they undercut most of the other smaller providers to put them out of business and then jacked up the prices.  Their infrastructure sucks, they are not upgrading, and as Roy said, they aren't putting more money into fixing the existing, just limiting the existing customers so they can jam more customers into a crappy infrastructure.

As for this being a republican or democratic sell out as a whole to corporations, perhaps you'd best look at the bipartisanship that is supporting these.  In the end you will quickly learn it has more to do with the economics of a portfolio than it ever had to do with the color of the state that voted you in.

[MORAY37]

Actually no, this is a company whose infrastructure is oversold and instead of increasing the bandwidth of it, they are trying to figure out how to get rid of the heavy user so they can put more light users on the network.

In most of the country they have already switched to a lower cost backbone provider to increase the profi margins.  This step is another attempt to increase the profit margins as well.

Whether they are being ethical about it is something I cannot nor will not address.

Agreed, skuzzy.  In the end, profit margin is what they seek... that is what all businesses seek.


But, again, aren't the heavy users the ones that are slowing me down?  Like I said, when I go buy beer from the market, I don't get shown to the spigot and told to drink all I can.  I don't fundamentally disagree with this approach.... but I am very cautious at where the ideology of this can go, and very quickly.  I am also, admittedly, the low end user that will benefit the most from the removal of the large users from their system.