[Infowarrior] - Comcast cuts Internet service to bandwidth hogs

[Richard Forno]

Shutting down big downloaders
Comcast cuts Internet service to bandwidth hogs
By Kim Hart
The Washington Post
Updated: 2:11 a.m. ET Sept 7, 2007

The rapid growth of online videos, music and games has created a new
Internet sin: using it too much.

Comcast has punished some transgressors by cutting off their Internet
service, arguing that excessive downloaders hog Internet capacity and slow
down the network for other customers. The company declines to reveal its
download limits.

"You have no way of knowing how much is too much," said Sandra Spalletta of
Rockville, whose Internet service was suspended in March after Comcast sent
her a letter warning that she and her teenage son were using too much
bandwidth. They cut back on downloads but were still disconnected. She said
the company would not tell her how to monitor their bandwidth use in order
to comply with the limits.

"You want to think you can rely on your home Internet service and not wake
up one morning to find it turned off," said Spalletta, who filed a complaint
with the Montgomery County Office of Cable and Communication Services. "I
thought it was unlimited service."

As Internet service providers try to keep up with the demand for
increasingly sophisticated online entertainment such as high-definition
movies, streaming TV shows and interactive games, such caps could become
more common, some analysts said.

How many have been cut off?
It's unclear how many customers have lost Internet service because of
overuse. So far, only Comcast customers have reported being affected.
Comcast said only a small fraction of its customers use enough bandwidth to
warrant pulling the plug on their service.

Cable companies are facing tough competition from telephone giants like AT&T
and Verizon, which are installing new cables capable of carrying more
Internet traffic.

The cable companies collectively spent about $90 billion in the past decade
to improve their networks. And on cable networks, several hundred
subscribers often share an Internet connection, so one high-traffic user
could slow the rest of a neighborhood's connections. Phone lines are run
directly to each home, so a single bandwidth hog will not slow other
connections.

As Internet users make more demands of the network, cable companies in
particular could soon end up with a critically short supply of bandwidth,
according to a report released this month by ABI Research, a New York
market-research firm. This could lead to a bigger crackdown on heavy
bandwidth users, said the report's author, Stan Schatt.

"These new applications require huge amounts of bandwidth," he said. Cable
"used to have the upper hand because they basically enjoyed monopolies, but
there are more competitive pressures now."

To trigger a disconnection warning, customers would be downloading the
equivalent of 1,000 songs or four full-length movies every day. Comcast
spokesman Charlie Douglas declined to reveal specific bandwidth limits.

"It's our responsibility to make sure everyone has the best service
possible," he said, "so we have to address abusive activities so they won't
damage the experience for other customers. "

Companies have argued that if strict limits were disclosed, customers would
use as much capacity as possible without tipping the scale, causing networks
to slow to a crawl.

Some aware, some not
Some customers are unaware they are using so much capacity, sometimes
because neighbors are covertly connecting through unsecured wireless
routers. When they are told of that possibility, many curb their use after
an initial warning, Douglas said. Others, however, may be running
bandwidth-hungry servers intended for small businesses from their homes,
which can bog down a network serving a neighborhood. Comcast said it gives
customers a month to fix problems or upgrade to business accounts before
shutting off their Internet service.

Joe Nova of North Attleboro, Mass., lost Internet service after Comcast told
him that he was using too much bandwidth to watch YouTube videos, listen to
Internet radio stations and chat using a Web camera. He and other customers
who complained of being shut off said they were not running servers from
their homes.

"Sure, I'm online a lot, but there's no way I could have been consuming that
much capacity," Nova said.

Other Internet service providers, including Time Warner Cable, Verizon and
AT&T, say they reserve the right to manage their networks, but have not yet
suspended service to subscribers. Smaller Internet service providers RCN in
Herndon, Leros Technologies in Fairfax and OpenBand in Dulles said they do
not cap bandwidth use.

Some AT&T customers use disproportionately high amounts of Internet
capacity, "but we figure that's why they buy the service," said Michael Coe,
a spokesman for the company.

Cox Communications, which provides Internet and cable services to parts of
Northern Virginia and Maryland, said the bandwidth demand on its network has
doubled every year for the past six years. It has boosted its speeds twice
in the past 18 months to keep up and offers tiered service plans for heavier
users, spokesman Alex Horwitz said.

"We don't spend a lot of time enforcing [bandwidth] caps, but we contact
customers when their usage is egregious enough for it to impact the
network," he said. "Instances are few and far between."

'Unfair and arbitrary'
When Comcast canceled service to Frank Carreiro, who lives in a Salt Lake
City suburb, he started a blog about the experience. His wife and six
children then relied on sluggish dial-up Internet access until a phone
company offered DSL service in his neighborhood.

"For a lot of people, it's Comcast or it's nothing," he said.

Bob Williams, director of HearUsNow.org, a consumer Web site run by
Consumers Union, said the vagueness of Comcast's rules is "unfair and
arbitrary."

"They're cutting service off to the people who want to use it the most," he
said.

Schatt, the ABI Research analyst, said he expects cable companies to spend
about $80 billion over the next five years to increase network capacity. In
addition, they may acquire airwaves at an upcoming federal auction and could
lay fiber-optic lines over their existing cables. Switching to digital-only
programming could also help conserve capacity.

Comcast, Cox and Time Warner say they have more than enough capacity to meet
demand and are adding new technologies to strengthen signals. Bruce
McGregor, senior analyst at Current Analysis, a research firm in Sterling,
said the bandwidth bottleneck is not yet a crisis for cable companies, but
it could intensify with competition from phone companies.

Companies like Comcast "need to address people who are major drains on the
network" without angering consumers, he said. "They're not the only game in
town anymore."
© 2007 The Washington Post Company

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20633771/