Report: Comcast Mulls Bandwidth Cap for Heavy Downloaders

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 8, 2008 - 9:11am.

Philadelphia - Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), the nation's largest cable TV operator and provider of high-speed Internet to 14.1 million subscribers, is considering placing a 250GB monthly cap on the amount of bandwidth that subscribers may use for downloading content, a source from the company tells BroadbandReports.com. For those who exceed the limit, Comcast would reportedly charge $15 for each 10GB they use over their allotment; 250GB is roughly equivalent to 6,000 songs, or 250 movies.

The source further said that Comcast is set to begin testing the caps in a month or two, and that they would only impact the top 0.1% of its customers, or around 14,000 subscribers.

Comcast has come under fire from consumers and later the FCC for throttling the file-sharing activities of its users, and the bandwidth cap would seemingly be a "platform-agnostic" approach to network management.

BroadbandReports.com further reported that the caps would be coupled with new actions taken against subscribers who receive multiple copyright notices because of their peer-to-peer usage, with its Comcast source saying that the accounts of any subscriber receiving four such letters with a year would be terminated.

"Comcast is currently evaluating this service and pricing model to ensure we deliver a great online experience to our customers," Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas told BroadbandReports.com.

Meanwhile, fellow broadband provider Cox already places bandwidth caps on its customers, while Time Warner Cable is considering following suit as well, the Associated Press reports.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/27xx7 (BroadbandReports.com)

http://snipurl.com/27xzq (AP)

tags: P2P | Comcast | FCC |


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