probably because for cable subscribers they are sharing an overall network. so depaning on how many users are on and what they are doing, the service suffers.

There are times where you can get really fast downloads.


Over the telephone line it is different. slower download times but no network sharing like cable.

Actually most providers, including Comcast, have been very liberal with implementing any kind of caps. The debate will ultimately come down to speed versus consumption. The easiest way to assure speed is to rein in the heavy users, but where do caps start and end? I think that most would agree that providers have to upgrade their services and capabilities to reflect their customer base, irrespective of how much bandwidth is used, although that is certainly easier said then done. It is, as usual, sales versus service and should make for interesting decisions by both providers and customers alike in the near future.

I like that Judge. I have Comcast and also live in philly. There is really no other broadband provider for me to switch to. I hate Comcast with a passion; everytime it rains my connection goes downhill (unbelievable rain the past 4 months). Right now, 90% of the pages don't come up and I have to keep refreshing.

The support center is no good; the majority of the time I know more than they do and I hate the run-arounds; please turn the modem off for 60 seconds....Arrrrgh. There aren't many users is my neighborhood either. As soon as I get the chance, I'm droppin em.

Unless they upgrade us to 3.0 mbps like in that article and something more than 256 kbps upload.

Um yeah..Like I could download that much stuff from this site anyways,,Imagine like 60 gigs of Windowblinds and Icon Packages...Yould never use em all anyway..and since I dont steal movies and such..It dont affect me...

I'm getting 3.2mps with Comcast and I live outside of Philly in a very built up suburban community. I rarely have problems. The problems I do have a quick hard reset works 99% of the time.

In terms of support, I've had no problems when I first setup. Even though they don't support routers, they gave me enough tech info to program my home router. Later when I couldn't even connect they were good enough in determining that a server problem on thier end was the issue.

My household has been quite happy with Comcast.

I havent downloaded anything serious lately but I know that the limits arent set low with my ISP, I dont know what the limits are with my company either (COX communications) but I do know that I get 3.5-4.0 down and 380-520 up most of the time, and they have a great deal now, $24.95 a month for the first few months then back to the $39.00 a month thereafter. and ive never been on when there was a outage or even downtime, I get downtime emails but im never on when they happen and I spend 2-3 hours a day on.

Wow! Talk about piling on...

I was not going to post again since I didn’t expect everyone to agree with my comment in the first place, but since I've basically accused of stealing movies I'm forced to defend myself.

1) I have never downloaded a movie nor do I hide behind a screen name.

2) One of the caps mentioned in the article was 5G/month, that's certainly too low. However, I can see that abusive users at the much higher 30G to 50G levels are a problem to be addressed.

3) Listening to a 100Kbit/s internet radio station for 8 hrs/day for a month results in just over 11GB total. That's just streaming audio not including normal browsing, web seminars, or program updates.

4) I pay very high business DSL rates for this bandwidth and I'm entitled to use it.

5) I have designed some of the cable and DSL switchgear that many of you are connected to even now, this is the infrastructure that I was referring to in my original comment. I also know that the providers in this market have canceled or severely curtailed infrastructure improvements since Q1 2001. Since bandwidth demands will always be increasing and the infrastructure capacity is not, the only way for these providers to maintain service levels is to implement caps.

All I'm really saying is don't be so gullible as to believe the phone/cable company is telling you the whole truth. They are certainly looking out for someone’s best interests, but you can bet it’s not yours.

6) Some of the comments above remind me of other infamous shortsighted quotes from the past: "…the entire world market for computers is maybe five", "I don't see how anyone would ever need more than 64Kbytes of RAM…"

Now we can add to the list: “How could anyone ever need more than 5G of bandwidth?”

I'm on NTL in UK, 1MB down / 256kb up at £35/month. they tried to quietly cap transfers at 1gb per day saying "this is a recommended limit. if u exceed it we will contact u and help u to lower the amount" nobody accepts it and why shud we?

What is the point of hi speed "unlimited" internet access if u cant use it? theres no difference between 128kbps and 1MB when browsing websites are concerned!

As a user of linux (gentoo 1.4) i tend to download alot of updates/distro's so not all heavy downloaders are downloading movies etc

congrats goto Lee Boylston for the quote (allthough adding caps isnt the right way to go - they just need to add more uplinks - the more caps the less things will get done)