Comcast to impose limit on data transfer for subscribers

Posted by admin on August 29, 2008 at 6:06 PM

From October onwards Comcast, a U.S. cable and broadband provider, announces that it would be limiting the quantity of data its subscribers can receive and send, with a maximum of 250GB each month. The initiative is meant to “improve overall performance for all of its broadband users”, reports MacObserver.com.

Comcast says that even though imposing a restriction may not please some users, nearly all of its customers use much less than 250GB, the norm being two to three GB per month.

“This reflects typical residential use of the service for purposes such as sending and receiving e-mail, surfing the Internet, and watching streaming video," according to Comcast.

To get 250GB, users would need to “send 50 million e-mails, download 62,500 4MB songs, download 125 2GB standard definition movies, or upload 25,000 10MB digital images”, according to MacObserver.com.

Users are “tagged” as being “excessive” if they surpass the cap more than twice in half a year and could have their service suspended for a year, wrote MacObserver.Com.

Comcast was criticised in the past, after it stifled user bandwidth and interrupted P2P connections without prior warning. The company first denied the act but then agreed to stop doing it.

Comcast’s imposed limit may not affect post users, but for “large business-related” file transfer, a problem may arise.