The future of the Internet is going to consume more bandwidth, there is no way around this. The only thing that we have to decide is if we are willing to have our access to the Internet held hostage by large companies such as Comcast.
Data Caps May Be Comcast’s Response To Proposed Net Neutrality Rules – Technology News – redOrbit
Comcast Tower (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Those who use massive amounts of data will simply have to pay more. That is in essence what Comcast told its customers on Thursday. The nation’s largest Internet service provider (ISP) and cable giant also responded to the Federal Communications Communication’s (FCC) net neutrality proposal – and the two events could be closely tied together.
Comcast is currently seeking the FCC’s approval for its $45-billion buyout of Time Warner Cable, a move that would make the Philadelphia-based company the most dominant provider in the United States with more than 30 million cable TV, and high-speed Internet customers across the country – including top markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
“Comcast remains committed to a free and open Internet and [is] working with the FCC on appropriate rules for all players across the industry,” Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen wrote Thursday in a blog post.
The other take away on this is that Comcast’s Cohen, speaking at the Moffett Nathanson Media & Communications Summit on Wednesday in New York, suggested that within five years all Comcast customers could once again have monthly bandwidth caps imposed on home broadband usage.
Cohen, however, suggested that most users would not use up the allotment and have to pay more.
“I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to say the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan,” Cohen said in a statement as reported by Digital Trends. “And that number may be 350 — that may be 350 gig a month today, it might be 500 gig a month in five years, but it will never — I don’t think we will want to be in a model where it is fully variablized and 80% of our customers are implicated by usage-based billing and are all buying different packets of usage.”
According to reports, Comcast is currently running several pilot projects in select markets in the United States to test its bandwidth caps. These include options that allow users to combine download speeds with bandwidth caps, and the higher the speed the higher the bandwidth cap.
What can be done?
First, stay involved, either through AFP’s efforts or by keeping in close contact with your own Senators and Representative. Second, get involved in the comment process at the FCC. Third, keep writing and talking about this, because silence in this case will mean government control and more silence in the future.
Leave a Reply