A Comcast subscriber gets a letter telling him he's online too much and downloading too much, despite years of subscription and no previous complaints. That, says CNET.com, is just part of an apparent trend where Internet service providers may be cracking down on broadband use.
The Comcast subscriber told CNET that not only was he labeled a network abuser, Comcast wouldn't tell him just how much he's allowed to download under his service contract, though a service representative told him there's no specific cap. But CNET added that the subscriber was also told he could duck a suspension if he cut his bandwidth use in half.
That subscriber isn't the only one getting such letters from Comcast, the tech news Website said, but company spokeswoman Sarah Eder told CNET the new enforcement policy was "barely two months old," adding the company warnings were not prompted by any predetermined or preset bandwidth threshold.
"For now, this quiet imposition of usage caps affects only a tiny fraction of extraordinarily high-volume users," CNET said. "But it goes to the heart of the competitive decisions cable and telephone companies are making as they struggle for broadband dominance. Comcast in particular is working to provide ever-increasing download speeds, and as result it is struggling to contain busy file swappers and others who are putting stress on their networks."
And none of the ISPs who are doing as Comcast in trying to impose broadband conservation seem to want to admit to enforcing a policy cap. "The industry is leery of explicit caps," Jupiter Research analyst Joe Laszlo told CNET, "because even people who don't come anywhere near the caps feel like something is being taken away from them…(and companies) can't claim their service is unlimited if there is some kind of informal limit."
