A while ago everyone at slashdot was up in arms because the one cable company that controls the entire cable internet market in the whole of the United States put a limit on the amount of data one could transfer a month, with the amount defined as ‘excessive’ a secret.
Actually not long ago my ISP did the same thing for me here, and I’m considering switching as a result. My ISP has put the limit at 15GB sending in a 24-hour period. At first that seems like a lot, but I have a wicked fast connection. For example last night I left a torrent open downloading some South Park videos. When I woke up, the download was done, and I had sent 13GB. Quickly I shut that down.
This is a problem for me not because of torrents (I rarely deal with that stuff) but because we do lots of video editing at school. I do lots of data transferring as a result. Sending things to my web server and then getting them at school.
Now Comcast has ‘clarified’ in not so clear terms what they mean by excessive. “A customer is exceeding their use limit if they: download the equivalent of 30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures or 13 million emails in a month.” It’s all your fault Apple. We want to know the amount of data measured in units of data, not something arbitrary like ‘songs’. Well fortunately at least one person went to high school and passed algebra.
30000*songs = 250000*pictures = 13000000*emails 1 song = 3MB => 1 picure = 360KB => 1 email = 6.92KB
So we’re looking at a limit of about 90GB, a month. My limit is 15GB a day, or (multiply 30) 450GB. But note mine is for sending, I still get unlimited receiving (which makes sense because I probably receive at least 50GB a day with my TVoIP television system). Comcast gives you 90GB total.
My hosting provider, Media Temple, is pretty impressive too. For 20USD/Month, I get 1000GB of transfer a month. (Divided by 30) that comes out to about 33GB a day.
Everyone on Comcast, I recommend you don’t spend any time on YouTube, because it’s not like you can just find a new provider.