IT Professionals

Thinking Cable Internet? Think Again…

Posted by on Apr 5, 2007 | 6 Comments

It’s wild really. I can both relate to Comcast’s position while at the same time, find myself completely disgusted with how something like this can happen. Now it’s fair to say that this individual was in fact limiting the online enjoyment of others from within their neighborhood. But at what point do we call out Comcast for their totally phony-baloney commercials making promises that their infrastructure has no ability of keeping based on their current rate of growth? Keeping in mind that I am not referring to hard numbers here, but I have come accross a number of instances where cable companies have expressed concerns over keeping up with demand.

Not clear as to what I am talking about? Allow me to clarify: unlike DSL, using cable means that you are indeed, affected by “peak usage” times. So as cable providers continue to take on new customers, they had darn well better consider what they are going to do to keep up with demand. Besides all of that, thus far Comcast promises feel like a lot of hot air thanks to what I believe to be packet shaping, bandwidth monitoring and other annoying nonsense.

Then to take this a step further, let’s examine yet another reason why cable providers are nervous about such extensive use of that sweet, sweet broadband connection. Can you guess it? Your TV! With legal options such as AppleTV and not-so-legal unauthorized bittorrents of all of your favorite shows, the reality is that both of these alternatives to Comcast’s TV service are a threat to their bottom line.

So are we looking at a double threat here? Are both reasons enough for cable companies to “gloss over” the fine print in an effort to get you to choose a DSL alternative? In my mind, the jury is still out. But based on what I have seen thus far, I will likely be looking at my future cable company a little differently once I get ready to move come August.

For those of you concerned over your cable provider’s rules regarding usage, here is a link that may help to clear some of this up for you.

[tags]broadband,internet,cable,dsl,rip-off,bait and switch[/tags]

  • Raymond Combs

    You bad-mouth Comcast cable, then you give a link to sites (but no Comcast!). I have Comcast wit a steady 6 meg download. I have a friend in South Carolina who also has Comcast with 6 meg. No problems at all! If you are going to quote something, give some facts!

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    Raymond: Not to sound like a jerk here, but why would I give a link to a website that does nothing to further the story? Seriously, it’s not even my issue, it was a report written by someone else that I was discussing in a close examination of the reported complaint.

    Yes, Comcast offers 6+ megs “off-peak” here in Washington. I have been using them myself for years and also happen to be in contact with a number of the local reps. I have heard FIRST HAND that their infrastructure is indeed, heading for a world of hurt.

    As for your experience in one state, I don’t think that I need to link to the numerous articles that further illustrate that many people feel the dip come “cable Internet prime time”.

    Also, here is that Comcast link you requested:
    http://www.comcast.com/

    Not sure what is being improved by offering it, but there it is nevertheless.

  • Tom Fritts

    The determining factor is where you live and what your local providers are spending for expansion and infrastructure.
    In this area, DSL is a frigging nightmare (even if you can get it) compared to cable. Yet, our cable features and speeds are way behind what they spend in major metropolitan areas.
    I don’t believe you can make a meaningful choice of DSL vs Cable without considering all the local factors.

  • Rick Bawaan

    I agree with Tom on the ‘depends on local situation. In my case, local is defined as the neighborhood in Seattle.

    I was a long-time DSL customer with a sweet deal from the provider since I was their 3rd customer in the city. I only had 384K download/upload speeds but it was guaranteed SDSL. Upgrading my service to higher speeds would have cost $20-$60 more per month and I would lose the speed guarantee. I had limited options in regards to providers due to the distance between my house and the nearest CO.

    I bought a new house last spring so I faced the decision of researching current DSL offerings or using Comcast cable. I avoided the hassles of ‘will it work or won’t it’ encountered with DSL selection and went Comcast. Being an IT guy, I purchased the DIY offering and bought my own Motorola cable modem. I was up and running within 45 minutes (including cabling, unpacking, and reading the manual). I did need to call Comcast support to register my cable modem MAC address but I knew that going into the process. I was surprised at the how good the tech support was. My only complaint about the process is the required use of Internet Explorer to complete the automated registration process.

    There are 1-3 people accessing the internet at a time at my house and the throughput has been amazing. I spent 2 months kicking myself for not switching over to cable modem earlier. To get back to my initial statement regarding neighborhoods, I am perfectly happy with my speeds but one of my co-workers is not. He complains about slow access during peak times where he lives. There are 5 of us that are perfectly happy and that do not experience any slow downs. I can understand how the ‘luck of the draw’ may frustrate some but the current DSL offerings seem to suffer from the same fate.

    Finally, in regards to reliability, my connection hasn’t been down since my move last April. I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t lose power or cable access during the winter storms this year. My DSL connections at the old house went down a few times a year for system upgrades. In fairness, there was ample warning and the provider tried to minimize impact by doing the work in the middle of the night.

    The bottom line is that doing a general comparison between DSL and Cable modem isn’t that clear cut. Location is a huge factor for both technologies and mileage will vary.

  • marc klink

    Each one of the people have opinions which have valid points, but I think the point that no one speaks of is that there has been a huge lie here perpetrated by the cable companies. Every time I have inquired about service [and the 1 time I tried it] there were promises of UNLIMITED service. Clearly this is not happening. In my case, I had cable service for 3 days before I reached a cap. This was in SoCal when Adelphia was the name. When I called about it, the idiots at the other end of my telephone line did not even know this could happen. I had to get to second level support before someone admitted to me that it could. I read the agreement I had signed, and at that time [2003] there were no signs of bandwidth limitation, caps, or a fair use policy. This meant that I should not have experienced this at all. If I were the litigious type I would have tried to organize some sort of class action suit, but instead I spread the word to every customer I could at my work [at the time I was a manager of an electronics chain store, so it came up frequently].

    It comes down to a basic understanding of the word UNLIMITED, and truth in advertising.

    Also, I have had Verizon DSL for 5 years, and now have 3Mb/768k service. I have never experienced a time when I felt the pipe was being throttled, and I have had times when I was downloading at close to the theoretical limit for 10-12 days at a time. I read the statement of the Verizon rep in the article you cited, and wonder if this might be the old east coast Bell Atlantic part of Verizon, as no one I have spoken to in the GTE (west coast) part of Verizon has experienced any sort of throttling. This either means that they don’t do it, OR they are very good at hiding it. In the latter case, the result is the same as the first…no complaints by the users.

  • http://comcastissue.blogspot.com u235sentinel

    It comes down to a basic understanding of the word UNLIMITED, and truth in advertising.

    —————

    That’s what it boils down to. Hi, I’m the Frank from the article and wanted to thank you guys for discussing this issue. I believe it’s important that everyone understand that the company isn’t advertising UNLIMITED use anymore. That’s a really subtle thing now. Because if you call their CSR you will get that “unlimited use for a flat monthly fee” speech even though it isn’t true anymore.

    BTW, I recently posted my consumption numbers a few days ago on the blog (comcastissue.blogspot.com). It’s interesting to see with normal usage plus now we’re running a web server (my family is enjoying it big time), we’re still not hitting even half of what Comcast “claims” we used.

    Personally I think they are way off the mark here in their story however even if anything they are claiming is accurate, one phone call then you are gone is a terrible policy.

    It doesn’t help that they have 90%+ saturation of our area as well. Basically a monopoly. I’m currently working to fix that problem. I’m working towards bringing fiber to the home in Utah plus Network Neutrality. Doesn’t help my current situation with Comcast however it does help our bandwidth and tech issues. More on the blog if interested on what I’m talking about :-)