"Unlimited" Internet whiners

[symposes]

My ISP, as far as I can tell, does not regulate download bandwith.
However they have no set limit on upload bandwith either.
They watch the traffic, and every so often, the top 100 people using the most upload bandwith, have their internet turned off, until they contact the provider, who then turns it back on, and offers suggestions on how to stop high usage.
Theyll help you uninstall p2p programs, and the like.
They seem to take the stance that they cannot accuse you of doing illegal stuff, but seem to be so nice about it.

I think ive heard from them 3 times myself. the third time was them asking if i was aware of the increased bandwith. Basicly I had all but stopped using the internet for almost 2 months. No big downloads, just gaming. And when i started again, they thought something might be up.

[solemnwarning]

I havn't read this thread yet, however some american ISPs are kicking higher users off a plan advertised as "unlimited" and refusing to actually tell people what the limit is, suggesting it's whoever uses the most bandwidth on a given DSLAM or equivilent hardware.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for heavy bandwidth usage also, please don't assume everyone using a lot of bandwidth is a "pirate"

I run a webserver and mailserver on my cable line, if I ever actually finish a software project that takes off my upstream load will spike, I assume I'm "stealing" software I've written?

[trunks2k]

The only problem I see with these ISP's limiting downloading is that not all large downloads are people pirating stuff.

The reasoning isn't really that people are pirating stuff, but rather a network stability reason - especially for Cable internet. With cable internet, the connection is shared by everyone in your neighborhood. If some guy down the road from you is downloading a bunch of stuff (legally), then it is going to severely impact everyone else's ability to download.

With more up to date networks, that's less of a problem than it previously was. Comcast supposedly caps it at 200GB/month in "sub par" networks. Really, most people are not going hit that unless a single connection is:

a.) Being shared by mulitple computers, which may violate the contract with Comcast (I think they allow up to a certain amount of computers to share the network).
b.) Running a site/business hosted off that connection, which again, is probably in violation of the terms and conditions of the contract.
c.) Illegally sharing files.
d.) Just being a general ass and abusing the connection.

[GyroKat]

This all sounds really confusing to me... Here in Denmark, you pay a set monthly amout for a certain speed, and then you can do whatever you like with it.

My boyfriend often uploads/downloads VAST amounts of files for several days from/to the servers at work, because the upload at work sucks, so his does it at home instead, and that doesn't change a thing. When you pay for a certain speed (like our package which is 15 Mbit download speed and 1Mbit upload) you can max it out 24/7 if you like.

A few, rare places, like colleges and schools, still have a shared connection, so that if a single person uses A LOT of bandwith, the rest will suffer from slow connections, but most people have individual connections in their house/apartment here.

[Banrion]

II run a webserver and mailserver on my cable line, if I ever actually finish a software project that takes off my upstream load will spike, I assume I'm "stealing" software I've written?

Not stealing software, but my guess would be that running servers on a residential connection is a no-no per the terms of the service agreement. This is likely the same clause they use to shut down the pirates on "unlimited" plans. P2P programs essentially turn your computer into a server.

[Pedersen]

Just to point out something: TCP/IP does not clearly define a machine as being a server or a client. The end result of this is that every machine running TCP/IP can be defined to be a server.

For instance, does your machine respond to ping's? It's now a network connectivity server for anybody that needs to verify their own network is up and running. Run Windows without a firewall? 99% guarantee you're acting as a file server, and not just because your box has been hacked.

All of the above is true because of the way TCP/IP works. Every machine is a server, not just ones that advertise it.

In other words, unless they define a server to be "knowingly serving up information", they shouldn't be able to do much. And if they define it that way, then heaven help them the first time somebody's machine becomes a spam zombie, and the person doesn't know.

[Banrion]

In other words, unless they define a server to be "knowingly serving up information", they shouldn't be able to do much. And if they define it that way, then heaven help them the first time somebody's machine becomes a spam zombie, and the person doesn't know.

I am a comcast internet subscriber, I will try to find the fine print at home. But your example does not make sense, most people who's machines become spam zombies don't KNOW that something has gone awry with the machine, and therefore would not be held accountable.

[Pedersen]

I am a comcast internet subscriber, I will try to find the fine print at home. But your example does not make sense, most people who's machines become spam zombies don't KNOW that something has gone awry with the machine, and therefore would not be held accountable.

Except, of course, if said spam zombie sends out too much spam, which results in their account being turned off for major overage. And if you doubt it can happen, here's a link to someone that had a very similar situation (if not this exact same situation).

So, effectively, yeah, they were held responsible for such a situation. And they do state that it was spyware that did it.

Oh, and I'm a Comcast Offline subscriber too. At their business level, no less. And I'm not sure I'll be staying with them. They've pissed me off royally with their other issues (and I've ranted about them here in my own thread).

[CrazedClerk]

These people who are getting nailed are probably downloading hundreds of GIGS a day...real hardcores with multiple computers running P2P/Torrent/Other downloading sofware 24/7.

Even some big time internet users (say someone who downloads a few 1 GB movies every week along with a bunch of MP3s) shouldn't be working at the level needed for an ISP to flag you.

Unless your business is selling/dealing pirated media or you're just a download junkie, you're probably safe.

[Pedersen]

These people who are getting nailed are probably downloading hundreds of GIGS a day...real hardcores with multiple computers running P2P/Torrent/Other downloading sofware 24/7.

Unless your business is selling/dealing pirated media or you're just a download junkie, you're probably safe.

Hmmm... You made me crunch some numbers. I'm paying for a 3Mbps download speed right now. 1,048,576 * 3 bits per second. 3,145,728 bits per second. Divide by 8 (bits per byte), and get 393,216 bytes per second. Divide by 1,048,576 (bytes per meg), and get 0.375MBps.

Multiply by 86400 (60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours) and 32,400 MB of data/day. Divide by 1024 (megs per gig) and get 31.6 gigs per day.

For anybody getting a 3Mbps connection, it will be impossible for them to download more than 31.6GB /day. They can't reach hundreds of gigs per day. It's not possible.

Per month, the absolute maximum would be 948GB of data downloaded. That's it, it can't be any more. That's the amount of traffic you can put on your cable line, period.

You can follow the same math patterns to analyze 768Kbps upload speeds, so I'll just tell you the result: 7.9GB uploaded per day, or 237GB/month.

Now, for a short while, I maxed out my connection, and I was doing nothing at all illegal. I was participating in a BitTorrent swarm for Knoppix and Ubuntu Linux, before I learned how to tell these two to cap my upload speeds. All told, about a week. So, I put out nearly 56G over the course of a week.

Nothing illegal. I'm not a download junkie. What I am is someone who wants to spread Free software. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to get, so that they can get some of the fun that I get from it. And comments like the above put me into a very negative light.

That's not fair to me, nor is it fair to the thousands of other people who do the exact same thing. So, please, don't assume that everybody with a high download/upload rate is doing something illegal/shady. Quite a few of us aren't.

Thank you.