Comcastic, But Is It Really?
August 27th, 2007I registered for a new Comcast High-Speed internet connection a few days ago, and the experience so far has been quite alright. Comcast has made some changes for the better, since I last dealt with them in order to get a connection at my last apartment. With a bandwidth offering of 6.0 Mbps (download) and 1.5Mbps (upload), the deal is not too shabby. The service also promises a new PowerBoost feature, that is supposed to add an extra kick to your bandwidth over a smaller initial data transaction - in order to provide faster completion times for frequent accesses such as uploading and downloading email attachments.
According to the Comcast User Agreement:
Comcast 6Mbps High-Speed Internet with PowerBoost provides a burst of download and upload speed above the customers provisioned download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5 MB of a file respectively. It then reverts to your provisioned speed for the remainder of the download or upload. Many factors affect speeds. Actual speeds may vary and are not guaranteed.
Here are the bandwidth rates that I’m clocking, as recorded by a quick speed test on SpeedTest.net. Other speed test websites that use Flash or Java based tests, register much lower speeds, probably due to the fact that the PowerBoost feature does not kick in on plain HTTP transactions.
According to a slew of blog articles posted recently, Comcast has been observed throttling bandwidth for BitTorrent users. While this may be the ISP’s preferred way of deterring illegal file sharing, it does hurt legitimate avenues where the file sharing protocol is being applied (Linux distributions and content upgrades for online games come to mind). Selective throttling based on the nature of content goes against the very principles of the freedom of speech and neutrality, on which the Internet was formed.
The fact that Comcast sets up a MAC-address based cable modem connection, however, means that I will have to go through the laborious 1-800-COMCAST process once I need to swap Comcast’s rented cable modem with the one I just bought online. Here’s to hoping that does not turn out to be a chore.
