After being called out on their deviousness at the FCC hearings, you’d think Comcast would try to keep a low profile. Blocking torrent traffic and challenging the idea of net neutrality is definitely a big issue, but we didn’t hear an outcry from the general public. Geeks and freedom lovers were generally leading the charge.
With the recent news of Comcast talking about download caps and overage charges, I wonder if more people will be paying attention or if they’ll only realize too late. Comcast looks to be playing it sneaky yet again here. By proposing a cap at 250GB per month, most of us say, “Who cares? Most people never use that much.” To this, I reply, “…yet.”
In all the years of the internet, you don’t ever hear about people’s bandwidth usage decreasing. While better compression helps, we just manage to push more stuff along this pipe. We’re buying VoIP phones. We download audio and video. We stream audio and even HD video. We “apt-get” in loads every 6 months! You give us more bandwidth and we find ways to utilize that bandwidth! Heck, even our mobile phones can use wifi and voip. All this is wonderful. It is what we’ve all imagined and created the internet to be. Download caps, however high, threaten the great things that the internet becomes. Do no fear clogging the series of tubes. It’s ok if you’ve been fooled by big media. Even South Park was fooled by the fear of the mythical exaflood and I always find them clever.
So as we use all this wonderful bandwidth for more and more utility, that 250GB download cap seems easily within reach. Do you think a corporate entity, such as Comcast, will feel compelled to raise that bar as we all get closer and closer to using that 250GB/month?
If this download cap happens, switch ISPs. Switch in droves. Send a message. I realize many people don’t have an option with such little competition in high speed internet and a 250gb cap is better than dial up, but this is all the more reason that we should switch if we can.
