Comcast won't state limit for 'excessive' Internet use

By Peter Lewis
Seattle Times consumer affairs reporter

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

How much use of your high-speed Internet connection over Comcast's cable system is too much?

It's a simple question. But yesterday, the company's representatives didn't answer it to the satisfaction of Jim Compton, chairman of the Seattle City Council's Utility & Technology Committee.

Compton scheduled yesterday's briefing with Comcast bosses after reading reports about the company's practice of sending out letters to so-called "bandwidth hogs" for alleged overuse of the company's network. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be passed along a communications channel.

Comcast is the nation's leading provider of high-speed Internet service, with more than 5.3 million customers, including more than 300,000 in Washington state and more than 60,000 in Seattle.

The company contends that 99.999 percent of its customers have nothing to worry about, but that a "fringe" group compromises its network as a result of their excessive use. Apparently a "few hundred" of those hogs live in Washington state, because that many received warning letters from Comcast last fall, according to John Dietrich, a Comcast vice president.

About 95 percent of the customers who receive such letters change their behavior, Dietrich said. Those who didn't — what Dietrich described as "less than a handful" — were "suspended," meaning their connections were temporarily cut off because they continued to abuse the system.

But when Compton pressed for the exact number of consumers whose accounts were severed, and the precise standard that triggers the warning letters, the company balked.

It wouldn't say how many customers were cut off. And instead of identifying a clear usage maximum, Comcast answered with analogies.

The type of user targeted burdens the network "100 times more than a normal customer," Comcast said. It further described such transgressors as those who each month send and receive 13 million e-mails or 256,000 photos, or who download 30,000 songs, 14,000 movie trailers, or more than 150 full-length movies.

When Compton asked why Comcast doesn't impose a ceiling — similar to posting a speed limit on a highway so motorists know how fast they can drive — Mitch Bowling, vice president of operations and technical support, said the company doesn't want "to put a burden on our customers."
 
Compton noted Comcast says nothing in its advertising about placing a limit on the use of the network, and he suggested it was deceptive to start busting people in the absence of a clear boundary.

Comcast said its "acceptable use policy" bars activity that — in the sole judgment of Comcast — improperly restricts, inhibits or degrades any other customer's use of the service or puts a large burden on the network.

Mike Paxton, a cable-industry analyst with In-Stat/MDR, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based technology-research company, said that "maybe one out of 10,000 actual users" is exceeding bandwidth allocation. He said he doesn't blame Comcast and other companies for enforcing rules, because "they paid the money to build (the network)."

On the other hand, as a marketing issue, "this could be tricky" and cable operators need to handle it right — or customers will look for alternatives, he said. As of January 2004, about 25 million U.S. households had high-speed Internet hookups, two-thirds of them via cable modems, Paxton said.

Even though Compton was dissatisfied with the answers he got, it's not clear what kind of hammer the city holds because, to a significant degree, the cable industry is deregulated. Still, Compton said he plans to explore the issue further.

Peter Lewis: 206-464-2217 or plewis@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company