Comcast announced they will also be running a “Test Market” to try and curb the bandwidth hogs from eating up traffic, so everyone can have an enjoyable internet. Chambersburg, PA and Warrenton VA will be the first test areas, with Colorado Springs to follow later this summer. Each test will last only 1 month.
The idea will be slightly different than Time Warners’ bandwidth cap. Anyone who uses a large amount of bandwidth for long periods of time will be throttled down during peak hours. They will not have a limit, but they will be limited.
Comcast plans to implement this to it’s 14.1 million users by the end of the year. The Company says they will keep their customers up to date on all they are doing. They will be sending Emails and updates on the website when areas get affected.
Although this is a better solution than a cap, it’s still counter-productive to those who legitimately use bandwidth. If the infrastructure is being taxed, then it may be time to upgrade infrastructure.
It might be a better idea for Comcast to actively go after file sharing programs and the methods they use to pass data. When you download a file, you take pieces from “Seeds”. Each seed is a different file-share point, usually another computer that downloaded the item. Therefore, when you download a file, you then become another Seed, unless you remove the file or stop the program. Users are able to set the program to limit upload/downloads, but when you install a file sharing program like utorrent, the initial setting is open-throttle.
Currently, Comcast is under fire by the Federal Communications Commission for possibly blocking or delaying certain forms of file-sharing traffic. By changing the terms of internet usage, the company could continue to delay file-sharing without repercussion.