Technology: September 2008 Archives

Even though I haven't gone "back to school" for a few years now, I'll always associate September with returning to classrooms and the general excitement associated with starting a new school year. Although I was fortunate to return to classrooms that boasted ample school supplies and a bevy of resources, many kids don't have access to simple things like pencils and textbooks. I'm reminded of how serious a problem this is by my own sister, a teacher in an inner-city classroom. Many of the classrooms at her school and many others just don't have the funding to stock their classrooms with the items their kids need.

Thankfully, there is a way people can help. DonorsChoose is a website my sister introduced me to a year ago. This is how it works: teachers post "projects" on the site. These projects are essentially descriptions of what teachers across the country need to complete a specific project in their classroom--one person recently posted a project with a request for a CD player so she could finally play a set of educational programs for her students. Another teacher works at a school where almost the entire student population has a mom or dad serving in the military, and wanted some art supplies so the kids could express their emotions through drawing and other art projects. These are just a couple of examples in a vast array of requests on DonorsChoose

Recently, I was going through my RSS feeds when I stumbled upon a TechCrunch post about an auction for a copy of a Google Chrome comic book. The comic book, created by Scott McCloud, was one of only a few printed and given to select media. According to TechCrunch, the proceeds from the auction they were sponsoring would go directly to DonorsChoose! Being the geek that I am, the thought of having my own copy of the Google Chrome comic book was appealing. But the prospect of bidding on the comic book and being able to donate that money to DonorsChoose made it even more so. I am happy to report this morning that not only did I win the comic book with a winning bid of $1,600, but another bidder won a second copy with another bid of $1,575. The best part? All $3,175 are going directly to DonorsChoose.

Beyond helping schools and getting a cool piece of geek memorabilia, the folks at Google were kind enough to let us know after the auction closed that the comic book would be signed by creator Scott McCloud and many of the team that created the application. For a geek who wants to do something good, it just doesn't get any better than this.

On August 28th, Comcast announced that it would be setting a new monthly bandwidth limit for customers beginning October 1, 2008. The new limit would allow customers only 250 GB of bandwidth, which Comcast insists is more than enough for the average user. Comcast states on their site (under "Network Management Policy"):

"To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

• Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
• Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
• Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
• Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)"

Despite the limit being "more than enough" space for a typical user, the new limit is being established before many users take advantage of downloadable movies, offered by services like Hulu and Netflix. Unlike sending an email or downloading a song, high definition movies can take up a significant amount of bandwidth. If you watch a lot of movies, that cap could be reached rapidly.

But back to this whole thing being no big deal, according to Comcast. Even though the company has assured people they'll never reach the cap, Comcast hasn't bothered to make sure current and prospective customers know about the limitation, other than burying it in their Network Management Policy on Comcast.net and promising to stuff bills with notices that the policy has changed (I'm not sure what happens if you don't get a paper bill anymore). According to MarketWatch, Comcast didn't even issue a press release about the change.

Even though there was no press release about this change to Comcast's policy, the move has set the tech blogosphere ablaze with discussion about what the move means for customers, and the Internet.

If the average Comcast user will probably never exceed the 250 GB limit, what's all the fuss about? The answer to that question is easy: Comcast's limitation of user bandwidth sets a precedent that likely all other high speed Internet service providers will follow, and at a time when innovations such as high definition movies and other media haven't really tested the "bandwidth waters." As peer to peer file sharing expands, and new forms of media explode onto the scene, companies like Comcast don't want to pay for the bandwidth it consumes. In short, the move effectively sets the stage for Comcast and other companies to create a systematized, tiered structure for how we use the Internet.

Comcast's desire to limit specific applications that take up larger amounts of bandwidth is well-known in the industry, but not to your average customer. Case in point was the recent situation that arose when the company sought to specifically block traffic from BitTorrent, a peer to peer application that has buy-in from large, well-known companies such as MTV, Lionsgate, Paramount, and many others. In response, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that Comcast had in fact violated federal policies on net neutrality. According to the Chicago Tribune, the company admitted to purposely delaying traffic for users sharing larger media files.

The Plot Thickens

In Om Malik's "Open Memo to Comcast: Show Us the Meter for Metered Broadband" he points out another problem with Comcast's new policy: Comcast doesn't offer any standardized tool through which you can monitor your usage. All Comcast states regarding monitoring your bandwidth is this:

"There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account."

So it appears that while Comcast will happily charge you if you go over the allotted amount of bandwidth, it will not offer you an agreed upon tool to determine this usage yourself to avoid overage. If you do go over, you'll be relying on random websites you find (as they suggested you employ for this purpose) to help you prove your case. Gee, thanks, Comcast.

In addition to all of the problems associated with not offering users a means of figuring out how much bandwidth they're using, once you've been identified as a user that's gone over the limit twice in a six month period, your account is automatically terminated (and you can't sign up again for another year!).

These recent developments usher in a host of questions about one large corporation's ability to effectively stymie the growth of some comparatively smaller companies that rely on legal file sharing, such as NetFlix and Hulu.com. If companies such as Comcast continue to limit the flow of data to some users, as it did in the BitTorrent incident, it could have a domino effect on a number of related industries, as well as the users who enjoy their features.