How Comcast is Giving you less asking for more and killing your rights

comcastscamsAs many have suspected, Comcast is in the spotlight and exposing their corruption by wanting to charge websites for bringing us to their websites. Yes you read that right.  You pay an isp to allow you on the internet, now the largest company on the internet is about to force website owners to pay a fee for letting them have visitors.
Basically, it’s like I rent a limo and go to a party, the limo driver goes to the party host and charges them for bringing me to the place I already paid the limo driver to take me
Worse than that is Comcast also wants to offer faster streaming speeds to higher paying customers.
So if I wanted to open my own video service on the web. I build a massive server and pay outrageous fees to my isp so I can deliver the content people want, I would still have to pay comcast per speed I would like the people receiving my streaming videos. Basically the party host paying for the limo driver to drive a little bit faster. Even though the limo driver has already been paid for the server as contract.
Comcast is trying to ruin what we call net neutrality. and it looks like it is happening now. but all kind of saw this coming when they wanted a bandwidth cap, and we settled  for a high one. Knowing in our guts the same excuse will come up later, as they push further into removing net neutrality, or reducing that 250 gigs a month limit we used to think we could never hit. I mean why wouldn’t they? Since Comcast’s 250 a month cap, all providers have put out caps, most are under 5 gigs per device on their service.
Level 3 the company that provides internet to our internet providers, has finally spoke up.  and it looks like this is either going to get real good and Comcast is going to get Bslapped for exagerating the strain they go through for providing internet to the public, or worst case, comcast sues  Level3 and takes over the internet in it’s entirety.

Level3’s blog

BGR site

Comcast has and will always treat you as if you have no choice. Even worse when you have no other choice. Their fees are impressively high and their help staff is impressively lax about all services. They will put a smile on their voice as they tell you  it will cost you money to hear there is nothing that can be done, and will gladly send you another technician back out (at $45) to tell you again.

Speedtest.net and Comcast


I do not use comcast. In fact, I use Clear 4g. I have been testing my bandwidth on Speedtest’s website.
http://www.speedtest.net/
and I think I found something fishy.
When I go to the speedtest website and check my Internet speed, I assume that since one of the closest servers to test with is Comcast server, I would get great results. True results of my speeds maximum capability. but instead Comcast seems to only show good results for Comcast ip addresses. I’ve tested from my clear 4g connection, my buddy’s at&t connection, My mom’s Comcast Internet connection and my work t3 connection
Houston has two test locations. Comcast and University of Houston.
Houston Comcast shows me with only 2.8 megs a second while University of Houston shows me at 4.5 megs a second.

While Dallas Frost wire shows me at 5.1 megs per second.
and Dallas Soft Layer Tech Shows me at 5.1 megs per second
Austin Grande Communications shows me at 5 megs per second
Muleshoe Texas Five Area Telephone shows me at 5 megs per second
Cedar City Utah

The issue here is that I live in Houston. I can go to any Texas test site outside of Houston, and get better results. but if I take any computer using comcast service and test with the Comcast server, you get wild high results, but test that computer on any other bandwidth test server and you will see low speeds with about 1/3 of the bandwidth results that comcast showed, not really happening.

I have done these tests at work on the T3 line and again, Speedtest’s Houston Comcast server shows my bandwidth test at 1mps per second

Take from this what you will.

Verizon MIFI 2200 Review

After Disconnecting my Comcast Internet and and Cable Television and moving my television service to Dish Network, I found myself in need of internet service. I obtained a temporary use of a Verizon MIFI device. Very nice looking wireless internet device. One single button. You just connect the USB cable from the MiFi 2200 to your computer and instantly upon identifying the card, it opens as a storage device, allowing you to get the drivers right off of the MiFi 2200. Installation of the drivers is less than 3 minutes. Press the lighted button on top of the MiFi 2200 until the light on the side comes on, then open the VZ access software you just installed, and then click connect in the VZ Access manager, and you are on the internet ready to go.

Verizon Wireless MiFi 2200

Verizon Wireless MiFi 2200

Though the device allows you to connect multiple devices at one time, the 3G service, I doubt would handle much more than 1 computer. I have been seeing some very low signal reception and very slow speeds.

mifi on Verizons VZ access

mifi on Verizon

mifi bandwidth

mifi bandwidth

Though the speed test results say 1mbs, sometimes I find myself waiting like I was on dial up, for pages to load. The wait for youtube videos to load is sometimes up to 5 minutes. The monthly bandwidth cap is reached in the first week, and then this slow speed gets even worse.

For someone like me, the MIFI card is a pass. Meaning I will have to pass on getting this service.

Not much different from the results I see with my cricket phone.

Test Date: May 1, 2012 3:53:34 pm
Connection Type: EvdoA
Server: Temple, TX
Download: 2127 kbps
Upload: 794 kbps
Ping: 101 ms

External IP: xx.xxx.xxx.xx
Internal IP: xx.1xx.xx.xx
Latitude: xx.xxxxx
Longitude: -xx.xxxxx

 

Full scores:
looks: 10/10
Ease of use: 10/10
Reception: 3/10
Speeds: 2/10

Final score: 6/10

Low Cost Unlimited Website Host

The webhost I use has been offering 2 years of website hosting for under $100. Through windows I call [[Unlimited Website Host]]. When you click that link, scroll to the bottom of the page. Prices are at the bottom.

When most webhosts charge you $140 (or close to give or take) a year, you must know that you are saving quite a penny by at least giving this place a try. They are fast. The email is imap or pop, your choice.
They are not saying hos much longer this deal will last but they did recently announce another deal. Typically that would mean all past deals would phase out soon. Though the new deal sounds great, I am not sure if my code will allow half off of the new deal. So you could land at paying slightly more than what I can get you.

I have been with this company for , coming up on 5 years now.  I am very pleased with their service and the quality of their operations. Customer service is easy to speak with and very quick at getting problems solved.

You will get unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, unlimited emails,unlimited ftp users. Anything I can think of, is unlimited.

 

I hope you give their [[Low cost Website Host]] a try and respond below about your experience with the company. Two years for less than $100, It’s worth a shot.

 

Yes I do get paid when you click the Powweb links on my website. And yes I do use Powweb’s service and I recommend it, to family, to friends, to anyone who wants to know what a good webhost is. I even got the company I work for on Powweb. I even have a few co-workwers on Powweb.

Did Comcast Houston Get Slower?

Last year we were getting 28mbps Using Comcast internet, with an upload of 2.5 mbps. Some crummy local AT&T sub-contractor TM Construction or something like that, cut our live and refused to care. So I patched the line with a splice. I think it was a holiday 3 day weekend. SO I had to do it myself. We still got 28 mbps down and 2.5 up. Our internet was fine. A couple months later, TM construction came back out and wouldn’t you know it, they cut our line again. So this time we had Comcast come back out and replace the whole line with this heavy duty orange cable. Our internet was peaking at 30mbps. We held out for a few months.
But here recently our internet speeds have drop tragically. We are now getting 3 mbps down and oddly enough our upload speeds increased to 3.5 mbps down.
I was told a couple months ago that the speeds are supposed to increase to 50mbps near Humble area.
I can only assume that right now they are upgrading the cables or whatever and right now there is a crummier connection.
How is your internet speeds in the Spring and Humble areas? What is your bandwidth in this area?

Internet Price changes, Fair? or Fare?

We all know that Comcast is going to increase their prices. They made that announcement the moment they found out they could not start charging website owners for the “traffic they bring them”.  and we all see the new filters Comcast has put into their  servers, the ones that direct us to their designated page, so we do not ” get the inconvenience of a 404 page”. To the common that say they are doing us a wonderful favor of removing  unattractive pages that display nothing for us. The wise know that the filter is there and could potentially be used for extortion. Meaning specific websites could be  shut off by a specific internet provider. Let’s say a large enough internet provider, one that has a  40% foot hold of all united states internet users. 40% of all users being filtered by one company, is bad bad bad bad. If 40% of the readers who view this site just suddenly stopped reading, I would really feel like I am being shut down and feel like I could potentially be done wrong.

I don’t know about you, but I pay my web provider to allow me to go to websites using their services. So they are already making money from me and many others, for just that. The internet providers making money off of the website owners for the traffic that hits said websites using said owners, purely is greed. That’s almost like building a toll road, keeping fees for usage of the toll-road active, meanwhile using tax money to maintain said toll roads. Oh, they do that in Houston. hmmm..

Well the truth is, internet usage and file  downloads have all been increased.  How? well not by using Comcast. but closer to you than that. Smart phones or App phones, all have constant running  apps that use internet at all hours of the day. Pretty much all phones that use android have a default of keeping you signed into Gmail 24/7. You have to pay the internet fee for this services if you do not have internet services already. Here’s the funny part (before you say .. oh ok. that’s a lot),  you pay  $35 a month for that internet service. You can’t really do anything with that service other than stay connected. It’s a tiny 3 inch screen. the actual file transfer is so tiny it’s just a tiny portion of what what it would be on your home pc. yet the cost is 80% of the pc internet fee. Sure Comcast wants in on that action and that kind of fee. So now they limit our monthly usage and want to charge us for overages. Well because the number of users have increased. sure they did, Comcast bought out other services. The world did not suddenly gain 60% more people who use internet. Just Comcast’s user count increased. The amount of servers and hubs have increased at the same time . Picture a janitorial company buying out all the other janitor services, and then increasing fees because demand is up… like they lost all of the mops and janitors they just hired or something. Same thing.

Meanwhile Comcast cranks up their bandwdith to outrageous speeds. Unthinkable speeds compared to five years ago. 5 years ago 2.5 mbps was hard to come by. Now internet speeds are commonly 25mbps. there is no way you will drop that kind of service, you will just try an not go over  your amount of consumable internet downloads. Well that’s just the way we all think. That’s kind of is dense. In reality you want faster so you can download more much easily, but are willing to download less to keep fees down for overages. They know how to market us.

I advise you do not fall for this stuff. If we all just drop capitalistic companies, these companies can not continue with what  they do. Net Neutrality, H.R.6123,  what ever you want to call it

Net Neutrality = Checkmate

What it all comes down to is how well you detect greed.

One company owns like 30% of internet connection in the united states. That company is Comcast. The rest of the connections are through the hundreds of  dsl and the hundred or so other cable companies. This means that Comcast has the largest percentage, and the loudest voice. What they will do, all the others will soon follow suite. The companies that do not, will be bought quickly.

Comcast is wanting “unlimited” to end. They have been hyping some story of  growing usage and lack of pipe to supply it all. Um, they did buy up all the other companies, of course the user count is growing. dur.. but so is their supply and resources. So do not be fooled by this.

Anyway we will be offered packages, instead of the packages we get now where we can select how fast our connection is, by how much we pay. We will now select how much we want to download in a month, by how much we are willing to pay. They push some theory that the internet will suddenly speed up because people will conserve better to avoid the prices. I see a huge spike at the beginning of the month of people saying ” oh hey I can down X amount now and just surf regular for the rest of the month”. Of course we will not see the internet get slow during these times because well, they have the horse power to support that, again they are blowing smoke to sell their  product.

You may be wondering how they can get fake news out. right?…… cable tv, …. you get it yet ? Well in short, I am pretty sure they know someone who knows someone.

If they are allowed to charge site owners for the traffic that comes there from them, then they are now making from the people getting there, and the people that are there. That’s like ford charging Disney land for the people using Ford to get there. THE CAR IS FRICKEN PAID FOR!. This of course will lead to alot of websites shutting down because they can no longer afford to be on the internet. So lil Davey’s website about his favorite bicycle will have to go down because he can no longer afford to pay for the traffic that the internet sends to him. There is a chance that internet providers will blacklist websites and block people from trafficking the websites. If you notice, we are now being covered by comcast ,(if we are getting our service through comcast) if we type a domain name wrong, it takes us to a comcast specific page instead of the 404 page. This is a clear sign that those days are coming. This means an almost extortion mentality could come of this (old gangster’s voice)  ” look see, this what we want for sending people to your website see, or we stop people all together see”  When actually in all truth, if all the websites vanish from the internet, what the heck do we need internet for ? Looks like the whole internet freedom, is screeching to a hault in this case.

So if it is ruled against the carriers from charging the site owners, count on your internet being priced to come out of your pocket in a $50 a month for a limited amount of file size per month. chances are, they will do that anyway. charge the domain owners, and the customers.

Comcast is already testing this in a few cities across the united states.

Comcast 250 gb Bandwidth Cap and cloud computing?

It’s official, Comcast is crippling us in a crippling time.
During a time when we all need something to stay the same, Comcast is deciding to come up with a way to charge us more for stuff we are into. I mean, get addicted to smoking, they tax you, get addicted to internet activity, comcast buys out all providers and then sets a limit and charges for excess.
Ok enough with the rant before I let my real emotions loose.
Has anyone considered what this would do to cloud computing? we are considering CC here at the office I work at. We have well over 500 gb of important every day files that we access. even if we only touch about 4 gb of actual files a day, you have to picture 30 of us checking updates and status of each file. first we transfer to our pc so we can look t it, make changes as we need and re-upload it.
That 4 gigs of file getting transferred probably about 50 times a day, we would break our cap within a week.
I know , “Cloud Computing in an office ?” but you have to see that we have grown large and do not want to mess with our servers and do not want to have to worry about who is going to myspace or facebook while at work, we don’t want people’s computers getting a virus anymore. We wanna pay someone else to worry about all the tiny tweaks and just let us do our jobs.
Looks like comcast is making that a harder idea to see.

Dsl does not go that fast. There really is no option .

What is Comcast up to ?

Comcast will set a total available bandwidth usage. They will be charging for people going over their monthly limit.
For an unlimited internet. they sure do dance around the word “limit” a whole lot.

They claim 43% bandwidth usage increase. Well if you buy every internet company that has many users on it, expect an increase. This is how media dumbs us down and tells us that we should pay more an accept the fact that we are bad.

Give us a choice? “throttle or cap” ? are you kidding me?
I am for neither one. I live between 2 dsl hubs!
I didn’t go over my limit. I am unlimited.
my usage did not increase, they increased the number of users.
Time to Dsl it.
Sell out’s explain it to us
Net neutrality or bandwidth capping. WTF is actually happening here?
Does the “Comunismcast” hat fit yet ?
They bought out all companies in Texas that could be an alternative to their internet supply, then they tell us we will pay for anything over a limit.. again, unlimited bandwidth….?
I say leave comcast and cripple them before all the other companies join suite. Make an example of them.

Didn’t Microsoft get sued for this exact same thing?