One service the usage cap-happy broadband industry will be certain to threaten is online file backup.  Consumers who don’t know any better can easily configure software to back up entire hard drives to a remote hard drive, blowing through an online usage allowance in a matter of days.  Even usage allowances as large as Comcast’s 250GB per month are no match for today’s super-sized hard drives.

So it comes with a bit of irony that Comcast has quietly launched its new Secure Backup & Share service, “powered by” Mozy.

Every Comcast broadband customer will soon be pelted with promotions for the new free add-on, which will initially provide 2GB of storage space.  The free version is enough to backup small collections of music, photos, and documents, and probably won’t hurt your allowance too much.  But Mozy gets to up-sell customers to their much-larger capacity plans right from the home page.  A year’s worth of 50GB of storage costs $50.  Get 200GB of storage space for $100 a year.

Exceeding 250GB of usage per month, with or without the service, will potentially get you a warning letter and then an account suspension.

Bonus points to you if you can find the 250GB usage limit disclosed on the home page for the service.

For providers who try for far lower usage allowances, or charge up to $2 per gigabyte after exceeding them, an online file backup service could make your provider’s day once they send you the bill.

Comcast's new usage gauge is being tested in Oregon

Comcast’s long promised “usage gauge” has arrived.  The company promised to provide one to customers more than a year ago when it imposed a 250GB monthly usage limit on its residential broadband accounts.  Although generous in comparison to some other providers that limit customers to as little as 1-5GB of usage per month, Comcast’s allowance and the meter re-emphasizing it has created controversy among customers concerned about usage caps, potential overlimit fees or speed throttles.

Stop the Cap! reader “bones” sent along word of the measurement tool beta test in the Portland, Oregon area, and reviewing the accompanying data exposes some inconvenient facts such usage limits will have on customers.

Comcast’s version of the ‘gas gauge’ depicts usage on a bar graph and is updated monthly.  Company officials claim the average user consumes just 2-4 gigabytes per month, a debatable figure.  Comcast claims about 1% of their subscribers exceed 250GB of usage per month, but does not indicate whether that number has been on the increase as the company unveils new premium speed, premium priced broadband tiers.

Comcast hired NetForecast to “independently” verify the accuracy of the meter, which they claim produces results within 0.5% accuracy.

The company’s report concludes with praise for Comcast’s new meter, claiming it “will shine a new light on a previously unknown and misunderstood aspect of the digital age. NetForecast believes that this information will allow consumers to become better informed, and better informed consumers will help positively shape the Internet’s future.”

It also increases resentment towards a company that makes them check a meter to be sure they are within their “allowance” for the month, particularly when that company makes loads of money on broadband service.

NetForecast’s tests do reveal several new pieces of information to the “net meter” controversy:

1. The company found up to 1GB of traffic per month represented “background traffic associated with modem management.”  That’s a considerable amount of data counted against a customer’s usage, especially for customers stuck on lower consumption usage plans;
2. The increasing complexity of some web pages and their underlying structure can contribute to additional traffic associated with “protocol overhead”;
3. Poorer line quality can result in increased traffic due to retransmission requests;
4. “Unexpected” traffic is so substantial, it warranted its own section in the NetForecast report:

Traffic can be generated by more than just PCs. Any device that has access to the wireless router is a potential Internet traffic generator—including smart phones, game consoles, digital video recorders, printers, cameras, etc. Many non-PC devices “phone home” to a manufacturer or supporting service. These automated connections are transparent to the user as a convenience so the user is unaware of the traffic generated.

The most likely source of unexpected traffic, however, is from software running on PCs throughout the home. The Windows operating system and most popular software have automated update programs. These updates often download and are installed automatically without the need for user intervention. The automation is generally designed for the convenience and protection of the consumer, but the traffic it generates may come as a surprise.

Each program update download may be modest in size, however, when you multiply a modest download by the number of programs calling for updates and the number of PCs in the house, the traffic attributable to updates can be substantial. Furthermore, in some cases the vendor default update settings are very aggressive, with some default settings checking each hour and downloading every possible option even though they are not all needed. For example, a software program may load its interface in a dozen languages even though all household members only know how to read English.

That’s just the beginning.  The company also documented “surprise usage” from smartphones downloading updates, photo sharing sites, online backup, and other online applications.  Perhaps most important are online video services:

A large volume of traffic may be going to digital video recorders such as TiVo. A user in the home may have rented a movie from Amazon, Netflix. Blockbuster, etc. Renting the movie will be a known traffic-generating event, however, many services also preload the start of other movies as well as trailers to make them instantly available should they be called for. As in other situations described above, traffic is consumed for the consumer’s convenience but without his or her knowledge.

If Comcast’s meter results showing your usage doesn’t make sense and you don’t believe or understand the numbers, wait until you read how it is your responsibility, as a customer, to do all the sleuthing.

NetForecast’s prescription for “rogue traffic” requires the customer to shut off their computers and other connected devices for a “digitally silent” period (overnight or on a weekend when traveling).  Then, the customer gets to follow this routine:

At the end of the digital silence turn on one PC and log back into the Comcast meter portal, or you can check from an Internet cafe or other means while you are away. If true digital silence was achieved, the meter should not have incremented by more than 1GB. If there is more than 1GB use over even several days, then there is certainly some other traffic consumer connected through the router.

If the digital silence experiment worked, then carefully add devices back to the home network while watching the meter. Note that the meter only increments once per hour, so it may take some time to find a rogue traffic source. On the other hand, the home may simply be a highly connected place that is leveraging many aspects of the Internet, and the traffic may be entirely due to legitimate use.

“I guess those of us who are Comcast customers get to add this to our ‘list of things to do’ when we are trying to enjoy our broadband service,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Karen in Portland.  “Can you imagine telling a customer whose wireless wi-fi was ‘borrowed’ by a neighbor that they have to do all this when half the time, those customers don’t even understand how to enable wi-fi security?”

Each and every byte gets counted.  Almost.

Exempt from the usage meter are Comcast’s digital phone service and on-demand video services sent to your television. That’s a nice benefit for Comcast, but not so nice for their competitors, such as voice-over-IP telephone services and the aforementioned Netflix, Amazon, and other on-demand broadband video services. Programming sent to your computer over Comcast’s forthcoming TV Everywhere service does count against your allowance, however.

With a 250GB allowance, it may be some time before most customers find themselves routinely having to limit their usage to avoid exceeding it.  But that assumes Comcast doesn’t follow some other providers into a limbo dance of lowered usage allowances.  With a meter in place, it’s as simple as lowering the cap and telling the customer to check before they use.

What do Comcast customers think?  Comcast’s blog amusingly illustrates some company employees love it, and most consumers hate it:

“Finally! This is great stuff, I cannot wait for this to roll out in our market. We’ve been waiting and customers have been asking for months. Keep up the good work out there, and let’s never stop being innovative. We ROCK!” — Ozzie Navarro, presumably the ‘we’ is this instance refers to an author employed by Comcast.

“How is it great that you’re capping a service I pay monthly for at great expense? Now I can see it in a meter, wow! Upgrade your damn infrastructure to support more bandwidth instead of cutting off customers.” — Jason

“Don’t think you are fooling people by saying, ‘Only x% of people use over 250gb/month, and 1-x% of people won’t have to worry.’ Would you outright deny that you are implementing this feature because you feel your TV industry is threatened by Netflix, Slingbox, Hulu.com, et al.? You say it is to provide all users with a better experience. You say that because some people are “hogging the internet”, grandma can’t look at photos of her grandchildren fast enough. Did it ever occur to you that more people are using more web-intensive programs everyday? It’s not like bandwidth is a finite resource. As much as you guys want to say it is, bandwidth is only limited by ISPs. You love to say that your “networks are overburdened.” Hate to point out the obvious, but you are the ones selling the service so you should plan accordingly for usage. You sell people an advertised rate of 10Mbps, knowing full well that unless everyone else in their neighborhood is offline, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell you’ll get these speeds.

Then you have the nerve to say because so many people are “abusing their privilege” you must implement a bandwidth cap to “maintain the integrity of our networks.” I pay $50/month just to access this wonderful series of tubes known as the internet. When I was sold this plan, I was told very specifically that it was UNLIMITED.  That meant, if I maxed out my possible internet consumption everyday — no big deal — that’s what unlimited means. It’s becoming more and more obvious that this whole thing is a money grab, much like overdraft fees from our favorite financial institutions. I love how in the last comment you preach about rolling out your DOCSIS 3.0 system, which will supposedly let people have higher speeds. You don’t plan on upgrading the amount we can use per month though do you? That was suspiciously left absent from your article. Basically you are giving us the power use the internet in more innovative ways, but punishing us for trying to take advantage of your speeds. Thanks for giving me the ability to hit the upper limit more easily and quickly!” — Matt

“So a service whose advertising mentions NOTHING about data caps is actually capped, eh? That’s nice. It’s also really nice that you’re rolling out a faster product, so people can use up their allotted internet EVEN FASTER. Comcast doesn’t want people not paying for their ridiculously overpriced TV service, so they cripple their internet so you don’t have a choice. Really nice.” — Comcast customer

Glenice Maclellan, Telstra's point person on broadband, has recently discovered Australians don't just want to browse the web and read e-mail on their broadband service.

Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, has responded to customers leaving their broadband service over its fraudband speeds and paltry usage caps by increasing both, but not nearly enough to change perceptions that Australian providers still serve up slow, overpriced and restrictive service.

Telstra’s CEO David Thodey, who replaced the oft-despised Sol Trujillo, told investors what every Australian contemplating broadband service already knows: “In some parts of the market we’ve gone too far out of line and we need to come back. We must focus on our core business and our customers, this is where we create value for shareholders. At its simplest, the next stage in Telstra’s long-term strategy is to focus on satisfying customers, invest in new capabilities, and drive growth in new businesses.”

Thodey’s approach is to do away with the company’s downright lousy “broadband” service in many rural areas of Australia.  More accurately called “fraudband,” there are still many Australians suffering with Telstra BigPond service that tops out at a ridiculously slow 256kbps.  And because company officials suspect you’ll even use that too much, they slapped a usage cap as low as 200 megabytes on the service, with a war crime overlimit fee of $0.15 per megabyte thereafter.  Your low price?  $27US a month.  For that.  But you can double your allowance to 400 megabytes for a mere $9US more per month.  Grab the bargain.

Effective December 1st, Telstra will move its rural customers to 1996-level broadband service, offering 1.5Mbps minimum to those doing their web surfing over DSL lines.  For those paying $27 a month, they’re increasing your usage allowance to a still-paltry 2 gigabytes per month, and leaving the $0.15/mb overlimit fee in place.  Most DSL customers stuck on these plans will be herded up to the $36 a month plan which is “generous” in comparison with a new download quota of 12 gigabytes per month and no overlimit fee.  Instead, once you hit your limit, they cut your speed to 64kbps for the rest of the month.

Oh but wait, there are some more gotchas:

• Unless you are bundling your molasses-slow Internet service with a phone line package that brings Telstra at least $81US per month in revenue, add $9 to these plan prices.  You wouldn’t want Telstra management to go home hungry, would you?
• Uploads are also a part of your usage allowance.
• Many of their plans lock you in with a 24-month service commitment.  They’ve got you right where they want you.

If you find Telstra’s Oliver Twistian-usage allowances leave you hungry for more, no worries.  Telstra will happily upgrade your service to a higher usage plan, with correspondingly higher prices, by the following day.  That’s good to know if Microsoft obliterated a good part of your usage allowance for the month with critical Windows updates.

Or you could always take your business elsewhere, as many budget conscious Australians have.  Thodey’s fear about out-of-touch broadband pricing is real when considering Telstra’s competitor iiNet offers 4GB (2GB peak/2GB off peak) for just about the same price Telstra charges for its $27 a month/200 megabyte plan.

The company has also recently discovered that Australians want to use their broadband service for more than just web browsing and e-mail.  That’s apparently news to Telstra management, who threw this into their PR push:

“Telstra’s new plans cater for the changing ways Australians use broadband for communications and entertainment at home.  Gone are the days when broadband was used only to check email or internet surf. Australian families now also use broadband to download videos, play online games, or check social networking sites all at the same time”. — Glenice Maclellan, the Acting Group Managing Director of the Consumer division, Telstra

Thanks, Glenice.  The only problem here is that Australians didn’t get to do those things much because of your rationed broadband plans which either overcharged them if they tried, or speed throttled them back to dial-up as a reminder not to be a naughty data hog.

Now, Australians can at least feed at the trough… for a little while.

Telstra offers other plans, which vary on whether you qualify for ADSL 1 service (original DSL) or live in an urban/suburban area upgraded for ADSL 2 or cable modem service.  All prices hereafter are in Australian dollars – $10AUD = $0.91US at time of writing):

New Broadband Pricing for full service fixed phone customers

Those prices are enough to give North American providers dreams of Money Parties in their heads forever.  Only Time Warner Cable came close with their infamous $150 unlimited usage plan they tried to stick customers with in several cities this past April.

That platinum-deluxe BigPond Liberty 200GB plan bundled with a TV package will cost you more than $4,560US over the life of the 24-month contract.

Australians continue to wait for a National Broadband Network plan that the government says should finally free Australians from a life of being told you have to spend more… a lot more, to save just a little from companies like Telstra.

A spoof on Telstra’s BigPond Internet Support Call Center (1 minute)

Rogers Communications wants you to watch television on your broadband service, but not too much.  The Canadian cable company’s On Demand Online service was previewed Monday at a media event with plans for a public launch on November 30.

On Demand Online will showcase specific television shows as well as the entire lineup of certain channels.  The service has more than a dozen partner networks providing programming, among them TVOntario, Treehouse, Citytv, SuperChannel, and Sportsnet.

Premium programming will be available to Rogers subscribers who also receive those networks as part of their cable television package.  No cable TV package?  No access for you.  (Update: Rogers says it will offer the service to customers of any Rogers service.)  For now, company officials say the service will be available for no additional charge, but will be ad-supported.  Using On Demand Online will count against your usage cap/consumption billing allowance.  The service offers two speeds for viewing – a low resolution 480kbps feed and a higher resolution 1Mbps feed.  Rogers intends to increase the quality of the high resolution service to 2-2.5Mbps in the near future.

Rogers rations your online TV experience with usage allowances that make sure you don't spend too much time online watching shows you should be viewing on your Rogers cable TV service.

Rogers’ usage allowances, a part of their well-established Internet Overcharging scheme, will make it difficult for those already spending a lot of time online to enjoy the service.  Watching the current high speed, higher resolution feed could exceed 1GB of usage in just over two hours according to Digital Home.  That drops in half when Rogers upgrades the quality of the feed.

Customers who blow through their allowance face overlimit penalties and fees on their next bill.

Qualified subscribers will access the service through Rogers’ broadband web portal using established account names and passwords.  While the service will work “on-the-go,” Rogers says it will be keeping an eye out for password sharing and will also impose any viewing limitations required by content producers.  That could mean what is okay to watch in Ontario is not okay in Alberta, due to licensing issues.

Stop the Cap! reader Ibrahim in Toronto wonders how Rogers expects to get a lot of customers excited about a service that will help erode their monthly usage allowance.

“Isn’t is fascinating that Rogers wants to effectively charge you for every hour you watch online when you’ve already paid for the channel on your monthly cable bill?  What’s next, a meter on top of the television set demanding a quarter for every 15 minutes of viewing?” he asks.

Susan in North York wonders why she’ll have to pay for every ad.

“When I read about this service, I thought we were finally going to get something like Hulu here in Canada, but with usage-based billing, who is going to use up their allowance watching shows with ads all over them — ads I am now going to pay to watch,” she wonders.  “I guess it’s newsgroups for me — I can download my shows without ads and pay less.”

While the program content can be fast-forwarded or rewound, commercial advertisements on the service cannot be skipped or hurried through.  Initially, the service is expected to show just one ad per program, but Rogers intends to eventually run the same number of ads consumers would find if watching the program live on television.  With up to 12 minutes of advertising per hour, that also helps slowly eat away your monthly allowance.

What are the monthly usage allowances for Rogers Hi-Speed Internet service?

Ultra Lite – 2 GB
Lite – 25 GB
Express – 60 GB
Extreme  – 95 GB
Extreme Plus – 125 GB

Please note: The grandfathered Ultra Lite and Lite monthly usage allowance is 60 GB. Also, Rogers Portable Internet and dial-up services do not have usage allowances at this time.

Will I be charged if I go beyond my monthly usage allowance?

Yes. If you exceed your monthly usage allowance, you will be charged as follows:

Ultra Lite – $5.00/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Lite – $2.50/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Express – $2.00/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Extreme – $1.50/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Extreme Plus – $1.25/GB to a maximum of $25.00

Please note: the grandfathered Ultra Lite over-allowance fee is $5.00/GB with no maximum, and the grandfathered Lite over-allowance fee is $3.00/GB with no maximum.

Annoying usage caps, allowances, and consumption billing irritate broadband users in those places where Internet Overcharging is established.  But the demand by consumers for unlimited broadband is so strong, some ISPs are giving way, looking for competitive edges that can win them new customers and keep the ones they already have happy.

Orcon, a DSL provider serving New Zealand, has announced it is exempting visits to YouTube from its data allowance until the end of January 2010.

“YouTube is one of the hottest properties on the web – with an almost endless supply of content. It makes up a big chunk of our customer-base’s usage every month. With the school holidays looming and the festive season in full swing we’re expecting a big uptake from our customers,” said Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett.  “Streaming and downloading can rapidly chew through gigabytes of data so these holidays mums and dads can rest assured their data cap won’t take a beating. It is also a great opportunity for families to make and share their own holiday home movies with friends and family around the world.”

Orcon presently exempts several domestic websites, including TV New Zealand, from its usage allowance.  YouTube is one of the first international sites Orcon has exempted.

Orcon services its customers over the telephone network using ADSL and, in selected areas, ADSL2+ which provides service theoretically up to 24Mbps.

For Orcon customers, any streaming video exemption is good news, considering the ISP’s tiny usage allowances.

Orcon charges prices that would shock Americans:

Orcon’s Purple Plan provides a variable download speed (often 8Mbps or less downstream) and 128kbps upstream service with a 1GB monthly usage allowance for $29US a month.  Each additional gigabyte costs $1.50.  Their Platinum Plan doesn’t provide additional speed, just a bigger usage allowance.  For 20GB of usage per month, prepare to spend $95 per month.  Domestic long distance and local calling is also included in the Platinum Plan.  Orcon’s new ADSL2+ network is even more pricey, but can deliver faster speeds (12-15Mbps seem to be real world ranges for downstream).  The usage allowance is slightly higher on the ADSL2+ network, but not by much.  The highest allowance available tops out at 25GB.

[flv width=”640″ height=”405″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Orcon Broadband Iggy Pop Ad 11-16-09.flv[/flv]

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p style=”text-align: center;”>Orcon Broadband ran an advertising campaign to find eight New Zealanders to help Iggy Pop re-record ‘The Passenger’ live via Orcon Broadband.  This is the result. (November 16, 2009 – 2 minutes)