Comcast Bans Seattle Man From Internet for His Cloudy Ways
Found on Wired on Thursday, 14 July 2011
Vrignaud, it seems, committed the foul of using more than 250 GB of data on Comcast two months in a row, triggering the company's overage policy that results in a year-long ban from using its services.
And all Comcast is saying is that he's kicked off - and under the terms of the ban, he can't even switch to a uncapped, higher-priced, lower-speed business connection.
Spokesman Charlie Douglas says the 250 GB limit, which it imposed in October 2008 after agreeing to not throttle peer-to-peer traffic, is intended to keep users like Vrignaud from impacting their neighbors.
"People should be careful if they have a terabyte of data to back-up," Douglas said. "They should manage their consumption carefully, and do it over time."
So, in other words, Comcast punished Vrignaud because they failed to improve their network, which is the main job of an ISP. If their business plan evolves around the assumption that users won't make traffic, they are up for a rough awakening.