I guess I should not be surprised. I have been suspecting it for some time now and right before posting this entry I searched for "Comcast Throttles" and found 3,210 hits -- with just about every one of them recounting their stories about how Comcast selectively turns down their bandwidth.
I do download things, but I do not consider myself a big bandwidth user. My biggest loads are Microsoft software updates, then Audible audio books, then a song here or there from iTunes. But I find myself tripping whatever mechanism Comcast has set up, and then I stay turned down -- sometimes for days.
I measured my throughput daily for the last week and you can see my bandwidth changes quite a bit.
I am sure that Comcast has to manage a variety of loads on the network, so I don't expect to be at 15 MBPS all of the time. But any time that my download speed is less than my upload speed -- is clearly suspect.
I don't think there is any law against turning down my bandwidth, and I am pretty sure that I don't have a contract that guarantees me a certain throughput all of the time. The offense in my view is that Comcast denies doing it -- when they clearly are.
Maybe I should move to Kansas City!
I don't think legislation is the answer because our lawmakers are definately under the spell of big companies like Comcast -- so any attempt to control their businesses would result in fewer rights or benefits to the customer.
So let's hope for competition to solve the problem.
Some links for you:
The "Comcast Throttles" search.
Wired Mag on the 250 BG cap
Now I have to start looking for ways to give Comcast less business. More on that later.