Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Comcast Filtering Pushing Customers Away

Comcast has briefed the FCC on their traffic policies. They are shaping the traffic to slow down some user's data transfers. Music and video transfers are two that are being slowed.

Time Warner is running a trial of hard bandwidth caps. Comcast is also considering the same thing. A fee will be charged for exceeding the bandwidth cap.

All of this makes me think that I should cancel my Comcast service. Luckily, I live in an area where I have some choice. I can get satellite from Direct or Dish. Embarq offers DSL and I've used their service. It looks like speed of 10Mbps/860kbps (Down/Up) is available.

I spend about $100/mth with Comcast. I'm guessing that Embarq will cost about $55-$65/mth. Direct will probably cost another $50-$60. Is it worth the potential extra $120/yr plus equipment costs? If it will help make Comcast wake up, maybe it is.

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