Comcast, Frontier, Time Warner Cable - The End of Unlimited Internet?

Thursday, September 11, 2008 by: Rich Stacel

(NaturalNews) Well no sooner was Comcast busted for blocking various internet connections in a recent ruling by the FCC, now they and other cable giants such as Time Warner and Frontier are looking to place usage limits on a monthly basis.

Last week, Comcast which is the second largest internet provider in the country, announced that beginning on October 1st that they would set usage limits on a monthly basis for internet usage. This is not the same as what Comcast was recently cited for by the FCC. That was for limiting specific types of connections, specifically peer to peer connections. Whether the FCC can or will do anything against these usage limits remains to be seen.

Comcast has said that their cap is going to be about 250 gigabytes (gb) per month, which they say is generous and will only affect about 1% of current users who are hogging up bandwidth and slowing the connection down for the majority of other users. Critics state that Comcast is taking the wrong approach and that instead of upgrading their systems to easily handle the load that customers are paying for, their choice is to not spend anymore money and place limits on how much their customers can use the internet.

On August 1st, Frontier communication changed its policy as well and set usage limits of 5 gb per month. In June, Time Warner Cable also launched a program in Beaumont, Texas that places usage limits on users of between 5 and 40 gb. In its announcement, Comcast states "To put its monthly limit of 250 GB in perspective, the company said that to consume that much bandwidth a customer would have to send 50 million e-mails, 62,500 songs, download 125 standard-definition movies or upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos."

Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas: "...When the customers would exceed the limit" he said Comcast would call to alert them. In most cases, the customer would voluntarily moderate his or her usage in response. If customers didn't cut back on usage, Comcast reserved the right to suspend service. Douglas said the only difference in the policy is that customers now know that the threshold is 250 GB per month. In a previous statement, Comcast said that more than two violations within a six month period could get a customer's account suspended.

But industry experts state that Internet technology is rapidly advancing and the lack of good data make it difficult to prepare for the future.

"Today's bandwidth hog is tomorrow's average user", said Fred Von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties group. If a cap had been imposed on the top 10 percent of Internet users in 1997, many Internet innovations of today would likely not exist," he said, "This is not an emergency, but it is something that needs to be carefully watched". Looks like we're going back to the days of dial up connections where you charged on an hourly basis but instead of the snails pace of dial up, you'll still have the high speed of broadband.

Carefully watched is certainly correct. As we move into the future with more and more restrictions being imposed on us in all walks of life, this is merely another way that the powers that be are trying to place limits and controls on our lives while at the same time increasing their own control and profits. This one is more about control than money it seems. As many NaturalNews readers probably are aware of, we're moving into a time when those with money, power and influence want to control every aspect of our lives as they think themselves to be truly superior and the internet is the one thing that they don't yet have control over but they're dying to get control of. This is how it all starts, little by little until they tighten the grip more and more simply to satisfy their own egos and lusts for power over the average person.

Those in power who are seeking to unify the world under one government, starting with NAFTA here in North America and later the rest of the world, are desperately trying to get their hands on the internet since it has been a huge stumbling block to their stranglehold on information and truth that they currently enjoy through the corporate controlled media. A truly informed public is the only defense against their control since they need our cooperation and submission to make it happen. Knowledge is power so we must be as informed as possible. With the internet and the rise of alternative news, their plans are being exposed to the world.

Is something like this limiting of internet usage the first stage of their attempts to tighten control of the internet and the dissemination of the truth? Time will tell. Phone company internet providers are watching closely to see how customers react to this action by the cable companies to see if they can follow suit as well. Hopefully there will be enough of an uproar to force the cable companies to reverse these policies. After all, cell phone plans used to have usage limits and they're moving more and more towards unlimited long distance, in plan usage and text messaging for one flat rate, so for the cable companies to place usage limits is going backwards, not forewords and this is a step in the wrong direction.

Here are some videos you might find interesting:

"Freedom To Facism" (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid...)

"Endgame" (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=e...)

source article: (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/SmartH...)

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