var json_comments = new Array("
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KhaiJB
May 4, 2009 9:46 PM
Moderate | Flag for review

3gigs a month excessive??

my wife and I do 2gigs a DAY.

methinks qwest have no idea what users are doing anymore.

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bohemian
May 4, 2009 9:50 PM
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With DSL is there any way to route your connection to a different gateway or DNS server or something so your going out but then going elsewhere? I think you can do so if your just leasing a line like a t-1, could you potentially do it with a DSL line? My understanding was T-1 is just the line, no routing or management. Maybe there is a work around in there somewhere that you can avoid Qwests monitoring?

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chris_d
May 4, 2009 10:26 PM
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@bohemian:
You can choose a different ISP. There are two components to the DSL service Qwest offers (except the new FTTN service) -- DSL service, which connects you to Qwest's nearest central office over ATM, and the internet service provider, which connects you to the Internet. If you want to go with a different ISP, you can, but if you're using 300 GB a month, I doubt other ISPs will be any happier about it than Qwest is. They also have bandwidth costs, believe it or not.

You can also go through a proxy server, but that will probably cost you money, and you're still using the bandwidth, so if you continue to use 300GB per month, you'll probably get shut off entirely.

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cabalagent1
May 4, 2009 9:52 PM
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Downloaded the newest Fedora or CentOS iso image? You're over the cap just an hour or two.

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WisconsinDadof2
May 4, 2009 9:52 PM
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As someone who has been in IT for many years, I can easily see how a technician can think something is true (like he read the agreement, and assumed, well we must do that), and upon further investigation find that not to be the case. It happens all the time.


This is not meant to defend any ISP or particular technician - but I would say that until you are talking to the department that could actually make that kind of change to your service, to take any reponses with a grain of salt.

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Benguin
May 4, 2009 9:53 PM
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or

1-2 DVD rips from the Pirate Bay

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Eric Le Yu
May 4, 2009 9:56 PM
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If the person is purely watching TV shows from sites like Crackle and Hulu, Qwest needs to rethink how the internet works nowadays.

An standard 25 minute episode of Family Guy on Hulu is about 100MB worth of streaming (I've tested a while back). Let's assume the person is watching 2 hours a day worth (which for sake of simplicity, 400MB). Now if that person watches streaming movies instead of TV for 2 hours a day for a month, it can total AT LEAST 12gigs for that month.

Qwest's policy may work in 2000, but it definitely would not work now. Even regular internet usage of 2 hours a day, the amount of images/photos on a website can accumulate very quickly. Visiting the homepage of Consumerist alone will count 25 images viewed.

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chris_d
May 4, 2009 10:13 PM
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@Eric Le Yu:
I've read someplace that the \"cap\", where Qwest would start throttling, is about 250GB. I don't remember where I read that, sorry, but it does fall in line with what they define as \"excessive\" use on their website. I find that perfectly reasonable. I consider my roommate and myself to be relatively heavy users and about 2 months ago our usage was 18GB for the month.

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chris_d
May 4, 2009 10:02 PM
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Based on the MP3 figure, I take that to mean that Qwest considers 320GB per month to fall into the excessive use category. I watch quite a few youtube videos and our usage is around 15-18GB per month down, and I have a roommate who also watches anime films in HD.

If this guy really *is* using 300+ GB per month, I'm gonna have to side with Qwest. 300 gigabytes for $30 per month isn't unreasonable. It does cost money to upgrade the network to support the increasing traffic levels. I work at a university and they've had to put some restrictions on students because the bandwidth costs were getting out of hand. Usage was going up almost exponentially.

I've never known Qwest to throttle anything, so I'd really like to know how much he's using. It's really hard to make a call without that information. I also don't consider the statement (3 GB) to be a \"soft cap\" at all. They're just saying that as a basis for comparison, their typical customer uses 1-3 GB per month. 320GB is 107 times that amount.

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Chris Walters
May 4, 2009 10:28 PM
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@chris_d: I've emailed the OP and asked him to estimate his monthly total usage for us.

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chrysrobyn
May 4, 2009 10:08 PM
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A 30 minute TV show is about 175megs, so a thousand of them should be 175 gigs. My average MP3 is over 4 megabytes, so 40k of them would be 160gigs. Seems like they're calling \"reasonable\" to be under 200 gigs per month. Unless I'm mistaken, that's 78KBps each second of the whole month.

I don't think YouTube is the culprit here.

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mariospants
May 4, 2009 10:18 PM
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I can see why QWest would deny throttling youtube: that site is pretty much \"grandma and grandpa\" territory by now and if word got out that they're filtering it, their sales would drop like a stone.

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mariospants
May 4, 2009 10:21 PM
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Oh, can someone please try this: call up or contact a QWest sales rep, request the same service as the OP and then ask if \"youtube and other video streaming sites are throttled\". I'll be (and it's likely corroborated by the story) that they'll say \"no\". Get that in writing.

Get the service, then confirm that the sites are being throttled.

Busted.

Now, call up QWest with your proof and ask for $10 per month for as long as you want or you'll go to the AG.

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1 replies
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Saisu Mimen
May 5, 2009 11:27 AM
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@mariospants:

Somehow I don't think a hand-written note by a low-level Qwest phone jockey counts as evidence. ;p

Joking aside, who exactly would give you this \"proof\"? Wouldn't it have to come from someone at Qwest's legal dept. (good luck!) and be signed and notarized for it to be considered admissible?

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Overheal
May 4, 2009 10:23 PM
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I wish I could tell how much I use :? Time Warner and Roadrunner still do not offer a monitoring service however.

And until I see one they can go to hell if they think they are going to meter me.

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AgitatedDot
May 5, 2009 12:03 AM
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@Overheal:

[www.metal-machine.de]
Freeware.

Yes it's Windows only and you have to install it on every machine in your place but it's better than nothing.

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Rachacha
May 4, 2009 10:26 PM
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\"Most customers who use broadband service at their homes use approximately 1-3 Gigabytes per month.\"


I am doing over 3 gigs on my iPhone on 3G per month. Heck, just today I received 0.945Gigs

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azsumrg1rl
May 4, 2009 10:31 PM
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I've been a Qwest customer for years, but our Internet has sucked since moving into our new house. At our old house, we payed for the 3MB service. I could watch streaming HD shows like Grey's Anatomy without skipping. When we moved, we upgraded to the 12MB service. Same computer, but I have to watch shows in standard def and it still skips. The BF does a lot of online gaming (thank you, Call of Duty) as well.

That said, how does someone with limited tech knowledge determine if their ISP is throttling or capping bandwidth?

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jliptak
May 4, 2009 11:19 PM
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@azsumrg1rl:
I had the same problem with my DSL when I moved four blocks. Mostly this was because of undiscovered bridge taps that worked sometimes and not at others.


While it took several trips (4 if I remember correctly) to get this resolved, it finally was.


Things I would recommend checking:


1.) what is your download speed from sites such as speakeasy.net that have apps that measure your acutal upload and download?


2.) What are the configuration numbers you get when you view your modem's web page. Usually, all you have to do to see this info is to go to the IP address of your modem. In a windows command prompt, type \"ipconfig /all\" (without the quotes). The value of the gateway IP address should be your modem and you can then browse there with \"http://192.168.0.1/\" or whatever you get. There should be a config page that tells you your connection quality.


3.) Keep track for a week or so and see if weather and/or time of day affect the performance. My circuit worked well in cold weather (morning), but not hot (noon).


4.) With those numbers, call Qwest repair and explain your performance issues.

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JerseyCelebrity
May 4, 2009 11:01 PM
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i think this blog is solely responsible for the attention that video is now getting on youtube. Tons of comments in the last hour.

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Révolution
May 4, 2009 11:05 PM
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Wow. 3 gigs is nothing. I normally go through twice that every day between VNC, Hulu, Slingbox, a bit of FTP, and my Ubuntu seedbox.

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JadoJodo
May 4, 2009 11:21 PM
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\"How will I know if I exceed the intended use of this service?

Please remember that most Qwest Broadband customers use their high-speed Internet service within the terms of their Qwest Broadband Subscriber Agreements, and therefore may continue using their broadband service as they currently do. Qwest proactively contacts the small number of customers whose usage is considered excessive to help find a broadband solution that better meets these customers' needs.\"

--

It sounds suspiciously like they DIDN'T attempt to make any sort of contact. Shameless WoW reference: Qwest failed. Please try again.

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Anonymous
May 4, 2009 11:37 PM
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Qwest definitely does not cap at 3 GB of DSL usage monthly. There is currently not a published limit of what is acceptable use, but I will say that Qwest does monitor bandwidth and will contact users that are at the upper end of what is \"acceptable\". This 3 GB limit that's being thrown out there is garbage, though. It is several hundred GB before you'd even come close to making it on radar.

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pengie
May 4, 2009 11:39 PM
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Interesting. The place I'm currently staying (it's basically a hotel) runs Qwest. For about a week, Youtube videos WOULD NOT LOAD. Then, last night... they magically started working again. COincidence? Hmmmmm.

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baristabrawl
May 4, 2009 11:57 PM
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This is nice. I'm moving to Denver in 8 days where Qwest is a choice. I, of course, hate them only by reputation and will not be utilizing their services.

Comcast is my other choice. I can't help but fell like I'm about to be raped.

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arstal
May 5, 2009 11:16 AM
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@baristabrawl: Just be glad you don't live in a TWC test market.

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Cant_stop_the_rock
May 5, 2009 12:13 AM
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Raise your hand if you actually read the whole article.

OK, so why are you all talking about the 3 GB \"soft cap\" that doesn't actually exist? It's clear from the section on excessive usage that they don't consider anything in the same ballpark as 3 GB to be excessive. Stating that most customers use less than 3 GB does not mean that anything more than 3 GB is excessive. Chris just misinterpreted that as a \"soft cap,\" and you all accepted his word as infallible. Reading is fundamental.

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MikeVx
May 5, 2009 12:15 AM
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It's getting depressing when I see all these transfer limits that can be hit in an hour on a relatively low speed connection. Given all the virus attack traffic on the net, is it even possible to rack up as little as 3GB?

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SasmitaScuderi
May 5, 2009 12:19 AM
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I am a Qwest customer in Seattle. My YouTube/Hulu streaming lately has been atrocious. I thought it was me, except I tried YouTube a couple of days later and it was fine. I have the same plan as the person in the original story. I think I am being throttled too. I guess it's time to start looking at alternatives. Comcast? Yikes!

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Project_J187
May 5, 2009 12:21 AM
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So glad that I have Verizon Fios. Last month I exceeded 120 GB and that doesn't include the 150 GB of Movies/TV shows that I downloaded at work off the T1 line.

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ErasmusAndreus
May 5, 2009 1:10 AM
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On average I use 150GBs a month. My ISP has never said anything. I don't even consider myself a heavy user.

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humphrmi
May 5, 2009 2:07 AM
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I can guess what's going on here (in general, not just at Qwest.) Cable companies make in the neighborhood of $100 / month for premium packages, which you can get for about $30 / month from your ISP. All give or take, of course, but my point is that in general, data is cheaper than T.V.

So I think that ISPs figure that they are getting the short end of the stick, delivering the same premium content for as little as 1/3 of the price that cable companies get.

I would not be surprised if in one year's time, especially if the trend toward internet-delivered content (e.g. Hulu, YouTube, etc.) continues, that ISPs will be charging damn near what cable companies charge to deliver television content. In other words, we're going to see more \"unlimited\" internet / data packages that offer higher limits / no throttling.

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Cant_stop_the_rock
May 5, 2009 2:22 AM
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@Project_J187 - downloading that stuff at work is a very, VERY bad idea.

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Matt Gumbel
May 5, 2009 2:44 AM
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I live in Portland, OR (near WA) and have a 6mbit Qwest line. In the last few months I also have experienced times where a raw youtube.com connection will go painfully slow (too slow to watch the video) but a youtube connection tunneled through VPN to my office will load blazingly fast. I suspect something fishy but have no good evidence.

Qwest: I have no problem paying per GB, but please don't deliver inconsistent service to certain domains. Thanks.

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dethl
May 5, 2009 4:44 AM
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For me, YouTube has been the only thing that has been slowed down to the point of unusable - Hulu/South Park Studios/BitTorrent all work no problem.

Methinks its time to call up Qwest. Ugh.

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2 replies
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dethl
May 5, 2009 6:21 AM
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@dethl(Just continuing more of my own notes to the situation):

The theoretical maximum possible per month on a 1.5MB/sec connection is about 486,000 MB / month (486GB). That's about 16.2GB a day assuming a 30-day month. So it becomes quite easy to hit the 3GB cap within a day (actually, 4 hours 24 minutes @ 1.5MB/sec). Never did I think i would see Qwest make the cellular companies' 5GB cap look good.

On another note: I called up Qwest and they said it was either my computer's fault or YouTube's fault. A quick run over to youtubeproxy.org quickly dissolved both those probabilities - Qwest just needs to own up to the problem and fix it or clarify some sort of YouTube cap (if such a cap is indeed in place I'm going to Comcast, though I really would rather not).

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chris_d
May 5, 2009 10:00 PM
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@dethl:
GO OVER TO DSLREPORTS.COM. There are several Qwest employees who posted saying THERE IS NO 3 GB CAP!!!! That's obvious if you can read. 3GB is typical or average for their customers. It's NOT a cap. One Qwest guy said it's in the hundreds of gigabytes.

It sounds to me like you'd have to be maxing out your connection every waking hour to get to the point where Qwest would start cutting you off.

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Anonymous
May 5, 2009 7:39 AM
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I'm here in Portland, OR and YouTube is sssslllllllooooowwww. It just started to happen about a week or two ago. I compared the same video between Qwest DSL and my iPhone 3G. The iPhone played the video no problem, while DSL would play a few seconds and crap out. When the video on the iPhone reached 90 seconds, Qwest DSL was at 0:14 and stalled. Time to get Comcastic. Great -- looking forward to that...

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phate
May 5, 2009 8:22 AM
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Well looks like I'm boned and on their hot list, I know for a fact that I passed 47GB last month. Between Video (Hulu + Slingbox), gaming, and a little bittorrent here or there (I needs my mythbusters and BSG), and uploading school work I could easily top that. Hell I even pulled down 12GB via my iPhone in February (was away from home, and tethered a few times but most of it was on the phone itself). ATT wasn't happy with me that month... but hey I'm paying for unlimited data, it better damn well be used.

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usern4me
May 5, 2009 1:26 PM
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I'm on their 8mb/down plan, never been throttled down. I download quite a bit, but not excessive like some people I know.

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Anonymous
May 5, 2009 3:45 PM
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What a ridiculous, cheap company. A 3 GB cap is a complete joke. That's almost NOTHING and costs them almost nothing to provide. Worse, Qwest needs to grow a pair and have the integrity to at least make their caps explicit so all their customers can make an informed buying and using decision and not be caught by any surprises.

It is insane these companies can get away with this type of behavior. We as customers need to lobby for increased government regulation as well as vote with our money whenever a better competitor is available for any service they sell. Also, for current customers \"stuck\" with some of their services, we should complain and complain loudly and often. Drive up their support costs and get the message through. If you do leave for another competitor, make sure they know why you left. If nothing else, these companies eventually WILL sit up straight and pay attention when things start having an impact on the bottom line.

Also, when they start to get a bunch of negative press and online postings, maybe that will focus their attention.

The people who run this sad company need a reality check, and we need to give it to them!

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UnnamedUser
May 5, 2009 4:10 PM
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I submitted the material for this post. Thank you Consumerist for posting it.

After I sent my letter to Consumerist's editors yesterday, I ran a number of tests to determine exactly what download speed they were providing. It was under 9Kb/sec. That's slower than dial-up.

The test I used was Firefox 3.0.8 with the FlashGot plugin. My host OS is Ubuntu 8.04 Linux. -- When you ask FlashGot to download a Flash file, it gives you a pop-up status window with status updates at about 1-sec intervals. The file being downloaded was from YouTube titled \"YouTube Symphony Orchestra @ Carnegie Hall\", a 59 minute video. (see also: [www.youtube.com] ). The file is large: about 500MB, about the same size as a Linux distribution .iso file.

When the FlashGot pop-up came up, the download started. FlashGot calculated the time estimated for download at 18 hours. ... Yup! 18 hours. How does that mesh with 1.5Mb/sec I bought?

I had previously run some tests via proxy server I know of (don't ask) that is not public but has no bandwidth congestion. It ran at my full rated speed. -- So, at least in my mind, it is conclusive: QWest is rate limiting.

While composing this comment, I brought up YouTube and ran the first video on the page. It ran at rated speed. My questions now:
\"Did I get 'special treatment' because of my vocal complaint? -- Did QWest back off on their policy of rate limiting YouTube and others? -- Did QWest change some configuration to not kick in the rate limiting until some threshhold of bandwidth useage?\" ... There will probably be other questions later.

The WA attorney general's office starts taking calls at 10AM (PDT -800). I'm going to give 'em a call.

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chris_d
May 5, 2009 9:33 PM
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@UnnamedUser:
I'm curious to know exactly how much bandwidth you're using, because in my experience, Qwest doesn't throttle. Care to enlighten us on how much you're using? I suspect there may be something you're not telling us.

Also, could you explain to me how 9 kilobytes per second is slower than dial-up? Dial-up connects at about 50 kiloBITS per second under better-than-average conditions, and when you divide that by 8 you get 6.25.

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UnnamedUser
May 5, 2009 4:11 PM
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@UnnamedUser:
oops ... that should have been:
(GMT -800)

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Anonymous
May 5, 2009 4:17 PM
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Based on this article and looking the \"3GB is normal\" section on the Qwest site ( http://www.qwest.com/internethelp/eup/16915_EUP_Details-15.pdf), I have just canceled the order for DSL service that I placed last week. I was going to get the 12Mb/s service, but if I am going to be seen as an \"Abnormal\" user for going over the \"normal\" 3GB/month, then I guess Qwest is not for me. I guess I will just stay with Comcast and at least I know I have a 250GB cap, and it is clearly stated and defined. Not that I even come close to that ever. What was just bugging me about Comcast was the throttling of my Netflix viewing. But I guess as the saying goes: \"The devil you know, is better than the devil you don't\".

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Matt
May 5, 2009 5:33 PM
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This has been happening to me too, as a Qwest customer in SLC. I have done everything thinking it was my flash gone bad. I have been having such problems with youtube alone and when I run a speedtest I pull my advertised speed. Nefarious, naughty Qwest!!!

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Matt
May 5, 2009 5:50 PM
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@Matt: I sent Qwest a tweet (@TalkToQwest) to ask what they thought about this article. They said that they do have an excessive use policy and told me to email them at talktous@qwest.com and they can check my account and find out. We'll see if I violated their policy.

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Arthur J Schoenfeld
May 5, 2009 5:57 PM
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@Matt:

I have Qwest in SLC as well, and have been having problems with it. After having downloaded a show or movie through iTunes and running a speedtest it only pulls at about 0.600 Mbps when I should be getting 1.2-1.5 Mpbs. Maybe I'll shoot them an email as well to see what's up.

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Matt
May 6, 2009 4:38 PM
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@Arthur J Schoenfeld: FYI I just heard back from Qwest at that email address. The copy and pasted the official statement that Consumerist posted shortly after this article and also included the following text:
However, I would like you to know I have been working with our technical support group and they have spoken with our engineers, we know there is a problem with YouTube streaming (possibly others but haven't had as many complaints), but our side doesn't seem to be causing the issue. We have attempted contact with various parties to see if we can isolate an issue and help be part of the resolution. I know that doesn't fix things, but I hope it helps.

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lemortede
May 7, 2009 12:47 PM
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@Matt:
After reading this I tested my Youtube at home as well.
Same results.
Hulu.. No problems.
Youtube... cant watch anything. It takes too long to stream.

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lemortede
May 7, 2009 12:48 PM
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@lemortede:
Sorry to double post. I'm just south of SLC and using q

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UnnamedUser
May 5, 2009 10:36 PM
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I am the author of the letter underlying this post.

Earlier today, I had said that QWest seemed to have restored full bandwidth. Well, I just followed a huffingtonpost link to a YouTube URL and it downloads the first 5 seconds of the video then stops completely.

Thanks QWest.

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Anonymous
May 6, 2009 6:49 PM
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This seems to have started last week. I spent many hours troubleshooting the cause. Either Qwest is throttling youtube or they have a leak that is letting all the youtube bits out of the pipe. If there is a technical problem, they need to find it and fix it. I called tech support and they said they could do nothing, not even test for anything, then CLICK! I only get disconnected when I call Qwest. And I was nice. Bad Qwest.

Click here to give Charlie a call - http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm . Complain about \"Availablity\" and demand they force Qwest to re-instate the service recently provided.

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