How Can I Reduce Data Usage Mediacom Uploads?

Hidden limits on uploads —

Cablevision Internet service provider warns "excessive" uploaders, says network can't handle heavy usage

Mediacom says heavy uploaders impairment network even if they don't exceed data cap.

Mediacom, a cable company with about 1.4 million Internet customers across 22 states, is telling heavy uploaders to reduce their information usage—even when those users are well below their monthly information caps.

Mediacom'south fastest Internet plan offers gigabit download speeds and 50Mbps upload speeds with a monthly data cap of 6TB. But as Stop the Cap wrote in a detailed report on Wednesday, the Internet service provider is "reach[ing] out to a growing number of its heavy uploaders and telling them to reduce usage or face a speed throttle or the possible closure of their business relationship." Mediacom told Ars that it is contacting heavy uploaders "more ofttimes than before" because of increased usage triggered by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. The company said that heavy uploaders "may exist under their total bandwidth usage allowance simply still take a negative impact on Mediacom'southward network."

Mediacom's terms and conditions say the company charges $10 fees for each additional block of 50GB used by customers who exceed the information cap. But users may be warned almost their usage long before they risk overage fees. Ane user in Due east Moline, Illinois, who described the predicament on a DSLReports forum in early January, said they paid for the 6TB plan "to make sure we wouldn't become over the cap" and had never used more than 4TB. The user wrote:

And then, got a call from the Mediacom fraud and abuse section today. The rep told me they were calling customers that have "college than boilerplate" bandwidth usage equally they are having network problems. I hurried upwardly and checked my account and only used a bit over 2.5TB terminal calendar month. He told me my upload was 450GB over their boilerplate and if I didn't reduce my usage they would either throttle or disconnect me. I argued that I used less than one-half of the total data allowed by my plan, just he said my 1.2TB of upload was also much and that this was my warning.

Another gigabit user in Missouri named Cory told Stop the Cap that the 6TB monthly cap "is mode more than than I will e'er use, merely I notwithstanding received a alarm letter claiming I was uploading besides much. I discovered I used well-nigh 900GB over the last ii months, setting upward a deject fill-in of my figurer. At well-nigh I can transport files at around 50Mbps, which they merits is interfering with other customers in my neighborhood. I don't understand."

Too much usage in "Mediacom'due south sole stance"

Messages sent by Mediacom to heavy uploaders said, "your account'southward usage is greater than 99.v percent of all Service customers. Due to your excessive employ, you lot are negatively impacting Mediacom's network and other users of the Service."

The letter goes on to say that it'due south a "violation" of Mediacom's adequate use policy to "utilize excessive bandwidth, whether upstream or downstream, that in Mediacom'due south sole opinion, places an unusually big burden on the network or goes over normal usage. Mediacom has the right to impose limits on excessive bandwidth consumption via any means available to Mediacom."

Mediacom provided slightly more detail to the Federal Communications Commission in response to customer complaints. A Mediacom letter of the alphabet to the FCC said the company'due south "network is congenital to allow for more than downstream usage than upstream usage." Mediacom's letter of the alphabet to the FCC besides described the data cap as "a large conduit with a smaller conduit within it... Due to historical trends, the smaller conduit allows for upstream usage while the residuum of the conduit is reserved for downstream usage." Heavy upload employ can stress that "smaller conduit," meaning that customers "tin can be under the total information usage allowance but still be negatively impacting the network."

Mediacom blames pandemic

Fifty-fifty without the overall data caps, Mediacom's Cyberspace plans accept built-in limits on uploading. While the gigabit-download plan limits uploads to 50Mbps, the 60Mbps-download plan limits uploads to just 5Mbps and the 100Mbps-download programme limits uploads to 10Mbps. The threescore/5Mbps program has a 200GB monthly cap, and the 100/10Mbps plan has a 1TB cap.

Nosotros asked Mediacom why it hasn't upgraded its network plenty to fully back up the upload speeds and information allotments that its customers pay for, but we didn't receive an reply. New versions of the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS), which take been heavily hyped by the cable industry, can support symmetrical download and upload speeds of 10Gbps. Fifty-fifty an earlier version of the DOCSIS 3.1 standard that's now widely deployed theoretically allows 10Gbps downloads and 1Gbps upload speeds. But the cable industry has been dull to raise upload speeds.

When contacted by Ars, Mediacom pointed to cablevision-industry statistics showing 31.8 percent growth in downstream traffic and 51.1 percent growth in upstream traffic since the pandemic ramped up in March 2020. Mediacom spokesperson Thomas Larsen too told usa:

Given the surge in traffic during the pandemic, nosotros have been reaching out to the customers who fall into the height 0.5 percent of upstream users more frequently than earlier. This is non the easiest topic to explain because Internet usage is growing apace in this work from home/study from abode environment, so it is difficult to give an exact number that puts a customer into the 0.v percent category because that number changes from month to calendar month.

Ideally, nosotros can assistance the customer identify the cause of the upstream overutilization issue and help them have steps to manage information technology. We can offer business class services that are designed to support greater upload chapters, but that's really not the point of this exercise.

Mediacom also contacts heavy download users "when their usage negatively impacts" other customers, Larsen said. "Since our network is engineered to exist able to handle significantly more downstream traffic, this happens less frequently."

As for whether customers who don't lower their usage volition face throttling or business relationship terminations, Larsen said, "use that causes a negative bear on on Mediacom'southward network is prohibited and Mediacom may implement necessary network programs to address such use or suspend or terminate the service."

Switching ISPs "not an pick"

Mediacom'southward handling of uploaders is reminiscent of steps taken past Cox Communications before in the pandemic. Cox imposed neighborhood-wide slowdowns in some cases, reducing the gigabit-download plan's upload speeds from 35Mbps to 10Mbps. Mediacom doesn't announced to accept done anything that drastic, simply telling users to reduce their upload usage when they oasis't even come close to hitting their data caps is frustrating for customers.

"If there were whatever other Internet options other than horribly tiresome AT&T DSL, with a small data cap, I would switch in a heartbeat," the Mediacom client in Illinois who posted on the DSLReports forum wrote. "Unfortunately with my job and working from dwelling house, going without usable Cyberspace is not an option."

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Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/cable-isp-warns-excessive-uploaders-says-network-cant-handle-heavy-usage/

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