Dissociated Press

PC Magazine is covering the now-infamous Comcast bandwidth limit, with a story titled “Comcast Cuts Off Bandwidth Hogs.”

The problem is, how can you call someone a “bandwidth hog,” when it’s not clear how much bandwidth they’re using — and when the customers are paying for the bandwidth as part of an “unlimited” service anyway?

The headline ought to be more like “Comcast enforces mystery bandwidth limits” or “Comcast’s false advertising” rather than something making users look bad.

Comcast’s statement is that they cut off customers who “consume more than 100 times the average national Comcast bandwidth usage.”

Then why not simply set a bandwidth cap, or overage fees? If they can monitor users’ actual usage, there’s no reason Comcast couldn’t sell a plan with, say, a 300 GB cap. Most people wouldn’t come close to touching 300 GB per month, so why couldn’t they just be honest and give a set limit?

This is also bad business. The “bandwidth hogs” may be expensive, but the cost of doling out “100 times the average” bandwidth usage is probably a lot less than dealing with the negative attention Comcast gets every time someone gets disconnected for “excessive use” and goes to Slashdot, Digg, and other sites to tell their story. It’s like kicking people out of an “all you can eat” buffet for taking one too many trips — the ill-will is not worth the little bit of cost savings by the business.

Yes, some customers are going to be unprofitable. It’s a fact of life Comcast and other businesses need to learn to live with.

Here’s something really sad. I was trying to find information on Comcast’s site about its high speed internet service. The site is bogged down beyond reason, and nearly impossible to find information on because it’s so bleeping slow — and I’m on Comcast’s network. Sheesh.