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Cable Internet Speed Caps

C

coopdog

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 5, 2002
586
0
The Great Midwest
I have DSL now but I'm moving next month and cable is the only option there. I think I will get Comcast Cable Internet at 1.5 MBPS Down. I read some where where a guy was able to take the bandwith cap off and got up to 3000K.

So where do they cap it. I remember when I used to have cable that one the cable box they had some tamper seal on the box so you couldn't mess with it.

What are your guy's experence with cable internet, how about ping rates?
 
The modems are how the cap is achieved many times. It is possible to change the modem firmware and get increased bandwidth....if it is there to be gotten. With that said, I have read about cases where people did this and they promptly had their service canceled. In all likelyhood you will have better speeds than 1.5 mbit. Most people I know get at least 200k/sec routinely. I know many who get more than 300 k/sec.
 
answer:

its doable with most service providers, but its also difficult, illegal, and viewable by the provider.

p.s. the cap is not in the firmware, but in the configuration file that is sent to your cable modem when you log online with it.
 
I looked into this a while back. There is a config file on your modem which tells it how fast to run @. This file is encrypted, you can replace it with a different one, but it involves ALOT of messing around trying to fool the modem into thinking that your PC is the ISP's DHCP server etc, as well as a bunch of other stuff. And if you ISP found out (which they can very easily) you'd probably be banned. I decided it wasn't worth the time, hassle or risk.

edit: Computer_Phreak hit post a couple of mins b4 me!
 
i guess those cable companies got wise of things. i know that one of my friends had a cable modem on which the cap was removed via the removal or repositioning of a jumper cable.
 
some cable providers are now offering a higher bandwith option for more money. if the speed is important to, and so is being legal, you might inquire.
 
Yeah, don't think about uncapping...I don't think mine is capped, but my friend who moved to Tampa and had to switch from Adelphia here to Time Warner I believe, he got a capped 2 Mbps and uncapped it and a few days later he got his service cancelled and lost his payment for the next month without refund. They can detect tampering almost instantly at the ISP since they routinely monitor the data the modem pushes through.
 
I have cable, and on average, I get around 2.5Mbps

Of course, upstream is really slow, but in a week, I'll have a nice, university provided, 10Mbps connection. I just have to be sure I don't go over my bandwidth limit for the week :cool:
 
at my school they have dload capped at 750 Mb/ day which sucks. At my friends school they have wifi across the entire campus and they limit bandwith for downloading at 2Kbps
 
Originally posted by Kwyjibo
at my school they have dload capped at 750 Mb/ day which sucks. At my friends school they have wifi across the entire campus and they limit bandwith for downloading at 2Kbps
Click to expand...

Are you sure about 2Kbps? That is slower then a dial-up modem.
 
very sure actually, they figure college kids don't need to download anything, apparently web surfing works at normal broadband speeds but any kind of downloads work at the lower speeds. Its American University in Washington DC. My friend whos going there is very into web stuff and hes quite talented so I'm sure if hes saying it he doubled checked it and its quite worried himself....(when he was moving out of his old house he was going to lose broadband for a few a weeks and started download lots of adult material from kazaa, lots of the material finished at once and when kazaa went into its write to disk mode for like 15 large files it almost crashed the HD hehe)
 
With dial-up you can get 3 to 4KBps, which is 24 to 32kbps. If you are real lucky, you might see 5KBps or 6KBps or 40 to 48Kbps. 2Kbps would equal. 25KBps. Imagine if a site didn’t support HTTP download; imagine how long it would take to download a 1MB patch.

They are obviously controlling the speed at the port level and port 80 is probably wide open, as we all 443. If they did the same to port 20/21, that would really slow things down.
 
Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Yeah, don't think about uncapping...I don't think mine is capped, but my friend who moved to Tampa and had to switch from Adelphia here to Time Warner I believe, he got a capped 2 Mbps and uncapped it and a few days later he got his service cancelled and lost his payment for the next month without refund. They can detect tampering almost instantly at the ISP since they routinely monitor the data the modem pushes through.
Click to expand...

I don't think they can actually see what you do online. In many states that actually is illegal. They say it intervines with privacy and stuff.
Some states say they can collect places you visit, but cannot information you access there. Like: They can see that you went to amazon, but are not allowed to collect info on what you bought there. In my state that is exactly that. Bastards find out who I'm the second i get to their website. If I go to dell.com, next week I know I will receive a catalog from them...

As for uncapping, yes it is illegal. You agree to it when you buy a modem or install their software.
 
Comcast uses packet shaping as of now. I know you can't take the cap off but they are beta testing 3mbits in PA right now and might roll it out for the silver plan by the end of the year.

Also silver users are reporting upload speeds of 384
 
Originally posted by Rezet
I don't think they can actually see what you do online. In many states that actually is illegal.
Click to expand...

-Rezet

Agreed. What the ISP's monitor is how much water you are allowed to suck through your pipe at a time, and how much you actually do suck through your pipe at a time - not the color or the source of that water.
 
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