PHILADELPHIA, PA — Not too long ago, West Jordan, UT computer tech and ex-Comcast subscriber Frank Carreiro helped spread the word about what he and others consider to be Comcast’s mysterious bandwidth use limits and the draconian ways that the company enforces them. Whether prompted by Carreiro’s story on comcastissue.blogspot.com or by other bad press, the company has made the effort to better explain its policy. Sort of.
The answer, however, may not make much sense to people like Carreiro, who claim they’ve never come near the levels of use Comcast claims would trip its itchy customer service cancellation trigger finger.
In a move to reassure an increasing number of online gamers worried that they might find themselves playing solo versions of Worlds of Wonder or Second Life, GameDaily.com quotes Comcast representative Charlie Douglas as saying that the term “excessive use” refers to a customer whose use equals that of downloading 13 million emails, 250,000 images, and 30,000 songs – numbers Carreiro and others insist their households have never had the stamina to achieve.
Although Douglas doesn’t state whether those unacceptable emails include spam or not, he insists that booting the supposedly piggish customers is a “great benefit to games and helps protect gamers and their game experience” from bad people whose selfish use of valuable online gaming pipe space would otherwise contribute to “degrading the experience” of killing bad guys online.
Considering the fact that Comcast has been providing gaming news and information via Game Invasion, has an online retail options, and beams the G4 TV network to subscribers, the assurances make sense.
What doesn’t make sense is how an average American household – with or without online gamers – could manage to consistently achieve download totals equal to “excessive use” status.
Maybe they’re getting too much online gaming spam.
