Even broadband has its limits
By Martha Entwistle
Updated Fri August 29, 2008
Interesting news coming from cable/broadband provider Comcast today: It will begin placing a bandwidth limit on its subscribers.
Of course, that limit is extremely high. 250GB. For any normal consumer, that means:
Send 50 million e-mails (at 0.05 KB/e-mail)
Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo).
But what if you're a small business and you're monitoring your 5 megapixel surveillance cameras from your home office? Will corporate users who don't have a dedicated T-1 or greater come under the same limits? If so, will this affect how satellite offices can be monitored by a central command center?
Much of the talk about the limits on IP surveillance has focused on bandwidth, and we see here that bandwidth is clearly at a premium, even for a provider like Comcast with all the bandwidth in the world.
Something to think about over a long holiday weekend. Or maybe not think about. I'm mostly going to be thinking about how nice the lake water is, and how sturdy the deck beneath me is, and how comfortable the chair I'm in is, and how much I wish my kids would go take a nap already. But you can think about video and bandwidth if you want.
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