Best of the ISP-Lists

Morpheus Must Die

Deep in the matrix, members of the ISP-Wireless list find file trading programs gobbling up as much bandwidth as they can grab. When a single user can transfer 500 GB in a single month, then it is clear that they must be stopped.

[April 2, 2002]

On the ISP-Wireless list in March, NW queried,

"We are thinking of putting bandwidth caps on our residential accounts. What do you think would be a fair limit? We're thinking of capping usage between 2 and 5 GB, and charging extra for overages."

Some respondents suggested capping speed, not bandwidth:

[JL offered] "We simply give them a speed cap at 1.54 Mbps up and down. They can download as much as they wish: we have some users downloading 500 to 600 GB per month."

[SS added] "Let them decide: allow a median level, then if they want more they can pay for it. You'll get some upsales and some downsales, but they'll be in control, and you will be too."

NW explained that his concern was focused on excess bandwidth usage:

"I'm talking about the total transfer bandwidth, not the pipe. It doesn't matter if they have a 128 Kpbs pipe if they're downloading 50 GB per month. All of our accounts have the same pipe; we just want to discourage excessive use of Gnutella, Morpheus, KaZaA, etc."

Others recommended looking at alternate methods of discouraging high bandwidth usage:

[DS advised] "It makes some customers mad, but I have blocked Morpheus, KaZaA, and a few others. You would be surprised at the reduction in upload stats you'll get. I wouldn't have as much of a problem if the customers were just using those services for downloading, but using their systems as servers is against our acceptable use policy."

[TS agreed] "I was also planning on doing something with the Morpheus, etc. ports, but I was looking at limiting them to 16 Kbps uploads rather than blocking them completely."

— End