Remember back in the early 1990′s when dialup modems were commonly used to connect to the Internet?  Do you also remember those hourly fees and usage caps set by first generation Internet providers such as AOL, Compuserve or Prodigy?

Well you know what?  Those dark days from yesteryear may be coming back thanks to a monthly bandwidth limit recently announced by Comcast, the largest Internet provider in the U.S.  Even though their monthly cap is set at a meaty 250 gigs, this move may prompt Internet providers to mirror cell phone industries, where pricing is based on the amount of usage per month.  Plus, future technologies, especially the advent of streaming movies & TV, may render bandwidth caps as miniscule.  Since average users commonly use 2 to 3 gigs of traffic per month, there’s nothing to worry about (for now).

Comcast is looking to punish bandwidth hogs that overload their infrastructure and cause excessive strain for other users.  Whether you believe this excuse or not, the company is heading into dangerous territory that may end up biting them in the end.  It is widely reported they’ve oversold their Internet packages due to competitive pressures by Verizon’s FIOS service, which offers higher bandwidth thanks to a direct fiber line to the home.

Overall, consumers will ultimately decide if Comcast made the right decision.  Will such a move cause a dramatic shift in the way users surf the web?  Lets hope not! The 90′s are over and I have no desire to go back to the dark ages!

Source: AP & InformationWeek

# Determine the current base URL
if(!isset($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
$psps_base_url = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
if (isset($HTTP_SERVER_VARS['QUERY_STRING'])) { $psps_base_url .= $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['QUERY_STRING']; }
} else {
$psps_base_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
}

$psps_parameters = '';

foreach ($_REQUEST as $key => $value) {
if (strpos($key,”psps_”) > -1 ) {
$psps_parameters .= ‘&’.$key.’=’.urlencode($value);
$psps_base_url = str_replace(‘&’.$key.’=’.urlencode($value), “”, $psps_base_url);
$psps_base_url = str_replace($key.’=’.urlencode($value), “”, $psps_base_url);
}
}

$psps_parameters .= “&psps_show_search=true”;
$psps_parameters .= “&psps_show_navigation=true”;
$psps_parameters .= “&psps_show_products=true”;

$psps_url = “?psps_base_url=”.urlencode($psps_base_url);

$psps_url=”http://shops.popshops.com/shops/php/72kdp55ncaawbwr2mmntvkb7d$psps_url$psps_parameters”;

# Include the shop
if (function_exists(‘curl_init’)) {
$shop=curl_init();
curl_setopt($shop,CURLOPT_URL,$psps_url);
curl_exec($shop);
curl_close($shop);
} else {
readfile($psps_url);
}
?>