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Comcast, and effectively all US broadband providers, are massively underprovisioned for the quantity of service they've sold, because that was a good way to mak

Comcast, and effectively all US broadband providers, are massively underprovisioned for the quantity of service they've sold, because that was a good way to make a lot of money and because, until very recently, it was quite difficult for residential customers to actually use enough bandwidth for the underprovisioning to pose an issue. Now, with the advent of 4k streaming and similar popular consumer services that actually do require significant bandwidth, it's not surprising to see this sort of activity as a means of avoiding the need to provision backhaul equal to the promises these companies have made.

rayiner 7y ago
All consumer broadband providers everywhere are heavily overprovisioned. Guaranteed bandwidth costs hundreds to thousands of dollars per month. I haven't seen more recent studies on this, but as of 2014, U.S. providers were less overprovisioned than ones in Europe: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/3352 https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/3352 > During peak hours, U.S. actual download speeds were 96% of what was advertised, compared to Europe where consumers received only 74% of advertised download speeds. The U.S. also fared better in terms of latency and packet loss.
- kristofferR 7y ago
  That last stat is totally useless - I'd much rather get 75% of my the advertised speed on my unlimited 75Mbit/$20 connection than 100% of my capped 20Mbit/$40 connection. The report you link to is unfortunately also woefully outdated, it's from 2014 using data from 2011.
magicalist 7y ago
> Now, with the advent of 4k streaming and similar popular consumer services that actually do require significant bandwidth, it's not surprising to see this sort of activity as a means of avoiding the need to provision backhaul equal to the promises these companies have made. This sounds like a cynical take on their motives but is actually just buying into the narrative the ISPs have pushed that these caps are because the bits are limited and caps introduce fairness. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/comcast-says-it-doesnt-throttle-heaviest-internet-users-anymore/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/comcast-says-it-... In actuality Comcast has outright said it's a business decision, not a technological one, and at&t said uverse had no need for caps unlike their old dsl network and then added them anyways. It's rent seeking, plain and simple. The exact same way that the extra cable fees go up multiple times a year outside the advertised contract price and uncorrelated with inflation, government requirements or broadcast carriage fees. And then they spin it as fairness for the heaviest users to pay more and justify it as only 1 in 20 people have to pay it anyways, so, hey, don't worry about it.
- luma 7y ago
  Notably, Comcast does not have bandwidth caps in markets where FIOS or other high speed providers have coverage. These caps are purely a way to capitalize on a monopoly position.
  - btgeekboy 7y ago
    This is not true. Anecdotally, Comcast has caps in the Seattle area, where they have multiple competitors, including Frontier FIOS.
    - luma 7y ago
      Here is their official list: https://dataplan.xfinity.com/faq/ https://dataplan.xfinity.com/faq/ Comcast doesn't consider local(ish) providers as competition, this really only applies to Verizon etc.
  - jyrkesh 7y ago
    Unfortunately, there's still a time lag for this to take effect. I recently moved across town from somewhere where Comcast was my only option (and I had gigabit) to a neighborhood where I had the option between Comcast gigabit and another gigabit fiber provider. The latter had no data cap, free install, free gifted equipment, symmetric gigabit (as opposed to Comcast's 80 Mb/s upload), no contract, and was $25/month cheaper (with a lifetime price lock). I called Comcast to complain and try and avoid paying the ETF (it was at $180 because I signed a 2 year contract) with some kind of benefit: remove my data cap, drop my rate, something. They wouldn't budge an inch. Told me I was already getting a promotional price from them and that the data cap (which I'd already hit 2 out of their 3 grace overages) was non-negotiable. Switched to the alternative provider, and I can't be happier. Looking forward to Comcast dropping their rates and/or data cap, but I'm hoping that I never have to be their customer ever again.
    - lunias 7y ago
      I wish there was an alternate provider that I could switch to... without a massive reduction in throughput.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
My current Comcast cap is 1TB a month ($10 per 50GB over that). I discovered when I had someone's son staying at my house that watching Netflix all day at maximum quality settings will burn through that in a little over 3 weeks. Approximately 3GB an hour is consumed.

rayiner 7y ago

All consumer broadband providers everywhere are heavily overprovisioned. Guaranteed bandwidth costs hundreds to thousands of dollars per month. I haven't seen more recent studies on this, but as of 2014, U.S. providers were less overprovisioned than ones in Europe: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/3352 https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/3352 > During peak hours, U.S. actual download speeds were 96% of what was advertised, compared to Europe where consumers received only 74% of advertised download speeds. The U.S. also fared better in terms of latency and packet loss.

kristofferR 7y ago
That last stat is totally useless - I'd much rather get 75% of my the advertised speed on my unlimited 75Mbit/$20 connection than 100% of my capped 20Mbit/$40 connection. The report you link to is unfortunately also woefully outdated, it's from 2014 using data from 2011.

magicalist 7y ago

> Now, with the advent of 4k streaming and similar popular consumer services that actually do require significant bandwidth, it's not surprising to see this sort of activity as a means of avoiding the need to provision backhaul equal to the promises these companies have made. This sounds like a cynical take on their motives but is actually just buying into the narrative the ISPs have pushed that these caps are because the bits are limited and caps introduce fairness. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/comcast-says-it-doesnt-throttle-heaviest-internet-users-anymore/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/comcast-says-it-... In actuality Comcast has outright said it's a business decision, not a technological one, and at&t said uverse had no need for caps unlike their old dsl network and then added them anyways. It's rent seeking, plain and simple. The exact same way that the extra cable fees go up multiple times a year outside the advertised contract price and uncorrelated with inflation, government requirements or broadcast carriage fees. And then they spin it as fairness for the heaviest users to pay more and justify it as only 1 in 20 people have to pay it anyways, so, hey, don't worry about it.

luma 7y ago
Notably, Comcast does not have bandwidth caps in markets where FIOS or other high speed providers have coverage. These caps are purely a way to capitalize on a monopoly position.
- btgeekboy 7y ago
  This is not true. Anecdotally, Comcast has caps in the Seattle area, where they have multiple competitors, including Frontier FIOS.
  - luma 7y ago
    Here is their official list: https://dataplan.xfinity.com/faq/ https://dataplan.xfinity.com/faq/ Comcast doesn't consider local(ish) providers as competition, this really only applies to Verizon etc.
- jyrkesh 7y ago
  Unfortunately, there's still a time lag for this to take effect. I recently moved across town from somewhere where Comcast was my only option (and I had gigabit) to a neighborhood where I had the option between Comcast gigabit and another gigabit fiber provider. The latter had no data cap, free install, free gifted equipment, symmetric gigabit (as opposed to Comcast's 80 Mb/s upload), no contract, and was $25/month cheaper (with a lifetime price lock). I called Comcast to complain and try and avoid paying the ETF (it was at $180 because I signed a 2 year contract) with some kind of benefit: remove my data cap, drop my rate, something. They wouldn't budge an inch. Told me I was already getting a promotional price from them and that the data cap (which I'd already hit 2 out of their 3 grace overages) was non-negotiable. Switched to the alternative provider, and I can't be happier. Looking forward to Comcast dropping their rates and/or data cap, but I'm hoping that I never have to be their customer ever again.
  - lunias 7y ago
    I wish there was an alternate provider that I could switch to... without a massive reduction in throughput.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

My current Comcast cap is 1TB a month ($10 per 50GB over that). I discovered when I had someone's son staying at my house that watching Netflix all day at maximum quality settings will burn through that in a little over 3 weeks. Approximately 3GB an hour is consumed.