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How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If

by Alupis 7y ago

How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If you're hosting something, might be worth upgrading to a business connection, which doesn't have data caps and comes with static ip's and a SLA. As an aside - I'm personally OK with data caps so long as they don't impact most users (80/20, 90/10 or something like that). ISP's pay for ingress traffic, so by setting a data cap that impacts only the egregious data hogs, it means they can charge normal users a smaller rate, rather than subsidize a few users by charging everyone more.

csours 7y ago
I could be Ok with data caps per tier, if that actually led to lower costs for lower tiers. As it is, I pay a huge amount of money for low quality internet service. Also, 3TB is not huge for a family, especially in the age of 4K streams.
- Alupis 7y ago
  Ya, 4k might be changing the math a bit, and ISP's might need to upgrade the caps, or offer different caps per tier like your idea. Either way, I don't want to subsidize the guy torrenting Blue-Rays and pushing 10TB a month when I'm only using 1TB.
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    'Subsidize' isn't really accurate, though. For every major ISP, if everyone was using their connection at the maximum throughput allowed by their plan 24/7... everything would still work fine. The data caps exist solely so they can squeeze people for money beyond what they actually need to maintain the network.
    - Alupis 7y ago
      > For every major ISP, if everyone was using their connection at the maximum throughput allowed by their plan 24/7... everything would still work fine It wouldn't though - at least for most major residential ISP's. They oversubscribe the connections, knowing full well not everybody will use the connection at the same time, and even when they are - they won't be using the maximum at once. A minor example would be bringing a single 100Mbps connection into a small building and selling 12 x 10Mbps connections. It's one of they ways they can, yes, make a profit and also offer the bandwidth at reasonable costs. Dedicated bandwidth is expensive. Think of your old-school T1's and your typical business class connection. You pay a lot for having that bandwidth reserved for your use alone. And majority of the time you aren't using it... and when you do use it, you use very little of it at once. Debating on HN doesn't take 1Gbps... so it goes unused. Residential users prefer lower costs vs. dedicated bandwidth. > The data caps exist solely so they can squeeze people for money beyond what they actually need to maintain the network Yes and no. You seem to be tip-toeing around the municipality-run ISP argument - which is a fair argument to have (although I'm concerned a city can maintain this network long-term and keep it as good as a for-profit company). There's no problem with an ISP charging customers more for the connection than the ISP pays to provide it. That's the incentive to run the network in the first place - let alone spend millions building it out. I don't think data caps are bad so long as they don't impact "normal" use. Normal as being defined perhaps by the 95th percentile of use or something. The remaining users should be obligated to pay for their usage so that the ISP isn't forced to spread that costs onto other customers - that's simply not fair.
- acdha 7y ago
  What I’d really like would be switching to QoS: a blanket cap is a crude metric for allocating a limited resource but it’d be nice if you could pay for shares or something similar, encouraging off-peak downloads for things which aren’t latency-sensitive (OS updates, backups, etc.).
kick 7y ago
How is 3TB "HUGE"? If you're using computers like a normal person, that'll be gone pretty quickly. I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1MBps. Given the recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home, it seems like three times that probably wouldn't be enough. EDIT: Capitalization error, mbps > MBps.
- Alupis 7y ago
  > I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1mbps Ya, but you didn't do that. 1TB pushed at a constant 1Mbps, would take 88 days... 4TB taking nearly an entire year. 4TB at a constant 100Mbps takes 3.5 days. It is a HUGE amount of data. > recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home Netflix claims about 3GB per hour of HD content streamed[1]. So if you were to stream 24 hours a day for an entire 30 day month, you'd barely peak over 2TB. That's 24 hours a day for 30 days straight - something nobody is doing. A data cap of 3TB is simply not a problem for almost everybody. If you're running torrents, or hosting files, then ya - you might have issues. But then why should I pay comcast more every month to subsidize your non-normal usage? [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87
  - kick 7y ago
    (1 tb) / (1 (mb / s)) = 11.5740741 days Ah, I see. mbps v. MBps. Capitalization error! Also, you're arguing against the past point which is fine because I messed up the capitalization (though the point still holds, because I wasn't doing anything abnormal; it was a two person household with a game console), but not against present use-cases: 4k 24fps video for Netflix is 7GB, and 1080p 24fps video is over 3GB/hr (HD is 720p). How many TVs are you aware of that are under 1080p? A house that has two people regularly watching Netflix in it on a modern data connection seems like it'd blow through that cap pretty quickly. Why should Comcast be able to sell you a data connection you can't actually use? Caps are only a thing because Comcast oversells every connection.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
bcrosby95 7y ago
Our cap is 1TB. We tend to use anywhere from 600-700GB. But we don't use 4k streaming.
fossuser 7y ago
My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph. I was using steadily 600-700GB of data a month on my gigabit plan. It suddenly spiked to 2TB - from what I could tell there was no change in behavior, my ubiquiti gear wasn't showing this amount of usage. This went on and used up my two 'courtesy' months of overages forcing me to pay the extra money to remove the cap. A month after paying this my usage amounts dropped back down to where they were before. The gigabit services works well, but I find the cap hard to accept without any ability to question it.
- Alupis 7y ago
  > My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph Fair enough - but also in fairness, your electric utility provides about as much (which is also frustrating when you're trying to figure out why your bill went up 25% one month). I personally run a mikrotik router which tracks my usage too, so I have a reference to double check against and could wage a good argument with evidence that I didn't use the data they claim. Not everyone can do that though... but perhaps standard routers should come with these features now-days.
  - fossuser 7y ago
    Yeah - I think they’re inaccurate with how they calculate usage, but there’s nothing I can really do about it. It’s not worth my time to argue with them and there are no other gigabit options.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    > could wage a good argument with evidence that I didn't use the data they claim Let us know how that works out for you. My guess? "We can waive this month as a courtesy, but we can't use your router as evidence".
    - Alupis 7y ago
      > We can waive this month as a courtesy That would be the goal.
paulie_a 7y ago
Was it sold as unlimited? Then it should be unlimited. Data caps should be illegal in that context. Same with throttling
crooked-v 7y ago
One simple scenario to break 1 TB: - Netflix in 4K (7 GB/hour), 2 hours per weekday on 2 screens. That's 560 GB in a 4-week month. - Google Stadia in 4K (35 GB/hour), 2 hours per week on 2 screens. That's 560 GB in a 4-week month. Bam, 1,120 GB/month.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> ISP's pay for ingress traffic What makes you think that? Most everyone will peer with residential ISPs for free. There have even been issues with residential ISPs trying to get paid for ingress traffic, because they control the only network path to their customers which means they can charge monopoly prices to video competitors like Netflix who want to send traffic to their users on that ISP. > so by setting a data cap that impacts only the egregious data hogs, it means they can charge normal users a smaller rate, rather than subsidize a few users by charging everyone more. An ISP's costs are dominated by things like staff and trucks and electricity that depend little if at all on how much data someone transfers. None of the other customers are going to get a discount from heavy users using less because there is no meaningful savings there. The reason for data caps is some combination of anticompetitive practices and price discrimination. If you tell people they have a data cap, they'll try to minimize usage. Which is to say minimize Netflix, which counts toward the data cap -- but hey look, the ISP's own video service doesn't. They also assume that if you use a lot of data, you derive a lot of value from internet service, so even if the data hardly costs them anything, the fact that it's valuable to you makes them want you to have to pay more for a business connection. Both of these are stupid reasons which they only get away with because of the lack of competition.
- Alupis 7y ago
  > Most everyone will peer with residential ISPs for free Residential ISP's are typically Tier 3 or maybe Tier 2 providers, and have to get their bandwidth from either a Tier 2 or Tier 1 provider. These providers definitely charge for traffic to pass into the ISP's network (ingress traffic into an ISP network, egress out of the Tier 1 provider). Without paying that bill, ISP's couldn't exist... and without charging that bill, Tier 1 providers couldn't exist. Tier 1's peer with other Tier 1's for free because it benefits them and allows them to have connections to other networks that Tier 2 and Tier 3 providers want access to. They make their money charging Tier 2's and 3's for that access. > because they control the only network path to their customers Tier 1 providers don't care about residential users. This argument doesn't make any sense. Comcast got away with charging Netflix for ingress traffic because comcast was going to drop or throttle Netflix traffic. Why? Because suddenly the $50 a month comcast was charging wasn't enough to cover the ingress traffic generated by Netflix content into the ISP's network. The decision was to either charge Comcast customers more, or ask Netflix to subsidize that added expense. This also led Netflix to create the Open Connect boxes they offer for free to ISP's. > None of the other customers are going to get a discount from heavy users using less No, but they won't have their bill raised if the ISP can just charge the heavy users more instead. > but hey look, the ISP's own video service doesn't This is because the ISP's own video service's traffic originates in-network, therefore costs nothing additional to provide other than the existing infrastructure costs (there's no ingress traffic to pay for). Netflix (and other out-of-network services) costs more, as previously covered. Open Connect can help mitigate this, but then it's on the ISP to rack the server and pay all the other related costs for keeping it running in their data center... something they might not want to do. Comcast's argument was Netflix was making a ton of profit from streaming content they weren't helping pay to deliver - effectively shifting the delivery cost to the ISP, which was getting stuck with suddenly a bunch of unprofitable residential customers. Asking Netflix to help pay for that ingress traffic burden doesn't seem so outlandish from a network-ops perspective. Either that, or Comcast could have raised everyone's rates... which people probably wouldn't have liked. A parallel would be making an ecommerce business and expecting packages to be delivered to customers for free. The customer pays for their mailbox already (in taxes or directly with a PO Box), and paid for the package, so they expect it to get delivered. At some point, the delivery company is going to need to charge for the service, since there's a cost associated in making that delivery. Either the customer can pay for the delivery cost too, or the ecommerce company can pay for the delivery cost. Either way... somebody has to pay that cost. > only get away with because of the lack of competition. I don't disagree that we need more residential ISP competition in the US.
superkuh 7y ago
$10 per 10GB threshold over 1 TB on a 80/10 connection that's $95 month including the now $14 modem rental fee. Sometimes $50 in fees. I refuse to monitor my data usage or change my behavior. I am a single person but I host my personal non-business website from home and participate in as many peer to peer distributed and federated protocols as I can. I also do watch a bit of video media. My usage isn't only bursty, it's a steady 100-200 KB/s 24/7 up with bursts down on top. I contacted Comcast Business two times over the last 2 years, the most recent just last week. If you want a business 100/10 account then it is $156/mo with a 2 year contract (do not believe their promotional lies). If you move away to an area without service you have to pay 75% of the remaining contract. If you have your own modem they charge you a fee more than twice the fee for renting their modem. Frankly, it's insulting.
- Alupis 7y ago
  It's expensive because it's dedicated bandwidth, not shared, has a SLA, which your residential connection doesn't, and comes with static IP's. They also put your house on a difference circuit from everyone else in your neighborhood, which has a cost - which explains the ETF if you move away. In your case, perhaps it's cheaper to get a $2.50/month VPS from Vultr instead of paying all these fees? You get a static IP to, and don't have to play DynamicDNS games.
  - superkuh 7y ago
    Are you sure about that? It doesn't fit what I understand and I've talked to a friend who works for Comcast and he says the only difference is the customer support. The rep I talked to and the price I gave $156/mo does not include a static IP. That was something like $10/mo more. Sure, the firmware they tftp to my modem will be different but it's not giving me dedicated RF bandwidth on the exact same RF hardware path that existed before I got the firmware. It's the same uplink channels. This can be confirmed by using a splitter, attenuator, and looking at the RF signals directly in the frequency domain over time with an with a software defined radio (see: http://superkuh.com/pictures/docsis3_cable_ziggo_2017-10-08-full-spectrum.jpg http://superkuh.com/pictures/docsis3_cable_ziggo_2017-10-08-...).

by Alupis 7y ago

csours 7y ago

I could be Ok with data caps per tier, if that actually led to lower costs for lower tiers. As it is, I pay a huge amount of money for low quality internet service. Also, 3TB is not huge for a family, especially in the age of 4K streams.

Alupis 7y ago
Ya, 4k might be changing the math a bit, and ISP's might need to upgrade the caps, or offer different caps per tier like your idea. Either way, I don't want to subsidize the guy torrenting Blue-Rays and pushing 10TB a month when I'm only using 1TB.
- crooked-v 7y ago
  'Subsidize' isn't really accurate, though. For every major ISP, if everyone was using their connection at the maximum throughput allowed by their plan 24/7... everything would still work fine. The data caps exist solely so they can squeeze people for money beyond what they actually need to maintain the network.
  - Alupis 7y ago
    > For every major ISP, if everyone was using their connection at the maximum throughput allowed by their plan 24/7... everything would still work fine It wouldn't though - at least for most major residential ISP's. They oversubscribe the connections, knowing full well not everybody will use the connection at the same time, and even when they are - they won't be using the maximum at once. A minor example would be bringing a single 100Mbps connection into a small building and selling 12 x 10Mbps connections. It's one of they ways they can, yes, make a profit and also offer the bandwidth at reasonable costs. Dedicated bandwidth is expensive. Think of your old-school T1's and your typical business class connection. You pay a lot for having that bandwidth reserved for your use alone. And majority of the time you aren't using it... and when you do use it, you use very little of it at once. Debating on HN doesn't take 1Gbps... so it goes unused. Residential users prefer lower costs vs. dedicated bandwidth. > The data caps exist solely so they can squeeze people for money beyond what they actually need to maintain the network Yes and no. You seem to be tip-toeing around the municipality-run ISP argument - which is a fair argument to have (although I'm concerned a city can maintain this network long-term and keep it as good as a for-profit company). There's no problem with an ISP charging customers more for the connection than the ISP pays to provide it. That's the incentive to run the network in the first place - let alone spend millions building it out. I don't think data caps are bad so long as they don't impact "normal" use. Normal as being defined perhaps by the 95th percentile of use or something. The remaining users should be obligated to pay for their usage so that the ISP isn't forced to spread that costs onto other customers - that's simply not fair.
acdha 7y ago
What I’d really like would be switching to QoS: a blanket cap is a crude metric for allocating a limited resource but it’d be nice if you could pay for shares or something similar, encouraging off-peak downloads for things which aren’t latency-sensitive (OS updates, backups, etc.).

kick 7y ago

How is 3TB "HUGE"? If you're using computers like a normal person, that'll be gone pretty quickly. I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1MBps. Given the recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home, it seems like three times that probably wouldn't be enough. EDIT: Capitalization error, mbps > MBps.

Alupis 7y ago
> I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1mbps Ya, but you didn't do that. 1TB pushed at a constant 1Mbps, would take 88 days... 4TB taking nearly an entire year. 4TB at a constant 100Mbps takes 3.5 days. It is a HUGE amount of data. > recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home Netflix claims about 3GB per hour of HD content streamed[1]. So if you were to stream 24 hours a day for an entire 30 day month, you'd barely peak over 2TB. That's 24 hours a day for 30 days straight - something nobody is doing. A data cap of 3TB is simply not a problem for almost everybody. If you're running torrents, or hosting files, then ya - you might have issues. But then why should I pay comcast more every month to subsidize your non-normal usage? [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87
- kick 7y ago
  (1 tb) / (1 (mb / s)) = 11.5740741 days Ah, I see. mbps v. MBps. Capitalization error! Also, you're arguing against the past point which is fine because I messed up the capitalization (though the point still holds, because I wasn't doing anything abnormal; it was a two person household with a game console), but not against present use-cases: 4k 24fps video for Netflix is 7GB, and 1080p 24fps video is over 3GB/hr (HD is 720p). How many TVs are you aware of that are under 1080p? A house that has two people regularly watching Netflix in it on a modern data connection seems like it'd blow through that cap pretty quickly. Why should Comcast be able to sell you a data connection you can't actually use? Caps are only a thing because Comcast oversells every connection.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

bcrosby95 7y ago

Our cap is 1TB. We tend to use anywhere from 600-700GB. But we don't use 4k streaming.

fossuser 7y ago

My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph. I was using steadily 600-700GB of data a month on my gigabit plan. It suddenly spiked to 2TB - from what I could tell there was no change in behavior, my ubiquiti gear wasn't showing this amount of usage. This went on and used up my two 'courtesy' months of overages forcing me to pay the extra money to remove the cap. A month after paying this my usage amounts dropped back down to where they were before. The gigabit services works well, but I find the cap hard to accept without any ability to question it.

Alupis 7y ago
> My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph Fair enough - but also in fairness, your electric utility provides about as much (which is also frustrating when you're trying to figure out why your bill went up 25% one month). I personally run a mikrotik router which tracks my usage too, so I have a reference to double check against and could wage a good argument with evidence that I didn't use the data they claim. Not everyone can do that though... but perhaps standard routers should come with these features now-days.
- fossuser 7y ago
  Yeah - I think they’re inaccurate with how they calculate usage, but there’s nothing I can really do about it. It’s not worth my time to argue with them and there are no other gigabit options.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > could wage a good argument with evidence that I didn't use the data they claim Let us know how that works out for you. My guess? "We can waive this month as a courtesy, but we can't use your router as evidence".
  - Alupis 7y ago
    > We can waive this month as a courtesy That would be the goal.

paulie_a 7y ago

Was it sold as unlimited? Then it should be unlimited. Data caps should be illegal in that context. Same with throttling

crooked-v 7y ago

One simple scenario to break 1 TB: - Netflix in 4K (7 GB/hour), 2 hours per weekday on 2 screens. That's 560 GB in a 4-week month. - Google Stadia in 4K (35 GB/hour), 2 hours per week on 2 screens. That's 560 GB in a 4-week month. Bam, 1,120 GB/month.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> ISP's pay for ingress traffic What makes you think that? Most everyone will peer with residential ISPs for free. There have even been issues with residential ISPs trying to get paid for ingress traffic, because they control the only network path to their customers which means they can charge monopoly prices to video competitors like Netflix who want to send traffic to their users on that ISP. > so by setting a data cap that impacts only the egregious data hogs, it means they can charge normal users a smaller rate, rather than subsidize a few users by charging everyone more. An ISP's costs are dominated by things like staff and trucks and electricity that depend little if at all on how much data someone transfers. None of the other customers are going to get a discount from heavy users using less because there is no meaningful savings there. The reason for data caps is some combination of anticompetitive practices and price discrimination. If you tell people they have a data cap, they'll try to minimize usage. Which is to say minimize Netflix, which counts toward the data cap -- but hey look, the ISP's own video service doesn't. They also assume that if you use a lot of data, you derive a lot of value from internet service, so even if the data hardly costs them anything, the fact that it's valuable to you makes them want you to have to pay more for a business connection. Both of these are stupid reasons which they only get away with because of the lack of competition.

Alupis 7y ago
> Most everyone will peer with residential ISPs for free Residential ISP's are typically Tier 3 or maybe Tier 2 providers, and have to get their bandwidth from either a Tier 2 or Tier 1 provider. These providers definitely charge for traffic to pass into the ISP's network (ingress traffic into an ISP network, egress out of the Tier 1 provider). Without paying that bill, ISP's couldn't exist... and without charging that bill, Tier 1 providers couldn't exist. Tier 1's peer with other Tier 1's for free because it benefits them and allows them to have connections to other networks that Tier 2 and Tier 3 providers want access to. They make their money charging Tier 2's and 3's for that access. > because they control the only network path to their customers Tier 1 providers don't care about residential users. This argument doesn't make any sense. Comcast got away with charging Netflix for ingress traffic because comcast was going to drop or throttle Netflix traffic. Why? Because suddenly the $50 a month comcast was charging wasn't enough to cover the ingress traffic generated by Netflix content into the ISP's network. The decision was to either charge Comcast customers more, or ask Netflix to subsidize that added expense. This also led Netflix to create the Open Connect boxes they offer for free to ISP's. > None of the other customers are going to get a discount from heavy users using less No, but they won't have their bill raised if the ISP can just charge the heavy users more instead. > but hey look, the ISP's own video service doesn't This is because the ISP's own video service's traffic originates in-network, therefore costs nothing additional to provide other than the existing infrastructure costs (there's no ingress traffic to pay for). Netflix (and other out-of-network services) costs more, as previously covered. Open Connect can help mitigate this, but then it's on the ISP to rack the server and pay all the other related costs for keeping it running in their data center... something they might not want to do. Comcast's argument was Netflix was making a ton of profit from streaming content they weren't helping pay to deliver - effectively shifting the delivery cost to the ISP, which was getting stuck with suddenly a bunch of unprofitable residential customers. Asking Netflix to help pay for that ingress traffic burden doesn't seem so outlandish from a network-ops perspective. Either that, or Comcast could have raised everyone's rates... which people probably wouldn't have liked. A parallel would be making an ecommerce business and expecting packages to be delivered to customers for free. The customer pays for their mailbox already (in taxes or directly with a PO Box), and paid for the package, so they expect it to get delivered. At some point, the delivery company is going to need to charge for the service, since there's a cost associated in making that delivery. Either the customer can pay for the delivery cost too, or the ecommerce company can pay for the delivery cost. Either way... somebody has to pay that cost. > only get away with because of the lack of competition. I don't disagree that we need more residential ISP competition in the US.

superkuh 7y ago

$10 per 10GB threshold over 1 TB on a 80/10 connection that's $95 month including the now $14 modem rental fee. Sometimes $50 in fees. I refuse to monitor my data usage or change my behavior. I am a single person but I host my personal non-business website from home and participate in as many peer to peer distributed and federated protocols as I can. I also do watch a bit of video media. My usage isn't only bursty, it's a steady 100-200 KB/s 24/7 up with bursts down on top. I contacted Comcast Business two times over the last 2 years, the most recent just last week. If you want a business 100/10 account then it is $156/mo with a 2 year contract (do not believe their promotional lies). If you move away to an area without service you have to pay 75% of the remaining contract. If you have your own modem they charge you a fee more than twice the fee for renting their modem. Frankly, it's insulting.

Alupis 7y ago
It's expensive because it's dedicated bandwidth, not shared, has a SLA, which your residential connection doesn't, and comes with static IP's. They also put your house on a difference circuit from everyone else in your neighborhood, which has a cost - which explains the ETF if you move away. In your case, perhaps it's cheaper to get a $2.50/month VPS from Vultr instead of paying all these fees? You get a static IP to, and don't have to play DynamicDNS games.
- superkuh 7y ago
  Are you sure about that? It doesn't fit what I understand and I've talked to a friend who works for Comcast and he says the only difference is the customer support. The rep I talked to and the price I gave $156/mo does not include a static IP. That was something like $10/mo more. Sure, the firmware they tftp to my modem will be different but it's not giving me dedicated RF bandwidth on the exact same RF hardware path that existed before I got the firmware. It's the same uplink channels. This can be confirmed by using a splitter, attenuator, and looking at the RF signals directly in the frequency domain over time with an with a software defined radio (see: http://superkuh.com/pictures/docsis3_cable_ziggo_2017-10-08-full-spectrum.jpg http://superkuh.com/pictures/docsis3_cable_ziggo_2017-10-08-...).