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Comcast Sets Threshold for `Excessive' Internet Use

3 points by byrneseyeview 18y ago

igowen 18y ago
> ``The monthly data usage threshold will have absolutely no impact on 99 percent of our customers because their usage is well below'' 250 gigabytes, Khoury said. What about the 143,000 whose usage is above that? When you have 14.3 million customers, 1% becomes a sizable number of users.
- whatusername 18y ago
  Isn't that the point? Those 143,000 are probably generating more costs for Comcast than they generate revenue.. Cutting them as customers makes the business as a whole better. (I assume that's the argument anyway)
whatusername 18y ago
250GB??!! I wish. On our biggest ISP (Telstra) we can get 60GB/month for $129 for Cable (or $149 for ADSL2+) (Okay, We can get something like 40-50GB / month for around $60-$70 on other ISP's, but the point still stands..)
mdasen 18y ago
Bandwidth is a limited resource. It costs money to produce therefore it has to cost you money to use. Cable/DSL/FiOS connections are sold with the assumption that they are fractional connections (in the way that a timeshare entitles you to fractional use). The nice thing is that packet-switching makes that sharing really easy and generally efficient. However, when someone uses more than just fractional use, it affects both the provider and other users. Let's take that 250GB cap. That's 2,000Gb (gigabits) per month, 66Gb/day, 2.7Gb/hour, 47Mb/minute, 809Kbps. So, in order to hit Comcast's limit, you must be using more than half a T1 connection 24/7 without interruption. Does that seem unfair? If you're using more than half a T1, maybe you shouldn't be using a shared connection such as cable/DSL/FiOS? T1s are expensive because they aren't shared. Cable/DSL/FiOS is cheap because it is shared. If you can't share, the economics that make it cheap just aren't there and logic/reality dictate that it just doesn't work. Comcast's 250GB limit isn't exactly low and really only hits people who should really have a more dedicated connection. Also, remember that heavy users place an impetus on providers not to increase bandwidth speeds because they don't have the capacity from their CO to the wider internet. If you're one of the few who can saturate half a T1, you have a huge incentive to be against bandwidth caps. If you're everyone else, they'll probably affect you in a positive way (as long as they are set high like 250GB/mo). And to be fair to people who are completely against this, I am a little worried that American companies might go the way of certain foreign ones with 50GB-ish caps, but as long as their criteria remains using more than 50% of a T1, I say good for them!

3 points by byrneseyeview 18y ago

> ``The monthly data usage threshold will have absolutely no impact on 99 percent of our customers because their usage is well below'' 250 gigabytes, Khoury said. What about the 143,000 whose usage is above that? When you have 14.3 million customers, 1% becomes a sizable number of users.

whatusername 18y ago
Isn't that the point? Those 143,000 are probably generating more costs for Comcast than they generate revenue.. Cutting them as customers makes the business as a whole better. (I assume that's the argument anyway)

whatusername 18y ago

250GB??!! I wish. On our biggest ISP (Telstra) we can get 60GB/month for $129 for Cable (or $149 for ADSL2+) (Okay, We can get something like 40-50GB / month for around $60-$70 on other ISP's, but the point still stands..)

mdasen 18y ago

Bandwidth is a limited resource. It costs money to produce therefore it has to cost you money to use. Cable/DSL/FiOS connections are sold with the assumption that they are fractional connections (in the way that a timeshare entitles you to fractional use). The nice thing is that packet-switching makes that sharing really easy and generally efficient. However, when someone uses more than just fractional use, it affects both the provider and other users. Let's take that 250GB cap. That's 2,000Gb (gigabits) per month, 66Gb/day, 2.7Gb/hour, 47Mb/minute, 809Kbps. So, in order to hit Comcast's limit, you must be using more than half a T1 connection 24/7 without interruption. Does that seem unfair? If you're using more than half a T1, maybe you shouldn't be using a shared connection such as cable/DSL/FiOS? T1s are expensive because they aren't shared. Cable/DSL/FiOS is cheap because it is shared. If you can't share, the economics that make it cheap just aren't there and logic/reality dictate that it just doesn't work. Comcast's 250GB limit isn't exactly low and really only hits people who should really have a more dedicated connection. Also, remember that heavy users place an impetus on providers not to increase bandwidth speeds because they don't have the capacity from their CO to the wider internet. If you're one of the few who can saturate half a T1, you have a huge incentive to be against bandwidth caps. If you're everyone else, they'll probably affect you in a positive way (as long as they are set high like 250GB/mo). And to be fair to people who are completely against this, I am a little worried that American companies might go the way of certain foreign ones with 50GB-ish caps, but as long as their criteria remains using more than 50% of a T1, I say good for them!