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Comcast / Xfinity put "Typical upload speeds" of 114.98Mbps at my address on the "300Mbps plan" nutrition facts. But in reality, all plans from 50Mbps to 1000Mb

Comcast / Xfinity put "Typical upload speeds" of 114.98Mbps at my address on the "300Mbps plan" nutrition facts. But in reality, all plans from 50Mbps to 1000Mbps are hard-capped at 20Mbps. What's going on here with the discrepancy between "114.98Mbps" and what I actually see on my 300Mbps plan, which is a hard cap at 20Mbps upload? Is there something I'm missing? I also love how Xfinity sells a 2000Mbps plan at my address with a 1.2TB data cap. There are 730 hours in a calendar month - if I used that plan I'd blow past the data cap in under 1.5 hours. WTF? "Here's a monthly internet plan -- make sure not to use it for more than 1.5 hours in total next month or the price will suddenly more than double"

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
Do they have an unlimited data plan option?
- reaperman 3y ago
  Nothing with a single straight advertised price per month for unlimited data. You pay $10 per 50GB over 1.2TB until you pay an extra $100 for a plan that costs $30-80/month. After $100 in overage fees, additional data is free. So I guess the unlimited data plan costs $130-180/month instead of $30-80.
  - kennethrc 3y ago
    FWIW, I've had Cox and Xfinity plans and for both you could (at least in CA) pay $50/mo for the "unlimited" add-on which eliminates the caps. Money grab for sure, but it was doable. (I wish I'd still lived in a Spectrum area- because of some issue/fine (related to Verizon, IIRC) they aren't allowed to have data caps. Yet somehow, the price was the same as Cox (save the unlimited fee) and was just as fast and reliable.)
    - reaperman 3y ago
      Thanks for the tip, in Michigan and Texas it does appears that you can pay $30/mo for unlimited add-on ... but only if you buy your own cable modem instead of using theirs. This was listed plainly on the new Broadband Facts / "nutrition facts"...I hadn't seen it mentioned before! I couldn't find anything about a $50 add-on in my states, and I haven't seen any other options for customers who are using the Xfinity-provided modem. For others wondering why people should care, my biggest concern about this isn't the cost. It's two points: 1) Historically this wasn't ever presented to customers before they signed up for service. All you saw was "1000Gbps for $80/month!", Xfinity wouldn't tell you anything about a data cap until you hit 90% of it and they texted you out of the blue saying "Hey your $80/mo is going to be much higher this month!". I have much less issue (still some, but much less) with it if it's clearly shown up-front! Thanks to the FCC, it now is shown up-front. 2) There's no way to dispute the charges if you believe their "meter" is wrong. Every other utility has meters which are subject to your states "Weights and Measures" department -- if you have reason to believe your utility meter is malfunctioning, you can have the state come out inspect the meter and determine if it's out-of-spec. But Xfinity consumers have little[0] to no recourse if Xfinity errs in their "metering". I don't think that type of business practice should be allowed without being subject to some kind of real oversight. 0: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/comcast-admits-data-cap-meter-blunder-charges-wrong-customer-for-overage/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/comca...
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
    wow that's insane. In Canada they put a law where the cost must be reasonable and everybody must advertise an unlimited data plan, so we have $10 option for unlimited everywhere
mindslight 3y ago
It would be fantastic if data caps also had to be expressed in bytes per second, as a counterweight to the fallacious instantaneous speeds. Although what's even better is building out municipal broadband and forgetting about these rent seeking dinosaurs. I've got 1Gb/s symmetric, no data caps, no term contract, and a steady monthly price.
kevincox 3y ago
Even if you can't use it constantly having a high top speed is useful. Most people aren't downloading large files most of the time. But it is very useful to be able to have those bits fly when do you do want to transfer something. While 1.2TB seems quite low for 2000Mbps it is still better than having 200Mpbs just so that you have 15h of full-speed capacity.
forbiddenlake 3y ago
You're just missing the "next gen speed tier" which is available in some areas and usable if, and only if, you own a blessed modem. I'm in the same boat, 20 up (which is a nice increase from 5 a year ago), but I could get 100 if I rented or bought the right modem. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/upgraded-areas-leased-equipment-required-for-upload-speeds https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/upgraded-areas-leas... https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/wiki/knowledgebase/next-generation-internet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/wiki/knowledgebase/... https://assets.xfinity.com/assets/dotcom/projects/cix-4997_compatible-devices/2024.03.14%20Full%20List%20of%20Compatible%20Devices.pdf https://assets.xfinity.com/assets/dotcom/projects/cix-4997_c...

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago

Do they have an unlimited data plan option?

reaperman 3y ago
Nothing with a single straight advertised price per month for unlimited data. You pay $10 per 50GB over 1.2TB until you pay an extra $100 for a plan that costs $30-80/month. After $100 in overage fees, additional data is free. So I guess the unlimited data plan costs $130-180/month instead of $30-80.
- kennethrc 3y ago
  FWIW, I've had Cox and Xfinity plans and for both you could (at least in CA) pay $50/mo for the "unlimited" add-on which eliminates the caps. Money grab for sure, but it was doable. (I wish I'd still lived in a Spectrum area- because of some issue/fine (related to Verizon, IIRC) they aren't allowed to have data caps. Yet somehow, the price was the same as Cox (save the unlimited fee) and was just as fast and reliable.)
  - reaperman 3y ago
    Thanks for the tip, in Michigan and Texas it does appears that you can pay $30/mo for unlimited add-on ... but only if you buy your own cable modem instead of using theirs. This was listed plainly on the new Broadband Facts / "nutrition facts"...I hadn't seen it mentioned before! I couldn't find anything about a $50 add-on in my states, and I haven't seen any other options for customers who are using the Xfinity-provided modem. For others wondering why people should care, my biggest concern about this isn't the cost. It's two points: 1) Historically this wasn't ever presented to customers before they signed up for service. All you saw was "1000Gbps for $80/month!", Xfinity wouldn't tell you anything about a data cap until you hit 90% of it and they texted you out of the blue saying "Hey your $80/mo is going to be much higher this month!". I have much less issue (still some, but much less) with it if it's clearly shown up-front! Thanks to the FCC, it now is shown up-front. 2) There's no way to dispute the charges if you believe their "meter" is wrong. Every other utility has meters which are subject to your states "Weights and Measures" department -- if you have reason to believe your utility meter is malfunctioning, you can have the state come out inspect the meter and determine if it's out-of-spec. But Xfinity consumers have little[0] to no recourse if Xfinity errs in their "metering". I don't think that type of business practice should be allowed without being subject to some kind of real oversight. 0: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/comcast-admits-data-cap-meter-blunder-charges-wrong-customer-for-overage/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/comca...
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  wow that's insane. In Canada they put a law where the cost must be reasonable and everybody must advertise an unlimited data plan, so we have $10 option for unlimited everywhere

mindslight 3y ago

It would be fantastic if data caps also had to be expressed in bytes per second, as a counterweight to the fallacious instantaneous speeds. Although what's even better is building out municipal broadband and forgetting about these rent seeking dinosaurs. I've got 1Gb/s symmetric, no data caps, no term contract, and a steady monthly price.

kevincox 3y ago

Even if you can't use it constantly having a high top speed is useful. Most people aren't downloading large files most of the time. But it is very useful to be able to have those bits fly when do you do want to transfer something. While 1.2TB seems quite low for 2000Mbps it is still better than having 200Mpbs just so that you have 15h of full-speed capacity.

forbiddenlake 3y ago

You're just missing the "next gen speed tier" which is available in some areas and usable if, and only if, you own a blessed modem. I'm in the same boat, 20 up (which is a nice increase from 5 a year ago), but I could get 100 if I rented or bought the right modem. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/upgraded-areas-leased-equipment-required-for-upload-speeds https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/upgraded-areas-leas... https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/wiki/knowledgebase/next-generation-internet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/wiki/knowledgebase/... https://assets.xfinity.com/assets/dotcom/projects/cix-4997_compatible-devices/2024.03.14%20Full%20List%20of%20Compatible%20Devices.pdf https://assets.xfinity.com/assets/dotcom/projects/cix-4997_c...