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Comcast announces placing data caps
- mkaziz 13y agoFreaking barbaric, is what this is.
- myers 13y agoAt least they are offering more bandwidth at a price. Before it was a hard cap at 250GB with no way to buy more. But still, it makes me want to up and move to Chattanooga. http://chattanoogagig.com/ http://chattanoogagig.com/
- irons 13y agoThat's incorrect. The old comcast system took congestion into account. I routinely ran 500-600GB/month offsite backups, but I scheduled them for the middle of the night and midday, and I never got a nastygram for exceeding the cap. The new system pretends that all bits are equally expensive, regardless of whether the system is currently slammed or twiddling its thumbs, which is a profit-maximizing lie.
- myers 13y agoI suspect it was selectively enforced. I had a similar usage pattern and did get a notice.
- adestefan 13y agoPick your poison. Data cap. Fully metered.
- schnable 13y agoHow is paying for how much you actually use barbaric?
- noonespecial 13y agoIt's actuall the part where you can't not pay for what you don't use. Otherwise it's just stupidly overpriced.
- vaporeyes 13y agoI have dealt with the 250GB cap for nearly a year and half, they always add the blocks on at 50GB for $10 per block. Luckily my internet is paid for through work so its trivial at the moment.
- 300bps 13y agoI have Verizon FIOS which has no data caps although there was a story recently of a user that received a call when he went over 77 TB for the month: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/fios-customer-discovers-the-limits-of-unlimited-data-77-tb-in-month/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/fios-c... I really couldn't be happier with Verizon FIOS. For $74.95 per month I get 75 Mbps downstream / 35 Mbps upstream Internet, unlimited phone service and their Premium TV channel lineup. Comcast is an option where I live as well but I can't imagine many people choose it. Twice now they've had a door-to-door salesman come around trying to sell it. No thanks. I'm fortunate to be in an area that has a lot of broadband competition (including from wireless providers like Clear [now Sprint]).
- adestefan 13y agoI've had FiOS for close to 7 years now. I really need to get my service upped from 20/5.
- mikestew 13y ago>> Twice now they've had a door-to-door salesman come around trying to sell it. Only twice? I've got Frontier FIOS (what used to be Verizon), and I'll bet Comcast is at my door at least once a month. Add to that the flyers that constantly come in the mail. On a side note related to the mailings, I've opened a few to see if they have a better deal than Frontier. Sure, it's almost free for six months, but good luck finding out what the rate goes to after the first six months. Check the fine print of the flyer, check the web site, damned if I can find it. Yeah, I think I'll pass.
- aaronem 13y agoFrom http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-plans-expansion http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-u...: "These FAQs describe our new monthly data usage plan for XFINITY Internet Service in the following areas: Huntsville and Mobile, AL; Atlanta; Augusta and Savannah, GA; Central Kentucky; Maine; Jackson, MS; Knoxville and Memphis, TN; and Charleston, SC."
- vaporeyes 13y agoThis explains why I thought this was old news. It has been in Nashville for a long time now.
- beauzero 13y agoHow close do you get to monthly caps?
- vaporeyes 13y agoCurrently I average around 200GB per month. Some months are closer to 300GB and 350GB and I pay the $10 overage fees. I only pay for Internet and only use Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime and that pretty much is what my B/W is tied to. If I could switch to something faster with greater B/W I would in a heartbeat but I just have no motivation since its paid for through work-related usage.
- beauzero 13y agoThanks vapor. It gives me something to benchmark.
- randomfool 13y agoIf they commit to providing suitable bandwidth for services such as Netflix and YouTube, I'm not sure how opposed I am to paying for bandwidth. Estimates are that Netflix movies are 1GB/hr- or $0.20/hr at the Comcast rate. Not super cheap.
- beauzero 13y agoWe run into this a lot around the 8-9pm hour. Netflix on xbox seems to be the exception though. Everything else slows down equally (Bluray, phones, ipad, etc.)...not noticeable on anything other than the bluray player though but network stats definitely show it.
- vaporeyes 13y agoI notice this very same thing in my area. The mornings on workdays are considerably faster than evenings on the same days. I notice this when downloading ISOs for operating systems especially. I usually try and save my downloading of these things for morning so that it completes in 10 minutes vs 50 minutes.
- CountHackulus 13y agoNetflix should be fine, they've already implemented Canada mode, where they stream super-low bandwidth versions. Because while 300GB may seem small for you, in Canada we have to deal with bullshit like 80GB caps on 35Mbps internet for $70/month. It's worse than the third world for internet here in Canada. I'd say that you should be grateful for 300GB caps, but honestly, I think all caps should be abolished.
- Fuxy 13y agoUS you're ISP's suck please wake up and do something about it! Now I'm not in a lot better position ISP's in London are not that much of an improvement. However if i say Romania what pops into your mind? I my case internet speeds starting from 50Mb/s in every major city at a price equivalent to £6/month. http://www.rcs-rds.ro/internet-digi-net/fiberlink?t=internet-fix&pachet=digi_net_fiberlink_50 http://www.rcs-rds.ro/internet-digi-net/fiberlink?t=internet...
- dale386 13y agoDo what exactly? Most areas in the US are served either by one provider that does whatever the hell it wants or multiple providers that offer the same awful service at the same terrible prices (ish). We can't vote with our money and we can't vote with our votes since our politicians (1) are clueless about all things technology (2) get the little knowledge they have from lobbyists and (3) won't do anything about internet problems unless they hear about it from a lot of voters, most of whom are also clueless about all things technology.
- jorgem 13y agoI assume Romanians are somewhat (equally) clueless about technology on average. What's the difference, then? What are they doing right?
- Fuxy 13y agoActually worse. Most people still have a hard time just doing basic things on a laptop. The difference is teenagers are teaching their parents how to use laptops or other new electronics so they are improving slowly.
- jorgem 13y agoIs £6/month a lot in Romania? Does it buy less than the $70 I spend for 50mbs?
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- gimliclc 13y agoThis is actually a much better policy then the one in place 3-4 years ago when I had comcast. Back then I had a cap of 150-200 GB/Month and if you went over they would give you a warning, but eventually boot you for repeated offenses. Now it looks like they will just charge you a bit more instead of kicking you off completely.
- scrabble 13y agoThis enables them to offer an upsale for an unlimited package in the future, which is what ISPs here in Canada have begun doing. I pay extra for unlimited, and I need to since my family uses HD Netflix to watch TV, and I download a lot of entertainment content.
- IgorPartola 13y agoFor those who think this is a bad thing, consider that "unlimited" most often means "limited in an opaque way you cannot control". This cap and pricing structure adds some very nice clarity to exactly when you might exceed you quota. Personally, I would rather pay for the extra GB's than get my connection throttled at the end of the month. Pricing May or may not be acceptable to some, but the model itself is better than "we will limit you if we feel like it".
- Dwolb 13y agoThis comment assumes Comcast cannot provide unlimited data and clarity, which I believe could be a better option.
- IgorPartola 13y agoQuantify unlimited. Do you literally intend to saturate you connection 100% of the time? At what speed? Would you prefer they do not meter your traffic at 10Mbps or they give you 200 GB at 100 Mbps? The simplistic view of GB/month doesn't work well for power users.
- Dwolb 13y agoIt's not in my knowledge how to quantify unlimited. Any definition of unlimited should come from the provider, Comcast.
- IgorPartola 13y agoIf you cannot define what you want then do not ask for it.
- Dwolb 13y agoThe comment wasn't seeking any type of solution. The response pointed out a flaw in the original, unedited comment.
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- hashtree 13y ago"Will I get more data included in my monthly data usage plan if I upgrade to a higher Internet tier? While you may upgrade your Internet service at any time to receive more speed and performance, all of our tiers of service include data usage plans with 300 GB of data per month." http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-plans-expansion-upgrade http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-u... Sigh.
- MAGZine 13y agoMy hope is that they eventually conform all plans into one (at a locked speed/price), and then offer plans in varying amounts of capacity at a certain speed. Much closer reflects a usage-based model, which makes sense for internet billing, whether people like it or not.
- matwood 13y agoThey don't really want to do that because like cell carriers they have a large number of people using very little data and overpaying. They want to keep these people paying for much more than they use.
- MAGZine 13y agooh, that wouldn't change. but instead of: $59.99 - 300GB @ 50mbps, $69.99 - 300 GB @ 75 MBPS, $79.99 - 300 GB @ 100MBPS you'd see, in the future mind you, $59.99 - 300GB @ 128 MBPS, $69.99 - 500 GB @ 128 MBPS, $79 - 800 GB (or, alternatively, $59.99 - 300GB, $0.n /GB afterwards)
- guelo 13y agoThat's an awful hope. My hope is that they are declared an illegal monopoly and an environment is created where actual competition can occur so we end up paying what bandwidth actually costs.
- MAGZine 13y agoThey're not an illegal monopoly though. Paying for what bandwidth costs is the crux of my argument. We're both arguing for what is essentially usage-based-billing ;-)
- Sephiroth87 13y agoAm I missing something? How exactly is this increasing "the amount of data included in your XFINITY Internet Service"?
- wnevets 13y agoI hate comcast so much, they compress the shit out of their television content
- davidcollantes 13y ago"While we believe that 300 GB is more than enough to meet the Internet usage needs of most customers, Comcast will automatically add blocks of 50 GB to your account for an additional $10, should you exceed the 300 GB included in your plan in a month." That made my jaw drop. Netflix usage eats that in no time. Online gaming eats that in no time. Actually, web browsing for a family of 4 (which includes Youtube, etc.) eats that in no time. Today's "regular" Internet usage eats that in no time. Which dinosaur thought that 300 GB was "more than enough?"
- wozniacki 13y agoI second this. No Netflix , Amazon , Roku or any set top box based streaming of any other kind either. No gaming either. This is my usage for the past three months: http://i.imgur.com/ZDNGYVI.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ZDNGYVI.jpg
- untog 13y agoIf you're not using any video streaming sites, what are you using that uses up to 250GB a month?
- thaumasiotes 13y agoYou appear to have fallen short of 300GB all three months?
- wozniacki 13y ago
- ojbyrne 13y agoThe headline seems incorrect. Comcast has had data caps for a while now. They are increasing them from 250 gb to 300 gb.
- jolan 13y agoEnforcement has been suspended in the majority of markets for the last ~18 months or so.
- wolframarnold 13y agoSwitch to Sonic Fusion DSL if you're in their service area (Bay Area, perhaps elsewhere?). http://sonic.net/solutions/home/internet/fusion/ http://sonic.net/solutions/home/internet/fusion/ Far cheaper than Comcast and no gimmicks. The service runs about $50/month with all the little FCC charges, taxes, etc tacked on and comes with an unlimited nationwide phone line too. The speed is dependent on your distance from the central switching station of the phone company. I've had it in two locations with speeds ranging from 8 to 16MBit/s, on par with Comcast. Perfect for streaming any TV show you want to watch.
- KyeRussell 13y agoCountries with widespread ADSL can attest to some of its downfalls. For example, try getting upload of more than 130kB/s on ADSL2+. ;)
- jeady 13y agoSonic.net is great but unfortunately DSL technology isn't. I've also had sonic.net in two locations but my speeds ranged from 5-7Mbits. So it's worth a shot but it's not perfect.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- beauzero 13y agogoogle templates.
- beauzero 13y agoCrap I just looked at my usage. Basically looks like I will be paying $10-$20 a month more. Not much money but that really irritates me.
- mortdeus 13y agoAnd this ladies and gentlemen is when healthy capitalism turns into corporate greed. Internet needs to become faster with more bandwidth so engineers can design products that utilizes it. I can think of several ideas that are stifled because of America's draconian internet service providers. I'm not a big fan of the government stepping in to fix things the free market wont, but this is one of those things where companies should be forced to innovate because they choose not to compete. Providing the internet is too profitable for them to need to compete. There is something wrong with that in a capitalist economy.
- thatswrong0 13y agoI don't quite understand how you think that the current ISP situation is an example of healthy capitalism or a free market. It is anything but. There is a ton of government regulation related to ISPs. So I don't see how fighting regulation with regulation is a good idea.
- shmerl 13y agoData caps is a completely brain dead idea. If they have problems with network congestion, they need to use bandwidth caps, not data caps. The later are just a rip off.
- mortdeus 13y agoIts not a brain dead idea from a corporate policy to maximize profits. Datacaps allow them to not expand infrasture to accommodate growth. Imagine if Google adopted a policy where each user was only allowed 300 queries a month. That means Google wouldn't have to expand their infrastructure to satisfy a growing demand for information. The only reason they don't do this is because Google profits from each query. ISPs don't profit from their consumers downloading more data, it only costs them building more infrasture and employing network admins to maintain them. Its just internet providers generate a ridiculous return in profit for the amount of money they actually invest to provide internet. ISPs don't need to compete with other ISPs because how profitable internet is for them. They need incentive to provide better service and until something like Google Fiber forces disruption in the market; engineers will have an artificial roadblock preventing them from innovating. For example a cloud based OS where users can access their PCs at home in realtime from terminals abroad will never be a reality until America is upgraded to fiber optic bandwidth. It causes to much latency to download and mount your filesystem onto a local machine. Anybody with experience using Plan 9 remotely understands this problem and knows I'm right. As we become more dependent on the cloud to sync data between our mobile devices and PCs, datacaps will stifle innovative growth. Its something we need to vehemently battle to shift the market in our favor.
- shmerl 13y agoThis "maximizing profit" is an effective rip off fueled by pure greed and not any real need. They can perfectly build up their infrastructure without introducing these rip offs. And I'm not sure how they can accommodate usage growth without building up the infrastructure. Data caps aren't going to help that, they'll just make bad service cost more, nothing else.
- jorgem 13y ago>> ISPs don't profit from their consumers downloading more data They would, if it helped them compete. Oh yeah, this is all just a symptom of abuse of monopolies.
- lost_my_pwd 13y ago> We will send you a courtesy "in-browser" notice and an email letting you know how much of the data included in your monthly plan you are using That is the item that really bothers me. What Comcast is saying is that they will alter/inject their own content into a customer's HTTP requests when they deem it necessary.
- th0br0 13y agoI was wondering about this too when I read that... Is this an indirect admission that they actively use DPI?
- ericcumbee 13y agoMy plan with Northland Cable is capped at 200GB. even with lots of Netflix streaming I've never hit my cap. the only thing that irritates me is that I have no way of knowing exactly how much data I use.
- sprite 13y agoFuck Comcast. I use around 500gb/month. So I'm looking an extra $40 onto of the $80 I'm already paying for Internet only.
- jcomis 13y agoWith 4K streaming and displays coming soon, what are they thinking?
- spacebe4time 13y agoProfit margins and dollar signs and how to buy out as many politicians as they can, so nobody interferes with their unnatural monopoly.
- hippy11 13y agoIn a world that is moving towards gigabit internet, which genius in Comcast thought 300GB is enough for most people? The internet is far from its peak. Already, we see more and more websites with background videos, beautiful images, and all kinds of wonderful media. At the rate of advancement we will consume even more amazing media on the internet (3D?) that will take up even more bandwidth as time goes on. By introducing a bandwidth saving mindset and forcing consumers to browse conservatively, Comcast is really going against the evolution of the internet. Like most companies that is destined to fail, Comcast makes decisions based on old and current data. They fail to take into account rate of growth and make policies that benefits and embraces the future.
- superkuh 13y agoThe cap is not the frightening bit of this announcement. That Comcast has declared they will MITM and hack user connections to all websites not using SSL is frightening.
- wozniacki 13y agoBroadband prices across the world: (45 Mbps or more) http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70717000/gif/_70717869_countries_with_high_speed_broadband.gif http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70717000/gif/_70717869... This research echoes the findings of another report earlier in the summer by the OECD, which compared countries in terms of their broadband-only prices. Across all 10 download speeds and capacities, it consistently ranked the US near the bottom. For instance, at high speeds of 45 Mbps and over, the OECD report has the US ranked 30th out of 33 countries, with an average price of $90 a month. With phone and TV thrown in, plus some premium channels, these packages often cost $200. "Americans pay so much because they don't have a choice," says Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy. Although there are several national companies, local markets tend to be dominated by just one or two main providers. "We deregulated high-speed internet access 10 years ago and since then we've seen enormous consolidation and monopolies, so left to their own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight." Two-thirds get their broadband via their television cables, she says, because the DSL (digital subscriber line) service provided by phone companies over copper lines can't compete with cable speeds, while wireless and satellite services are subject to low usage caps. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383
- richardv 13y agoIt's about 1Mbit a month... (1Mbit = 328.5 GB).
- th0br0 13y agoTelekom in Germany recently tried to introduce a similar data cap system on their flatrates ([1], with severe throttling to 384kbps after reaching the limit (between 75GB for their 16 MBit and 400GB for their 200MBit plans)). Fortunately, a district court ruled that to be unlawful last month ([2], German). I fear, however, that a similar development in the US is more than unlikely. [1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130425/02255122829/deutsche-telekom-dumps-net-neutrality-will-limit-bandwidth-competing-video-voice-products.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130425/02255122829/deutsc... [2] http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gericht-telekom-drosselung100.html http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gericht-telekom-drosselung10...