Karl Bode over on DSL Reports reports that Comcast will institute a 250 GB cap on its broadband connections starting Oct. 1. Expect other carriers to follow suit and make tiered broadband a reality. Much as I would like to think otherwise, this is the end of the Internet as we know it.
The caps are a move to ensure that the gouging scheme put in place by Comcast and other cable providers stays intact and they can continue to sell their video-on-demand services. It was a point I made when I wrote, Why Tiered Broadband Is The Enemy of Innovation. I will say this again: this is to stymie services like Hulu, NetFlix and Amazon On-Demand.
In yet another post, I thought of this as a nicer way of getting around net neutrality issues. I just don’t buy Comcast’s arguments, which smell like urine on a hot summer day.
Comcast’s arguments about infrastructure and bandwidth costs and so on are sort of hollow as some of the experts in our comments had indicated. On its network management web site, Comcast uses examples of some services and what you can do with the 250 GB limit.
250 GB per month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 – 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:
* Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
* Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)
Now, if you put it in terms of HD video, 250 GB doesn’t really add up to much. I did the math in an earlier post.
… we’re moving towards HD downloads. With HD, each roughly two-hour-long movie is going to consume about 8 GB, while live sports events, etc., when watched in higher quality can take up some 13 GB. Remember, we share our Internet connections with multiple people in a household. So, before you know it, that 250 GB isn’t enough.
If the company essentially thinks that 250 GB is a lot of bandwidth, then why impose a cap at all? After all, their CTO claimed in an interview with Stacey that an average consumer takes up about 2 GB of data transfer every month. I think they are being typical Comcast — indulging in selective truths.
Question: How will you use the 250 GB bandwidth cap? What are your typical activities on the Internet.
Thanks for the heads up Om, I will be canceling my service with Comcast and finding someone who does not impose ridiculous caps. I want to watch video on Hulu and they obviously want to stop me.
I wonder if AT&T is going to impose caps? They just sent me a mailer with a sign-up special.
I dislike Comcast for many reasons, but this is not one of them.
Assuming consumers have other options in the broadband market (which they almost always have), Comcast should be allowed to impose whatever limits they want as long as their marketing materials and Terms of Service make that clear.
If they impose limits without notifying customers, or through obfuscated notifications, then they should be liable.
But if Comcast is clear to the world about their intentions, they only stand to hurt themselves. Dissatisfied consumers will shop elsewhere, Comcast’s market will shrink and then they’ll either remove the caps or learn to live with a smaller market share.
Comcast spends billions of dollars on infrastructure every year. Like it or not, it is THEIR product to offer and support and price as they see fit. Aside from bait-and-switch advertising or anti-trust issues, they have every right to do this.
Hm. I guess Comcast spent all their money on those silly commercials where people rub “fast” on themselves and then turn into The Flash. No more money left for servers to actually deliver on the fancy marketing promise. Comcast should be very, very ashamed.
I’ll definitely be doing some comparison shopping during the month of September.
The bandwidth cap doesn’t worry me nearly as much as what happens if you go over the cap. At $0.20 a Gig, I’m fine with the cap. At $2 a Gig, it becomes the horror that is cellphone pricing.
Anyway, my consumption is probably 60GB per month right now. I don’t have a TV and probably watch 40-60 hours of video a month (mix of Hulu, iTunes and Unbox). Given my usage habits, I would need more than my 6 Mbps connection to really worry about breaking 250GB.
Ryan you need to get a TV dude, JMHO
Is it only for Residential service or is it also for Business Accounts? I hope they don’t put the cap for business customers as one can expect a large bandwidth if they have a large traffic on their web site.
Also they should provide role over Gigs if they do not use it within that month. They got to be fair as they are cashing on the customers who don’t even use 1 GB a month.
This is what causes shifts in mindsets.
Comcast thinks there BWI g smart with this approach to growth but I say this will eventually hurt them.
The Internet is in a transition now so applying a “metered” pricing approach now will only piss off customers. It only takes one good offer from FIOS to steer new users toward its service.
Comcast is starting to act like an oil company.
So if Comcast is metering everyone’s downloads, should they not provide a webpage where you can gain access to that meter for your account, so you can actually see what your consumption amount is?
That’s a great Idea. It’ll help us monitor our consumption.
This may also have an impact on online backup services. With many offering unlimited(Carbonite and mozy) or very large limits (IDrive with 150GB), the cost of online backup to the consumer will go up from ISP fees point of view at least for the initial backup.
ISPs may subsidize bandwidth costs if consumers use the ISP’s preferred online backup. This may also apply to HD and other BW intensive services.
I think the end game these ISPs are seeking is basically a piece of the direct revenues for all these high BW applications, not just the additional BW fees.
This isn’t about VOD. It’s about providing a good experience to all of our customers online. Our customers watch video on the Web from the sites you mention -Hulu, Netflix, Amazon- and others, including our own video viewing site, Fancast.com. We encourage video viewing wherever customers want to watch … on TV, VOD, or online. And just to be clear, our overall policy on excessive use remains the same as it was before, the only thing that has changed is that we are providing a specific number, which customers requested. This policy only impacts a very small fraction of our customers — much less than 1%. More details are available on our site.
http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use
If it was less then 1% of residential comcast customers that go over this limit then why do they need a limit!!!!!
Since you wrote this post, the number of people streaming HD movies has increased substantially yet you still have the 250GB limit. I have a very hard time believing in the 1% stat you mentioned as of 2008 and I really don’t believe it is anywhere near that low now.
Carriers and cablecos continue to demonstrate astonishing lack of foresight. Just when it is becoming apparent that video is going to be dominant form of content on the Internet, they start to invent ways to condemn themselves to be dumb-pipes forever. Seems that the suits have never watched 5 minutes of Hulu and even tried to figure out how to be valuable players in the future.
Really though, I should not be surprised. After all, in the 1970s and 80s when the data-users were figuring out Ethernet, moving in Megabits, carriers engineering/cobbled together ISDN.
In late 80s and early 90s as an early vision of the IP driven internet came together, carriers engineered ATM.
In mid 90s, while gopher and mosaic users were figuring out early form of what eventually became the web, Southern Bell and others were deep in video-on-demand trials in Heathrow, Florida.
And in the early/mid 200xs, even as youtube and crunchyroll and several others were driving video on the network, carriers were busy wasting money on IPTV infrastructure.
And now, finally when an immersive and eventually HD video led vision of the content-web is beginning to emerge, we see carriers/cablecos try to commit collective harakiri by throttling usage. My only surprise – they haven’t yet invented a fancy acronym for it.
I live in the UK where metered broadband is the norm, in 4 years I have never used more than 17GB in a month, and I am a VERY heavy internet user:
Youtube, RSS feeds, Streaming video and radio, regular purchases of whole TV series of iTunes, you name it, I’ve done it.
If someone is going to use up the 250GB cap, they are likely to be running a large scale filesharing hub or something similar from their home..
Do you stream HD films? One movie can take 8GB. At that rate you will run into the 250GB limit quickly.
Rohit is dead on! Thanks.
Yeah, I’m a comcast subscriber here in Miami.
250 Gigs is plenty for 99% of users. Really. I was afraid they would put the cap much lower.
To be honest, I prefer this, rather then them deciding which ports i can get data on, or what kind of traffic I can get. I backup my server every night (incremental), and I don’t even come near using that amount of data monthly.
I also watch a lot of video online, have a Roku box, do the iTunes dance, and am still well below that limit.
A bit of an overreach, Om?
I wonder what the net effect would be for users of Comcast’s on VOIP service, which touts “unlimited” local and long distance phone service, which subscribers pay for as a separate line item on their bills. It would be a real shame if users were pushed over the cap by phone calls, I understand that VOIP traffic isn’t that significant when compared to file sharing, and video on demand, but I guess all traffic would count when the meter is running.
Here’s the flip side. Let’s hold them accountable. If they’ve set 250GB as our ceiling, then they’ve set any amount less than 250GB as within the legally binding usage agreement to be deliver for your fee.
They have no rights, nor grounds to limit your usage up to 249.99GB of bandwidth.
They made their bed, it’s a two edged sword. Sure, we get the jagged edge, but let’s make sure they taste a little bit of their own magic.
Comcast’s arguments about infrastructure and bandwidth costs and so on are sort of hollow as some of the experts in our comments had indicated.
Om, come on. The “experts” in your comments in that previous article had not given one single shred of information that was factual that indicated that comcasts arguments about infrastructure and bandwidth costs are hollow.
I’m concerned. I agree that they need to provide some form of measurement for your bandwidth usage. What happens if you hit the cap and you need internet access?
In general, this month I’ve watched 3 or 4 movies using Netflix Player. Some weekends I’ve done lots more than that. I also downloaded a beta client from Fileplanet for an upcoming game that was about 1gb. I’m also watching training videos on Lynda.com pretty much every weeknight, and will be for a good portion of the next month. So overall, if I ever come close to their cap they’ve lost a customer.
Rogers imposed “tiered” caps of 60 or 95 GB on their Internet services last spring. But at least they added two ways to monitor usage: (i) you can check your usage on your Rogers account page and (ii) at 75% usage they email you a warning. They also provide a three month ramp up period so that you can estimate your usage.
Fortunately I have never reached half that level but then I feel there are more effective ways to access feature films – go see the film (if it’s still in the cinemas), buy or rent the DVD (which gives me unlimited viewing) or use my Rogers-On-Demand cable service.
As for hosted VoIP phone services offered by the cable companies, they are architected to come in by a separate “pipe” for QoS management reasons. On the other hand, Skype, Gizmo, etc. would be included in your data allotment.
I spoke to four people at Comcast today. Nobody could tell me my month-to-date usage. Since I pay for their premium service, I asked if my cap would be higher. Nobody, including two managers, could answer my questions. The first ISP to offer uncapped broadband gets my business. Bye, bye, Comcast. Oh, and Comcast, when I leave, I’m taking ALL of my business – cable, broadband, and VoIP.
Goodby Internet, welcome back walled garden. Comcast has the insight and business acumen of a Prodigy or AOL. I hope Comcast suffers the same fate.
I’m not happy about the limit, but at least they are TELLING you the limit, which is different than in the past where they acted like there was no mimit, but cut you off due to overuse.
The problem (as a couple people have mentioned) is that they are going to HAVE to provide some way to see how much you are using (page, email, etc) and my hunch is that they only way you are going to know you went over is with a charge or disconnection. I have a feeling Verizon’s FIOS will not have a cap for a while to get Comcast customers, but the availability just isn’t there.
Sounds like broadband needs to be a municipal utility like water. Come on socialism? Let’s get going 😉
Om is right. This is not about now. It is about the near future when the service providers (it won’t be just Comcast) are looking to be making money from providing HD video and movies. Right now, this will matter to a few people. Over time, when HD comes pervasive, it will become important to many people.
The right analogy is the Alternative Minimum Tax. At first, it was intended to catch only a small percentage of high income people. Over time, the limit was not increased and with inflation more and more people found themselves caught in the AMT.
Come back in a few years and check the percentage of people at the 250 GB limit. Om will pointing us back to this series of posts.
I hope enough people will vote with their wallets and let Comcast know that this is unacceptable.
The “50 millions emails” line is so disingenuous – just a way to use statistics to drum up a large number and put the “layperson” at ease. This issue is not about email, it’s about video that looks to compete with Comcast’s own video services.
Yeah, Zebrton. Let’s pat them on the back for starting to tell the “truth” after years of being lied to and the government having to get involved.
As far as a municipal utility – they tried that, most of the programs offering it here in Arizona have been shut down by lawsuits and lobbyist’s activities.
Any suggestions on ways I can track my bandwidth usage? I think OpenDNS may lend some insight but would like some other options.
I can’t wait until I start seeing peak, off-peak, weekend, and other types of usage on my internet bill.
On a separate thought…I wonder if this will lead a few folks to start mooching off their neighbors networks!
Om- How much bandwidth do you use in a month?
It’s fine by me. It just means that bloated web-sites like this one will have to slim down…kill some of the useless pipe clogging “web 2.0” graphics and actually put a focus on content. Shocking I know, but this site will actually have to load in under an hour for most people now.
The web 2.0 crowd hates bandwidth caps because it means they’ll have to design sites that aren’t so choked with social crap, annoying animated Ads and hurricane tracking weather widgets that take forever to load.
When people claim it’s the “end of something”, they’re really saying that the changes are affecting their wallets and they’re pissed. This web site doesn’t give a hang about the Internet. You’re merely thinking of your own revenue stream.
The end of the internet as we know it? Really? It might be a step backward for some, but for much of the world, 250GB caps are something we can only dream about. All the complaining I can see here is laughable when 15-20GB a month is considered a high-end connection…
Metered broadband = Pretty bad. We know people overseas who have to pay an arm and a leg for a cap of 1GB…imagine that? I can’t say 250GB is bad at all…unless you’re in a particular business where you NEED more, I can’t complain about it but you’re right, why create the cap anyways if the majority of folks don’t even reach it on a monthly basis? Stupid.
Some of this may be the fear of the unknown. i.e. how much is 250gb in regular usage/my usage. Will I go over? etc.
But for the young and/or naive this is what will happen: A) The cap will be set to 250gb now (otherwise customers would leave like rats off a sinking ship). Then in a year or so it will go to 150gb “because our networks are still getting hammered” and so on until they’ve got it as low as they possibly can. B) Special “deals” will be set up with the sites that can afford to pay so that their sites don’t count towards your cap. Which will have the effect of killing the internet as a land of opportunity for the little guys. C) The RIAA et al will pay to make this happen so there’s another profit center. D) More special “deals” will be set up so that the ISP’s own video and VOIP offerings don’t count towards your cap thereby killing all competition.
Om is right – unless the gov. gets involved – which is not likely this is the beginning of the end for the internet as we know it.
And the wheel rolls around…
This was done in the era of the dial up as well. Guess which companies won then. The biggest difference here is that in most markets, Comcast internet speeds are BY FAR the fastest in the area. If you are a person that wants to make use of bandwidth intensive services, guess which company you would choose? Comcast – until now.
I also would take issue with Comcast being able to meter the usage themselves. Gas pumps are regulated and inspected. Utility meters also have oversight.
Who watches Comcast?
@ Ericson Smith
You did buy that hook line and sinker. Wait till you watch HD video on your broadband – see how quickly the 250 GB goes. That’s what 3 hours of HD video every day. Watch a live broadcast of a sports event – the video is much shorter.
I think the problem is in the “emails sent” and “songs downloaded” that is for all to say.
This is plain simple way to protect their video franchise. Which is stupid, because it isn’t as profitable as their internet franchise. Oh well…
@ Mari,
The minute I found out they were going to cap bandwidth, doctor traffic I got off the incumbent trail. I have two DSL connections – both from independent companies and while they are expensive, I have never once had to think about bandwidth. I buy video shows from iTunes store, watch Hulu, and MLB.com. I have no-TV.
In fact, I have not had TV for a long time. I think when HD video shows up – and it is coming – on the Internet, I am going to go for that also. I backup my computers online, I email constantly, and more. So no – I don’t like to think about how much bandwidth I consume.
Hello Om,
Very interesting post and discussions. I wanted to pass along some data we publish here at the OECD on data/bit caps. We have data on caps for some 210 offers across the 30 OECD countries in October 2007.
Excel file: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/15/39575302.xls
In terms of caps, there is a lot worse than 250 GB of traffic per month. Some of these caps go as low as 20 to 200 MEGAbytes. The excel sheet shows how you could theoretically hit your cap on some of these offers after just one minute of downloading at “advertised” speeds.
Om, i do not see the problem with a cap. Personally -as a heavy internet user- i think the cap should even be much lower.
Every flatrate price for broadband is basically a mixed calculation of all customer usages. What this means is that 1% of the heavy-heavy internet users cause an significant price increase for 99% of other users. (Sombody has to pay for this excessive use, and i would not like to pay for this 1%).
In Germany mobile operators introduced the concept of a “fairflat”. And i think this concept would be perfectly applicable for fixed broadband.
The online backup is something I had not considered. I backup just under 1gb daily. This is ultimately intended to limit the competition of internet video/TV/movies, not just HD. Is this an opportunity knocking for other broadband services? WiMax?
It also makes me wonder what this will do to “cloud computing”?
I think Comcast is either forgetting about or saying a big F*ck you to the folks who do a decent amount of online gaming. Now….I’m no computer expert, but if I assume I am downloading only 1 megabyte per second when playing my 360 on XBoxLive, and work off of the numbers I’m seeing, that 1 gigabyte equals 1,024 megabytes…do the math. 250(gigabytes allowed per month) X 1,024(number of megabytes in a gigabyte) = 256,000(number of megabytes allowed per month); 256,000 divided by 60(seconds in a minute) = 4,266.66; then 4,266.66 divided by 60(minutes in an hour) = 71.11 hours of online gaming, based on the estimate of 1 megabyte downloaded from XBL per second.
That may sound like a lot of gaming, but when spread over an entire month, that’s under two and a half hours per day, which really isn’t that much, especially when you consider that doesn’t include ANY normal internet usage, or the fact that if you’re technically playing a game offline, but are still connected to XBL, you’re still downloading information from XBL.
I can’t speak for those who may surpass these numbers with emails, movie, song or other downloadable content via a PC, but as a gamer, I’m not really all that concerned long term, as Microsoft themselves will most likely be filing suits against Comcast any day now….they simply make way too much money off of XBL to allow these kinds of limitations on internet usage.
You know, Comcast, there is another solution to this problem. DON’T SELL THAT WHICH YOU CANNOT ADEQUATELY PROVIDE!!! If you have too many customers for the amount of bandwidth you’re producing, then try expanding the amount of bandwidth that you’re providing, rather than screwing your paying customers!
I agree with those who say it is unfair to charge everyone the same amount, when some use much more than others. HOWEVER, Comcast doesn’t offer upgraded tiers of internet service. In fact, they go out, buy existing cable companies(in my case, InSight Cable, who did offer upgradable internet tiers for those who need it) and then discontinue those expanded services that did keep it fair for everyone. So that is, again, their fault for screwing crap up to begin with.
As technology advances, perhaps broadband will raise its limits in the same fashion as e-mail storage has done.
Also, Comcast is the ONLY choice for people in areas that have cable monopolies.
Is there some thing like on-demand or pay-and-use kind of high speed internet service to my home? I dont need 24 hrs of internet service to my home. Why to pay for 24 hrs internet if all I use is only for 1 hour a day?
My ‘typical day/ usage’ is: ITunes, Ruku, Xbox360, WebSite Management as well as Megarotic(or Hulu depending on my mood). I have 3 HD tv’s, each with an XBox 360, and 3 Live accounts.
I have a family, and that’s important when speaking about ‘typical’ use. Everyone should realize that if you allow the Cable Companies to do this with the data today, it will change the way online advertisers, producers, and jobbers ‘perceive’ their ROI. If Mom tells you ‘No Downloads’, that’s going to go a long way in killing the online business, trust me.
In closing, I was simply pointing out to Bobcat that his association of ‘High Bandwidth’ users and ‘Pirating Content’ is simply a crock of ‘Comcrap’. The cable companies are begining to charge ‘By the Byte’ in an attempt to kill the fledging ‘on demand’ business so all those advertising dollars go into THE BROADCAST TELEVISION market, not the ONLINE market.
PS. At work, I use Fios business, 20-5 w/ 4 ip addresses, at a cost of $100 per month. That replaced a Verizon full T1 that cost $600 per month.
At home,I pay for unlimited data with Verizon, 20-20 tier. No caps, throttling, or DPI.
—
This really really won’t concern me that much unless Comcast starts making deals with certain establishments and websites to nullify their bandwidth usage, as that would essentially the beginning of the end of Net Neutrality. Eventually, as wireless networks become more widespread, customers will have more options to choose from (in many areas right now, Comcast is the only provider available). I’m sure another provider will come along and offer non-metered services, and then either Comcast looses all of it’s customers, or removes the bandwidth caps.
The way I see it, any bandwidth cap is too small simply because it forces a user to think about how much they’re using. As an internet power user, I just go ahead and try something new. With a bandwidth cap to worry about, it would get in the way of me enjoying the internet and being productive. I would put any app I download under intense scrutiny before downloading to avoid unnecessary downloads, while I prefer to just download it and see if I like it.
Cancelling my Comcast Business connection and cable services. Don’t love Verizon but hate this move Comcast is do. 100% they are trying everyway they can to kill the Internet. Only way to defeat this trick and all the others coming is it turn their downstream into a dead zone.
Comcast want’s the users that aren’t using bandwidth? In who’s best interest is that? Not any of the users, advertisers or innovators that’s for sure. Sorry Comcast, try and tighten that noose. This move and FIOS will kill you in the major markets. And if you think you can enforce where the competetion isn’t strong and not make a move where FIOS is .. well think again.
Hope that everyone encourages friends and family to switch. Swift and immediate boycott any products and services. The broadband/communication providers are basically a monopoly so anything less will encourage adoption by the others within months if there isn’t huge chunks moving from Comcast.
Andy
This is really going to hurt us. We homeschool and use unitedstreaming for course content. I’m going to have to let our tv go so I can prepare to pay the extra fees I’m afraid.
hardly a surprise that a monopoly wants to use monopoly pricing. Instead of complaining about what Comcast wants to do with its network, you should be complaining about the government enforcement of local monopolies that deprive you of choices.
Ahhh, I’m guessing none of the Comcast bashers here ever owned a cell phone because they were “Horrified” that they wouldn’t get unlimited minutes for a single rate with zero caps.
Grow up. They put the original plan in place when everyone was riding two wheelers on the highway. Now they see 18 wheelers coming from 10% of the population and want to protect the rest of us by making them pay more for the road we all share. I don’t want to pay more per month for an unlimited flat rate plan because all I’ll be doing is directly subsidizing home schoolers or non stop (porn) movie watching by my neighbors. If you need more than 250 GB’s go pay for it.
It’s fair, it’s transparent and YES, it does reflect the new reality. And it’ll result in better service for all of us with the power users paying more.
Let me put it this way, I just wanted to say…
Sure, 250 GB sounds like a lot doesn’t it? Well, normally, in the age of original sin, the birth of internet 1.o, that would be a limit you’d be lucky to reach in four years.
Today, with the new internet (HD videos, XBOX wireless, and other services that siphon off your bandwidth) this is nothing at all. I share my internet connection on an N wireless router with my next door neighbor’s kid, so he can play Xbox online.
I have a bandwidth meter on my wireless router. Some months, I don’t go above 25 Gb, some, I may hit 290.
This is due to the work I do. Multiple video uploads as a journalist, and emails usually with attachments that exceed the Comcast estimate.
As soon as a reliable internet provider offers me a non cap limit, comcast can kiss my six year loyal ass.
P.S. If you exceed the bandwidth once,its just a warning.
If you exceed it a second time, they will permanently take you off of their internet customer list.
I for one say &%^* Comcast and their bandwidth cap. What a load. They’re afraid, and I for one will be ready and willing to jump down to a slower DSL, and once FIOS comes into town it’s back to real Hi-Speed Internet . I used to live on LI where the bandwidth flowed like wine, 10mbps in 1998 (Optimum Online), and Comcast, 10 years later is proud of their “speed-burst” honestly a *little* behind the curve guys. I obviously and gladly take a cut in speed to know that my use of the other services I pay for, mostly Xbox live where I download A LOT of content. Also I use Windows and Ubuntu, where there are many updates, 250GB is ridic.
can someone tell me if there is any reprocushion of downloading say 30gb worth of material a month? can i get in trouble or can eircom disconnect me for abusing the downloading scheme? i have heard rumours that i can be fined for every song on my computer that was downloaded illegally, but am worried about this because of such an abundance of songs.. please respond to my email alex-thrirdleg@hotmail.com
My Comcast account was suspended today and I had to call a special Comcast Security phone number to have my Internet service online again. They said I had used 460 GB in August and that I was in the top 1% of bandwidth usage in Comcast, and that’s why they suspended my account temporarily. This is all news to me. I was never even told and never knew until today that there was a bandwidth limit in place, apparently officially starting October 1st. This is not good. I wouldn’t be surprised if the MPAA and RIAA are partly to blame for this and obviously Comcast needs its bandwidth available, which is kind of understandable. But they really need to inform the customers first of the limit instead of suspending accounts without informing the customers of this new limit. I really, really hope they take this limit off, though, eventually…
I called Comcast up about the limit they said that it will take the stress off the servers and to introduce newer speeds. I personally think that is bullshit. I asked them when are they taking the limit off, they said that its going to stay there for good. There are over 460,000 customers pissed about this limit. Which means that comcast is going to increase the cost of cable TV, Internet and phone. People, Comcast is no longer worthy of this Country. Plus they’re an unreliable service, because they cause blackouts to most of their customers. They are suppose to inform each customer if there is going to be maintenance instad of waiting on the phone for fucking hours to get an answer. plus they lower your bandwidth limit without you knowing it which really means Comcast unreliable, regardless.
I called the FCC about it, they said they never approved this type of action. Comcast has been chewed out the ass for blocking p2p, screwing around with people’s internet connection and a lot more. The FCC did not approve this type of action. the FCC will not allow the limit period on each citizen of the United States.
This is just the first step in introducing Internet 2.. Do a search google is great. The Global Elite are scared of the freedom the internet provides with the plight for global domanance. If you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly increase the heat it you can boil the water and the frog never knew anything happened till its dead… From all aspects of our lives the noose is slowly being tightened… Its time to quit eating Mcdonalds and open our eyes of there master plan…
Don and the others are over reacting, though I do agree that this is the Internet as we have known it. However, we are at a point now where the technology already exists to get around any attempts to control the Internet, especially through wireless.
Comcast spordically will kill TCP/IP connections, which in effect may terminate a long download that maybe legitimate. That download will have to be started again and without resuming software will eat away at your bandwidth allotment. Don’t be surprised if Comcast “listens” to it’s customers and gets implements an above 250GB fee instead of banning users as a “compromise”.. one where their business practice of throttling connections (and terminating them in instances) will make them $$$.
Plus, they’re using their Internet connection to interfer with a competiter while not interfering with their own service (making the argument that Internet video content is a direct competitor to television… Comcast sure thinks it is). If that’s not got anti-trust written all over it I don’t know what does. Come on FCC, get back on these guys.
Let’s also not forgot… using VoIP other than Comcast eats away at your limit (and Comcast even admits when they slow your service down at peek times, it will make your Vonage calls skip)… but, they don’t limit they’re VoIP service. Yet another anti-trust issue.
Let’s not forget that taxes paid to upgrade the infrastructure for the companies. Oh wait…they took the money, pocketed it, and then didn’t upgrade it anyway. Then they tell you they need caps because their infrastructure can’t handle it.
I would be fine with caps, if they kept it that way and didn’t:
A. Lie, take your taxes, and then do what they want because they lied.
B. Babystep you down to nothing (as they did with their cable TV services. Started with good quality, raised prices, cut content and service.
This severely screws my ability to comfortably use VPN as well. I was enjoying the fact I could go ahead and ramp up the quality to useable levels, now I’m back to the P$/AOHell days of worrying about the exact numbers behind everything I do..
another thing to think of here is that if you are watching commercials when comcast starts to release their own site, or on any of these sites – such as hulu – you are now theoretically “paying” to watch commercials. so they get their double whammy right up your pooper!
Just saying.. i’m from England and that just seems so unfair.. 250GB..
on our current package.. we get 10GB
YES 10 can you believe that?
and you people are moaning about 250.. gosh i wanna move to america =[
And you guys are chucking a tantrum over a 250GB cap?! Why don’t you come over to Australia and have fun with 12GB we get here, I’m sure you won’t be complaining then..
LOL! We have 60 Gigs in our plan so I was wondering if someone can give me a breakdown like the one given above since I’m HORRIBLE at math.
Does it make it up ,When you are on facebook or just playing games online..
BAAAH~!!!! 250!! is terrible… recent we got the stupid call.. “Excuse me, can i speak to *** we would like to bring to your attention that you have surpassed our limit on your bandwidth for the month of August!..ect ect..
i asked how much.. and he said.. you reached an excessive amount of 750gigs plus!!.. We were worried that someone has hacked your internet!. Please be advised that if this continues, we will be force to suspend your account for the next 12!!!! MONTHS .. thats right a full year!?
Its killing my ratios, my roommates with netflix, and youtube..
screw comcast!! you rat bastards who get an excess of 40mil a year from the government to improve the infrastructure!!
down with tier’d internet!!
I have 3 question I would like to ask and if anybody knows about it.
1. When gaming on a PC or Playstation 3 not downloading just playing online does THAT take some of your usage away?
2. I download alot so is there a MonitorI can watch my download from.
3. Does just web searching take of of that 2.
Thanks for this, Comcast called my house and told me that we went over the amount we should have and that they would excuse it this time. But if done again we would get banned from using the internet for an entire year. Since this is my parents home computer, I have no say and can not change the plan or anything. I personally liked comcast until this. Im on youtube constantly, and I also do live video chats constantly so its extremely easy for me to go over this. So now I have to limit myself from all of this. Its very annoying. How do I know how much GB’s I use?
i dont agree with everything comcast does, but i have a better understand then most, of how the internet and phone services work. The cdv or phone service takes priority over internet for jitter reason, and because they both work on the same freq. and qam carriers, internet has to be regulated. 250 gbs is more then enough for most people and the thought is if you need more, get business class. Plus when their networks go all ditigal the bandwidth capacity will douple and the cap will most likely go up.
Yeah this is kind of biased. First of all, it is nearly impossible to use up 250 GB of information in a month in almost all households, HD has not become prevalent enough to consume that much bandwidth anyways.
The only way to consume 250GB or more (right now), is essentially through torrenting, and primarily by uploading to other people. I can say that one could use up 250GB in about a week or two if they had several large torrents seeding fully 24/7, but otherwise you would have to stream probably 24/7 on your computer and one other one in order to actually use up all that bandwidth, probably even more.
5 or 10 years from now when information has become more advanced and file sizes increase (or perhaps they might decrease with better encoding technology), either way the number may need to be increased. Right now, the number seems more like a way to keep seeders from draining all the bandwidth out of the neighborhood. Bad news for seeders I guess.
250 gb per month seems…okay..for my household. i mean i was expecting 100gb per month, and its not like i download 250 gb per month so, thats not too bad i guess. though it would be nice if it were say half a teribite
Forget the cap, they are interfering with Amazon Video On Demand. I can no longer stream a movie without a buffer under run every 5 to 10 sec., ruining the movie experience. I’ve tested my bandwidth with test sites and am getting around 10 MBPS. The only thing that has changed in the last few months is my connection with Amazon. And Comcast’s compression is making the video I receive look like a second gen. VHS signal that was originally recorded in SLP mode.
I see Comcast’s 250GB cap as a misguided policy at best. The meter accuracy is a joke; I downloaded only two movies within the week ending on Saturday 7/17 of not more the 3.5GB, yet I noticed that my download meter jump up by 20GB, from 194GB to 214. My average monthly downloads has been at 55GB or less until July! Comcast’s usage meter got HUNGRY like it’s CEO! It appears that Comcast is willing to lose many customers! If this policy is implemented as promised by Comcast, I will be the first to leave Comcast (Internet, Cable, and phone) to better providers! I am sure that many will also abandon Comcast’s “sinking” ship!
CC say broadband, what this means? , this Broadband only for the Email, Web,, just text oriented Internet?. World expect future with Multimedia in Broadband Network, Future with HD, Live Education, VOD,other country people already enjoying unlimited CAP not like US. US was Only country pay inbcoming celluar call,, CAPPing to Internet blocking the future multimedia with broadband network,when other country enjoying unlimited Intenet like Korea, Japan, and many Asia country. If 1% of CC heavy users makes problem to other users,
Why othe ISP, Like verizon don’t have CAP?
Yes, I have Comcast ‘Blast’ service. I use a laptop, PS3, PSP and an Amazon Kindle. I do not like being limited to 250GB per month. It really limits our human growth. They must realize that the world is NOW in high def, heck, they claim they provide the most HD over their cable television services. It’s kinda like here is color TV, however you can only use it for one week per month or we’ll cancel your account! I like Vudu HD streaming movie service and I’m not the only person who does. As stated in many other discussions ONE HD movie can suck down between 4GB – 20GB of that cap. Wake up Comcast and smell the future.