Comcast Lifting Internet Data Cap; Testing New Tiers

[exfileme]

Comcast is lifting its data cap while it tests several tiered models in specific locations.

Comcast Lifting Internet Data Cap; Testing New Tiers : Read more

 

[4745454b]

8-10GBs a month? No way those guys are a bunch of college kids living together or use Netflix. And before you start saying college kids don't need that much bandwidth keep in mind that if say four of them were rooming together and they all wanted to play D3 (15GB download) then they would have used up (15 * 4) 60GB, or over 20% of their monthly cap. And god help them if they do other things like Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, or bought some other game off of steam/origin.

I don't understand why our caps are so low. I bet I can chew through 100GB in a month without even trying.

 

[biggiebody]

I have comcast and there a couple times that I was bordering 250gb, but that doesn't happen routinely. I prefer no caps, but 250gb is a good cap if there is a cap. 300gb cap is even better and I believe higher than others, plus you can't beat the speed of comcast, at least in my area.

 

[lahawzel]

facebook and twitter don't chew up 100GB over a month no matter how hard you try. Guess what most consumers use the internet for nowadays.

 

[Guest]

You bunch of frickin' idiots, Comcast. The average non-retarded not-a-social-network-fetishist internet user is on the internet to play games or do serious business. They're EASILY going to clock at least 100GB/month.

 

[face-plants]

Keep in mind that people downloading tons of movies and music off the web aren't the only people that need to watch their bandwidth usage. I work from home several days a week and am constantly connected to work through a VPN. Almost all the apps I use are run remotely and my usage per month averages around 100Gb just with work related internet use. Add all my families personal use and the bandwidth eaten up by remote viewing cameras and I am almost always coming close to the 250Gb limit. While I welcome the temporary removal of the cap (that is unless I'm in one of the trial areas) I worry about the exact details of how the new tiered system will work. With the current trend of internet use moving more and more into the realms of streaming media, remote computing and cloud-computing, people will be using more and more bandwidth.
Comcast justified the 250Gb cap by saying that 80-90% of customers used far less than 250Gb. They also offered no alternative to people who regularly exceeded the limit. I prefer a system based more on average monthly use (as in your monthly average bandwidth used over say a 6 month period). This is similar to the difference between AT&T and other wireless carriers in that they offer rollover minutes. By basing the usage caps on an average over some reasonable period of time, heavy users will still end up paying for what they use but average users won't be penalized for heavy use one month out of the year.

 

[soccerdocks]

I have comcast and for the past 3 months we've used about 350-400 GB per month with no warnings. There are 3 people in my house who often download games and stream movies from hulu and netflix. None of the bandwidth comes from illegal downloading. Its so easy to exceed the 250 GB cap if you have more than one person actually using the internet. I built a new computer for my roommate and he had to redownload all his steam games. There's about 150 GB in a single day. We pay for an internet speed, not for a total amount of data used. There should not be any caps.

 

[azgard]

With the increasing amount of multimedia content and this constant push towards making user's use cloud based services, ISP's are going to have a hard sell telling customer's they are going to have to keep paying out more and more for bandwith. This will be a problem unless the government ever actually takes an active role in fixing the issue as the ISP's have absolutely no incentive to increase capacity to meet demand when they can just squeeze the pipelines and as much money as they feel they can get. And before anyone tries to do a capitalism spin, in a majority of markets your lucky if you have more then 2 providers to turn to, some ISP's are still enjoying natural monopolies and abusing the hell out of it.

 

[bison88]

Okay and why would someone not switch to Comcast Business Class for $10-$15 bucks more to get unlimited bandwidth unmetered for about the same speed with better service? Not to mention there have been many reports saying there is literally no difference network wise when Comcast switches you to the Business Class from the Residential, so if it's the same network then how are they offering unlimited speeds to those folk for a few bucks more?

So much bullshit from Comcast. I can't see how anyone can honestly take anything that comes from there mouth seriously without rolling there eyes.

 

[sam_fisher]

If only Australia had America's internet... We're rural and hence pay $30 a month for 4GB at 40KB/s. 🙁

 

[phamhlam]

I am suprise at all the people complaining. I guess since they torrent their movies, they don't like to pay for internet also. $10 per 50GB over is fair. 99% of people don't even get close so why should they pay so the 1% can download massive amounts of file for the same price as someone who uses the internet for casual surfing and a movie every weekend. I have comcast and I go over and I think I should pay a little more for what I use.

 

[bison88]

[citation][nom]hasten[/nom]Geez, next time just copy the common files to an external hard drive or somewhere over the network. Then download steam and move em back! Save you a ton of time, won't hog the network and won't use 2/3 your data limit. I'm confused as to why the guys saying that 250gb isn't a large enough limit are getting thumbs down. I've probably only gotten 2/3 - 3/4 there, but with the ever increasing size of games and amount (and size) of streamable media I can see myself busting it.[/citation]

You can't copy streaming services over the network like Hulu/Netflix. That's part of the DRM/business model and account sharing is also usually against TOS. The sad thing is there is no such thing as a network hog, not like there really was 10 years ago when cable networks were inferior, speeds were truly unlimited (used to download 400GB on a 1.5/3.0Mbps connection then).

Fact of the matter is you can surf the web and view pictures all day long and fit within Comcasts "average user" limit of 5-10GB per month usage, but those aren't the users that pushed the Internet content via constant daily use of Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Steam, Dropbox, online backup solutions, etc. Those "hardcore" users which I call the real average user, are the ones that have coincidently pushed the Internet into what it is today with all the content you see. Without those heavy users there wouldn't be a need for the content. So while people may not need or use that bandwidth intensive content every day or as much as others, the fact is IT'S THERE FOR WHEN YOU DO USE IT. Cable/Teleco's and media giants which many of them own or are owned by, would love nothing more than to do everything possible to put the Internet genie back in the bottle again going as far as calling the Internet a fad.

http/www.dslreports.com/shownews/HBO-Boss-Thinks-This-Whole-Internet-Video-Thing-is-a-Fad-119442

...and for the record enjoy a thumbs down. So many damn trolls run rampant that you'll either spending half your time trying to say the right thing to impress people and less time actually voicing your opinion.

 

[whimseh]

So me buying a lot of Steam games puts me in the group with people who download a shitstorm of illegal things... nice to know... -_-

 

[face-plants]

You can't copy streaming services over the network like Hulu/Netflix. That's part of the DRM/business model and account sharing is also usually against TOS

He was talking specifically about Steam and the user who posted about having to re-download all his steam games again. It is in fact true (and a very good idea) that you can save your local files for many if not all steam games and copy them to another computer if you're migrating to another pc. In steam, right-click the game and select "Backup game files..." You still need a legit steam acct etc but I've done this process multiple times and even have had 2-3 friends re-install their steam games from the backups I made saving them about 90% of the downloading to get up and running again.

 

[acerace]

[citation][nom]phamhlam[/nom]I am suprise at all the people complaining. I guess since they torrent their movies, they don't like to pay for internet also. $10 per 50GB over is fair. 99% of people don't even get close so why should they pay so the 1% can download massive amounts of file for the same price as someone who uses the internet for casual surfing and a movie every weekend. I have comcast and I go over and I think I should pay a little more for what I use.[/citation]

Do you know how large a game at Steam is?

 

[killerclick]

I'm in a crappy ex-communist East European country, and I get 12mbps unlimited for like $20 a month. And we also have a de-facto monopoly on broadband Internet in the city I live in.... so Americans and Australians, someone's screwing with you.

 

[s3anister]

[citation][nom]phamhlam[/nom]I am suprise at all the people complaining. I guess since they torrent their movies, they don't like to pay for internet also. $10 per 50GB over is fair. 99% of people don't even get close so why should they pay so the 1% can download massive amounts of file for the same price as someone who uses the internet for casual surfing and a movie every weekend. I have comcast and I go over and I think I should pay a little more for what I use.[/citation]

I can't even believe what I just read.

I have comcast too! And you know what? I can easily burn through 250GB in one month. It's called downloading games. Every time I reformat my computer I have to re-download my catalog of games through steam and that reformat happens on average 4 or 5 times a year.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of how much I can download legally; what about streaming videos? new video games like Diablo 3? Oops there went 15GB of my data cap in three hours!

You've got to be kidding me. If comcast ever starts charging me for going past 250GB I'm dropping every service I have from them.

 

[palladin9479]

What Comcast isn't saying is that "Average" is across a year or more. Very few people will use 250GB+ per month, but many will use 250GB+ in a single month then 20GB in the next month and so forth. So their being extremely dishonest when they say "8~10GB" per month.

 

[beayn]

These big ISPs always say "a very small number of people reach the data cap". If that's true, why does it matter? Why bill them more if it's a "very small number". The truth is that these companies KNOW data consumption is on the rise and will only continue to rise for all their customers. By putting caps and overage fees in place now, they will be able to charge most of their customers more money in the future. Just like cell phone companies sent out huge bills for going over your allotted minutes and texts per month. It's a massive source of income that costs them nothing.

 

[beayn]

[citation][nom]phamhlam[/nom]I am suprise at all the people complaining. I guess since they torrent their movies, they don't like to pay for internet also. $10 per 50GB over is fair. 99% of people don't even get close so why should they pay so the 1% can download massive amounts of file for the same price as someone who uses the internet for casual surfing and a movie every weekend. I have comcast and I go over and I think I should pay a little more for what I use.[/citation]
Casual users can hit that mark with Netflix, Steam games, iTunes, Youtube HD etc. All of it is legal. Just because people download a lot, doesn't mean it's illegal content. I used to pirate things all the time. Now it's just a pain in the ass. Why bother with virus infected crap when I can get a game on sale on steam for $10. All of my friends who I used to LAN with are doing the same thing.. ~10 people have all started waiting for games to come on sale on steam, there's no pirating anymore. I think it's very similar for a lot of people.

What you fail to understand is that bandwidth usage is best shown on an exponential graph. The companies see this graph and say hey, this is would be a great source of income. Put caps in place when only 1% of people are going over, then once 80% of people are going over the cap, we'll make millions!