Comcast Launches Broadband Meter

nlawalker writes "Beginning on Tuesday, January 12, Comcast high-speed internet users in Washington state will have access to an online tool that displays their bandwidth usage for the most recent three calendar (not billing) months of usage, including the current month. Washington is the second market to receive access to the tool, following its introduction in Portland. 'For the fraction of less than 1 percent of our customers who are concerned about exceeding our excessive use threshold, we believe this meter will help them monitor and calibrate their usage,' said spokesman Steve Kipp. Perhaps those who aren't using 250GB a month should take it as a challenge."

Sounds about right.

[C10H14N2]

Basically, they're saying for 5% of the price of a T1 you get 5% the capacity over a month.

So, continuing on about the tenth year in a row, I continue find it very hard to give a shit.

So what?

[faedle]

For all this handwringing, I've never seen this feature on my Comcast account. Yes, I live in Portland.

Maybe it's because I pay for the higher tier?

Re:or...

[RobVB]

Their traffic meter will almost definitely show more traffic than anything you install on your PC, because they measure on their end and you're measuring on yours. I'm sure some people can explain why better than I can (because I can't think of anything except packet loss), but for some reason there's always more data being transmitted than being received (and most home users do more receiving than transmitting).

Re:It's all about timing

[Urza9814]

Haha, I know. But last year it was 4GB. Now _that_ was painful.

Re:Exactly.

[ZorinLynx]

They won't bother you unless they're having performance problems on that node, and even then they only bother the top n% (not sure what n is) which is not necessarily 250GB.

250GB is just the floor for "we won't bother anyone under this amount".

Trust me, Comcast doesn't WANT to lose customers, and won't get rid of you unless you're causing real, actual problems. They may be greedy at times but they're not entirely stupid. $40 a month is better than $0.

Re:Thanks for telling how I should use the interne

[imcdona]

Cute, but if you were to y'know... ACTUALLY CHECK WITH COMCAST, you'll find there is no such thing.

Comcast does offer a "no cap service". According to the Comcast business rep I talked with, Comcast business accounts are exempt from the bandwidth caps. And yes, if your willing to pay for it, they will gladly setup a business account at a residential address. For the 50mb/10mb service you can expect to pay $100+ more than the standard residential 50mb/10mb package.

Re:Honey...

[plover]

I'm disappointed in all the geeks on this site misusing the term "bandwidth." Bandwidth is a measure of rate, not of volume.

I can understand a Comcast marketing droid calling it a "bandwidth meter" because it's a non-geek selling it to non-geeks. But we shouldn't use the word improperly just because some stupid people do.

Earning my karma today, that's for sure.