Comcast To Enforce 1.2TB Data Cap In Entire 39-State Territory In Early 2021 230
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast's 1.2TB monthly data cap is coming to 12 more states and the District of Columbia starting January 2021. The unpopular policy was already enforced in most of Comcast's 39-state US territory over the past few years, and the upcoming expansion will for the first time bring the cap to every market in Comcast's territory. Comcast will be providing some "courtesy months" in which newly capped customers can exceed 1.2TB without penalty, so the first overage charges for these customers will be assessed for data usage in the April 2021 billing period.
Comcast's data cap has been imposed since 2016 in 27 of the 39 states in Comcast's cable territory. The cap-less parts of Comcast's network include Northeastern states where the cable company faces competition from Verizon's un-capped FiOS fiber-to-the-home broadband service. But last week, an update to Comcast's website said that the cap is coming to Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The cap is also coming to parts of Virginia and Ohio where it wasn't already implemented. In all, Comcast has nearly 28 million residential Internet customers. "Comcast's overage charges are $10 for each additional block of 50GB, up to a maximum of $100 each month," notes Ars. "Customers can avoid overage charges by spending an extra $30 a month on unlimited data or $25 for the 'xFi Complete' plan that includes unlimited data and the rental cost for Comcast's xFi gateway modem and router."
Comcast's data cap has been imposed since 2016 in 27 of the 39 states in Comcast's cable territory. The cap-less parts of Comcast's network include Northeastern states where the cable company faces competition from Verizon's un-capped FiOS fiber-to-the-home broadband service. But last week, an update to Comcast's website said that the cap is coming to Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The cap is also coming to parts of Virginia and Ohio where it wasn't already implemented. In all, Comcast has nearly 28 million residential Internet customers. "Comcast's overage charges are $10 for each additional block of 50GB, up to a maximum of $100 each month," notes Ars. "Customers can avoid overage charges by spending an extra $30 a month on unlimited data or $25 for the 'xFi Complete' plan that includes unlimited data and the rental cost for Comcast's xFi gateway modem and router."
Pay more to use your own router!! (Score:5, Informative)
Pay more to use your own router!!
What an rip.
If you can get fiber then get that.
Re:Pay more to use your own router!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Xfinity == Comcast (Score:4, Informative)
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Xfinity is the consumer service and Comcast is the business service now.
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Stop kink shaming, some people are into skin blemishes.
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Damn that's a shitty deal. CA$50 (US$38) for 1Gbps up/down, unlimited usage is the gold standard here. Gets worse if we have to go with one of the big telecoms but even then it's CA$130 (US$99) for 1.5Gbps down and 940Mbps up
Re:Pay more to use your own router!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Comcast was charging me $130 per month for 300 Mbps, but I was getting 75 down and 15 up on a good day.
That's a lot. I pay around $30 for 1Gbps in socialistic Europe. I guess your capitalism is not working so well for consumers.
Re:Pay more to use your own router!! (Score:4, Informative)
Comcast was charging me $130 per month for 300 Mbps, but I was getting 75 down and 15 up on a good day.
That's a lot. I pay around $30 for 1Gbps in socialistic Europe. I guess your capitalism is not working so well for consumers.
It's working exactly as intended. Big corporations hold all the cards and do whatever tf they want. Since they also can campaign for laws and regulations, they can outspend virtually anyone or any group outside of another huge corporation so they mostly get whatever laws they want too. This includes pretty much anything from Uber managing to classify the vast majority of their workforce as contractors to ISPs charging more and more for comparatively less services while including data caps.
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Uh? 2 choices?
Just 2?
Huh?
Why can't you choose whatever ISP you want?
Assuming you're in the USA, land of the free, etc., why do you think you're limited to just two ISPs?
I don't get it. Have phone line. Get internet. The two are not connected.
That's if you even need a phone line (I don't have one, but get 25/5 MB/s)
Australian asking here. Dozens of choices for ISP, via copper or wireless. Soon, maybe, via fibre in my location.
What am I missing?
The distribution network (the fiber or coax on the poles). It's installed and owned by each vendor. So if Comcast and Verizon FIOS have installed the networks in your town, those are your choices (well, you could get satellite, too, I suppose). Some places have point to point microwave wireless off a tower, but that's rare. Cellular providers are not a viable way to get internet here -- the data charges are high and the available bandwidth is low. And coverage is spotty due to terrain and vegetation.
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Several states have outlawed municipal fiber as being unfair competition to private business.
Their politicians were totally not bribed to do so by Comcast and/or Verizon.
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Re:Hello, Starlink! (Score:4)
Come on Elon, let's get your full rollout done.
I'm thinking . . . that even if Starlink is more expensive than Comcast & And Their Pals . . . folks will sign up for Starlink, instead of getting fisted by Comcast every month.
In fact, I could imagine ex-Comcast subscribers anointing their forearms with Tabasco while canceling Comcast and fisting Comcast.
Comcast will emit piggy squeals of, "Oh, you make me feel so Macho!"
Seriously, Comcast seems to be a poster child asshole company. I, personally, would pay more for the option of not my money landing by these royal dickheads.
Re:Hello, Starlink! (Score:4, Informative)
I'm thinking . . . that even if Starlink is more expensive than Comcast & And Their Pals . . . folks will sign up for Starlink, instead of getting fisted by Comcast every month.
Starlink is for people who don't have access to networks like Comcast. It is not going to be available for your average Joe living in an urban or suburban location.
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Yup .. and why. (Score:5, Interesting)
The only reason they can get away with that kind of '#@$!' is that they have no competitors. If I had another viable choice for broadband that didn't include a cap ( or a startup feel of many hundreads of dollars) I'd already be there.
Strange thing how you can do almost anything you want with a captive audience. Good 'ol free enterprise at work their. ( pass laws to ensure no one can compete with you and the government isn't allowed to provide it's own either). Spend big money and manipulate the system then make it up on the backend by overcharging and reducing services.
Re:Yup .. and why. (Score:5, Insightful)
This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:5, Informative)
A very few people use more than 1.2 terabytes of data each month on their home ISP. It's yet another of those 80/20 things - 20% of the people account for 80% of the bandwidth. So, there are two ways you can go with that:
A. EVERYBODY pays more because one dude leaves three TVs streaming 4K all day, while his torrent server saturatesthe local segment, slowing things down for everyone else
B. The dude who uses 80% of the bandwidth in the block pays the extra $30, for as long as he chooses to keep doing that. Everyone else lays their fair share.
Those are the two options. Excessive use means more infrastructure is needed, which has costs. Those costs can either be paid for by the people using it, or everyone else can subsidize torrent guy. Those are two options, A and B. Maybe that sounds harsh, but arithmetic is brutal like that. Division doesn't give a shit how we feel about the fact that $1600 / 20 = $80.
Pick your favorite, those are the choices.
What we have here is customers are given the choice:
A) $60 Up to 1.2TB (enough for most anyone)
B) $90 for uncapped, unlimited so you can waste as much as want
That's two competing plans. I prefer that over "everybody pays $80, whether you're reasonable in your usage or not". I guess that's the plan you prefer. Personally I prefer to have choices.
Re: This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:2)
Except with many people working from home and using video conferencing and on-demand video services for entertainment, a 1.2TB monthly cap is going to be felt by a lot more than you think.
Worse yet, if comcast can get away with it, what prevents other monopolist cable providers from doing the same? Expect Cox and Spectrum to follow suit.
On Zoom more than 600 hours / week? (Score:3)
Are you on Zoom more than 600 hours per week?
Zoom uses 450 MB / in "high quality" video mode.
So if you were on Zoom 40 hours per week, in meetings literally all day every day, Zoom would use 76 GB / month.
The cheaper plan provides 1,200 GB / month.
That's enough to have 15 computers in 15 different Zoom meetings running all day every day.
Re: This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:2)
Re: This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:5, Insightful)
if you're sitting in video conferences all day long then you're not actually doing any productive work.
While I see your point, you'd have to take that up with my boss.
Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
B. The dude who uses 80% of the bandwidth in the block pays the extra $30M ... and then he is still saturating the local segment.
I agree that person should pay more; the problem is that other people around him suffer regardless of what he pays.
Since it just makes extra money for Comcast with no benefit to any users, I wonder if it really makes sense at all.
If I felt like any of that extra fee would go to network expansion, I might be more amenable to it.
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This assumes he continues that behaviour. I find that unlikely for many such individuals.
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Back in my university network admin days, we had a problem with young adults going from 56k modems at their parents home to 100mbit university internet in their university apartment and losing their shit. We had horrific network congestion at around 17:00-2:00. It was borderline unusable for first and last hour, and straight up unusable to the point where I couldn't reliably ssh tunnel to university unix server and read my uni email with pine because it kept timing out.
At some point, main administrators dec
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I don't think you understood my message. What I said was that behaviour changed in a very visible way before any penalties were applied to those going over. I think it wasn't even announced what penalties would be at the time, because bureaucratic decision wasn't yet made. All we had was an announcement that these are the quotas and that there will be unspecified penalties to those going over.
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Random unrelated thought - I hear Comcast customer service isn't very good.
> If I felt like any of that extra fee would go to network expansion, I might be more amenable to it.
Comcast spends about $12 billion / year on upgrading and expanding their network. That's a lot of $30!
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You're assuming that there are significant added costs for higher usage. I haven't seen real justification for that assertion.
$12 billion / year (Score:2)
Comcast (which may have poor customer service, I've heard) spends about $12 billion each year in increasing capacity, providing more bandwidth. So that's the cost of higher usage.
They aren't spending $12 billion / year on new gear just for fun - the stockholders would much rather have that money in their pockets.
Re:This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not sure if you read the headline or not, but it's the entire network.
They used to have some areas where EVERYONE paid the maximum amount, even if they used the minimum.
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A) $60 Up to 1.2TB (enough for most anyone) B) $90 for uncapped, unlimited so you can waste as much as want
That's two competing plans. I prefer that over "everybody pays $80, whether you're reasonable in your usage or not". I guess that's the plan you prefer. Personally I prefer to have choices.
how about the US allow a little competition to fix the monopoly duopoly and pricy barriers to entry of the market, then everyone pays 35 or 45.
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I'm all for competition. We've had some competition everywhere I've lived (around Texas) and I've been pretty happy with the service I get. I understand that one of the companies that serves my current neighborhood isn't good, so I didn't use that company.
Competition allows not just cheaper / better value services, but also options. Just like some people buy new Corvettes and some buy used Toyotas, some people will probably want the top end gigabit fiber with four-star customer service and some people wil
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Those are the two options. Excessive use means more infrastructure is needed, which has costs.
The 3rd option is to have real competition.
Somehow, lots of other places in the world have broadband without caps AND cost much less too!
Re:This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:5, Insightful)
There is *always* a limit, because physics.
The only question is whether the ISP tells you what the limit is or not.
If there wasn't, companies wouldn't pay $12,000 / month for a true gigabit port; they'd host their data center on a $100/month FiOS connection.
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If there wasn't, companies wouldn't pay $12,000 / month for a true gigabit port
Companies don't pay that much, unless they're idiots. For years there have been T1 providers that offer *10* gigabit transit for less than $2000/month with a reasonable commit. Sure, there are cross-connect fees and such to consider as well if you're going direct to the transit provider, but I'm not sure where you're getting the $12K/month from. It's even cheaper if you forgo a direct transit link and use whatever blended band
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I don't think you understand what "commit" means in this context. For your $12,000, at $2000/10 Gbit, it would imply a 60 Gbit commit. You'd be buying 60 Gbit of capacity at $2000 per 10Gbit circuit. It's kinda like a volume discount for a certain amount of bandwidth purchased. How and when you use it is irrelevant - full symmetrical bandwidth is always available because unlike ISPs, transit providers provision the full amount of dedicated bandwidth you're paying for (installing equipment as needed) and
Re: This *is* competition, rather than subsidy (Score:3)
Not my problem. If they don't want tjay dude streaming, they should introduce a pay-per-MB plan at reasonable prices (say, something like $0.00005/MB or so, essentially what they're paying plus a margin in the same order of magnitude).
But no, they wanted the "flatrate" because it sounds better, and the idea was that the few 4k streamng guys would be more than paid for by the normal people barely using internet at all.
Now screaming "but 4k people" is dishonest.
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Excessive use means more infrastructure is needed, which has costs.
Super... so when are all of the rebate checks coming for people who use less than average? If it's "fair" that someone who uses a standard deviation more than average pays $70 + $30 more, then isn't it equally "fair" that someone who uses a standard deviation less than average pays $70 - $30???
- You know it's a cash grab when the only two "fair" options are "pay us" and "fuck you, pay us more"
- You know it's a cash grab when the caps went away for 2+ months this year and it had no discernible impact on net
If you want 128K, you can have it (Score:3)
If you want a 128K dedicated line, you can get that.
That's not what most people want.
Most people want to download a 100 MB quickly. At 1 Gbps, it takes about 1 second to download that 100 MB file. Then the customer wants to receive approximately zero packets for the next 600 seconds. Then they want to download a 10 MB file, which takes about 100ms. Then nothing for a few hundred seconds. That's what most people want.
If they download 500 MB in a day, they don't want it to take all day to download 500 MB.
That's not the only reason (Score:2)
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One thing though: up until March 2020, the Xfinity app on my iPhone actually showed how much I supposedly "downloaded" for the month. How come I haven't seen that since COVID-19 hit? (shrug)
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You've half figured it out. Now ask yourself why they have no competitors. It's because the local government awarded them a monopoly. Usually in exchange for concessions like guarantees to provide service to poor areas. Although the previous city I lived in
monthly usage graph (Score:5, Informative)
Shortly after removing the caps, back around March when covid came out, they removed the usage graph. It's still gone. Annoying.
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https://imgur.com/hCYsNBi [imgur.com]
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Comcast's usage graph is there for me. It was even there (albeit empty) during the period when they suspended bandwidth caps due to COVID-19.
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Shortly after removing the caps, back around March when covid came out, they removed the usage graph. It's still gone. Annoying.
Works for me [xfinity.com]
It's A Money Grab - Pure & Simple (Score:4, Interesting)
Comcast must have realized that profit margins are thin when all you do is supply a pipe.
With cable TV revenues falling due to streaming, and most cable ISPs in the USA having in-house streaming services that pale compared to Youtube, much less the big content providers, Comcast (and eventually all of the other cable ISPs in the USA) will enforce caps and overage charges to make up for the falling revenue that the stock market will see in the quarterly reports.
If usage caps and overage charges do become commonplace in cable Internet services in the USA, how does the average consumer communicate an "I don't want that crap..." to those online operations that consume YOUR bandwidth caps with THEIR to auto-start videos, auto-start music, blow you away with fantastically artistic and "flowing with movement" landing pages?
And what about all of those programs on people's computers with constantly running background tasks that reach out to the Internet? And those cell phones using Wi-Fi to offload the cellular data usage cap that keep tapping away at the Internet in even more hidden ways than the computer on your desk or tablet in your hand?
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They're really earning title of most hated company (Score:3)
Comcast must have realized that profit margins are thin when all you do is supply a pipe.
Their profits look good to me https://www.nasdaq.com/market-... [nasdaq.com] (Comcast annual gross profit for 2019 was $41.695B, a 13.55% increase from 2018)
I can't help but view this as nefarious. Cable is becoming less relevant and they have no real competitors in my major metropolitan area. No one is canceling their service. If anything, we're more captive than before. I think they want to cut off streaming rivals to NBC/peacock...which is just terrible. Instead of making customers happy and providing a valuab
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How long before Amazon/Netflix/Apple start shipping cache servers to customers to get around this bullshit? I mean seriously... an encrypted Amazon Prime Express Video/Apple TV Booster/Netflix Season Pass Module device that you plug in that has a crapton of encrypted cached video/music/etc., and you just have to use your metered bandwidth to connect to get a decryption key? Even better... the modules mesh network with other nearby units and you can do a distributed update across multiple connections for a
History of the cap (Score:4, Informative)
2016: 1000 GB
2020: 1200 GB
I think some cap is reasonable, but it should keep up with the times, and not constrain the transition to 4k streaming. The cap was steady at 1TB from 2016 until 2020 when they raised it, I think largely in response to the pandemic, which is disconcerting.
I just checked the comcast website and my family pulls 700 or 800 GB / mo with 4 of us doing work/school partly or entirely from home, plus some youtube etc. With 4k streams becoming more availble, the 1200 GB cap could become constricting within a few years.
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That's almost 6 hours a day of 4K streaming, assuming 7GB/hour (number from Netflix). We wouldn't do that, but I can certainly see that being a reasonable usage, especially in a house with several teenagers.
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A saving grace is is that much of the lossy compression used in streaming is also being upgraded to next gen codecs which are much more computationally intensive, but also require much less bandwidth.
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Can you remind me where net neutrality was repealed, so I can point out how it expanded infrastructure investment. I bet it was during the period with the bigger data cap jump, wasn't it?
(I can't believe I have to put a sarcasm warning on this, but goddamn, slashdot commentors)
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Comcast should raise it to 1.5 terabytes per month, especially if you have something like a gaming console with a lot of downloads anyway (patches, game updates, etc.). I hate to imagine how much a user downloads if they're playing an Internet-connected Xbox or PlayStation console.
That's not so bad (Score:3)
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Yes, but for AUD70/month (USD50/month) you can have all you can eat @ 50Mbit and $10 more for 100MBits.
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I'm paying $60AUD/month for that 200GB cap. It's a 4G service. I live within walking distance from the Melbourne CBD, and can't get any form of fixed landline internet. The NBN rollout is royally fucked, they won't connect me because of a "core network shortfall". Telstra, the largest ISP, won't connect up a copper phone line for ADSL because I live in an NBN served suburb (the fact I can't get connected is apparently irrelevant).
Despite the government claims, not many households can actually get a 50Mbit
No Caps (Score:3)
I don't have any BW caps, thanks to Comca$t Bu$iness. Excellent service at an eye-watering price.
Work From Home (Score:2)
Those are amazing prices (Score:5, Informative)
Those are incredibly high caps and incredibly low overage charges!
Signed,
all Canadians.
P.S.: if you think I'm lying, go check for yourself* [www.bell.ca]. Our ISPs are totally fucking insane. They make RIAA and MPAA math look almost legit by comparison.
* TL;DR it's 60$CAD per month, with a 50GB cap (not a typo). Additional monthly usage 4$CAD per GB with a maximum of 100$CAD per month.
You read that correctly. FOUR DOLLARS FOR EACH GIGABYTE over their generous 50GB monthly cap.
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Ouch. That is just about literal highway robbery. 50 gigs per month plus CAD$4 per gigabyte of over usage? You'll blow through that cap in no time flat if you stream Netflix or whatever streaming service is available in Canada. (glyph of dollar bills sprouting wings and flying away)
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My ISP says with a straight face that Canada has the most affordable (not cheapest) internet in the world. I pay almost $90CAD and do get a 250GB cap, and as my internet is mostly unusable in the evenings and weekends, I never come close to going over and paying the 25 cents a MB overages.
Our telecommunication industry is one of the most profitable in the world though.
https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/... [iphoneincanada.ca]
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Here in BC (Telus):
CAD $100/ month (USD $76 / Month). No cap, 150 Mbit up and down.
There should be laws agains this (Score:2)
This would be the equivalent of charging people 10$ a gallon for gas after the first 500 miles they drive every month. The internet needs to find the marketers or CEO's that came up with this plan an harass them until they renege
Re: There should be laws agains this (Score:2)
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Sorry not sorry
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Why don't we increase taxes on water and electricity while were at it?
The theoretical... (Score:2)
...maximum data download per month given your rented Comcast router and service plan should be the data cap. Otherwise it's a bait and switch when you rent it. If Comcast wants to cap your downloads it should be forced to rent routers and plans that are not fast enough to exceed 1.2TB of continuous use in a single month. If this were to happen you would see caps go away fairly quickly, and/or prices drop significantly for users who don't need that much data.
something has changed (Score:2)
Comcast wouldn't do this unless they were reasonably certain of a near-monopoly in the areas they control. This seems like a symptom to me. I wonder what prompted it.
eliminating data caps (Score:2)
the first of the year, my service provider will be eliminating data caps. I keep waiting for the email that says the monthly fee will be going up.
Oh no! (Score:2)
1.2TB is only 40Gigs/day, on average - impossible!
How can Comcast expect people to live such miserly lives?!??
Cox is the Same (Score:2)
Cox is the same, except Comcast exempts their Gigabit plans (1gbitdown, 35mbit upload) plans from it. Cox does not. Here I am with 940mbit down, 35mbit upload... limited to 1.2TB a month. With 3 30-Somethings in a house that play games and stream, on top of all working from home due to COVID19, it's not viable.
GoNetspeed, a local ISP to CT and PA, literally just ran fiber lines on our street this week and last week. I should have a install date of late December for 1gbit upload, 1gigabit download direct to
Re:Lotsa downloads (Score:4, Insightful)
I would completely agree with people who are upset if Comcast doesn't provide tools to track your usage so that you know if you're close to the limit, though. There should definitely be warning notifications, usage meters, etc.
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Re:Lotsa downloads (Score:4, Informative)
Two TVs streaming background programming will easily blow through that cap.
Re:Lotsa downloads (Score:4, Insightful)
I have two kids doing school from home, and I work from home. We have at least two TVs (4K) that are ALWAYS streaming something in the background. Also download games for the PS4 and their 30GB updates regularly.
I think my average month is around 350-400GB, with my highest ever around 800GB when my son deleted and re-downloaded some modern warfare game a half dozen times.
I don't like Caps, but 1.2TB will not be a constraint for the overwhelming majority of people.
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Yeah, that's like 40GB every day. If you're up for 16 hrs and spreading that use out, that's 2.5GB every waking hour for an entire month.
If your home internet needs are actually greater than that, damn. Just upgrade to business class.
A couple of decades ago I had comcast and they were terrible. They are just an appalling company to work with. But 1.2TB a month is a crazy amount of data. If you're regularly going over that, you're most likely a problem customer, or you're in a house with a large number of pe
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At home, we regularly sit at 800+MB/mo with less activity than you're claiming. I'm not doubting you're providing numbers in
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How big of a family are we talking about to suck up about a TB a month? I can't imagine that being less than five-six people in a single household, all of whom are avid high resolution video stream watchers.
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not just video streams, there is Steam gaming, big ISOs of software and virtual machine builds coming and going, seasons of anime BD. Fun stuff, and only four people.
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Interesting. This inspires me to catalogue my network usage for the next month. Cheers.
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Two TVs streaming background programming will easily blow through that cap.
Two TVs streaming background programming is just stupid though. Shut it off. Configure your Roku or whatever to shut down by itself if you have to.
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Otherwise, our use is about 30-40% of the allotted bandwidth. May go lower than that now that I've corrected my errant cron job and reduced the frequency of others.
Re:Lotsa downloads (Score:4, Funny)
That must be what happened to my account. My kid was torrenting and left the application open for a couple of days. Was seeding multiple movies.
And then you killed him, right?
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> I'm an old geek who is obviously missing something
If you are an old geek you should know that having a cap on something means you will run into it, usually sooner rather than later.
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Streaming shows that I can pirate is on the flip side unrelatable.
Wouldn't a pirated copy of a show be in really good quality, at least usually? I'd guess it would take less bandwidth to just stream it, unless you tend to watch the same shows over and over or something.
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But even then, you still have around 200-300GB to spare.
Honestly, it sounds like a lot of people agree that 1.2GB monthly cap is reasonable, even if they're arguing against it.
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How are folks downloading that much per month? Most movies a are 3-5 gig at most.You can snag most albums at good quality for far less.
Low-end consumer usage could easily blow past those caps. Cloud backup/restore at Backblaze is only $6.00/month and a 2 TB external USB drive is only $59.99 at Amazon.
Granted, probably not on a monthly recurring basis in that usage case. Backblaze only uploads differences after the initial backup. But the first time you backup, or if you need a full restore, you'll exceed the caps, unless you are careful about throttling your backup rate (which you really might not want to do on your initial backup, un
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The funny part about this is that it sounds like you're arguing that 1.2TB is actually a reasonable limit.
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2 person family, but just one TV. Everything TV related is streamed. Work from home, but that's basically VPN with RDP and SSH traffic inside it - tons of packets, but not a lot of data.
400-500gb/mo.
So I could see how adding a teen or two, or even just another couple TVs that are on and streaming all the time could add up fast.
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You'd buy a car with an advertised max speed of 200mph only to find out you have to pay an additional $10/10miles after you travelled the first 500miles even though you're already separately paying for the fuel and servicing to keep it on the road as well as the speeding fines for getting caught going over the posted limits.
Max speed in a car is a terrible analogy. This is more like a car with a 5 gallon gas tank and they are leaving it up to you to figure out how to make that work.