Comcast sets 250GB ceiling

[Supracentral]

Having 5 computers, Xbox, and PSP connected to our home network, we could easily do that amount in a month...

We have 4 desktops, 4 laptops, and server racks in my house... (Not SM - my test & dev servers...)

We don't come anywhere near that.

Personally I don't buy it, if you're burning a 1/4 terabyte, you're pirating 99 times out of 100. For the other 1%, go get a T1 and pay for it.

If you pay for a specific bandwidth you should be able to use it 24/7 at max capacity.

Get a T1 - as I said, that's guaranteed bandwidth, contractually defined btw, and mandated by Federal regulation. You can run a T1 at 100% capacity 24/7 and nobody will say boo to you about it. (Except maybe to call you and ask if you want to upgrade to a T1+1).

My connectivity budget at the office this year is about $800,000 to provide that guaranteed level of service to 450 employee's spread across the globe.

There's a reason we don't use a network of cable modems and DSL connections. They don't guarantee any bandwidth availability or up time.

It depends if this is being forced on those that already have contracts or not...

I'm a Comcast user at home. I've read the T&C's of my contract... They don't guarantee much of anything. But for the pittance I pay (about 3% of the cost of a T1), it's damned good service.

You show me one ISP contract that guarantees, in writing a specific speed and uptime, and I'll show you an ISP that's going out of business. Overselling is part of the model. It always has, and it always will be.

What part of businesses need to turn a profit don't you people understand? You've been living in a false economy based upon the financial ruin of many people. It's dried up. Now that new cable needs to be run, and that the true costs of all this bandwidth are coming home, you're going to whine and regulate your suppliers out of business.

Start living in the real world folks. You aren't "entitled" to fast internet access at low costs. Life, liberty, property - beyond that, you are on your own...

I'm sure the most competitive providers will prevail, but they are going to have to charge what it costs them to provide the bandwidth plus profit.

That's business.

That's reality.

Learn to live in it.

 

[Doward]

That's business.

That's reality.

Learn to live in it.

No way! I'm going liberal! The government can pay for it all! :biggrinki

ugh. I threw up a little saying that. Why the fuck do people think the government can just print money????

 

[Kai]

250gb cap is fairly large, i have no problem with that.

I'm what i'd class an 'extreme' user, as i download a lot of Hi Def content, whole games over steam and have uTorrent running as 24/7 as i can. I'm averaging about 6gb a week, or 24gb a month - and in the heaviest period, i've hit 47gb a month and that was torrenting 4/6/8gb 720p x264 files almost every single day....if you're using up 250gb then you're hogging WAY too much network bandwidth, unless you're a business customer that deals with streaming media...

 

[Kai]

8mbps is 'enough' for me, btw, and a T1 would cost me nearly £500 a month, compared to the £24.99 of ADSLMax...theres no government subsidy involved there either, but theres a LOT of competition since BT was ordered to unbundle the LLU's by the industry regulator. Plus i guess its easier to cable and provide service to a smaller landmass than the US...i can never understand why something like a T1 is so cheap there though...

 

[Poodles]

Oh, don't get me wrong SS, I understand if they can't turn a profit they will go out of business.

But they shouldn't sell false hopes and promises. I have friends with cable internet and the slowdown and peak usage is nuts. Don't promise what you can't deliver and you won't piss off the customer.

As a side note I'll have to see if there is a way I can find out how much we use on a monthly basis.

I'm waiting for Verizon to get their ass our here and install FIOS here. This AT&T DSL is SUPPOSED to be just as fast but it's not. We have constant issues with the service dropping and have already been through one modem...

 

[Kai]

Mmmm. FiOS. However, that may not ever get here, at least to 99% of the public, i'll have to wait until BT finish rolling out their new Fibreoptic/Copper 21CN* system.

* - 21st Century Network.

 

[tissimo]

That sucks, I've never had a problem with my broadband with slowdowns. But as SS said, if you look at your contract they dont promise or guarantee anything I bet.

250 gb is a lot of data. Maybe if you watched a couple movies a day off netflix you'd come close to going over. I agree if you consistently use more then 250gb of data you probably aren't doing something legal or are violating your TOS of your ISP (like running a server or something)

 

[Rennat]

if im going to use more than 250gb a month then i'll use remote access to my dads work for his T1 lines... LOL

serisouly 250gb a MONTH? get a life. or quit 24/7 downloading every fap video on the web....

BUT, im a comcast user, and its FTMFW. i've had ZERO issues, except for the times when its down, but i've been using it for 5 or 6 years, and all of the issues are normally hardware related and nothing to do with comcast its self. and its motha fuckin fast! NO lag for anything, i've pulled over 1.5-2mb/s before.... 500-800kb/s is the norm though...

 

[Zumtizzle]

Could be worse.

Sprint Air Card users get dropped right away after the second violation in 6 months, and their cap is set at 5 gigs!!

 

[Selz202]

But they shouldn't sell false hopes and promises. I have friends with cable internet and the slowdown and peak usage is nuts. Don't promise what you can't deliver and you won't piss off the customer.

Well they do say in the larger fine print that peak hours there is slowdown and speed can be dependant on location... I.E. how many of your neighbors have it. Some people just aren't as lucky.

Im starting to wonder how much I use... this last week I watched about 15hrs of netflix video and I also download a decent amount with torrents and such. I don't think I will be near it, but it has me a bit curious.

 

[Facime]

But they shouldn't sell false hopes and promises. I have friends with cable internet and the slowdown and peak usage is nuts. Don't promise what you can't deliver and you won't piss off the customer.

how much of this slowdown is CAUSED by that small percent of people slamming the network by using cap levels of bandwidth at peak hours?

Thats exactly what comcast is trying to do by capping it, get back a reasonable level of service to those that use it for LEGAL purposes.

 

[drunk_medic]

What sucks is, you may get really good throughput on large files [more than 1mb], and even many files at a time and people don't see much of a slowdown when they are downloading files, so they do it. When you have 5% of customers doing this - downloading and uploading [in other words, sharing] 24/7 - you have a big problem that most people don't see.
Who suffers immediately? In my opinion it would be the gamers. When I pay over $100 a month for a BASIC cable package [no HBO, no sports, no TiVo or DVR, no HD] and 10Mbit internet, why am I getting about 200ms of latency to a server that is close enough where I should have roughly HALF of that response time? I blame bandwidth hogs. I know that I get what I get in accordance with their stipulations and terms of service. IF they impose a reasonable rule [limit] and people break that rule [limit], why would some of you cry foul? It's because we live in the same society where a starving man can cry foul when he's caught stealing: He's in the right because he is suffering.
I think that part of it is that in the USA, ever since the introduction of broadband internet, there has been no limit on how much you can download. It's like paying for access to a buffet: if it is there, you can have it. In my opinion if they start throwing people out who are eating so much that they are making other more considerate and moderate people have to wait for food, more power to them; they will be providing a better service to those who are using, rather than abusing the system. Back in the days before this, things were different. We'll use AOL as an example, where you had X amount of minutes online each month, and you paid for each minute afterward. People watched their usage. Right now there is a 1TB [that's 1,000GB, or gigabytes before you format it] hard drive on Newegg for the Labor Day special price of $139.99. Just because that drive is dirt cheap doesn't mean you have to fill the drive with content in just 4 months.
People also probably think that just because the government made ARPANET, that they will provide it to Americans for free - because we all know how much the US Government likes to give things out to the undeserving for free.

How about you guys think of it this way:
You own a cable company. You pay for an OC3 connection and a huge chunk of bandwidth to UUNet. You provide internet access to people and corporations in the tri-state area. You find out that 1% of your subscribers are using 90% of your bandwidth, and you are receiving complaints here and there that some people are having download speed issues - and not from just one, but many well known and fast servers. You dismiss this as user problems with a virus, spyware, software or hardware rather than the service you are providing to them. A year goes by and over time, you have noticed that in each quarter, you have lost customers. Upon looking into the issue, you find that the reason they have left is because the service you provided was not fast enough, good enough, or that there is a better provider in the region. You are paying for an excellent connection to the internet, and your administrators and architects have assured you that everything is moving fine, but that bandwidth is being hoarded by few, and is crippling the many. Rather than snoop into exactly what content the greedy 1% are downloading and uploading [to determine what is illegal or not] and violating their rights, you let is be WELL KNOWN ahead of time that you will impose a VERY reasonable limit to all of your users and you ENFORCE it.

The ones who are worried about a 250GB limit per month are the same people who would pay for a gym membership and be upset that they put a 60 minute time limit on a treadmill, and insist that the gym just needs to buy more treadmills.

Long rant shortened: Don't starve me of my small, fast meals just because you need to eat by the dump-truck full, you fat ass.

BTW - Wall of Text crits you for over9000!

 

[Poodles]

how much of this slowdown is CAUSED by that small percent of people slamming the network by using cap levels of bandwidth at peak hours?

Thats exactly what comcast is trying to do by capping it, get back a reasonable level of service to those that use it for LEGAL purposes.

Cap won't stop it though. Don't sell a 5MB line if you can't supply the service at any time.

Should be sold at the speed of the worst on the network on the worst load, not the best on the lightest load.

 

[Facime]

Should be sold at the speed of the worst on the network on the worst load, not the best on the lightest load.

ever look at EPA fuel mileage ratings on car window stickers?

 

[iwannadie]

Cap won't stop it though. Don't sell a 5MB line if you can't supply the service at any time.

Should be sold at the speed of the worst on the network on the worst load, not the best on the lightest load.

What company advertises anything the way you suggest they do? Of course they are going to advertise the absolute best possible speed.

 

[Poodles]

Quite a few car companies advertise this way...

Good example is the GM and Toyota with stated horsepower ratings...

 

[drunk_medic]

Cap won't stop it though. Don't sell a 5MB line if you can't supply the service at any time.

Should be sold at the speed of the worst on the network on the worst load, not the best on the lightest load.

Speed on the net has always had disclaimers. Don't blame the cable companies, because speed has always varied, even from the days before "fast dial-up". The first computer I built had a 14.4 kbps modem; the first modem I ever used was 2,400 baud. I didn't buy a 56k modem with the idea that I would always be connected and downloading at that rate. Hell, if you were connecting to a place that was long distance or didn't have the best line quality, there were sometimes all you could reliably connect at was still 14.4.

 

[iwannadie]

Computer related stuff has always had this type of marketing.

Hard drives show the max size not the usable formatted size same with cds/dvds. Monitors used to always be 15"(13" Viewable in small print). 56k modems could never connect faster than 53k.

Speed on the net has always had disclaimers. Don't blame the cable companies, because speed has always varied, even from the days before "fast dial-up". The first computer I built had a 14.4 kbps modem; the first modem I ever used was 2,400 baud. I didn't buy a 56k modem with the idea that I would always be connected and downloading at that rate. Hell, if you were connecting to a place that was long distance or didn't have the best line quality, there were sometimes all you could reliably connect at was still 14.4.

I remember Pre-14.4 modem days, dialing into computers listed in the back of magazines to get the lastest copy of leisure suit larry or something lol. Later when I got my first 1gig Hd I was like Im never going to fill this thing up!! I used to get so mad when I got my 33.6 modem and could never connect faster than 28k. The world seemed to stand still when I finally got a 512k up/down dsl line. I was hosting non stop quake games for weeks on end after that.

Those were the good ole days :love:

 

[SupaMan]

i heard about this from a guy a know a couple days ago and hes always a huge bullshitter so i thought he was fuckin around again........this sucks since im a comcast customer.


blah.

 

[Isphius]

I still find it hard to believe if you are just using the internet you could ever hit that cap. I havent even downloaded 100gb off of bit torrent in 2 years. I haev FIOS anyway. It runs a lot better and is more reliable. I was constantly getting disconnected with comcast, almost every sunday night for an hour or 2, and for 15-20 seconds at random times all through the day. Just enough to kick you off AIM or ruin a game of starcraft