Comcast’s data caps are ‘just low enough to punish streaming’

[Grooveriding]

All it takes is competition. In my area we had the two incumbents for internet; the cable company with DOCSIS and the phone company with vDSL. They were colluding on pricing with both offering virtually identical packages/pricing on internet with the same data caps and ridiculous overage fees.

The regulatory agency opened it up to competition and overnight we had packages with the same speeds, no caps and similar pricing. Today those incumbents offer several packages with no data caps and their pricing has gotten better, go figure. It's horseshit trying to meter internet like it is a produced resource like electricity. It's just a pipe with a bandwidth rating. Sure on their end they are limited by the bandwidth of whatever pipes they tie into the backend with, but there is a lot of bandwidth available there.

Cable companies know the end is coming for television delivered over cable and they're trying to stave it off.

 

[mnewsham]

It's still a cap. I've exceeded 2TB in a month before. I could go way past that if Cox didn't start resetting my connection.

Its not a cap, they just send you a letter asking you not to keep doing it over and over. If you hit 3TB one month, they aren't going to shut you off or charge you more, you just get a letter.

 

[balloonshark]

I have suddenlink 50Gb down and we now have a 250GB cap. Here is the real reason companies are implementing caps. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...Have-Become-Significant-Revenue-Stream-135586

 

[Brovane]

Really I think the biggest thing with internet is they need to open it up for competition. Anyone who wants to start an ISP should be allowed to and have full access to run fibre, build COs, etc. It would still need to be regulated in some way to avoid a huge mess of wires throughout cities, but it could be done if some thought went into it.

Of course, governments don't care about people, only corporations, and I'm sure ISPs give them a lot of money to ensure competition can't happen.

Why don't you think it currently isn't open for competition? It takes a lot of money to start a ISP, run fiber etc. Google is able to come in and over-build the cable and phone companies in a city but it costs money and they are rolling out slowly. What slows Google down is the capital investment it takes not government regulations.

 

[Ackmed]

Last month was the first time I ever got the message about the 300gig limit, apparently I was within 10gigs.

I got my PS4 last month, downloaded some games. Wife and I use Netflix a lot, and watched some 4K content. I am sure it uses more than normal HD, but not sure how much more. I also play a lot of games on the PC and download things. Family uses Wifi at home since they don't have unlimited. I am still Verizon unlimited so never use the Wifi.

300gig cap for a household is bullshit.

 

[mnewsham]

watched some 4K content. I am sure it uses more than normal HD

Until VP9 or HEVC hardware decoding becomes more commonplace 4k content is generally VERY bandwidth heavy (20-30Mbps+) as a lot of it is still x264 codec.

 

[Ackmed]

Well shit. We watched A Very Murry Christmas, and several episodes of Jessica Jones. I've watched some other. So that probably did it. Thanks for the info. Will only get worse with Netflix doubling up their original production, I assume most will be 4K.

 

[Ichinisan]

change companies.

oh wait.

it's like they carved out a map of who can have what territory.

kinda like a cartel.

Having a "top provider" in your state means you have no options?

On that map, GA is listed as "Comcast."

My area has been Charter for decades. Before that, it was something like "CableVision."

I work for a small cableco that exists only within my county.
We have areas that overlap with Charter and parts that overlap with comcast.
AT&T U-verse services all over town. Lots of overlap in our coverage areas...especially at apartment complexes.

I'm sure a major metropolis like Atlanta has LOTS of options for TV+Inet.
FIOS is in Atlanta.
Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta.

 

[mnewsham]

Well shit. We watched A Very Murry Christmas, and several episodes of Jessica Jones. I've watched some other. So that probably did it. Thanks for the info. Will only get worse with Netflix doubling up their original production, I assume most will be 4K.

Yeah, right now only the latest intel CPUs and GTX 9xx series GPUs support hardware HEVC decoding. So for now most things are still encoded in x264 which is much more widely supported for hardware decode/encode, but x264 is FAR less efficient for compression than x265(HEVC) or VP9 so 4k content encoded in x264 takes up a LOT of space.

 

[EOM]

I'm not sure why they need hard CAPS on there in the first place. They could simply use soft caps with QoS. Everyone gets full priority up to the determined "cap" at which point their traffic is marked down to Best-Effort. If someone over their cap tries to use it during peak hours, they're likely to get somewhat degraded service, but other times of the day they can expect full speed since the non-capped people aren't using it anyway. Comcast has already paid for those routers/switches to be put in place and powered on; bandwidth not used is bandwidth wasted... as a resource.

 

[TwiceOver]

While it is completely extortion, +$35 for unlimited is still cheaper than what my cable bill was.

Luckily my provider has no caps. Currently...

 

[child of wonder]

I'm not sure why they need hard CAPS on there in the first place. They could simply use soft caps with QoS. Everyone gets full priority up to the determined "cap" at which point their traffic is marked down to Best-Effort. If someone over their cap tries to use it during peak hours, they're likely to get somewhat degraded service, but other times of the day they can expect full speed since the non-capped people aren't using it anyway. Comcast has already paid for those routers/switches to be put in place and powered on; bandwidth not used is bandwidth wasted... as a resource.

Sssshhhhhh...... quit using your networking knowledge to make sense. This is about profit, not fairness.

 

[EOM]

I have suddenlink 50Gb down and we now have a 250GB cap. Here is the real reason companies are implementing caps. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...Have-Become-Significant-Revenue-Stream-135586

I suppose this makes too much sense.... in contrast to congestion.... though years back during peak hours on my ATT DSL line i'd get half of my contracted speed, all other times were fine. I found out three months later from one of their techs that their local aggregation switch was way undersized.

 

[BxgJ]

I'm not sure why they need hard CAPS on there in the first place. They could simply use soft caps with QoS. Everyone gets full priority up to the determined "cap" at which point their traffic is marked down to Best-Effort. If someone over their cap tries to use it during peak hours, they're likely to get somewhat degraded service, but other times of the day they can expect full speed since the non-capped people aren't using it anyway. Comcast has already paid for those routers/switches to be put in place and powered on; bandwidth not used is bandwidth wasted... as a resource.

Bingo!

Well managed networks, especially those with effective competition, already do this. I haven't had problems even doing some sort of netflix/youtube streaming, and especially not loading web pages (wtf, some networks are run that badly?), in years, no matter what time of day. Excluding outages of course. And both my recent isp's, covering the last 5 years or so, have effectively been monopolies, with no comparable competition.

 

[MustISO]

Comcast currently shows my cap as being "not enforced" which is good. I don't download anything illegally and only download from Blizzard, Steam and stream music and video. With just that I hit 150GB half-way through the cycle and that was with very little streaming. When I build my next PC I'll have to be pretty selective on the games I install if they're enforcing a limit given how large games are now.

 

[jlee]

Interesting - it looks like Cox raised their cap in AZ earlier this year:

 

[MustISO]

COX doesn't have their head back in the year 2000 like Comcast does, they probably understand some form of the technology available today.

 

[SparkyJJO]

TWC has no caps I'm aware of, but I don't use over 150GB a month. Usually around 100GB and most of that is thanks to big game update files and youtube.
Interesting thing about Youtube is in the evenings I'll notice I sometimes have trouble streaming it in any reasonable resolution (it'll jump down to 360 or less and still buffer a lot). Check my router and the data is only trickling in. Run a speed test, and I measure at 30Mbit no sweat. So I'll go to something like keepvid to download the youtube video to my PC and it'll download the full 20 minute video at 720p in just a couple minutes. What's up with that???

It only happens on occasion, but when it does it is irritating.

 

[mnewsham]

What's up with that???

Shitty peering by your ISP and whoever runs the backend around you (Level 3, Cogent, GTT, etc)

If you have access to a VPN on a different network you can easily bypass that.

It was happening to me for about 6 months, everyday between 5-11PM netflix and youtube would be TERRIBLE, but everything else was fine. Youtube 480p was stuttering and buffering like crazy. But the moment I connect to my VPN, suddenly 1080p youtube is buffering without any stuttering instantly.

This works because my VPN is on a different network, and has proper peering agreements with their backend provider.

 

[SearchMaster]

One provider, AT&T. 6mb @ $65/month. No cap at least, but at that speed how could I hit it?

I'm also on 6mb DSL, but we have no problem hitting caps. We previously were on FastAccess DSL - it had no limit but they implemented one (150GB, I think) without us really knowing until we got billed. We switched to U-Verse DSL that was a little cheaper and has a 250GB cap (supposedly not enforced). Here we are on the 10th of December and we're over 100GB already according to my DD-WRT router. My kids watch a LOT of Netflix.

 

[Linux23]

So basically if you're a heavy gamer and streamer, you're SOL?

 

[EOM]

Shitty peering by your ISP and whoever runs the backend around you (Level 3, Cogent, GTT, etc)

If you have access to a VPN on a different network you can easily bypass that.

It was happening to me for about 6 months, everyday between 5-11PM netflix and youtube would be TERRIBLE, but everything else was fine. Youtube 480p was stuttering and buffering like crazy. But the moment I connect to my VPN, suddenly 1080p youtube is buffering without any stuttering instantly.

This works because my VPN is on a different network, and has proper peering agreements with their backend provider.

Sounds like they have decent peering as your bandwidth to and from the upstream providers is obviously available... sounds more like they were throttling the services and not VPN traffic...? Unless I'm misunderstanding your setup..

 

[Ferzerp]

So basically if you're a heavy gamer and streamer, you're SOL?

Gaming barely uses any bandwidth... Streaming HD or 4K video uses quite a bit though.


So glad I have this giving me 300/120 unmetered service for less than comcast charges for 300 GB of data at 150/25 at the same location.

 

[overst33r]

Gaming barely uses any bandwidth... Streaming HD or 4K video uses quite a bit though.


So glad I have this giving me 300/120 unmetered service for less than comcast charges for 300 GB of data at 150/25 at the same location.

Hopefully that's bend insensitive fiber being kinked at the boot

 

[Ferzerp]

Hopefully that's bend insensitive fiber being kinked at the boot

I've noticed that too, but bend loss is more of an effect of any bend present during data propagation as long as it isn't damaged. Most of what you see for minimum bend radii are while in use. It's a function of light path and not damage.

That's not to say you can't damage fiber, but when you talk about bend radius, typically you're talking about the minimum radius present while in use.

The final install isn't like that, and the media has so much higher of a potential than is passing through it that even some loss would not produce any discernible effects anyway.