Comcast plans to only let me use the internet for 11 hours a month....

[techs]

Unique in that you can't do what you call "simple math." Are you claiming that 4 people each maxing out their bandwidth for 1 hour each, consecutively, would make any realistic difference from all four using 1/4 of their bandwidth for 4 consecutive hours, as far as the impact on the network is concerned?

Even at one quarter of my bandwidth I can only be on for 44 hours a month.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

This is all based aorund the premise that "using the internet" is equivalent to "constantly streaming data at the maximum possible speed." That's not really how the internet works. I mean, take ATOT. If you browse threads for a few hours a day, you've only pushed your bandwidth for a total of a few minutes; the page isn't constantly streaming data at your max bandwidth speed while you read. So unless your sole use for the internet is downloading massive amounts of data at the max rate of your line, you're not "limited" to 11 hours of internet a month.

 

[jhansman]

I chafe at the 150GB cap that AT&T imposes, so I'd take your plan any day. Is what we have here a case of "I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet"?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

If it cuts down on the time you spend here I support Comcast.

 

[Pulsar]

Well, for a wired connection, it really pretty much is.

Fact: Capped data plans hurt the consumer, hurt economic development, and stagnate growth.

A 300GB/month limit may seem high now, but imagine if we'd done things right. Everything should be data, 'network' television should all be streamed from the Internet, television shows should all be streamed from the Internet, movies should all be streamable from the Internet, and all in a timely fashion. And all in HD, 1080P or better.

^ We're not there because US telco's failed to make the necessary infrastructure upgrades, with tax payer money. Your attitude is part of the reason why the USA is bottom ranked for Internet speeds.

I am so tired of hearing this same bullshit.

Here you go:
http://www.netindex.com/

USA isn't at the 'bottom' by any means. Secondly, one of the largest problems in the United States in terms of telecommunications is the shear amount of landmass that the US covers. Point of fact, I'm on a 1.5 long distance WIFI link because my telephone can't support more than 19.2 modem, no dsl, and no cable is offered. It's called rural, and 50% of the US lives there. The costs for getting data to the rural communities that make up 50% of this country costs FAR more than the telecoms make or are given in tax money.

In fact, they will not be upgrading my lines nor leading cable here because our population density makes it a losing proposition. Of course, I don't look at the internet as a neccesity, and I am also firmly of the opinion that the last thing we need is the government mandating that the telecoms should run new lines out here just so I can get some high speed internet. What a total waste of money. Corn doesn't need to torret movies.

I am just drooling to see your cites as to how the lack of super high speed internet is stagnating the economy.

Welcome to reality, where the US doesn't suck just because NBC News said it does.

 

[coldmeat]

Did your cost double?

I got 6mbps on my last speedtest with my cable provider...so you can stfu. :|

I pay for 6, I get ~4.

 

[Markbnj]

Couldn't you hit it if you max out on bittorrent connections?

I'm not going to say there's no chance the OP could max out his pipe ever. If he was pulling edge-cached chunks of a file from different servers (i.e. torrent-like) it could happen if, say, you had 10 servers each capable of delivering a chunk of the file at a sustained 2 mbps. But that scenario is way out on one end of the bell curve. It's silly to think that Comcast should design and provision their network so that all customers can consume 100% of available bandwidth 100% of the time.

 

[Bignate603]

Even at one quarter of my bandwidth I can only be on for 44 hours a month.

Who cares how much time you can download at max speed? If you use less than the cap it doesn't matter.

 

[techs]

Let me put this another way.

What percentage of people have more than 2 Tb. of storage in thier home? Is it .1 percent?
And what is the average available free storage? Considering the mix of computers I don't know. But I guarantee you its way under 1 Tb.

So, even if every Comcast customer decided to completely fill up their drives they can now do so in a 24 hour period.

So how can it be possible that they are causing such congestion on the network that Comcast has to limit them at all? And, how the heck does a 300 Gb. limit get people off the internet during peak hours? Even if they have already downloaded 200 Gb they are still going to be watching Netflix, etc during peak hours.

Instead of inventing make believe reasons to limit bandwidth why don't they just offer to limit speeds by half during peak hours allowing those people who choose that option to not have a bandwidth cap during off hours?

 

[RelaxTheMind]

Internet Bandwidth 1%ers.

Gonna take a wild guess and say the 90%ers use <5gb a month.

 

[alkemyst]

Yes, but you missed the point I was making. I can't download 24x7. With a 300 Gb cap I can only download for 11 hours in an entire month! So with such a limited time online how can I be hurting anyone else. The very high speed keeps me either off the internet entirely for 59/60ths of a month. Or if I use just a tiny fraction of my speed I can stay on the whole month. But with the bandwidth doubled the 250 Gb. cap should be doubled.

If everyone decided to suck down 300GB at once, you'd see how it affects the network.

In some metro areas, it does lead to issues.

DSL can really be crippled with many concurrent uploads. Many just leech stuff so it's not so prevailent, but in some areas it has been.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I really don't get why ISPs give these crazy speeds then cap it. What's the point of having those speeds then? It's 2012. Everything should be unlimited. I can setup a 1gb network in my home, they should be able to setup a 10gb+ network in a city, charge people monthly to use a small portion of it and let people actually use their portion (ex: 50mb) to it's full capacity. It's not like it cost more if the network is running at full capacity, or half, and once the network is installed and paid for, the rest is profit other than operating costs not Dependant on the speed such as CO A/C, power etc.

But of course, they cap people in hopes they accidentally go over then they can make a quick couple thousand dollars on the customers that go over. Worse is cell providers. A cell bill can easily hit in the 100's of thousands depending on the situation.

My speed may be low, but I'm glad my net is not capped. I'll take a slow connection that is unlimited over a fast one that is limited.

I used 41GB this month, and I've hardly been using my connection. No torrents or anything. That's just web browsing. When I do decide to fire up torrents or other activities I can easily hit 200GB or more in a month. I'd go higher if my speed was faster.

 

[alkemyst]

I really don't get why ISPs give these crazy speeds then cap it. What's the point of having those speeds then? It's 2012. Everything should be unlimited. I can setup a 1gb network in my home, they should be able to setup a 10gb+ network in a city, charge people monthly to use a small portion of it and let people actually use their portion (ex: 50mb) to it's full capacity. It's not like it cost more if the network is running at full capacity, or half, and once the network is installed and paid for, the rest is profit other than operating costs not Dependant on the speed such as CO A/C, power etc.

But of course, they cap people in hopes they accidentally go over then they can make a quick couple thousand dollars on the customers that go over. Worse is cell providers. A cell bill can easily hit in the 100's of thousands depending on the situation.

My speed may be low, but I'm glad my net is not capped. I'll take a slow connection that is unlimited over a fast one that is limited.

I used 41GB this month, and I've hardly been using my connection. No torrents or anything. That's just web browsing. When I do decide to fire up torrents or other activities I can easily hit 200GB or more in a month. I'd go higher if my speed was faster.

The problem is the aggregated bandwidth becomes an issue. It works like a standard queuing model. You don't have 100% utilization at any given time.

 

[Bignate603]

Let me put this another way.

What percentage of people have more than 2 Tb. of storage in thier home? Is it .1 percent?
And what is the average available free storage? Considering the mix of computers I don't know. But I guarantee you its way under 1 Tb.

So, even if every Comcast customer decided to completely fill up their drives they can now do so in a 24 hour period.

So in other words, the vast majority of people out there don't have enough available storage to save 300 Gb of data.

So how can it be possible that they are causing such congestion on the network that Comcast has to limit them at all? And, how the heck does a 300 Gb. limit get people off the internet during peak hours? Even if they have already downloaded 200 Gb they are still going to be watching Netflix, etc during peak hours.

Instead of inventing make believe reasons to limit bandwidth why don't they just offer to limit speeds by half during peak hours allowing those people who choose that option to not have a bandwidth cap during off hours?

Nonsensical post is nonsensical.

The problem they are trying to address is people that are transferring huge amounts all the time, on peak or off. There really isn't any legal reason that a home user would be hitting 300 Gb in a month, barring a few very specific and rare situations. The vast majority of people using over 300 Gb are either filesharing or doing something that violates the TOS of their telecom (running a non-personal file server, using it for a business, etc).

At 300 Gb the cap is really a non-issue for 99.9% of people. I just don't understand why people are getting so upset.

 

[Bignate603]

I really don't get why ISPs give these crazy speeds then cap it. What's the point of having those speeds then? It's 2012. Everything should be unlimited. I can setup a 1gb network in my home, they should be able to setup a 10gb+ network in a city, charge people monthly to use a small portion of it and let people actually use their portion (ex: 50mb) to it's full capacity. It's not like it cost more if the network is running at full capacity, or half, and once the network is installed and paid for, the rest is profit other than operating costs not Dependant on the speed such as CO A/C, power etc.

The network is not designed to handle everyone using their maximum speed all at once. It would be far more expensive if they did.

But of course, they cap people in hopes they accidentally go over then they can make a quick couple thousand dollars on the customers that go over. Worse is cell providers. A cell bill can easily hit in the 100's of thousands depending on the situation.

My speed may be low, but I'm glad my net is not capped. I'll take a slow connection that is unlimited over a fast one that is limited.

I used 41GB this month, and I've hardly been using my connection. No torrents or anything. That's just web browsing. When I do decide to fire up torrents or other activities I can easily hit 200GB or more in a month. I'd go higher if my speed was faster.

So the only way you'd get to really high amounts of data usage is by doing things that aren't legal? Why should the telecom upgrade their network if there is no real legal use for it?

 

[Fenixgoon]

So in other words, the vast majority of people out there don't have enough available storage to save 300 Gb of data.



Nonsensical post is nonsensical.

The problem they are trying to address is people that are transferring huge amounts all the time, on peak or off. There really isn't any legal reason that a home user would be hitting 300 Gb in a month, barring a few very specific and rare situations. The vast majority of people using over 300 Gb are either filesharing or doing something that violates the TOS of their telecom (running a non-personal file server, using it for a business, etc).

At 300 Gb the cap is really a non-issue for 99.9% of people. I just don't understand why people are getting so upset.

i can easily hit 300gb - download a handful of games and movies 100% legitimately.

TF2 - 10gb. Batman: Arkham City - 16gb. The Witcher 2 - 16gb.

so 3 games and i've already used over 10% of the bandiwdth cap. add hulu, netflix, etc in HD and you could hit 300gb no problem.

 

[RossMAN]

What's the file size for 1 hour TV shows at 720p quality?

 

[techs]

The problem they are trying to address is people that are transferring huge amounts all the time, on peak or off. There really isn't any legal reason that a home user would be hitting 300 Gb in a month, barring a few very specific and rare situations. The vast majority of people using over 300 Gb are either filesharing or doing something that violates the TOS of their telecom (running a non-personal file server, using it for a business, etc).

At 300 Gb the cap is really a non-issue for 99.9% of people. I just don't understand why people are getting so upset.

So you and Comcast have now decided to limit my use of the internet to your imagination? You and Comcast have no idea what I or others are using it for. You only have your ideas that if we are using it alot we must be up to no good!

 

[GagHalfrunt]

What's the file size for 1 hour TV shows at 720p quality?

Between 1 and 1.5 gigabytes at typical bitrates. Well-compressed you can do them under 500MB

 

[techs]

i can easily hit 300gb - download a handful of games and movies 100% legitimately.

TF2 - 10gb. Batman: Arkham City - 16gb. The Witcher 2 - 16gb.

so 3 games and i've already used over 10% of the bandiwdth cap. add hulu, netflix, etc in HD and you could hit 300gb no problem.

Between 1 and 1.5 gigabytes at typical bitrates. Well-compressed you can do them under 500MB

Yeah, I agree.
What is interesting is how a show like the Daily Show or Colbert can be under 200 mb and look like HD. When there is little action and basically just a talk show set it can be hugely compressed and still look great.

Oh, and a 720 movie looks very good at about 4.7 Gb. Much better than a dvd.

 

[jagec]

Comcast plans to only let me use the internet for 11 hours a month....before I have to pay more money?

At my new connection speeds I can download 300 Gb in 11 hours. If Comcast institutes their new bandwidth tiers then I can only use my internet for 11 hours a month and then I have to pay more.

What a racket!

I agree, that's ridiculous!

I mean, if I HAD a 300 GB cap, it would only take me 7 hours a month to max it out. Comcast is really screwing you on your speeds!

 

[DrPizza]

i can easily hit 300gb - download a handful of games and movies 100% legitimately.

TF2 - 10gb. Batman: Arkham City - 16gb. The Witcher 2 - 16gb.

so 3 games and i've already used over 10% of the bandiwdth cap. add hulu, netflix, etc in HD and you could hit 300gb no problem.

Realistically, how many such games is a typical user going to download per month? Those 3 games weren't all released during the same month - such downloads would be spread out more over time.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

i can easily hit 300gb - download a handful of games and movies 100% legitimately.

TF2 - 10gb. Batman: Arkham City - 16gb. The Witcher 2 - 16gb.

so 3 games and i've already used over 10% of the bandiwdth cap. add hulu, netflix, etc in HD and you could hit 300gb no problem.

Ever since I switched to HD on Netflix my usage skyrocketed. Add Steam and my bandwidth for August (just one day) is already @ 17GB. Last month was 300GB, previous was 350GB.

FWIW, this is TWC, not Comcast. No caps.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I am so tired of hearing this same bullshit.

Here you go:
http://www.netindex.com/

USA isn't at the 'bottom' by any means. Secondly, one of the largest problems in the United States in terms of telecommunications is the shear amount of landmass that the US covers. Point of fact, I'm on a 1.5 long distance WIFI link because my telephone can't support more than 19.2 modem, no dsl, and no cable is offered. It's called rural, and 50% of the US lives there. The costs for getting data to the rural communities that make up 50% of this country costs FAR more than the telecoms make or are given in tax money.

20%. 20% of US citizen live in rural areas, and it's dropping. The 50% figure is worldwide. (And it's dropping even faster.)

In fact, they will not be upgrading my lines nor leading cable here because our population density makes it a losing proposition. Of course, I don't look at the internet as a neccesity,

Find a job without the internet in a town where you don't know anybody. We'll wait.

Also, remember the Rural Electrification Commission? Us big government nannies were right that time, too.

and I am also firmly of the opinion that the last thing we need is the government mandating that the telecoms should run new lines out here just so I can get some high speed internet. What a total waste of money. Corn doesn't need to torret movies.

But people in rural areas need reliable internet that's at least fast enough to do useful stuff. And the reliability/cost is more the problem than the "fast enough." Ask anybody with satellite internet, if it's not cloudy and the 1,000ms+ ping doesn't make your chat client give up.

I am just drooling to see your cites as to how the lack of super high speed internet is stagnating the economy.

Huh? You want the economy to underperform? Is this english?

Welcome to reality, where the US doesn't suck just because NBC News said it does.

MSNBC. The whiny liberal channel is MSNBC. NBC is the parent company, NBC News is fairly moderate and boring. They're also broadcasting the Olympics, which is the biggest self-congratulatory flagfest this side of the Superbowl.

 

[Childs]

250GB limit is quite a bit. Even if you newsgroup all your TV shows and watch a few movies, you wouldn't even hit that limit. Ok, so you want 10gb 1080p rips? Download 25 of them and watch 25 movies a month? That's ridiculous. I don't think anyone has the time for that.

Honestly, this is not an issue compared to AT&T where you hit your cap in 20 minutes with LTE speeds.

One month I downloaded over 500GB, with one week left to go. No Comcast overage notice either.