Comcast replaces broadband caps with overage fees

[Murloc]

I hate caps, luckily I don't have any.

If you live in a flat with multiple computer-savy rooommates, it's impossible to stay under a cap with all the mass downloading.

 

[Fritzo]

If the average customer uses 6GB/mo then there should be no need for bandwidth caps.

About 5% are using over 100gb/month, and about .5% are using over 150gb/month. It's that .5% that is saturating the network can causing caps.

 

[0roo0roo]

What if I were to tell you I work for an ISP, and despite all of the high def video and streaming services available, the average customer still only uses 6GB per month?

that only tells me caps are unnecessary...

 

[dmcowen674]

If you go over 250GB/month, then fucking go outside for once. When I was using Netflix heavy (3 hours a day or more) I rarely went over 5-6GB/day.

Who are you to tell people what to do?

 

[dmcowen674]

Broadband is still sad in America.

This what happens when you let Corporations run everything.

This

 

[her209]

About 5% are using over 100gb/month, and about .5% are using over 150gb/month. It's that .5% that is saturating the network can causing caps.

Are those 0.5% using any more bandwidth than other users during peak (saturation) hours? No.

 

[her209]

This is just a money grab... the monthly cost to get Business Internet which has no data caps AND SLA is only a little bit more per month compared to the Home Internet. And they don't even connect you to a different CO / head-end equipment.

 

[Train]

Are those 0.5% using any more bandwidth than other users during peak (saturation) hours? No.

As already stated, that's mostly irrelevant the ISP has to pay for upstream bandwidth. The plans are priced accordingly. A small percentage of people would end up raising rates for everyone. It's much better for all to just charge an overage on the heavy users instead of spreading the cost around to everyone.

 

[Ausm]

250 GB should be good enough for anyone.

Dude do you really think you could run a Pr0n server on that?!?!?

😉

 

[her209]

As already stated, that's mostly irrelevant the ISP has to pay for upstream bandwidth. The plans are priced accordingly. A small percentage of people would end up raising rates for everyone. It's much better for all to just charge an overage on the heavy users instead of spreading the cost around to everyone.

http://www.comcast.com/peering/?SCRedirect=true

 

[Train]

http://www.comcast.com/peering/?SCRedirect=true

And what does that prove?

 

[DCal430]

Broadband is still sad in America. This what happens when you let Corporations run everything.

Most places in Europe, Canada, and Australia have broadband caps.

 

[destrekor]

What if I were to tell you I work for an ISP, and despite all of the high def video and streaming services available, the average customer still only uses 6GB per month?

You part of the Block family business?

 

[Aikouka]

About 5% are using over 100gb/month, and about .5% are using over 150gb/month. It's that .5% that is saturating the network can causing caps.

This doesn't make any sense.

Someone doesn't necessarily cause network problems just because they use more data than most other people. In fact, I would say that 1-5AM is a fairly lull time when it comes to users accessing the network; however, if I were to saturate my connection at home during that time (~3MB/s), I would end up with 1.23TB of use over the course of the month. Even one hour a day "at full blast" would be 316GB a month.

That value is heavily over what you list, and chances are I am doing nothing that will hamper other users. The only person that gets hurt by this is Comcast with their peering agreements, because they more than likely base their agreements off an assumption in data use of their users (which may also be too low). The people that tend to use a lot of data help to throw off their assumptions.

Here's an interesting thought.... Do you think Comcast would be up in arms if everyone started maxing out their cap?

 

[Train]

if I were to saturate my connection at home during that time (~3MB/s), I would end up with 1.23TB of use over the course of the month.

Epic math fail.

The "3 MBPS" is Megabits, not Megabytes, per second, or 375 kilobytes.

Maxing that out for 4 hours a day for 30 days only gives you 154 Gigabytes of data, just over half your way to the 300 GB needed before you see an overage fee.

 

[Aikouka]

Epic math fail.

4 hours * 60 minutes per hour * 60 seconds per hour * 3MB/s * 30 days = 1296000 MB

1296000 MB / 1024 MB per GB / 1024 GB per TB = 1.2359619140625 TB

EDIT:

The "3 MBPS" is Megabits, not Megabytes, per second, or 375 kilobytes.

Actually, capital 'B' is byte not bit. I have a 25Mbps connection, which is why I used 3MB/s.

 

[Train]

see my edit above

 

[AMDZen]

I wonder what areas are going to be in the trial

 

[Train]

4 hours * 60 minutes per hour * 60 seconds per hour * 3MB/s * 30 days = 1296000 MB

1296000 MB / 1024 MB per GB / 1024 GB per TB = 1.2359619140625 TB

EDIT:



Actually, capital 'B' is byte not bit. I have a 25Mbps connection, which is why I used 3MB/s.

Just because comcast capitalzed the B doesn't make it a byte. It is well established that the standard "3MBPS" comcast internet is 375 KBS

 

[Aikouka]

see my edit above

I must have posted my edit too late.

You should read that as I am quite well aware of the difference between bytes ('B') and bits ('b'), and I used them correctly in my posts.

EDIT:

Just because comcast capitalzed the B doesn't make it a byte. It is well established that the standard "3MBPS" comcast internet is 375 KBS

Oh for the love of baby Jesus, I have Comcast's highest consumer package, which is 25Mbps!

 

[alkemyst]

I must have posted my edit too late.

You should read that as I am quite well aware of the difference between bytes ('B') and bits ('b'), and I used them correctly in my posts.

EDIT:



Oh for the love of baby Jesus, I have Comcast's highest consumer package, which is 25Mbps!

I have 25Mbps at home, good luck downloading at more than about 1000-1300kbps anywhere online.

 

[AMDZen]

I have 25Mbps at home, good luck downloading at more than about 1000-1300kbps anywhere online.

It obviously depends on where you live

I have 25 as well and get 3-3.2 MBps steady

 

[alkemyst]

It obviously depends on where you live

I have 25 as well and get 3-3.2 MBps steady

From what websites?

I can speedtest at that, or private FTP...anything major, even amazon; no way much more than 1.5Mbps.

 

[Aikouka]

From what websites?

I can speedtest at that, or private FTP...anything major, even amazon; no way much more than 1.5Mbps.

I downloaded the latest nVidia driver release (301.42 I think) at ~3MB/s yesterday. I download from Steam and Blizzard at that rate as well.

Of course, I don't always get that speed from everything.

 

[Childs]

From what websites?

I can speedtest at that, or private FTP...anything major, even amazon; no way much more than 1.5Mbps.

I get 3MB/s via newsgroups consistently. Actually starts at 4MB/s for a little bit and then drops down.