PSA - Comcast users - Data Cap

[cytg111]

The other shoe...

Comcast raising TV and Internet prices, including a big hike to hidden fees

Internet prices to rise $3 a month; “Broadcast TV” hidden fee going up $4.50.

arstechnica.com

Expenses associated with managing data caps has to come from somewhere

Seriously, if that was me, id find a way to roll my own. If I cant pick up a signal from anywhere ill create it myself. If that fails I’d move.

 

[LikeLinus]

Expenses associated with managing data caps has to come from somewhere

Seriously, if that was me, id find a way to roll my own. If I cant pick up a signal from anywhere ill create it myself. If that fails I’d move.

Wow. WTF kind of logic is this? More reason to avoid Comcast like the plague.

"But Comcast can't solely blame other programmers for price hikes because Comcast itself owns NBCUniversal and thus determines the price of all NBCUniversal content, including the national channels and eight RSNs in major markets. Despite Comcast owning NBC, the cable company recently warned customers that they could lose NBC channels if Comcast is unable to reach a new carriage contract with... NBC. The absurd situation was summarized by TechDirt in an article aptly titled, "Comcast Tells Customers They May Lose Access To Comcast Channels If Comcast Can't Agree With Comcast.""

 

[ch33zw1z]

Wow. WTF kind of logic is this? More reason to avoid Comcast like the plague.

"But Comcast can't solely blame other programmers for price hikes because Comcast itself owns NBCUniversal and thus determines the price of all NBCUniversal content, including the national channels and eight RSNs in major markets. Despite Comcast owning NBC, the cable company recently warned customers that they could lose NBC channels if Comcast is unable to reach a new carriage contract with... NBC. The absurd situation was summarized by TechDirt in an article aptly titled, "Comcast Tells Customers They May Lose Access To Comcast Channels If Comcast Can't Agree With Comcast.""

Yea you like that part? "Sorry customers, our totally non monopoly can't agree with itself how how much to charge you, so yolo were just gon make you pay more"

 

[LikeLinus]

Yea you like that part? "Sorry customers, our totally non monopoly can't agree with itself how how much to charge you, so yolo were just gon make you pay more"

It shouldn't surprise me but it's flat out insanity the FCC doesn't do jack about protecting customers from companies like this.

I never participate in P&N, but I saw the word "comcast" in the main forum overview and it piqued my interest. Can you have PTSD from a company?

 

[Aikouka]

It shouldn't surprise me but it's flat out insanity the FCC doesn't do jack about protecting customers from companies like this.

I never participate in P&N, but I saw the word "comcast" in the main forum overview and it piqued my interest. Can you have PTSD from a company?

I have a few right-leaning friends, and during one discussion, I decided to bring up the FCC. I wanted to show how anti-consumer (i.e. anti-my friends) they are, and I think I chose an easy example to represent that. Under the Obama/Wheeler FCC, they enacted a rule that companies would be forced to be upfront with all fees in regard to advertising and on their website. (I believe it also required companies to be upfront about deals that included introductory rates/discounts.) It was likened to the Nutrition Facts label on food boxes. What happened to it? The Trump/Pai FCC got rid of it.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Good work NYC

Verizon wiring up 500K homes with FiOS to settle years-long fight with NYC

ISP didn’t connect entire city as required but will add 500K households by 2023.

arstechnica.com

Wireless did the same thing in the 90s, drag their feet on building out in low income areas. Basically the opinion was there will be too much bad debt it’s easier to not service the area.
Tough shit Verizon, you agreed to 100% coverage by 2014.
NOT 100% coverage of the high value customers.

 

[Brainonska511]

I have a few right-leaning friends, and during one discussion, I decided to bring up the FCC. I wanted to show how anti-consumer (i.e. anti-my friends) they are, and I think I chose an easy example to represent that. Under the Obama/Wheeler FCC, they enacted a rule that companies would be forced to be upfront with all fees in regard to advertising and on their website. (I believe it also required companies to be upfront about deals that included introductory rates/discounts.) It was likened to the Nutrition Facts label on food boxes. What happened to it? The Trump/Pai FCC got rid of it.

These companies should not be able to slip nonsense fees, like "rebroadcasting fee" or "ESPN fee" in - these fake fees exist only to keep the advertised price low. Same for "internet maintenance fees".

 

[Fanatical Meat]

These companies should not be able to slip nonsense fees, like "rebroadcasting fee" or "ESPN fee" in - these fake fees exist only to keep the advertised price low. Same for "internet maintenance fees".

I am a big proponent of this and it should apply to everything. All advertisements should contain promo cost and cost post promo in same or damn similar font.
BS fees should be required to be part of the advertised cost.

 

[Aikouka]

These companies should not be able to slip nonsense fees, like "rebroadcasting fee" or "ESPN fee" in - these fake fees exist only to keep the advertised price low. Same for "internet maintenance fees".

I absolutely agree, and the reason why I used it as an example of anti-consumer actions at the FCC is that I think I'd have a hard time finding anyone that agreed with deceptive/misleading advertising being a good thing.

Although, speaking of the FCC, it appears that Congress is trying to push through a replacement for O'Reilly to avoid a 2-1 imbalance when Pai leaves in January. However, if it's 2-2 and the Democrats don't control the Senate, then there could be a tough time getting the third Democrat nominated, and the FCC becomes deadlocked until that point. I'd like to say that I'd hope Congress wouldn't do that, but who would I be kidding with that candy-coated rhetoric?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I absolutely agree, and the reason why I used it as an example of anti-consumer actions at the FCC is that I think I'd have a hard time finding anyone that agreed with deceptive/misleading advertising being a good thing.

Although, speaking of the FCC, it appears that Congress is trying to push through a replacement for O'Reilly to avoid a 2-1 imbalance when Pai leaves in January. However, if it's 2-2 and the Democrats don't control the Senate, then there could be a tough time getting the third Democrat nominated, and the FCC becomes deadlocked until that point. I'd like to say that I'd hope Congress wouldn't do that, but who would I be kidding with that candy-coated rhetoric?

Current pos FCC Chairman said something about him being concerned about Biden appointing Silicon Valley dudes to the FCC with a side serving of conflict of interest.
Current dude is a complete piece of crap.
Honestly I have said for decades the entire FCC should be defunded, torn down and a new agency should be made. Every single person who works at the FCC should have to re-apply and be selected to work at the new agency.
FCC has decades of mismanagement and ineffective at doing their primary job.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

FCC has zero influence on Comcast in the like where broadband comes into play. Why? Because, the Feds decided LONG ago to not regulate the cable industry, in favor of pushing that responsibility down to the states, which in turn pushed it down onto individual counties. Your county franchise authority controls matters of cable industry. BTW, the Feds decision was based on the fact that they had enough to deal with in the form of Ma Bell and its shenanigans which started more than a century ago.

 

[Fenixgoon]

FCC has zero influence on Comcast in the like where broadband comes into play. Why? Because, the Feds decided LONG ago to not regulate the cable industry, in favor of pushing that responsibility down to the states, which in turn pushed it down onto individual counties. Your county franchise authority controls matters of cable industry. BTW, the Feds decision was based on the fact that they had enough to deal with in the form of Ma Bell and its shenanigans which started more than a century ago.

title II common carrier would provide an avenue for oversight. had ajit pai not completely abdicated the FCC's regulatory authority, the feds would actually be able to do something about it. sadly, we got that reese's cup holding POS instead of more Tom Wheeler (or perhaps Tom Wheeler 2.0), who was pretty damn good.

 

[ScreenSavers]

We originally had the 300 GB limit way back with Comcast. Then the 1TB. Now we are in a business account.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

The criminality of how both cable and telco operators operate is crazy. I've seen it first hand, especially how they treat their commercial customers. The 1996 Telecom Reform Act did little to but stir the vengeance of ILECs upon CLECs, competing layer-3 companies (ISPs), etc. But my point about how cable and telco are handled different comes in the privacy aspect. Telco's will blindly rollover for the Feds, the cable companies no so easily. But this is off-topic.

I stated about a decade ago that my employer at the time should have focused on being that dump pipe provider and charging end users by the byte. But they were too lame of management in vision to see the forthcoming online video craze. This was old man old school thinking in the new 21st century. At that time anyone over 40 in executive decision level should have all be lined up against the wall and handed pink slips.

 

[Fenixgoon]

The criminality of how both cable and telco operators operate is crazy. I've seen it first hand, especially how they treat their commercial customers. The 1996 Telecom Reform Act did little to but stir the vengeance of ILECs upon CLECs, competing layer-3 companies (ISPs), etc. But my point about how cable and telco are handled different comes in the privacy aspect. Telco's will blindly rollover for the Feds, the cable companies no so easily. But this is off-topic.

I stated about a decade ago that my employer at the time should have focused on being that dump pipe provider and charging end users by the byte. But they were too lame of management in vision to see the forthcoming online video craze. This was old man old school thinking in the new 21st century. At that time anyone over 40 in executive decision level should have all be lined up against the wall and handed pink slips.

So you'd be totally cool with ISPs being heavily regulated like utilities, including validated equipment approved by a state or federal agency for correct measurement of data usage?

Also, bits aren't finite and the limitation isn't in the amount of data usage but on the rate of usage (throughput)

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I never suggested anything about my stance on regulation. I only merely offered how they are handled differently and my observations from a legal standpoint in terms of a business operating on a thin legal line.

My point was my employer spent tens of billions of dollars on the wrong 'next thing' when from a business standpoint they could have doubled-down on their core and could have come out a much stronger company. But idiots being what they were, now has said employer with the most debt of any company in the America.

 

[snoopy7548]

Already over 1.5TB for December! Screw you, Comcast!

 

[ElFenix]

pure rent seeking.

 

[MtnMan]

Already over 1.5TB for December! Screw you, Comcast!

View attachment 35145

Seriously dude, what are you doing to d/l 1.5TB in 5 days. We stream TV probably 7 - 8 hours a day, 4K if available and we average less than 700MB a month.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Seriously dude, what are you doing to d/l 1.5TB in 5 days. We stream TV probably 7 - 8 hours a day, 4K if available and we average less than 700MB a month.

At least get your orders of magnitude sorted out. 700MB is how much data a CD can hold, so either you're using alien technology to stream your 4K or you meant GB and not MB.

Which, you must be all watching one thing and do nothing else. When it was just me and one other person and us streaming at 720p and some game downloads, we'd use 300-500GB a month on 15-20Mb down (we moved to cable after ATT DSL was trying to charge us $30 extra per month for going over their 150GB cap, streaming 480p and less quality). If you have a modern family of 4-5, with one person working from home and one or more children doing distance learning, on top of say 3 unique 5 hour daily 1080p streaming of TV/movies, you're gonna be hitting probably 1TB+ pretty easy.

If you have one IT or software development person working from home, and a family of 4-5 doing 4K streaming for 4-5 hours a day, one person gaming while Twitch streaming, etc, you can easily hit several TB. Especially if you buy a new PC or console and have to download several 100GB+ games.

 

[snoopy7548]

Seriously dude, what are you doing to d/l 1.5TB in 5 days. We stream TV probably 7 - 8 hours a day, 4K if available and we average less than 700MB a month.

Streaming dog shows!

If you do the calculation, it's only a constant 3.47MB/s. Crazy how you can totally blow by the data cap in five days using 33% of your rated download speed.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Streaming dog shows!

If you do the calculation, it's only a constant 3.47MB/s. Crazy how you can totally blow by the data cap in five days using 33% of your rated download speed.

Imagine if they charged people more for just leaving cable tv running all day

 

[snoopy7548]

Imagine if they charged people more for just leaving cable tv running all day

They should! Those TV shows are in short supply; the real reason for commercials is so people get fed up with watching TV and turn it off, freeing up the shows for other customers.

Fun Fact: You can hit the 1.2TB cap in 30 days with a constant 464KB/s transfer rate.

 

[MtnMan]

At least get your orders of magnitude sorted out. 700MB is how much data a CD can hold, so either you're using alien technology to stream your 4K or you meant GB and not MB.

Which, you must be all watching one thing and do nothing else. When it was just me and one other person and us streaming at 720p and some game downloads, we'd use 300-500GB a month on 15-20Mb down (we moved to cable after ATT DSL was trying to charge us $30 extra per month for going over their 150GB cap, streaming 480p and less quality). If you have a modern family of 4-5, with one person working from home and one or more children doing distance learning, on top of say 3 unique 5 hour daily 1080p streaming of TV/movies, you're gonna be hitting probably 1TB+ pretty easy.

If you have one IT or software development person working from home, and a family of 4-5 doing 4K streaming for 4-5 hours a day, one person gaming while Twitch streaming, etc, you can easily hit several TB. Especially if you buy a new PC or console and have to download several 100GB+ games.

so beat me with a wet wifi cable... it gigi bytes... put your shorts back on

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I'm wondering if Comcast counts transmission overhead.