The internet is dead in canada... 25gb cap for everybody

[guyver01]

You, just like everyone else who doesn't actually have Comcast - have no idea what they're talking about.

Comcast supposedly has a theoretical cap of 250 GB a month, but many have never seen such a cap or been notified of such a thing, even when they repeatedly go over that cap. Personally, I am right at 200 GB a month usually, but have done around 300 GB several months and never heard a peep from comcast.

Reading online, most people who have had a warning from Comcast are people who are consistently doing 500 GB or even 1 TB a month - and still usually don't get a warning from comcast until after DL'ing that much several months in a row.

The Comcast Caps ARE real..

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25300922-Caps-the-dreaded-call-1-817G

That thread is full of people who have been called... what's hilarious is the person who initiated the thread... had a 1.8Tb usage.

 

[trendytech]

I just signed up for internet in Ottawa (the capital of Canada), for $70.00 with 125gb cap, 25mbps speed.

I think it's expensive and caps are brutal, but it's not the end of the internet.

Just the end of cheap internet.

25gb cap is only for people with the uber cheapo internet plans.

Check out the link if you want to see what internet actually costs and cap sizes.

http://www.rogers.com/web/Rogers.po...se_1_2productID=WAVE&_pageLabel=INTER_HISPEED

 

[frostedflakes]

The Comcast Caps ARE real..

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25300922-Caps-the-dreaded-call-1-817G

That thread is full of people who have been called... what's hilarious is the person who initiated the thread... had a 1.8Tb usage.

Seems to be a YMMV thing. Some people consistently go over 250GB/mo (sometimes by quite a bit) and Comcast never bugs them about it. How strictly the cap is enforced probably depends on where you live and whether their network is congested enough in that area to make it worth getting on people for using a lot of bandwidth. If you have competing providers like FiOS in the area that might also have an effect on whether they enforce the cap or let it slide so they don't risk losing your business.

 

[shabby]

Added the petition to the first post, its extremely well written.

21. UBB is more about limiting growth of internet usage than about getting users to pay for what they use. It should be called Behaviour Based Billing.

45. However, when the regulator dictates that all ISPs should adopt the same billing paradigm, this prevents market forces from choosing what type of paradigm is best suited for the market. This is a clear violation of Telecom Act section 7(f) (As well as Policy Direction (i):
(f) to foster increased reliance on market forces for the provision of telecommunications services and to ensure that regulation, where required, is efficient and effective;
(i) rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible as the means of achieving the telecommunications policy objectives, and

61. The government must prevent the Commission from using creative interpretation of the Policy Direction and Telecommunications Act to blatantly reduce the level of competition to please incumbents. A
"light regulatory touch" philosophy is meant to foster competition instead of re-instating an incumbent's monopoly by saying "yes" to all its requests

94. The regulator's job is not to choose which billing paradigm is best and impose it on everyone, its job is to ensure that the market has choices so it can choose which is best.

 

[Modelworks]

Anyone who doesn't think they have a cap needs to read their service agreement, I guarantee you will find a line like they have the right to limit or refuse access to people that reduce or harm the network for others.
I applaud the ISP for publishing the limits. I got tired of the unlimited advertising with secret caps. At least this way you know where you stand.

 

[Ninjahedge]

I had the same thing happen to me with Cablevision a few years back.

I was wondering why my speeds were dramatically slower, so I called them up. They said it was because they detected high usage of my system.

I asked them "OK, so what is the limit so I do not exceed it again?" They would not tell me. I believe the reason being, they had no real limit, but simply tracked usage (how many connections , BW usage and net usage over time). All these things would be hard to categorize, and easy to program your machine to avoid in the future.

They do not want you to know what the limits are so they can pretty much throttle you at will.

The only thing they can do that would work would be throttling of the system at peak times. They do not want to do this because one of their selling points is "blazing fast internet". Grandma has to be able to DL her Black Eyed Peas album in under 2 minutes don't ya know!

They now have a sizable consumer base. They should start limiting bandwidth to match their base, not to match optimal conditions.

 

[Phokus]

This is what happens when your government has a backbone and doesn't let monopolies fuck their citizens over:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...erid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=15#post387442968

 

[AMDZen]

The Comcast Caps ARE real..

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25300922-Caps-the-dreaded-call-1-817G

That thread is full of people who have been called... what's hilarious is the person who initiated the thread... had a 1.8Tb usage.

I know dozens upon dozens who have never heard a peep from Comcast, and are consistently over the usage. Just not by such a massive amount as this guy. Mine varies, as I said - here is my last 4 months

I've never heard a peep, and don't know anyone who has. As long as they aren't coming down on me or anyone I know then I have every reason to believe that they are VERY lenient on this rule. Of course there are going to be complaints when you look for them on DSL reports because that is the vocal minority.

 

[Ninjahedge]

AMDZ, have you experienced any high traffic lag or BW throttling?

If you haven't yet, they really do not care how much you actually use.

Once enough people get on the same network and they ALL start using as much as you, you may see them start to enforce your caps.

It is all a matter of money. If nobody is inconvenienced by your throughput (they have no complaints about speed, etc) then you are pretty safe until you get a rather disgruntled pencil pusher.

Once that BW becomes premium, the cost will come up, and you will have no leg to stand on because they have already written all these rules into your contract.

So, enjoy it now, but do not be surprised when your 7mB/s connection starts DLing at 1mB/s one day with no real warning....

 

[coloumb]

Holy crap - what the 'ell could you be downloading that would case you to go over 250gb per month?

 

[Phokus]

AMDZ, have you experienced any high traffic lag or BW throttling?

If you haven't yet, they really do not care how much you actually use.

Once enough people get on the same network and they ALL start using as much as you, you may see them start to enforce your caps.

It is all a matter of money. If nobody is inconvenienced by your throughput (they have no complaints about speed, etc) then you are pretty safe until you get a rather disgruntled pencil pusher.

Once that BW becomes premium, the cost will come up, and you will have no leg to stand on because they have already written all these rules into your contract.

So, enjoy it now, but do not be surprised when your 7mB/s connection starts DLing at 1mB/s one day with no real warning....

Yep, i see my shit throttled to around 256 kB during peak hours, but i get 2 mB during offpeak. This is with optimum online, not comcast. But we have unlimited bandwidth though.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Anyone who doesn't think they have a cap needs to read their service agreement, I guarantee you will find a line like they have the right to limit or refuse access to people that reduce or harm the network for others.
I applaud the ISP for publishing the limits. I got tired of the unlimited advertising with secret caps. At least this way you know where you stand.

I partly agree, but there are still limits. I'd rather have an unpublished 250 GB cap than a well-published 25 GB cap.

My ISP apparently has a 250 GB cap, but I am not sure they provide any means of checking up on your usage. And rather than simply charging you a flat rate per GB when you go over, their TOS allows them to heavily throttle you until the end of the billing cycle. That's kind of shitty, but still, with a 250 GB cap and not the fastest internet speeds, it's not the end of the world.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

So, does the Canadian government represent the corporations like the American government does here?

 

[sdifox]

So, does the Canadian government represent the corporations like the American government does here?

more like CRTC is not very smart.

 

[AMDZen]

AMDZ, have you experienced any high traffic lag or BW throttling?

If you haven't yet, they really do not care how much you actually use.

Once enough people get on the same network and they ALL start using as much as you, you may see them start to enforce your caps.

It is all a matter of money. If nobody is inconvenienced by your throughput (they have no complaints about speed, etc) then you are pretty safe until you get a rather disgruntled pencil pusher.

Once that BW becomes premium, the cost will come up, and you will have no leg to stand on because they have already written all these rules into your contract.

So, enjoy it now, but do not be surprised when your 7mB/s connection starts DLing at 1mB/s one day with no real warning....

I understand what you and others are saying, and I definitely understand that it matters where you live. But I have had conversations with lots of people around my area as well as in other states altogether who have comcast, also online and read the same DSL reports forum posts as others. As near as anyone can tell, you basically don't have to worry about a call from comcast until the 500 GB mark. That seems to be the actual flag zone for 90%+ of consumers.

So basically comcast is saying the cap is 250 GB and marketing it that way, but won't actually flag you until you double it.

Just like the one example already posted was 1.8 TB, well I would expect a call after that because they would probably think I'm running a server or something. Every example I've seen where comcast called a customer was around 1 TB usage, so 500 GB might not even be an issue and the flag zone might even be higher then 500 gb a month. I don't really see myself going over the 440 I somehow used in November so I don't think it will be too much of an issue.

At least I hope I'm right.

Holy crap - what the 'ell could you be downloading that would case you to go over 250gb per month?

Its just normal usage, Steam games, Netflix and other streaming video and normal internet stuff. Did you know you can watch 4-5 full 1080p trailers on Apple and thats already 1 GB right there.

I sometimes watch 3-4 trailers for the same movie. Its my internet, I should be able to do what I want.

The 440 I did in November is pretty insane, but I do 200 - 300 GB every month without fail and I am an average tech user. I'm not grandma or daddy who only checks email, no - but I know people who download far more then me.

 

[Phokus]

So, does the Canadian government represent the corporations like the American government does here?

Canada has very strong regulation of the banking system (impossible in the US) and single payer healthcare... so they're not nearly captive to corporate interests as us Americans are.

 

[KMFJD]

So basically they are saying, you can use 25 hours of high speed internet a month

 

[yllus]

Canada has very strong regulation of the banking system (impossible in the US) and single payer healthcare... so they're not nearly captive to corporate interests as us Americans are.

I'm not sure how what you mentioned is an indication of how beholden a government is to corporate interests? In some ways Canada is far worse - instead of your dozens and dozens of banks, we essentially have five, and all the collusion and lack of real competition that comes with that. On the other hand, having only a few major banks is in some ways a good thing - our securities regulatory bodies are incredibly well versed in the affairs of each banks so there are fewer surprises.

Generally speaking, Canadian Internet service comes from one of two companies, Bell or Rogers. (There is also Shaw and Videotron, but they're more regional and behemoths themselves.) Again, the lack of competition that results from only a few players is very evident in the pricing and featureset available here. Our model is not to be envied.

 

[meltdown75]

my sky fell. just got an email from my provider.



bye bye, no cap :'(

http://www.mnsi.net/index.html

HST Update

Important Changes to your MNSi High Speed Internet Service

As you may have heard, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has recently approved Bell Canada's request to introduce Usage Based Billing on wholesale Residential DSL services

The CRTC's decision directly affects the High-Speed Internet services that MNSi provides using Bell Canada's wholesale DSL services. While MNSi has strived to continue to provide unlimited access to all our customers, the new wholesale pricing structure introduced by Bell Canada makes offering unlimited access to customers served through wholesale arrangements with Bell impossible, and no longer financially viable.

Regretfully, the following changes will apply starting March 1st, 2011:

* Existing 5 Meg High Speed Internet plans will now have 25 GB (gigabytes) of monthly usage included. Usage in excess of this amount, but less than 300 GB will be billed at $2.00/GB to a maximum of $60.00 per month in addition to the regular monthly charge.
* Existing 512 K Basic High Speed Internet plans will now have 2 GB (gigabytes) of monthly usage included. Usage in excess of this amount, but less than 300 GB will be billed at $2.50/GB to a maximum of $60.00 per month in addition to the regular monthly charge.
* For the minority of customers who exceed 300 GB, usage in excess of 300 GB per month will be charged an additional $1.00/GB in addition to the regular monthly charge and $60.00 overage fee.
* We expect to have pre-purchased usage insurance blocks available in February. Please watch this website for announcements.
* Business DSL services will be subject to 300 GB maximum usage, after which $1.00/GB excessive usage charges apply.

Checking your Internet usage

You can check your monthly Internet usage by visiting http://usage.mnsi.net

Read an FAQ for some more information

Thank you for your understanding and for choosing MNSi Internet.

 

[shabby]

Just got my notice, $32 for a 25gb service plus insurance options.
Extra 40gb - $4.75/month
Extra 80gb - $9.50/month
Extra 120gb - $14.25/month
Extra 275gb - $55.00/month

If i choose the last option, which i need, my total bill with taxes will be $98.31 compared to $36 what i currently pay... thanks bell!

 

[sdifox]

so they keep the cake and eat it too... just so fucking perfect.

 

[Phokus]

I'm not sure how what you mentioned is an indication of how beholden a government is to corporate interests? In some ways Canada is far worse - instead of your dozens and dozens of banks, we essentially have five, and all the collusion and lack of real competition that comes with that. On the other hand, having only a few major banks is in some ways a good thing - our securities regulatory bodies are incredibly well versed in the affairs of each banks so there are fewer surprises.

Generally speaking, Canadian Internet service comes from one of two companies, Bell or Rogers. (There is also Shaw and Videotron, but they're more regional and behemoths themselves.) Again, the lack of competition that results from only a few players is very evident in the pricing and featureset available here. Our model is not to be envied.

It's easier to monitor 5 big banks that thousands of big/medium/small ones. Also, Canadian banks have stricter lending standards and tighter rules on the amount of leverage one can use and that's why Canada didn't have nearly as big a subprime mess than us Americans did.

 

[Powermoloch]

steam is gonna be expensive

 

[sdifox]

It's easier to monitor 5 big banks that thousands of big/medium/small ones. Also, Canadian banks have stricter lending standards and tighter rules on the amount of leverage one can use and that's why Canada didn't have nearly as big a subprime mess than us Americans did.

so the big banks in America didn't fuck up? :biggrin:

 

[yllus]

It's easier to monitor 5 big banks that thousands of big/medium/small ones. Also, Canadian banks have stricter lending standards and tighter rules on the amount of leverage one can use and that's why Canada didn't have nearly as big a subprime mess than us Americans did.

So... You want fewer, bigger banks in America?