Comcast should be sued...again.

[NaRu]

Comcast should be sued for their monthly bandwidth cap. Currently all resident users has a 250GB cap per month. They been doing this for a long time. Even bore they announced it to the world. Indirectly they are controlling the market because of a law "The fair Use Act." Most of you already knew this. The reason for this law made sense a decade ago. When high bandwidth first came out it was over crowed and speeds dropped below dialup speeds during prime hours. This law gave ISP the right to throttle connection or even charge extra for exceeding "the fair use" of the internet, but today things are different. Everything is done online now. The pipeline is very large and can handle a lot more. Bits are free. Comcast only has to pay for is the gateway between two computers. Example, you go to google from your desktop. Your computer sends out a packet of information through your ISP pipeline that connects to google's pipeline. Comcast only needs to do is maintain the gateway between each system. In the United States we are a third world country when it comes for internet. We spend too much money for slow speeds compared to the rest of the world.

I did some math trying to figure out how much "internet" I can use in 30 days until I hit my 250GB (I had unlimited for the longest time then my contract ended and for me to continue with the same agreement I had to pay $180 a month instead of $80.) My current speeds are 22Mbps down 5Mbps up for $80

250GB =  250,000MB
22Mbps = 2.8MB/s
250,000MB / 2.8MB/s = 89286 seconds
89286 seconds / 60 = 1488 mins
1488 mins / 60 = 25 Hours

So according to Comcast I have to pay them $80 a month for 25 hours of max speed downloading and uploading. If I spend more then 25 hours downloading they will cut me off for a year.

Now I also did the math for someone who has the max speed Comcast offers. 105Mbps down 10Mbps up

250GB =  250,000MB
105Mbps = 13.125MB/s
250,000MB / 13.125Mb/s = 19048 seconds
19048 seconds / 60 = 317 Mins
317 Mins / 60 = 5.3 Hours

So for someone who has the fastest speeds can only download and upload at max speeds is little over 5 hours every month.

Can anyone really hold back that much not to use there connection to prevent the 250GB cap. If there is going to be a cap they need to increase it. Not only it's too low but its way too low if you are paying for a high tier connection. 5 hours a month is something we can do in a single night. With my connection I can do that in a week. I normally don't download much but I do use my connection for netflix and hulu +. I believe comcast only goal with the cap is to scare people on using those services and force them to pay more for business or get there cable TV service instead. This is how they are controlling the market indirectly and it's wrong.

I'm done ranting.

Why don't you use Comcast's business internet service? http://business.comcast.com/smb/services/Internet/plans
For the same plan as you have now, you'd only pay 20 bucks more a month for unlimited traffic, like it says in their terms here:

http://www.google.com/url?url=http://business.comcast.com/smb/services/Internet/faqs%2307b&rct=j&q=comcast+business+internet+limits&usg=AFQjCNHGjDiXRqSNkYtYhU0yzj2MQs7pvA&sa=X&ei=MIQUT_mJIpiqsgbNnsTdCA&ved=0CC4QygQwAQ&cad=rja

As far as I know, you can use this even if you aren't a business, and you get better support, email, hosting etc.

I'm highly thinking about getting that. I did called and they are going to come by (it seems they send a seller to my house to make the deal) I just need to know if there is any fees.

[kitamesume]

(click to show/hide)

Comcast should be sued for their monthly bandwidth cap. Currently all resident users has a 250GB cap per month. They been doing this for a long time. Even bore they announced it to the world. Indirectly they are controlling the market because of a law "The fair Use Act." Most of you already knew this. The reason for this law made sense a decade ago. When high bandwidth first came out it was over crowed and speeds dropped below dialup speeds during prime hours. This law gave ISP the right to throttle connection or even charge extra for exceeding "the fair use" of the internet, but today things are different. Everything is done online now. The pipeline is very large and can handle a lot more. Bits are free. Comcast only has to pay for is the gateway between two computers. Example, you go to google from your desktop. Your computer sends out a packet of information through your ISP pipeline that connects to google's pipeline. Comcast only needs to do is maintain the gateway between each system. In the United States we are a third world country when it comes for internet. We spend too much money for slow speeds compared to the rest of the world.

I did some math trying to figure out how much "internet" I can use in 30 days until I hit my 250GB (I had unlimited for the longest time then my contract ended and for me to continue with the same agreement I had to pay $180 a month instead of $80.) My current speeds are 22Mbps down 5Mbps up for $80

250GB =  250,000MB
22Mbps = 2.8MB/s
250,000MB / 2.8MB/s = 89286 seconds
89286 seconds / 60 = 1488 mins
1488 mins / 60 = 25 Hours

So according to Comcast I have to pay them $80 a month for 25 hours of max speed downloading and uploading. If I spend more then 25 hours downloading they will cut me off for a year.

Now I also did the math for someone who has the max speed Comcast offers. 105Mbps down 10Mbps up

250GB =  250,000MB
105Mbps = 13.125MB/s
250,000MB / 13.125Mb/s = 19048 seconds
19048 seconds / 60 = 317 Mins
317 Mins / 60 = 5.3 Hours

So for someone who has the fastest speeds can only download and upload at max speeds is little over 5 hours every month.

Can anyone really hold back that much not to use there connection to prevent the 250GB cap. If there is going to be a cap they need to increase it. Not only it's too low but its way too low if you are paying for a high tier connection. 5 hours a month is something we can do in a single night. With my connection I can do that in a week. I normally don't download much but I do use my connection for netflix and hulu +. I believe comcast only goal with the cap is to scare people on using those services and force them to pay more for business or get there cable TV service instead. This is how they are controlling the market indirectly and it's wrong.

I'm done ranting.

Why don't you use Comcast's business internet service? http://business.comcast.com/smb/services/Internet/plans
For the same plan as you have now, you'd only pay 20 bucks more a month for unlimited traffic, like it says in their terms here:

http://www.google.com/url?url=http://business.comcast.com/smb/services/Internet/faqs%2307b&rct=j&q=comcast+business+internet+limits&usg=AFQjCNHGjDiXRqSNkYtYhU0yzj2MQs7pvA&sa=X&ei=MIQUT_mJIpiqsgbNnsTdCA&ved=0CC4QygQwAQ&cad=rja

As far as I know, you can use this even if you aren't a business, and you get better support, email, hosting etc.

I'm highly thinking about getting that. I did called and they are going to come by (it seems they send a seller to my house to make the deal) I just need to know if there is any fees.

....
i'll take the Starter plox, yummy 12mb:5mb @ 60$/month, even if i only get 1MB:512KB its still awesome... waaaay effing better than my crappy 256KB:128KB @ 25$/month(plus the $/GB BS) line.

btw, does comcast track torrents? and and send the S.W.A.T. force to your house with a warrant of arrest? you get the picture right?

[nstgc]

I'm sure they track torrents, but until they have reason to bitch at people (and lose customers) they won't. Of course, all of that will change this year.

[AnimeJanai]

Someone needs to be a competitor towards Comcast. Once there is I believe they will stop the bull shit they try to do.

Easy to say.  Hard to do.

Comcast killed Verizon's spread into areas by ultra-aggressively courting the remaining non-comcast internet users regardless of whatever ISP they were using that wasn't comcast.  Every address that was not a comcast user got targeted month after month with twice monthly postal mailings of various offers and sometimes with "coupons" to be redeemed for lavish discounts.

By making sure there were almost no prey left in already established residential areas, Verizon limited their FiOS expansions to mostly new residential areas being constructed.  It didn't make financial sense to Verizon to expand FiOS at great expense into areas where there would be marginal sales that wouldn't recover the expenses. 

[TMRNetShark]

Someone needs to be a competitor towards Comcast. Once there is I believe they will stop the bull shit they try to do.

Easy to say.  Hard to do.

Comcast killed Verizon's spread into areas by ultra-aggressively courting the remaining non-comcast internet users regardless of whatever ISP they were using that wasn't comcast.  Every address that was not a comcast user got targeted month after month with twice monthly postal mailings of various offers and sometimes with "coupons" to be redeemed for lavish discounts.

By making sure there were almost no prey left in already established residential areas, Verizon limited their FiOS expansions to mostly new residential areas being constructed.  It didn't make financial sense to Verizon to expand FiOS at great expense into areas where there would be marginal sales that wouldn't recover the expenses.

I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia (Comcast's head quarters is in Philadelphia)... but like I said before, never hit the limit... and I've never had a reason to switch to FiOS. I even have the fiber optics wired right to my house for FiOS but Comcast works for me. So yeah, their campaign to get every resident to use Comcast kinda worked, even if FiOS is "better" with fiber optics (I have yet to see proof of that).

I remember Century Link tried to get me to be a customer... I LOL'ed right in their faces. I remember when I was using COX communications back on the west coast. I remember I had a laughable 5 Mbps down and like 250 Kbps up. Doesn't even compare to Comcast. XD

[nstgc]

Comcast made a deal with my city a while ago. They offer residents discount prices, but the result is that no one else is moving in. We only have Comcast and dial-up.

[Slysoft]

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/2650/comcast.jpg

100% from anime downloads. I used to have unlimited fios but now since my only option is comcast, it kinda sucks to be an anime fan

[nstgc]

Just checked mine. Half way through the month and only 50GB used.

[Pentium100]

I don't think you realise just how much strain heavy downloading can put on a network, especially an ADSL network (and especially with something like Bittorrent which uses hundreds of connections at once - it's not unheard of for a single bittorrent user with a badly configured client to completely knock out a router by, effectively, bombarding it with a DOS attack when they try to download, though generally the home router or client's NIC would die long before the ISP's does).

In that case somebody is using low quality equipment.
1) While BitTorrent may overload the ADSL link between my and the ISP, it will not overload the link between DSLAM and the rest of the ISP network. If it does, then the link is too slow for that DSLAM.
2) "hundreds of connections" is only a concern for the client, server and a NAT router or a firewall. Transit routers just forward packets, they do not need to concern themselves with TCP connections. So, if a ISP grade router got knocked out by a single ADSL user, then I think the ISP should not buy any more routers from that manufacturer (or stop buying consumer grade routers and using them as ISP grade ones).
3) When I had DSL, I had a router made from a slow PC (Pentium 120MHz, 64MB RAM) and "smoothwall" router Linux. After configuring, it could pass up to 20mbps (connection speed was 4mbps, so I could have used a slower PC if I had one) and maintain up to 4000 connections. It never slowed down because of BitTorrent and lots of connections.

Even with a good network, there usually needs to be a cap at some point, because it's just not really feasible for any ISP to build a network capable of supporting lots of users downloading at max speeds at once. They need some way to limit the impact on the network and maintain reasonable speeds for everyone during peak conditions, and a cap is one obvious way to try and curtail excessive downloading, in order to achieve that. 250GB seems pretty reasonable to me, since it's something 95% of customers will never hit.

The need for a cap is a sign of too much overbooking. For example, my ISP overbooks 30:1 and it does not need any cap. The speed does not get that low anyway. For my 300mbps uncapped connection, the slowest I get is 40mbps during peak conditions. No cap at all.
Also, to allow regular users to go to google faster, the ISP can prioritize HTTP (and real-time protocols) over BitTorrent (and other p2p protocols). Then google will load faster and you won't mind that your BT download takes a few more seconds to complete.  My ISP did that some time ago, but it no longer does that, I guess the network was upgraded to be good enough.

As for the 250GB cap, when I had DSL (4mbps down, ~800kbps up), I managed to upload up to 250GB/month and thought that my connection sucked because the upload speed was too slow.
I now have a 300mbps connection and upload more than that cap in a day.

1080p anime series is about 23GB, so download a few of those, some HD movies and watch some HD Youtube and you'll hit your 250GB cap in a couple of days.

Usage stats for this month at the time of writing (my router can display them): 362GB down, 15148GB up.

[nstgc]

All Hail the Archivist in our presence!

[AceHigh]

Monthly limit was around for like one year after DSL was introduced in my country, but it disappeared very quickly when companies that used those methods lost huge amount of customers to the companies that offered connection without cap to the same price.

If you don't like it, start your own ISP service and compete with comcast.

[nstgc]

Saddlying this is the United States of "Don't bother pushing someone out of a market".

[Tatsujin]

Don't you have business class? ... Last time we spoke about Comcast I believe you told me I just needed to get Business Class and that's what I did. On my first two months, I did over 7 TB bandwidth downloading and uploading, that was like more than 2 years ago. I downgraded my Internet to a lower tier to pay less and I still retain unlimited bandwidth, all ports open and a damn good modem specifically used for business accounts.

Just switch to business class and get Tier 2. Cheap, fast, unlimited bandwidth and open ports.

Edit -- I was going to switch to AT&T but thank god I didn't. I still remember the nightmare days with those phone line connections. Cable still rocks it.

Edit 2 -- Here's the number to call Comcast Business (800) 391 - 3000. Go through the menus to get new account. You'll speak to someone and just tell them you want a business connection. You'll have to go in a contract with them to get their Internet connection. If you need a phone line, then just tell them to give you a package deal and you'd pay like really cheap price for the line, and it has its own modem which doesn't conflict or take bandwidth from the internet modem (has it's own separate cables). You may pay activation fee for the phone line and a one time set up installation, depending on your area. I renewed my contract with Comcast since I needed a phone line and I wanted to pay less since I don't need that much bandwidth. Now I'm paying like 10 dollars less with a phone line. The features on the phone line is excellent as well.

Well, that's about it. Just call that number up there and tell them what you want.

[AceHigh]

Saddlying this is the United States of "Don't bother pushing someone out of a market".

What happened with free market and antitrust laws?

[mgz]

LOL

Poor you, if you don't like Comcast, switch. If you have no other option to switch, then don't use 250 GBs of data. If you think 250 GBs is too low of a cap (which, I would like to hear your reasoning), then why/how do you average around 8.3 GBs of data usage a day? I understand that you might download a lot of shows or games or whatever else you might acquire from the internet... but honestly, I find it hard to find enough stuff that I want to go over 100 GBs (let alone live with someone who does the exact same thing as we all do). I see my usage on my router... highest we have ever gone was like 180~ GBs. Close, but no cigar.


So if you don't like Comcasts dealings or how they operate... the internet isn't a right, it's a privilege for those who pay.

It's too low because I'm not the only one using the connection. My whole family uses the connection. Each one watches Netflix and Hulu on their TVs in rooms. My sister downloads stuff as well as my parents. I normally go over the 250GB limit. One month I hit over 800GB (thats when I got a threat to be cut off) In my case I have a huge family where each of us uses the internet. If I was the only one using it then it wouldn't be so bad. Comcast needs to understand that when you put in youtube, Netflix, and Hulu into consideration 250GB can be easily reached. If Comcast didn't offer cable TV I bet they wouldn't have a cap. I average around 400GB  a month.

not to mention naru downloads porn every day he grabs the new porn releases.
But seriously say i enjoy 1 new anime that airs each of the 5 days a week with some of the hd encodes that come out you just burned through like 5% of your months bandwith
before you have even watched netflix youtube, streamed pandora or w/e the fuck music player your using.
plus that only assumes you download 5 episodes of 1080p encodes a week
if you download anything in HD quality you are burning through gigs like candy

And @ everyone who says he should just get business internet HE SHOULDNT HAVE TO GET BUSINESS GRADE INTERNET TO USE SHIT NORMAL PEOPLE USE NOW.
Lots of people stream music tv and movies legally and use lots of bandwith doing so. No reason you and your family should be penalized for comcast being cheap fucks

[Tatsujin]

LOL

Poor you, if you don't like Comcast, switch. If you have no other option to switch, then don't use 250 GBs of data. If you think 250 GBs is too low of a cap (which, I would like to hear your reasoning), then why/how do you average around 8.3 GBs of data usage a day? I understand that you might download a lot of shows or games or whatever else you might acquire from the internet... but honestly, I find it hard to find enough stuff that I want to go over 100 GBs (let alone live with someone who does the exact same thing as we all do). I see my usage on my router... highest we have ever gone was like 180~ GBs. Close, but no cigar.


So if you don't like Comcasts dealings or how they operate... the internet isn't a right, it's a privilege for those who pay.

It's too low because I'm not the only one using the connection. My whole family uses the connection. Each one watches Netflix and Hulu on their TVs in rooms. My sister downloads stuff as well as my parents. I normally go over the 250GB limit. One month I hit over 800GB (thats when I got a threat to be cut off) In my case I have a huge family where each of us uses the internet. If I was the only one using it then it wouldn't be so bad. Comcast needs to understand that when you put in youtube, Netflix, and Hulu into consideration 250GB can be easily reached. If Comcast didn't offer cable TV I bet they wouldn't have a cap. I average around 400GB  a month.

not to mention naru downloads porn every day he grabs the new porn releases.
But seriously say i enjoy 1 new anime that airs each of the 5 days a week with some of the hd encodes that come out you just burned through like 5% of your months bandwith
before you have even watched netflix youtube, streamed pandora or w/e the fuck music player your using.
plus that only assumes you download 5 episodes of 1080p encodes a week
if you download anything in HD quality you are burning through gigs like candy

And @ everyone who says he should just get business internet HE SHOULDNT HAVE TO GET BUSINESS GRADE INTERNET TO USE SHIT NORMAL PEOPLE USE NOW.
Lots of people stream music tv and movies legally and use lots of bandwith doing so. No reason you and your family should be penalized for comcast being cheap fucks

GET HIM A FUCKING SOLUTION THEN?

Naru, if there are no other good Internet Providers around your area, go Business Class and the headache is gone. If there are Internet Providers, then do ask them for their bandwidth policy and if its unlimited or limited.

I'd still say go Business Class just because it's that fucking good. Unless you have FiOS around your area.

[NaRu]

Don't you have business class? ... Last time we spoke about Comcast I believe you told me I just needed to get Business Class and that's what I did. On my first two months, I did over 7 TB bandwidth downloading and uploading, that was like more than 2 years ago. I downgraded my Internet to a lower tier to pay less and I still retain unlimited bandwidth, all ports open and a damn good modem specifically used for business accounts.

Just switch to business class and get Tier 2. Cheap, fast, unlimited bandwidth and open ports.

Edit -- I was going to switch to AT&T but thank god I didn't. I still remember the nightmare days with those phone line connections. Cable still rocks it.

Edit 2 -- Here's the number to call Comcast Business (800) 391 - 3000. Go through the menus to get new account. You'll speak to someone and just tell them you want a business connection. You'll have to go in a contract with them to get their Internet connection. If you need a phone line, then just tell them to give you a package deal and you'd pay like really cheap price for the line, and it has its own modem which doesn't conflict or take bandwidth from the internet modem (has it's own separate cables). You may pay activation fee for the phone line and a one time set up installation, depending on your area. I renewed my contract with Comcast since I needed a phone line and I wanted to pay less since I don't need that much bandwidth. Now I'm paying like 10 dollars less with a phone line. The features on the phone line is excellent as well.

Well, that's about it. Just call that number up there and tell them what you want.

I did have business but my contracted ended and I had the 50Mbps down and 10 Mbps up for $90 a month (I don't know how I got a one year contract that low of a price.) Once that ended I switched back then after like 2 months on going over the 250GB cap I down graded my internet to the 22Mbps to manage my downloads better. Im going back to business and going to stay within my tier. The guy comes in next monday to install.

October I hit 460GBs
November I hit 390GBs
December I hit 600GBs

So far this month I have 60GBs left for 15 days.

[Slysoft]

I would definitely go business but as I'm pretty sure the minimum is a 1 year contract I can't commit to that since I'll be moving before that. Unless there was some kind of fee you could pay to break the contract early.

[dogsinafen]

And Canada is home of the 2GB cap

Thank FUCK I have Aliant, fibre to home 70/30 no cap.

Even with Rogers that had a cap I was going TB everymonth and never heard a word from them.

[nstgc]

Saddlying this is the United States of "Don't bother pushing someone out of a market".

What happened with free market and antitrust laws?

I have no clue. I think they are among those things the federal government allow when its convenient to someone with briefcases full of money.