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Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

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Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#121
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. They do? Where is this the case? My water and electricity usage have no monthly cap and are only shut off if I fail to pay the bills.

Your electric utility service is capped, but they use a different method because electric utilities are metered. You have a fixed capacity feed to your house. For example, our home has 150 amp service. I cannot exceed that draw or the main feed breaker trips and everything goes dark. I can request installation of a larger feed, but I have to pay the build-out, and there are hard limits based on my local zoning. One t…

> Your electric utility service is capped, but they use a different method because electric utilities are metered. You have a fixed capacity feed to your house. For example, our home has 150 amp service. I cannot exceed that draw or the main feed breaker trips and everything goes dark. I can request installation of a larger feed, but I have to pay the build-out, and there are hard limits based on my local zoning.

> One thing is certain, in no way do I have "unlimited" electricity available at my home.

By that metric, uncapped data is not unlimited, and thus does not need a cap.

> This whole notion that unlimited internet for $60/month is some kind of "right" is just preposterous.

It's not unlimited since it's (by your own account) 15/3. That's a limitation right there, identical to your 150 amp service. And you can not exceed that limit period (you won't even get close to it, really). No need for a breaker.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#122
post #85
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though their contract specifies the same data cap for all speed options... So that means that at any time they can decide to terminate you for the same reason.

Does it matter if they don't? I'm sure you can find clauses in most ISP contracts that enable them to terminate you more or less at will, it doesn't matter much if they don't enforce them.

Surely you see how there may be a problem when the solution to a local monopoly cutting off service for overuse is to throw more money at the same company with absolutely no guarantee that service won't be terminated again.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#123
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast refused to work with him, even though he was willing and motivated to address the problem. Even after being careful with bandwidth and disabling his public access point, they still cut him off for a year with no appeal. This mirrors what happened to me. I was given an automated warning. I called the security number but they wouldn't tell me what sort of traffic I should be looking for. They didn't even have a…

"...at least managed to switch to a business account, which isn't too much more expensive and has no cap." Down here we've got Cox, with the same 250GB cap, and business accounts are literally $180 per month more expensive than the residential accounts. I pay $69.99 at home and $250.00 at the office for the exact same service.

If you got two cables to your house, you could pay $140 with a 500GB limit :)

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#124
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. They do? Where is this the case? My water and electricity usage have no monthly cap and are only shut off if I fail to pay the bills.

Your electric utility service is capped, but they use a different method because electric utilities are metered. You have a fixed capacity feed to your house. For example, our home has 150 amp service. I cannot exceed that draw or the main feed breaker trips and everything goes dark. I can request installation of a larger feed, but I have to pay the build-out, and there are hard limits based on my local zoning. One t…

> Your electric utility service is capped, but they use a different method because electric utilities are metered. You have a fixed capacity feed to your house. For example, our home has 150 amp service. I cannot exceed that draw or the main feed breaker trips and everything goes dark. I can request installation of a larger feed, but I have to pay the build-out, and there are hard limits based on my local zoning.

It sounds like the analogy here would be having an internet connection that has a maximum throughput of X. If you want X+Y, where Y is larger than zero, then you would have to buy a larger throughput connection. Once that's done, you'd be free to use it as much as you want, provided you pay for that usage.

That doesn't seem to be the case in the linked article here.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Except if you go over a few times they won't ban you from their service for a year. They just want you to curb your use, which is exactly what this guy was willing to do.

At least in Canada, there are rules governing when the electricity company can cut you off. To oversimplify, you cannot be cut off during winter.

Really? Can you point to a link about this? I'd love to see what the rules actually say.

NOTE: What I wrote above sounds kind of confrontational - it's not. Badly worded, yes, but I believe you and am actually interested in seeing the rules.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your electric utility service is capped, but they use a different method because electric utilities are metered. You have a fixed capacity feed to your house. For example, our home has 150 amp service. I cannot exceed that draw or the main feed breaker trips and everything goes dark. I can request installation of a larger feed, but I have to pay the build-out, and there are hard limits based on my local zoning. One t…

If you have a 100 amp power feed, then you should be able to use up to 100 amps. If you have a 100Mbit feed, you should be able to use up to 100Mbits. The big difference between electricity and bandwidth is that electricity has to be produced and this involves considerable expense. Bandwidth is always there so long as the equipment is powered on, which ends up being a marginal cost in the scheme of things. Look at ho…

I think you're confused about the difference between Gbit and Gbyte. One Gbyte is eight Gbits.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Except if you go over a few times they won't ban you from their service for a year. They just want you to curb your use, which is exactly what this guy was willing to do.

My water and electricity utilities charge per gallon and kilowatt-hours, respectively. Comcast does not charge by the megabyte. Instead, it is all you can eat, until Comcast says that is all you can eat. This guy was actually using his residential account for business purposes.

> This guy was actually using his residential account for business purposes.

1. so what? Should every telecommuter get a business SDSL?

2. his consulting business is not the reason why he went overcap, hobbies and personal matter are

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#128
post #6

I listened to him read his canned warning that if I exceeded their cap again I'd be cut off again. Ok. Sure, the data cap sucks, but this guy broke a Comcast policy, got a warning, and then broke the policy again. I'm not surprised he got cut off. I do not recall details on how long the cut off would be, likely because I spent the next few minutes working with the service agent to add notes to my record about my deta…

You're right; He broke their policy.

However, to be fair, Comcast isn't very "open" with regard to the policy. You log in, see a graph, click "details" and get some mumbo jumbo about only 99% of users exceeding the cap. Clicking "Learn more" takes you to a page that is filled with questions that will deter many users (similar to a EULA - who "really" reads those?!) Up until this blog post, I had absolutely no idea they counted upstream against the cap (I thought it was just downstream)!

Sure, it's my fault -- I didn't dig deep enough to find this line in the FAQ:

"Data usage, also known as bandwidth usage, is the amount of data, such as images, movies, photos, videos, and other files that customers send, receive, download or upload over a specific period of time."

Then again, maybe they should just plainly state that on their site somewhere that both uploads and downloads count against my cap?

As a Comcast subscriber, in a similar situation where I am uploading a LOT of data (for work, and cloud based services), this was a rude awakening. Fortunately for me, I'm not using nearly as much bandwidth as he is (last month, I hit 100GB) - but I still wish Comcast was more open. Especially with the world moving towards a more "cloud" based computing (with on demand video!) I mean, their "typical/median use" is laughable in this day and age:

Data usage changes over time as our customers use the Internet and the services and applications available for it. Currently, the median data usage by XFINITY Internet customers is approximately 4 - 6 GB each month (these numbers may vary on a monthly basis). This reflects typical residential use of the service for purposes such as sending and receiving email, surfing the Internet, and watching streaming video.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#129
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually if you read his post from a day ago, you will see him state he stopped the open access point. He took steps to stop what he thought was the issue. It was not until the cap was broken a second time that he realized it was his backup system uploading to a 3rd party service. That is not entitlement at all. If anything it was ignorance of the fact that your upload data is also measured against the cap. I agree w…

My question would be is does the 250g data cap apply when they are watching TV/Movies online via Comcast (XFinity) provided services? Of course not, nor Comcast's VOIP service.

Watching the xfinity tv/news service definitely counts towards the cap, but xfinity voice is a completely separate service - and doesn't count.

Re: Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use

#130
post #102

I'm worried about this. I live with 4 other internet heavy users, so I checked our usage last week, and saw that we've consistently been blowing past the 250GB cap. Last month, we hit 566GB. Comcast hasn't contacted me or shut off our service yet, and I hope they don't.

How did you check, I couldn't see anywhere on Comcast's site that gave this info.

I used to have a DD-WRT router with bandwidth monitoring but we're now using an Apple Airport Extreme, and I don't think it has such capability :/

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