Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

12160.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 288 posts

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

#201

Post by smcguinness »

matwood wrote: post #75
megaman821 wrote: post #34

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.

Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Most utilities cannot just shut you off. Many states have laws that determine when and how. The biggest thing about a utility though is that you pay for usage. If you want to leave your lights on all day, they really don't care as long as you continue to pay your bill. Personally, I do…

Many state utility commissions require multiple notifications written & verbal prior to turning off service.

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

#202

Post by icebraining »

bradleyland wrote: post #162
masklinn wrote: post #121

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. > O…

> 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. It is one form of limitation, but it is not the most relevant. The point is that Comcast has to pay for the transfer of data in and out of their network. So they have two choices: * Mete…

I wonder how small ISPs like those in my country can afford to provide at least 500GB/month at 30Mbps for about $60. On the other hand, I do have about four other ISPs I can switch to, maybe that influences it?

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

#203

Post by younata »

mbreese wrote: post #179
younata wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to downvote you, but that's an incredibly stupid reason to downvote someone. "Oh, I don't like your word choice, so I'm going to downvote you regardless of the content."

I don't know... HN has a history of actively downvoting memes. I don't know if 'This.' qualifies as a meme or not, but it's a valid sentiment. Then again, if you are replying "This." perhaps the better way to go would be with a simple upvote. But that would really only be expressive if we could see vote counts again.

My point was that "this. " does not deserve a downvote (should get an upvote), because it has actual content.

However, a content-free message of simply "this." does deserve a downvote.

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

#204

Post by henryw »

I think I broke the 250GB cap for 6 months straight (using around 280GB to 350GB), and they didn't care. When I did 1TB in a month, they called me and thought my WIFI was hacked and warned me to not go over. The next couple month I think I did like 275GB. Overall, they are pretty nice about it. I still have my Internet.

I'm curious how far over this person went.

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

#205

Post by t_krupicka »

The most neutral resolution to this is instead of comcast denying service to this user, they need to install fees for excessive amounts of data used. While this person thinks of bandwith as a utility and a right, a utility is not based on a flat rate, and the writer obviously voided their agreement of their right to use data.

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

#206

Post by t_krupicka »

The most neutral resolution to this is instead of comcast denying service to this user, they need to install fees for excessive amounts of data used. While this person thinks of bandwith as a utility and a right, a utility is not based on a flat rate, and the writer obviously voided their agreement of their right to use data.

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

#207

Post by younata »

forensic wrote: post #161
younata wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to downvote you, but that's an incredibly stupid reason to downvote someone. "Oh, I don't like your word choice, so I'm going to downvote you regardless of the content."

The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style. Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN. Explaining yourself and adding an original thought is contributing, but saying "This." is not contributing and degrades the quality of the post and HN in general.

  > The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style.
Forgive me, my vocabulary failed me when I was writing that particular sentence.

  > Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN.
Good point, although leetspeak kills readability, whereas "this." is just a way to say "yes, I agree with you.".

In my opinion, a comment that is simply "this." should get no votes at all, whereas a comment that is entirely in leetspeak should be downvoted into oblivion. Killing readability is a far greater sin than simply failing to realize that the upvote button exists for a reason.

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

#208

Post by blacksmith_tb »

mikeash wrote: post #136
blahedo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or at least choke you way way down. But even more important than the "cut off at cutoff point" solution is the "let me know my usage" solution. They couldn't (or wouldn't) tell him anything about the shape of his bandwidth usage, or how much he was actually consuming, and there is no way (!) to find out how much has been consumed "so far this month". Even if that way to check was to phone Comcast, but especially if t…

I've used 40GB so far this month. Last month, my usage was 117GB. This is all pretty easy to view on comcast.com.

I actually went well over the cap last month, 315GB according to both Comcast's metering and Tomato on my router (I'd rebuilt the server that runs my Tor relay, but hadn't cranked the bandwidth settings back down, and it ran for a while flat-out). I was sweating bullets, but they never said a thing to me. Most months I do get into the 200GB range, so it doesn't take much to get close to the cap.

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

#209

Post by reduxredacted »

rbritton wrote: post #35
rudle wrote: post #4

> My opinion on all this is simple. The ability to access broadband internet is a right, and should be defined as an essential utility. Yawn... first world problems. Broadband is assuredly not your "right", it's a privilege. If the terms of the contract are broken (and they were, twice ) you have very little recourse. More to the point, get a Comcast business line. You will get hassled less, and I hear it may actuall…

I have a Comcast business line. While I've never tested the unlimitedness of it, it does have its own sets of pros and cons: + Constant, consistent price. There are no promo deals of any sort. - More expensive by $15-20 per month. + Cable modem is provided (they call it the Comcast Business Gateway) at no additional charge. - They call all of the freaking time trying to upsell you on voice service. Seriously, like 6-…

Just decided to check on the unlimitedness... My father's company has Comcast Business Internet and I setup their network. I think they have 15 employees, 5-6 of which would regularly be using a computer/internet connection.

The Buffalo DD-WRT router they're plugged into---Comcast gives you their own, but I wasn't trusting of a router that they likely had remote access to, so I installed an inner network---indicates that he's been doing a little over 500GB of transfer per month for the last five months. I haven't heard of any problems with him getting notices of going over (but I am going to have to ping him about those numbers... they're a manufacturing outfit and I don't think anyone there knows what a cloud service is ... most likely they're unwittingly becoming a cloud service for a botnet).

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

#210

Post by DocSavage »

FireBeyond wrote: post #188
matwood wrote: post #75

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. Most utilities cannot just shut you off. Many states have laws that determine when and how. The biggest thing about a utility though is that you pay for usage. If you want to leave your lights on all day, they really don't care as long as you continue to pay your bill. Personally, I do…

I'm not personally amazingly sympathetic. He uses his service for business purposes at home (as a consultant) - as he is perfectly entitled to do so. If he had paid for a business class account, he'd be fine. I pay Comcast right on $100 a month for 22/8mbps, with 5 static IPs, no throttling, and no caps - I work from home and according to my firewall had approximately 800GB of traffic last month (and that usage is no…

Does Comcast give people the option to upgrade if they exceed their cap? The whole situation would have been very different if Comcast told him he had to upgrade to $100/mo.
Post reply on HN