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

231–240 of 288 posts

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

#231

Post by dhughes »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #47
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.

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.

I'm in the Maritimes and I also believe that is correct a person cannot have their power shut off not only in the winter but anytime without at least 30 days notice.

But I think winter certainly adds to the drama, for example cutting off the power to a home when it's -20C outside would be a death sentence if the home was electrically heated.

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

#232

Post by etfb »

Convinced of his rights, and completely oblivious to his obligations, particularly the one that involves reading the details of any contract he signs. Sounds like classic Entitlement Queen behaviour. I'd sympathise more if I weren't paying AUD$90 (about USD$100) for 200Gb -- granted it's with Internode, one of the most magnificently customer-focused businesses on the planet, so I'm not complaining...

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

#233

Post by xenophanes »

res0nat0r wrote: post #228
xenophanes wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you suggesting? Is there a competing product available to buy which is better? I don't know of one in most areas. IMO bandwidth is worth paying for. You can say there "should" be better deals available. But it doesn't do any good. If you think it's so easy to provide better internet then start a company.

I'm saying $100/month for 22 megabits is terrible, it doesn't have to be this expensive.

Terrible compared to what? Go back 10 years and it's great. Go forward 10 years and it's terrible. Today, there's nothing better.

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

#234

Post by xenophanes »

iamdave wrote: post #223
xenophanes wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you suggesting? Is there a competing product available to buy which is better? I don't know of one in most areas. IMO bandwidth is worth paying for. You can say there "should" be better deals available. But it doesn't do any good. If you think it's so easy to provide better internet then start a company.

You can say there "should" be better deals available. But it doesn't do any good. If you think it's so easy to provide better internet then start a company. Because sitting idly watching ISP's ratchet up costs and lower the quality of service sure is getting things done.

I just said don't be idle. Be an entrepreneur. You are neither listening nor solving the problem, just idly complaining.

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

#235

Post by VonGuard »

jeramey wrote: post #152
jheitmann wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't claim that Seattle is a terrible place for broadband, but it's also not wine and roses. On the cable side, Comcast "competes" with Broadstripe. Broadstripe has both terrible customer service and poor internet service. Broadstripe also happens to have a bunch of apartment and condo complexes covered in an exclusivity agreement. Broadstripe makes Comcast look great in almost every regard. On the DSL side it's t…

Since Speakeasy was bought by Best Buy and then shuffled off into MegaPath's maw, their customer service has gotten progressively worse. Qwest's customer service is OK as long as you're willing to learn the right magic phrases that they use. That's the hard part. On the flip side, their field techs have always been uniformly competent when I've dealt with them in spite of having to cope with the massive wad of bureau…

Here here. I have had Speakeasy since 1999. I used to love them with a passion. But over the years, they've basically stood still. My bandwidth has never increased, even when they said I could get 15 MB down. That turned out to not be possible (Major packet loss, unreliable connection). So, here I am paying the same amount I paid in 1999 for the same bandwidth I had in 2000. $100 a month for 3.0/768.

I hate it! But there are no other options in my neighborhood, except Comcast. I even live in Oakland. If I was in SF, I could get Astound, which I hear is awesome. But in Oakland, where I live, it's Comcast or something super inferior.

Speakeasy has had about 10X more outages this year than they have had over the past 12 years, BTW.

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

#236

Post by gwern »

xenophanes wrote: post #221
res0nat0r wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business internet plans for personal use are way too expensive IMO. $100/month for 22Mbits? That's terrible.

What are you suggesting? Is there a competing product available to buy which is better? I don't know of one in most areas. IMO bandwidth is worth paying for. You can say there "should" be better deals available. But it doesn't do any good. If you think it's so easy to provide better internet then start a company.

> You can say there "should" be better deals available. But it doesn't do any good. If you think it's so easy to provide better internet then start a company.

Natural monopolies have long been recognized as a good target for government involvement, like public goods: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Natural_monop...

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

#237

Post by nitrogen »

jsz0 wrote: post #211
nitrogen wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to pay for every single bit our customers transmit. What about all the bits your customers receive? You sound like you're at least somewhat familiar with peering agreements, so I'd like to know how that part works. If your customers are mostly receiving instead of sending, wouldn't those bits be paid for by the ones sending the bits? For that matter, why can I get 200GB/mo at 50mbit/s plus a server for $20 fr…

For that matter, why can I get 200GB/mo at 50mbit/s plus a server for $20 from a VPS provider, and $.15/GB beyond that ($.10 if purchased in advance in the case of Linode)? Why do consumer ISPs need to charge so much more? The ISP has to maintain and upgrade thousands of miles of physical plant to deliver data to customer's homes in the geographic regions they cover. For a typical cable ISP for instance there's about…

That still doesn't justify the 250GB cap. Once the line is installed and maintained, using it more or less doesn't change the cost of installing and maintaining it. At that point we're talking about bulk bandwidth, which if you live in a metropolitan area, cannot cost significantly more than what Linode is charging.

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

#238

Post by wtallis »

bradleyland wrote: post #171
bradleyland wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Please, if you're going to bury my comment, point out what I've misstated. If you're sitting there in your chair, disagreeing with me, but you can't figure out why, you're just lying to yourself. If I've made a mathematical error, or misstated a fact, I'm happy to concede the point.

You say that metered, per-byte billing will impose a significant overhead. For ISPs that already have caps, they are already counting the bytes, so the only overhead would be in the variable billing. Half of the ISPs already do that for their non-IP services.

You also haven't said how much it costs a company like Comcast to pay for transit of their customers' data. You haven't given anyone reason to believe that transit actually is the dominant cost to a residential ISP.

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

#239

Post by wtallis »

res0nat0r wrote: post #217
xenophanes wrote: post #214

You have to switch to a small business account instead of a residential account with comcast. Then you get genuinely unlimited use, no bandwidth cap. That is the only way to get past their 250GB cap. It's absurd that they won't sell you more bandwidth on any residential plan at any price, and that they kick people off the service rather than charging overages. You do not need to have a business location to do this, o…

Business internet plans for personal use are way too expensive IMO. $100/month for 22Mbits? That's terrible.

Depends on where you are. In my town, business cable is 10/1 for $100 only if you sign a 3-year contract.

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

#240

Post by orky56 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #13
naner wrote: 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…

The problem isn't comcast's policies themselves, it's the monopoly situation. And that seems like an FCC situation to me.

What if there was another ISP in the area offering a similar service but also had the same restrictions? The problem would be exactly the same and this guy would be in the same situation. Competition and having options wouldn't really change anything. It ultimately comes down to the data cap restriction first and foremost.
Post reply on HN