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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

#241

Post by simcop2387 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #191
simcop2387 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem may also be that Comcast (and a few other cable ISPs) may refuse to give someone in a residential area a Business account. In my area they refuse to do it ostensibly for zoning issues (which really have nothing to do with it). It's one of the big reasons that I do not use any of the online backup places.

This surprises me. When I had Comcast Business Cable installed at my home, the telephone rep got the install address, paused a moment, asked, "Is that a residential house?". I said yes, and all was fine. No raised eyebrows from the installer either. In fact, my boss/company owner, who lives outside Scottsdale, who can't get more than 144kbps IDSL got so sick of things that he ordered a first, then a second bonded T1…

If I had to guess what the actual issue is; I think my neighbourhood is connected to some rather old copper lines and they can't make the kind of reliability guarantees that they make to business clients on it, and they don't want to upgrade or replace the copper. The neighbourhood is fairly new but the area it's connected to is fairly old (road paved and utilities put in way back in the 80s/early-90s for other places near by). This is all speculation from knowing the area and the fact that their residential services has had a number of unexplained outages/issues with bandwidth fairly often (6-7 times a year it'll be out for a few hours or very very slow, and they say they are working on it).

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

#243

Post by icebraining »

matwood wrote: post #83
dkl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no analogy to internet use. It's not a scarce resource.

Bandwidth certainly is a scarce resource as is the equipment needed to support it. Fiber doesn't just magically appear in the ground. Switches don't grow on your street corner. These things have to be paid for and maintained. It only makes sense that the highest users pay for more for the infrastructure. It's the current pricing schemes that I have a problem with.

That's the throughput, though (which was always capped, in Mbps) not the amount of data. The latter is unlimited.

They're limiting the amount of data not because it's scarce, but because that forces people to limit their throughput - since if you use at the max levels, it'd reach the data caps in no time - because they're overselling too much and don't want to pay for the infrastructure upgrade.

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

#244

Post by icebraining »

forensic wrote: post #103
joelhaus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Combined with the power of local carrier monopolies, it's exactly the reason we need net neutrality.

I appreciate your opinion but I downvoted you because you said "This." The "This." meme contributes nothing to the post and is the worst kind of contentless bandwagonism. "This." is lazy and degrades the quality of the site in general.

How is "This." different than "Exactly." and other expressions of agreement in spoken English?

It might not bring new information, but it tells the reader that the rest of the post should be read in a context of agreement with the parent post, so it's useful.

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

#245

Post by darksaga »

ctingom wrote: post #87

I am surprised Comcast doesn't just offer a 500GB month plan. Or 750GB month... just set a price and tell him he needs to pay it.

I thought about that or just do what the wireless companies do and charge him per KB over his limit. The first $2,000 bill should get him back into line pretty fast.

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

#246

Post by jsz0 »

nitrogen wrote: post #237
jsz0 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the case of cable Internet you're dealing with a shared medium.

Your ISP may have a 10Gbit uplink in their headend but that does not extend to your home. In reality with 4 channel DOCSIS 3 bonding the speed available "on-the-wire" is about ~150Mbit/sec and it's shared between about 200 customers at minimum. (in reality it's usually a lot closer to 300-500 customers) So if 15 customers out of the 200 want to use 10Mbit/sec 24x7 there is no bandwidth left over for the other 190 customers.

Just to be clear this part is not strictly an infrastructure challenge as the physical cable plant is not inherently limited to ~150Mbit/sec. It simply depends how many DOCSIS channels are being sent out and how many customers share them. They originate from a CMTS in the provider's headend. A fully loaded CMTS sets you back about $500-$750k. So cable ISPs figured out capping data can save them quite a lot of money. The alternative is a) they make less money b) they charge the customer more. We know A certainly isn't going to happen in a non-competitive market and B is something most customers would not like so we get c) capping.

Telco or FTTH are a completely different beast though. Much harder to justify capping there. For telco it's usually because there is a limited uplink to the DSLAM. As of a few years ago it was not uncommon to have a few T1s feeding a DSLAM. FTTH is rarely capped because the fiber that goes to your home is capable of pushing 10Gbit/sec with the right optics. WISPS have the same issue as cable -- in fact WiMAX is very similar to DOCSIS and some WISPs actually do use DOCSIS over wireless at 10Ghz.

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

#247

Post by res0nat0r »

xenophanes wrote: post #233
res0nat0r wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's terrible in the fact that at my old address I got 25 Megabit for $65/month with no cap via AT+T and my work friends got 50 Megabit/month via Brighthouse for $65/month. Comcast can do better.

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

#248

Post by billswift »

evan_ wrote: post #153
Luyt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that would not have been a problem. The water company guy rings at your friends door: Water Company Guy: "Just checking, we think there might be a burst pipe around here somewhere. Have you noticed some flooding?" Your friend: "No. I'm just filling up my pool however, but everything is fine." Company guy: "Ah, ok. Excellent. Have a nice day!"

Well it was a couple years ago, but I do remember specifically that they didn't even call him. He actually realized there was no water before he discovered that his basement was damp and eventually figured it out. It could be that they knocked on his door, and; receiving no answer, assumed it was a leak. Anyway this would be an easy question to answer if someone called a water utility and asked.

I was cleaning and fixing up a house after its owner had died. One of the first things I did was arrange to get the water turned back on, but it took two tries, because the first time the man who connected it turned it back off because water was running immediately--I had not closed the valve to the water heater which started filling.

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

#249

Post by cshesse »

Oompa wrote: post #163
dotBen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :/

If you log into the Comcast Website and go to "Users & Settings" you should see "High-Speed Internet Data Usage" next to the sidebar.

It can be flaky, sometimes the bar doesn't appear, but usually it does. I have the page bookmarked to I can check it easily. It sorta feels like I'm living in the 1990s and checking on my dial up modem.

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

#250

Post by cshesse »

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…

I looked at this, but they want to charge a high installation fee and have a 1-year contract. Can you avoid the installation fee if you already have residential service? What about the contract?
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