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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

#261

Post by emelski »

brianleb wrote: post #91
emelski wrote: post #29

How is it reasonable for somebody to expect to be able to upload "terabytes of RAW images, musics tracks ripped in lossless format, etc."? That seems to be substantially outside the scope of what both Comcast's home user internet service is designed for, and, I would guess, Carbonite as well -- although I note that Carbonite does offer "unlimited" backups for home users. I agree with other commenters -- this sounds l…

> How is it reasonable for somebody to expect to be able to upload "terabytes of RAW images, musics tracks ripped in lossless format, etc."? That seems to be substantially outside the scope of what both Comcast's home user internet service is designed for, You're suggesting that people only use the internet in certain ways and you're deeming services that you don't use unnecessary for other people. How did you use th…

> For some people, 250GB/month is unreasonable.

If 250GB/month is unreasonable, then those people should not be signing up for a 250GB/month service plan. There's nothing stopping him from getting a business plan, for example, with a larger cap or no cap at all. It's not reasonable for this user to expect to dictate both the bandwidth limits _and_ the low price point. Even if we stipulate that internet access is a human right, I don't think it's reasonable to assert that everybody is entitled to unlimited bandwidth to the internet, at somebody else's expense.

> How do my internet habits interfere with your internet habits?

As far as I know, at some point this guy's connection is going through a shared resource, whether that is a switch or router or hub or whatever. Those gadgets only have so much bandwidth available, which is shared amongst all the connections going through it. Sure, most of the time the limit of that hardware vastly exceeds the demands of those connections, but there _is_ a limit, and it is possible (albeit, perhaps, unlikely) that one guy, uploading _terabytes_ of data, could impede his neighbor's ability to enjoy the internet.

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

#262

Post by slavak »

lesterbuck wrote: post #197
slavak wrote: post #109

I've seen a lot of posts about US telecoms having "soft caps" for usage on what they call "unlimited data" plans, and I can't for the life of me figure out how in the hell something like that can possibly be legal. If you have a written service contract with your provider that does not explicitly state the service has a bandwidth cap, then how can them shutting off or artificially limiting your access speed /not/ be…

Alas, I suspect you have not read your contracts with these companies. These are known as contracts of adhesion, as there is no negotiation, no crossing out things you don't like, and no power balance between the contracting parties. I was handed a set of contract documents for Comcast Business Class Internet. On the "Starter" line was an X, and a price of $64.95. I read every line of every document, and nowhere was…

Don't make the mistake of assuming everyone on here is an American. I'm not from the US, and I'm reasonably aware of what my ISP is and isn't allowed to do.

Regardless, if what you're saying is accurate then the legal system over there is seriously fucked up.

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

#263

Post by nitrogen »

billforsternz wrote: post #218
nitrogen wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most wireless routers offer some version of this feature, its not too difficult to use. Really? I've never seen one that has it, and I highly doubt the feature was introduced before these data caps became a problem. Even if most wireless routers have the feature, I doubt most people find it "not too difficult to use." My parents, for example, can't even be bothered to learn to use the scheduling feature of their own…

Amazing how generational differences manifest themselves. I certainly wouldn't dream of using a scheduling feature of a router (routers have scheduling? didn't know that, thought routers routed traffic). My parents, now deceased, barely knew what computers were.

Indeed. Once upon a time I helped my grandmother migrate from DOS 3.3 on an XT clone (8MHz!) to Windows 95 on a 100MHz 486. Things that seemed obvious to me were a significant struggle for her, but being the intelligent woman she was, she managed to pick it up and excel.

As for the router's scheduling feature, it's for scheduling routing rules, so certain computers can't access certain destinations during certain hours. I've no use for it in my own house, but I think it would solve a particular use case for my parents, if only they'd be willing to use it.

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

#264

Post by sukuriant »

Goronmon wrote: post #134
chopsueyar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So threatening to "slap" him is elevating the level of discourse?

A fair criticism, and no, that comment definitely does not help matters.

had you expounded upon it it would, though

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

#265

Post by sitkack »

pyre wrote: post #227
DocSavage wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe they didn't offer that level of service in his area.

Business class is a level, it isn't based on area.

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

#266

Post by nitrogen »

jsz0 wrote: post #246
nitrogen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 10…

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.

I realize that the cable is shared, but remain unconvinced that a flat cap is in any way better than other solutions (such as dividing available bandwidth proportionally among active users, with higher-paying customers getting a larger slice). It shouldn't matter if someone's using their 10mbit/s 24/7, it should only matter if they're using it during peak hours. On the flip side, the "average" user who wants to stream Hulu, Youtube, and Netflix is likely to be doing their streaming at the same time as most other customers, causing more degradation to other customers' experience per hour of usage than the heavy downloaders. Capping the heavy users doesn't change the fact that the average users all want to stream video at the same time.

Also, how can the cable company possibly offer me the 50+mbit/s connection for which I currently pay over $100/mo if the 4 256-QAM downstream channels (totaling ~150mbit/s as you said) are shared by so many customers? Those channels only use 24MHz of the total spectrum.

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

#267

Post by bugsy »

The basic problem here is that 250GB per person is not sustainable with the current networks, nor is it sustainable at rates people are willing to pay for access.

Cloud and other services that depend on enormous bandwidth costs to be absorbed by others leads to the free rider problem. NetFlix is the biggest free rider around. Their rates do not cover the cost of bandwidth because their basic business model is parasitical.

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

#268

Post by sitkack »

billswift wrote: post #248
evan_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are good like that.

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

#269

Post by sitkack »

jerf wrote: post #99
chopsueyar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Instead, it is all you can eat , until Comcast says that is all you can eat." No. A year or two ago, Comcast clarified their position on bandwidth usage as allowing you to use 250GB a month. This is now visible on their account, although I always have to poke around to get it: After logging in at comcast.com, go to the Users and Settings tab and look in the middle column. There's a link there to click that will let…

And why can't you pay $60 for the next 250 GB?

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

#270

Post by sitkack »

nitrogen wrote: post #190
ctide wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Avoiding and fighting ostensibly-offensive but rarely-enforced laws and policies is essential to preserving consumer freedoms and civil liberties. I, for one, do not want to live in a society with laws that can be applied to anyone but are rarely enforced (as is common now), as in such a society the law will be applied to whomever the enforcer doesn't like.

Whut? Are you stupid? Having a myriad of unenforced laws on the books is by design. Everyone is a criminal all the time and selective enforcement can be brought down like a hammer on your ass.

Yes it makes us non-free, but it is exactly what the man wants.

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