Comcast cuts off customer for going over 250GB of legitimate use • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by jeggers5 » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 8:58 AM UTC

Oh come on. You're completely abusing Comcast's Service and now you're telling some sympathetic story about how it's unfair. 250GB/month is massive, and you knew full well that you were on your last chance, and it's not surprising that they measure upload data as bandwidth (what on earth did you expect?).

If you were going to be using the service like that, you should've asked first. Don't try and tell us you 'forgot' that you had a server down stairs moving gigabytes of data around. I wouldn't want you as a customer either.

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

#272

Post by keenerd » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 9:16 AM UTC

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…

But it is very very easy to go over 250GB in a DAY, let alone a month.

250GB ÷ 15MB/sec = 4 hours 36 minutes

Doesn't it seem a little odd that you can blow through an entire month's service in less than a day?

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

#273

Post by dspillett » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 9:52 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #177

bradleyland wrote: post #24

The author had me up until the moment he claimed that internet access is a "right". Ok, so let's say internet access is a "right". Rights often come within a framework. You have many rights that are yours for the losing. Your freedom to come and go freely, for example. If you break a law, you lose your freedom by being put in jail. To say something is a "right" is to say that it ought to be available, or that the gov…

"Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest that the authors impression of the services is exactly what you say it isn't. If you read this you can see that Comcast does indeed try to convince the consumer that you can transfer any amount of data you want for a fixed monthly fee: http://consumerist.com/2010/03/comcast-unlimited-usage-doesn... Comcast as what is essentially a public utility operates wi…

> "Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest

The weasely way around that, used certainly by UK ISPs in defending their use of the word "unlimited" is that you have unlimited access (24/7/365.25) rather than unlimited bandwidth use. While they meant "use as much bandwidth as you like" they never specifically said that, so they no claim they didn't mean that and noone can proove otherwise. The claim is that it is unlimited compared to dial-up days when ISPs had to maintain a massive rack of modems so, particularly for cheap or free-call ISPs, you would have limits like "up to X hours per day" and "no session longer than X hours".

So while it can be said to be deceptive and dishonest, it doesn't actually breach truth-in-advertising laws (at least over here).

There is an ISP over here (Sky) making a big thing of actually offering "use as much bandwidth as you can", though there is more weaseling there - there is heavy protocol level traffic shaping which limitis how much you can actually use and there is still a "fair use policy" which is sufficiently vague that it could mean anything.

I pay good money for what is essentially a business account. It has a 300G limit, but that can carry over from month to month and if I go over (unlikely) and don't have any carry-over left from last month they'll just charge me a known rate for the extra (charging by byte, not in much larger blocks). That is the only way (here at least) you can get a proper, unfiltered, unshaped, un-anything-you-didn't-ask-for-ed connection. Pay for what you want and you have a chance of getting what you pay for.

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

#274

Post by _b8r0 » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 10:32 AM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #273

fleitz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest that the authors impression of the services is exactly what you say it isn't. If you read this you can see that Comcast does indeed try to convince the consumer that you can transfer any amount of data you want for a fixed monthly fee: http://consumerist.com/2010/03/comcast-unlimited-usage-doesn... Comcast as what is essentially a public utility operates wi…

> "Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest The weasely way around that, used certainly by UK ISPs in defending their use of the word "unlimited" is that you have unlimited access (24/7/365.25) rather than unlimited bandwidth use . While they meant "use as much bandwidth as you like" they never specifically said that, so they no claim they didn't mean that and noone can proove otherwise. The claim…

I pay about £20/month for BE Unlimited and routinely burn through 500gb-1TB a month (like TFA I use multiple lossless codecs for media I've bought or produced, as well as using a series of permanently nailed up VPN connections for various things) without any problems. YMMV, but it's fine over here.

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

#275

Post by _b8r0 » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 10:34 AM UTC

lhnn wrote: post #151

scelerat wrote: post #112

Internet access is required to file a police report in Oakland, or so I was told by the OakPD switchboard operator when I called to report my car being broken into and vandalized. i.e. they would not send a car; they would not take information over the phone. I was told I must file the report online. When an essential service like Police require you to use a service, it definitely seems like that service has moved fr…

This is absurd. Another reason not to trust police to have your interest as their primary concern... If you were presently witnessing the car being broken into, then that would be 911 level. EDIT: There is a correlation between my use of the word "absurd" and downvotes.

> This is absurd. Another reason not to trust police to have your interest as their primary concern

In most countries the police are not there to serve your interests, but to protect law and order. This corresponds to your interests only when the law does so. When the law is against your interest, so are the police.

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

#276

Post by decadentcactus » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 10:38 AM UTC

meow wrote: post #133

Indian ISPs found a curious way of tackling these situations. Since they sell their plans as unlimited, they can't fully cut off the internet access. So as soon as the fair use limit is crossed, the speed drops to punishing 256kbps till the month gets over :|.

256kbps isn't as terrible as it may seem. My internet used to be cut to 56k when it went over, and 95% of websites wouldn't even finish loading. Now I think it cuts back to 512kbps, so things at least load, just no downloading really.

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

#277

Post by gte910h » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 11:35 AM UTC

If you have a monopoly, your rights as a service provider go waaaaaaay down.

I think the monopoly should be stripped from them if they can't handle proper pricing.

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

#278

Post by pwg » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 12:22 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #202

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…

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?

> On the other hand, I do have about four other ISPs I can switch to, maybe that influences it?

Real competition, yes, that is the big influence. Sadly, in way to many locations in the US, one's broadband choices are limited to one or two providers.

If every location where Comcast operated broadband service there were four other equivalent providers of the same service, they would not ever think of cutting someone off for a year or limiting them to 250G/month of up+down transfers. These kinds of tactics are what monopolies do, simply because they can.

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

#279

Post by chopsueyar » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 1:13 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #127

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.

> 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

He is not a telecommuter. He states:

"I work as a entertainment industry consultant, and depend on cloud services such as Dropbox, Simplenote, Google Apps, and Google Docs for day to day work. I use streaming online services such as Netflix, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Pandora every day for both work and play."

Not sure where you get SDSL from cable modems, either.

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

#280

Post by masklinn » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #279

masklinn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

He is not a telecommuter. He states: "I work as a entertainment industry consultant, and depend on cloud services such as Dropbox, Simplenote, Google Apps, and Google Docs for day to day work. I use streaming online services such as Netflix, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Pandora every day for both work and play." Not sure where you get SDSL from cable modems, either.

> He is not a telecommuter.

Irrelevant. You imply, bordering on asserting, that using residential accounts for business purpose. That's precisely what telecommuters do.

So I ask again: should every telecommuter get a business line?

Furthermore he's using the same line for business and private use, should he get two different accounts? Should every telecommuter in the world get two different accounts to please you?

Finally, do you know for sure Comcast does not have the same kind of limitations on their business accounts than they do on their non-business accounts?