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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

#191

Post by FireBeyond »

simcop2387 wrote: post #48
naner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming Comcast is the only ISP in his area, can he sign up for a Comcast business account? It appears he doesn't just want his account reinstated but he expects unlimited data use.

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 to his house, without any hiccups.

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

#192

Post by seabee »

Splines wrote: post #58
peapicker wrote: post #32

Seriously, this is a technology company? If they mean to cap at 250GB per month, just halt service during the month when 250GB is hit. Don't let the customer go over, warn, go over, and then suspend them for a year. Seriously, if they are metering it, they can implement a technology solution to halt when the cap is hit that month and not even have this ridiculous abuse of customers having to 'self monitor' the behavi…

I completely agree. Use over 250GB? Your internet gets slowed down to molasses until the start of the next month. Customers will notice and adjust. Here, Comcast is saying "we don't want you as a customer", which they're allowed to do, but doesn't generate very much goodwill. Having a clear cap and predictable consequences would be much preferred. I don't know why they also couldn't put a little meter on your comcast…

> Use over 250GB? Your internet gets slowed down to molasses until the start of the next month. Customers will notice and adjust.

This is how most sane ISPs deal with it. I really cannot see how disconnecting your customers completely is a better solution - there's certainly no technical reason for it, given that (IIRC) Comcast already have throttling measures for BitTorrent users.

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

#193

Post by mrbonner »

Not sure if this is a right. The fact that ISP limits the data cap is ridiculous but it is only for the good of others. This story I think only applies to say less than 1% of normal population. Ok, 250GB/month is not that high, may be making it 500GB/month is more appropriate.

What ISP could do is still put the cap on and charge extra for every 10GB after that with a small fee. I think most people dont want to pay extra even if it cost several dollars a month. This models the way we pay for gas, power, water too.

But the points are: - Increase the cap to 500GB for example - Don't penalize, charge for each extra 10GB

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

#194

Post by lesterbuck »

jarrettcoggin wrote: post #43
naner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming Comcast is the only ISP in his area, can he sign up for a Comcast business account? It appears he doesn't just want his account reinstated but he expects unlimited data use.

I was in the exact same situation this guy was in (except they hadn't cut my service yet), and this is exactly what I did. There is no cap for Business Class Internet and the Customer Service is MUCH better. On top of that, you can get Static IPs that you cannot get with a residential account.

I investigated Comcast Business Class in my area, and the contract I was offered was totally outrageous. The worst clause was early termination, where they claim 75% of the cost of the service for the rest of the contract (1yr, 2yr or 3yr) even when the service was terminated. I re-evaluated my needs and realized with cheap VPS proxies and smarthosts, I could do just fine with one dynamic IP. My contract is simple month to month. From my research, it seems that Business Class has a soft limit of 750GB, too, though apparently not enforced. If you want to have some fun, take the standard Comcast Business Class contract, find the Comcast URL that they include by reference about terms of service and bandwidth usage policies, find the 800 number referenced on those pages to obtain the actual documents, and enjoy the totally blank response you get from the drone that answers that phone number. If you have ever actually obtained the Business Class policy documents referred to in their contract, I'd love to get a copy. (Yes, I actually read their 14 page terms of service. The few, the proud...)

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

#195

Post by rdl »

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.

Oakland has had huge budget cuts, directly affecting police. The irony is that (perceived or real) high crime in Oakland is one of the main reasons few businesses move there (here, sadly); Pandora and Oaksterdam are the only new ventures I've really seen. Other than that, it's mostly legacy companies like some big insurers, the Port, etc.

I'm sure if you were actively watching a crime, 911 would be accepted, but trying to move everything else to an online report seems like a reasonable cost cutting step. If it were possible to take the report online and keep 1-2 cops out for an extra hour, it's probably worthwhile. There should be an exception process for "come in to the station and file on paper", and for in-progress crimes, and for more serious/life threatening crimes, but as a step, this isn't that unreasonable.

Of course, if someone broke into my house here, I'd probably be calling my attorney before I called the Oakland PD.

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

#196

Post by megaman821 »

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…

All tier 1 ISPs have peering agreements where most pay nothing for traffic transfer. The real costs are the equipment, ISPs use statistical multiplexing to maximize the value of their lines and switches. Data caps only affect this indirectly, it is bandwidth that matters. If an ISPs' equipment can only handle 10Gb/s of bandwidth without degrading that is the real limit, the total amount of data a month is mostly immaterial. Simply put if everyone used up their data cap on the first day of the month the ISP could not handle it even though no one went over their cap.

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

#197

Post by lesterbuck »

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 "Starter" ever defined. There was the clause that reads "data rates are not guaranteed", but I was hoping that the contract itself might hint that there was some specified difference between Starter, Preferred, and Other. With this contract, the day after you sign up, your data rate can go to 1Kbps and you are still locked into an up to three year business contract.

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

#198

Post by nitrogen »

ryannielsen wrote: post #139
wccrawford wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies have overage charges you can elect to pay, instead of canceling your account. That would have been a good start. Others mentioned not pretending to be unlimited. Actually charge for usage, instead. (I actually hope companies don't do this, as I'm WAY above the norm for usage.) Another thing that some companies do is limit your speed once you hit the cap. That makes sure that you can do anything you -ne…

Returning to a pay for usage model is a fine suggestion, and would make internet service much more like electric service. It is amusing to remember how people disparaged pay for usage models just over a decade ago, though. :-)

The two arguments I still see against pay-for-usage models:

1. ISPs will structure the rates so that everyone ends up paying more.

2. The early adopters and developers that push technology forward are often at the high end of bandwidth usage, and in exchange for bringing new technology to the masses, the masses should be okay with 0.1% of their bill paying for the early adopters' bandwidth.

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

#199

Post by jamie_ca »

pyre wrote: post #173
bryanlarsen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you were right to be confrontational. According to Google, that was a temporary moratorium that has expired: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/electricity/articles/2004/ltw04... It's certainly a common misconception. I certainly know that people in the "which bill do I pay this month" scenario often choose to hold off on paying Hydro during the winter. It's also quite likely that Hydro is less likely to disc…

To be clear Ontario residents (really just in the GTA) refer to electricity as 'Hydro' because most(?) of it comes from the hydro-electric plant near Niagara Falls, and the company is called Toronto Hydro. Personally, whenever someone refers to the 'hydro bill' I have to internally connect the dots that it's not the water bill. In this case, it's even less clear to those not in the know, because the next sentence ref…

Not just Toronto. Out west we get our power from BC Hydro. Covers the whole province.

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

#200

Post by alphaoverlord »

zinkem wrote: post #106
alphaoverlord wrote: post #105

Implicit in the title of "250GB of legitimate use" is the assumption that torrenting or things of that nature are not legitimate. And also supports Comcast's claim that 99% of people do not use that much bandwidth. Sure a bandwidth cap is not a one size fits all solution, but if this is the only guy complaining, it sounds like a one size fits most solution.

Why is Comcast cutting people off for a year instead of just charging per GB above the cap or upgrading to a higher class service? This is a punishment without a trial.

In this case, there is no need for a trial. The evidence is indisputable and the OP admits to the action.

In a free market, I should charge what I want. Why does Comcast need to create a higher tier when 99.9% don't need or want it?

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