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

#91

Post by brianleb » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 6:59 PM UTC

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 the internet five years ago? Does it differ from how you use it now? What about ten years ago? Times change, and the internet changes faster than most things. Every day, there are more people online, more devices online, and more services online to take advantage of.

For some people, 250GB/month is unreasonable. This guy is obviously one of them. In five years, it will be unreasonable for a larger percentage of people, as the way we use the internet evolves. Netflix is the most obvious example of this.

> Just like it's a right for me to speak my mind, but people will still shun me if I insist on doing so at full volume in all venues at all times, in a way that impedes others from enjoying _their_ access to that right.

How do my internet habits interfere with your internet habits? These are not at all analogous.

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

#92

Post by pragmatic » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 6:59 PM UTC

What amazes me is only having one broadband option in Seattle of all places.

I live in a small mid-western city and have as of now 3 wired choices plus N wireless choices (depending if you you 4g providers, etc).

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

#93

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 6:59 PM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #66

fr0sty wrote: post #57

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. They do? Where is this the case? My water and electricity usage have no monthly cap and are only shut off if I fail to pay the bills.

My friend had some kind of washer hose burst in his house when he was away for the weekend. The damage was minimal (it was in his unfinished basement) but the water company, detecting a large amount of water being used, came by and shut his water off. "Oh but that's different" - not really. Same thing would have happened if my friend was intentionally trying to fill his basement with water.

What about a pool?

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

#94

Post by ankimal » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:00 PM UTC

...and that if I had any decent competitive options in the neighborhood I'd dump Comcast in a heartbeat. Since I don't .."

I think its important to note the lack of competition. I wonder what that cap and price would be if there were even one other provider in the same area?

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

#95

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:00 PM UTC

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.

Typically it is not. It's not unlimited, but a scarce resource is one of which there is simply not enough to go around.

With cable modem pooling it can approach scarce resource status, but typically your modem does not "run out of bandwidth".

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

#96

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:01 PM UTC

zzzmarcus wrote: post #40

I have Comcast in Seattle and have gone over the limit 2 of the last 3 months uploading backups to CrashPlan. 260gb in April and 455gb in May. I haven't gotten a warning and my service hasn't been cut off. I'm not sure what he did to incur their wrath, but it makes me think he was probably exceeding the limit for at least 3 months prior to the warnings.

I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast also does audits and sees, "Oh, this is to CrashPlan" or Carbonite/Mozy/etc... In those cases I suspect they're a lot less likely to pursue than if it was torrents or serving video streams from your house.

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

#97

Post by pragmatic » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:02 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #25

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…

Comcast refused to work with him, even though he was willing and motivated to address the problem. Even after being careful with bandwidth and disabling his public access point, they still cut him off for a year with no appeal. This mirrors what happened to me. I was given an automated warning. I called the security number but they wouldn't tell me what sort of traffic I should be looking for. They didn't even have a…

Did your router logs show high bandwidth useage? (If your router has good reporting tools).

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

#98

Post by fr0sty » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:03 PM UTC

bradleyland wrote: post #89

fr0sty wrote: post #57

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. They do? Where is this the case? My water and electricity usage have no monthly cap and are only shut off if I fail to pay the bills.

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. One t…

> If you go outside that, you get business service,

Actually in this case you get banned for a year without recourse.

It baffles me why they didn't just try to upsell the guy.

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

#99

Post by jerf » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:04 PM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #41

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.

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 you look at your last three months history. I have 16GB in April, 80 in May, 57 in June, and 7 on my current billing cycle. They no longer advertise "all you can eat" and you are provided tools to see what is going on.

It is still bizarre to me that you can't pay for more usage, and you are free to disagree with the policy in philosophy or in detail, or to be annoyed at how much brow-beating it took to get Comcast to this point, but they are no longer just randomly cutting you off when you silently cross an arbitrary standard. It is now cutting you off when you cross a public threshold, and you can easily see where they think you are in the month.

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

#100

Post by dbingham » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:07 PM UTC

I am entitled. I am entitled to a competitive market. I am entitled to companies that have to compete for my business, not take it for granted. I am entitled to companies that always try to move forward and improve their products, not jack up the price while offering less.

Right now, that doesn't exist in the broadband market. And as with any other market that requires high levels of infrastructure investment, I'm becoming less and less convinced that it can exist.