How Does Your ISP Handle Top-Usage Customers?

davidwr (791652) writes "Does your ISP cap overall usage? What happens if you go over the cap? Does it force you into a higher-priced plan, throttle you for the rest of the month, cut you off for the month, or terminate your service entirely? I don't mind paying for what I use, but I'm looking for a list of cable and DSL providers that won't leave you high and dry like Comcast does if you go over the official or unofficial limits."

Comments

Comcast Weans Hogs Off Their Packet Teat

[eldavojohn]

I don't mind paying for what I use, but I'm looking for a list of cable and DSL providers that won't leave you high and dry like Comcast does if you go over the official or unofficial limits.

Well, since it's highly unlikely my similar story I submitted this morning will be accepted after this is the on the front page, I'll just submit it to Slashdot as a comment.

The telecommunications giant Comcast has severed its services to internet hogs who use more bandwidth than others. From the article,

Carreiro said he received a message from a Comcast Security Assurance representative in December, who warned him that he was hogging too much of the company's bandwidth and needed to cut down. When Carreiro contacted customer service about the call, they had no idea what he was talking about and suggested it was a prank phone call. Unconvinced, Carreiro contacted Comcast several more times, but was again told there was no problem. A month later, he woke up to a dead Internet connection. Customer service directed him to the Security Assurance division, which Carreiro said informed him he would now be without service for one year.

This is quite alarming to me, considering that I am forced into using a particular ISP based on some deal my neighborhood made many years before I moved here.

And, if I may elaborate, I feel I am a hog though I have never ever been threatened with this action before. What interests me is that they have my bandwidth capped and even that cap seems to fluctuate with how much my neighborhood is using. But, I'm pretty sure that the cable modem I have is physically capped at a low level because I've read stories of people uncapping them and being pretty much black listed. If that's what these "hogs" are doing, then I have little sympathy for them. The only time I had an uncapped connection was when I was in Bailey Hall at the University of Minnesota my freshman year. They had just installed ethernet and I soon discovered that they trusted me a little more than they should have. An unproductive dumbass freshman with a bass amp/speaker combo, a computer, a modded dreamcast and an uncapped connection to mIRC/morpheus/gnutella/etc made for some interesting nights ... rest assured that rooms adjacent to N410 knew the 8 bit emulated glory of contra theme song as I destroyed Red Falcon night after night.

Back to the topic, though, I have often used BitTorrent while playing World of Warcraft and using Ventrillo with no problems. Me and my roommates pay for the highest upload/download rates but, as I've said before, we never get close to those numbers.

Here's a better question, how does your ISP handle telephone calls by unsatisfied customers who complain that in the middle of the day using a third party site, their bandwidth is pinched FAR BELOW what they've been paying for? In my case, as a current customer of Cox, I can speak from first hand experience that those calls go largely unnoticed--although I've had different results from different providers at different locations.

For Australians....

[danpat]

If you were in Australia, you could use http://www.whirlpool.net.au/.

A consumer advocacy group, with an extensive ISP plan database that lets you search on all the criteria you've mentioned. Anyone know if there is an equivalent in the US?

Business Class Line

[SCHecklerX]

Since my last ISP (suscom) saw fit to block inbound port 25 traffic, I was forced to pay extra for their business class line. This gave me 'less bandwidth' but a much more solid connection with a static IP address and no filtering.

Suscom was bought out by comcast, and I am still a business class customer, but now with lots more bandwidth.

I haven't had a serious issue yet other than rolling outages as comcast took over (grrrr).

Anyway. Even for home use, especially if you want to run your own servers, my experience has been pay the extra for the more stable business class line and don't worry about it. You get the advantage of bypassing the level 1 support monkeys when you have problems then, too.

Re:Comcast?

[Caffeinate]

As a low-level grunt for the company, I will confirm that Comcast does indeed cap bandwidth. The stated limited (and yes, it is in the TOS agreement which nobody reads - available on the Comcast.com website) is 60 GB/month. Yes many people exceed that and don't get cut off (which is the penalty), but be warned that the company can legally do so if they feel you are degrading the service for other customers.

Luckily I don't even live in an area where I can GET Comcast, so it's a non-issue for me! I just have to deal with Rogers' packet-shaping, BitTorrent ruining behaviours :(