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Earthlink Announces It Must Honor Comcast Cap
LostCluster writes "For those in Comcast territory, a popular way to get around Comcast's 250 GB monthly cap was to sign up for EarthLink Powered by Comcast Service, where there was no cap. Forget about that.... Earthlink just posted an FAQ explaining that Comcast will enforce the cap against Earthlink customers starting July 1."
To offer some perspective, here in the UK we have monthly limits that are most commonly in the 15-30Gb range, with a premium limit of 50Gb being offered by a minority of service providers.
Nah... this was brought to us by the lack of US Congress imposing regulation on the wire providers.
Sprint is rolling out 4G WiMax. Verizon and AT&T are going LTE. T-Mobile is going HSPA+.
From what I see, these services have some latency problems, but for anything that isn't realtime such as gaming, these might be a suitable alternative to Comcast.
Right now, 4G is not widespread but competition is heating up because of Sprint/Clear's rollout. I'm sure that other cellphone companies will be offering similar speeds.
If it wasn't for the latency, perhaps these services may be a complete replacement for Comcast.
Stories like this make me increasingly wish the FCC would, indeed, move broadband providers back under common carrier rules. Competition would do wonders here. Though I did find it amusing that their FAQ talked about how 40 HD movies would nearly hit the limit, which I think is a good example of how keeping alternative download services off their network is probably the big motivation here. I highly doubt they apply this cap if you buy Comcast brand movies on demand.
I live in a metropolitan area with one cable provider and a dsl provider. A few years ago, short on cash, I discovered I could sign up for a six month special with the cable provider (1/2 price), then at the end of 6 months opt out before the full price kicked in. The telco offered a similar 1/2 price, 6 month deal with an opt out at the end of the 6 month period. The good part was both providers allowed me to sign up for another 1/2 price deal after I'd been off their service for 6 months. I played one off the other for about 18 months. It's a bit off topic in terms of bandwidth but if you're getting screwed by the big guys (and you are) you might see if you can play one provider off another in a similar fashion. just thought it might help anyone penny pinching.
ideopath @ play
According to TFA, they won't notify if you approach the limit, and the only way to find out your current usage is to call them. Now that's handy.
I just checked my Comcast usage. I practically live on the internet. Here's my usage:
15 GB so far this month.
17 GB for April
22 GB for March
15 GB for February
On the list of things I'm going to spend the effort to care about, people who have trouble with a 250 GB cap is far enough down the list I'm afraid I'll never get around to it.
Then you had jackshit for bandwidth. My math might be off, but 250GB 24/7 per month is like a constant 100 kb/s.
My connection is 150 kB/s on AT&T DSL. Honestly, I don't even need anything that fast. That was the slowest and cheapest thing I could get.
MSDN today sent me an e-mail asking if they can stop sending me DVD shipments because it's all available online. Sorry, not while I'm subject to this. :)
After discovering a local ISP wasn't able to service my apartment appropriately, I ended up getting Comcast Business class. You get a lot for a pittance of additional cost (~$20 / month more than residential around here).
One thing that's very different is the support. The support is phenomenally better. You call the phone number, and in seconds a knowledgeable person who is able to speak English well will get on the line (never had to be transferred to someone useful) 24/7. Other than better support, I get two static IP's with the package, and I believe that the business service has no monthly cap. Additionally, and unlike the residential service (where your monthly bill can get jacked up for no good reason) the rates I pay are contractually locked.
So (at least in my area) if you get residential, you're pretty much a sucker.
Maybe archive.org should start to offer its content on tape backup sent with Fedex. Might end up cheaper than my ISP.
I can picture the ads: "Weekly internet: 7$, delivered with a smile".
lucm, indeed.
Further further perspective... T1 is slow! They only run at ~1.4 Mbit/s.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
"Which was purchased by Comcast after they went bankrupt."
-1, Inaccurate
No, Charter Communications was not bought by Comcast
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Yea, the ISPs in the US are providing all the bandwidth they can for the money collected. That's why we are #1 in the world for broadband penetration... oh, wait.
Aside from whether it's right or wrong that a 250GB cap even exists; if you really need to move that much data in a month, perhaps you should consider a business class account. Still cheaper than a shitty T1.
Life is not for the lazy.
A friend of mine just signed up with Comcast at his new apartment? I warned him that Comcast has the WORST reputation in the US, but he just shrugged.
He pays for business access, rather than private home access. It's another $40 per month, but there's higher bandwidth, servers are allowed, no traffic shaping, no throttling of Bittorrent protocols, and best of all, NO CAP.
His theory-and it seems to hold-is that if you're going to cough up the dosh for a business account, then you know what you're getting into with such things, so they don't care if the RIAA/MPAA shows up at your door.
I suppose, but I think it's just the extra $40 that turns their head.
[End Of Line]
All of you need to go green by not using so much bandwidth!
To add some perspective, here in the US I transfer ~200gb a week, and since April 28th just one of the three always-on PCs transferred a upload/download combined 602gb. That's the media server, which transcodes video delivered from Hulu and Netflix through PlayON so it's viewable on the TV through a XBMC. I cancelled my TV service nearly 3 years ago and have been relying on downloaded and streaming media ever since.
So you're effectively using Hulu to create your own personal TV service, sucking up packet bandwith for content that the cable provider offers by multicast. This strikes me as one of the major "abuses" that Comcast is trying to discourage by capping usage. 200 GB is about 30 full length, HD movies. Assuming you don't actually watch 60 hours of TV-over-internet each week, your media server is downloading, transcoding, and discarding a lot of stuff.
It's not your responsibility to see that the cable company makes money off you. You have every right to get as much value as you can within the terms of your service contract, and if that contract lets you consume 2.5 TB/month of traffic, then good for you. Your neighbors may hate you for consuming 95% of the neighborhood bandwidth, but good for you, anyway. Likewise, you shouldn't be surprised if the provider recognizes that they're losing money and changes the terms of the contract so they can stay in business. If the terms Comcast is making Earthlink enforce are really onerous to people, they'll find another provider and Comcast will go back to losing money and will revise their ToS again, in hopes of maximizing their profit.