Comcast To Remove Data Cap, Implement Tiered Pricing

StikyPad writes "Comcast is reportedly removing its oft-maligned 250GB data cap, but don't get too excited. In what appears to be an effort to capitalize on Nielsen's Law, the Internet's version of Moore's Law, Comcast is introducing tiered data pricing. The plan is to include 300GB with the existing price of service, and charge $10 for every 50GB over that limit. As with current policy, Xfinity On Demand traffic will not count against data usage, which Comcast asserts is because the traffic is internal, not from the larger Internet. There has, however, been no indication that the same exemption would apply to any other internal traffic. AT&T and Time Warner have tried unsuccessfully to implement tiered pricing in the past, meeting with strong push back from customers and lawmakers alike. With people now accustomed to, if not comfortable with, tiered data plans on their smartphones, will the public be more receptive to tiered pricing on their wired Internet connections as well, or will they once again balk at a perceived bilking?"

Comments

Fiber needs to move faster...

[CSFFlame]

Come on Google (and Sonic.net too). I don't trust Verizon, they're too shifty.

Most won't notice

[MikeRT]

This actually seems like a pretty sane plan for most people who aren't diehard pirates or Netflix users. Most users don't use 300GB. If Comcast is smart they'll use this as a basis to actually fund the development of a more powerful and competitive network instead of just milking it for short term gains.

Re:Most won't notice

[WilliamGeorge]

I was getting worried about our usage at home, since the kids now watch a few hours of Neflix a day along with out other internet usage. I called Comcast because I was having trouble finding where on our account management page the data was about how much we actually used each month - and when they showed me where to find it I was amazed at how little it was. 30-70GB a month on average, occasionally peaking past 100GB. So even in what I would consider a moderate to heavy internet usage household we were way under the existing cap, and will still be with a 300GB limit.

The only problem I can see here is if they don't notify users when they approach that cap. If something happened and I went way over, but was never warned till the bill came, I would be upset.

Re:Most won't notice

[Linsaran]

Really now? When have you ever known a publicly held company to prioritize development and long term results, over short term profits. Shareholders are far too concerned with making that profit number bigger for the next quarter to worry about what's coming down the pike in a couple years. Take solar panels as a prime example. A company that put commercial grade heating/energy panels on their office building could save huge amounts of money in energy/heating costs. Solar energy is essentially free, the maintenance requirements of solar panels minimal, and the life time of a solar array 20-40 years. However there is a not insignificant upfront cost to install a solar array. In most cases it would take a company 5 years to 'break even' compared to traditional energy sources. Thus, since the cost to put something like that in place on an office building is expensive, and would eat into a companies profits NOW, while only providing savings much later, most companies choose to use traditional heating/energy sources, because they're much cheaper NOW, even though the costs of them will only continue to add up.

Re:Most won't notice

[oddjob1244]

This actually seems like a pretty sane plan for most people who aren't diehard pirates or Netflix users. Most users don't use 300GB.

I just hope they give the option to shut off buying extra bandwidth automatically. I'll buy the 300gb a month, but I don't want anymore. If I hit the cap, cut me off to just a Comcast website where I can buy more. None of this, "For an extra $10 a month we'll give you parental controls to limit the automatic purchase of more bandwidth" crap that cell phone companies pull with text messaging.

Re:Most won't notice

[rgbrenner]

You are not the average user, by far.

Yes, he's not average, by far. He uses up to 35x the amount of the average comcast user

http://blog.comcast.com/2009/12/comcast-data-usage-meter-launches.html

(Note: the median usage for Comcast’s customers is about 2 to 4 GB per month.)

Re:Most won't notice

[__aaqvdr516]

Around 2008, my local ISP was formed. Sometime around 2009 they implemented data caps of 600 MB/day, as most users didn't exceed that amount. Today, the cap is exactly the same as was first implemented.

300 GB might seem like a lot right now. Give it a few years...

Re:Most won't notice

[WilliamGeorge]

Interestingly, I also tried to call up this month to cancel our cable TV service. We rarely use it any more, mostly depending on Netflix + Hulu (the free stuff) + Amazon Prime (wish there was a Media Center plugin!). I thought it would be a great way to save $10-20 a month... and boy was I wrong!

You see, as long as I pay for cable TV - even the most basic package which we have been using, at around $15 a month - we get a discounted rate on cable internet. Our total bill is ~$70 or so with taxes.

However, if we drop cable TV we no longer get the discounted internet rate... and our total monthly bill would actually go *up* by $0.27 (yes, twenty-seven cents).

THAT is how they keep you from cancelling cable TV entirely, by threatening to charge you more for less :/

Re:Most won't notice

[jxander]

Consider your source.

Re:Most won't notice

[_KiTA_]

Around 2008, my local ISP was formed. Sometime around 2009 they implemented data caps of 600 MB/day, as most users didn't exceed that amount. Today, the cap is exactly the same as was first implemented.

300 GB might seem like a lot right now. Give it a few years...

Comcast, Verizon, etc -- they're all banking their entire futures on this very idea. They're hoping to get in a reasonable -- for now -- cap, and then in 5 years when our bandwidth usage is way more commonplace, welp, their hope is to get us right around the $50 a month mark... and $50ish in over usage fees a month, every month, until some external market force economically forces them to stop.

Think about it. In 5-10 years, we won't have Cable, we'll have HD Video on Demand Networks, something like Hulu or Netflix instead.

Imagine when Hulu (or rather, a Hulu competitor, since Hulu has been compromised) gets the bright idea to make "channels" where you get X number of shows at differing points of the day, all streaming via a Roku box or something similar, with the option to switch back and forth in the channel's timeline if you want. All the benefits of a standard Cable Channel for Mom and Pop ("The news is on at 7, then it's Cops, and Letterman"), with all the benefits of Video on Demand ("We missed Cops, we'll watch it right now and Letterman later tonight").

Sounds great, right? Well, it won't be once you get the $50 a month ISP bill + $50 a month Overusage bill, every month, for the rest of your life. Which the Bandwidth Middlemen are literally banking their futures on.

Re:Most won't notice

[Just Some Guy]

That was from three years ago, which I believe to be before Netflix even offered streaming service. A lot has changed since that now-obsolete report came out.

Re:Most won't notice

[jxander]

Could also be Comcast playing with Mean, Median, Mode and just calling it average . Or simply discounting the top 10% ("they're not your average user") and taking a mean/average of the remainder. Could simply be ComCast's own self-created definition of their "Average User" completely divorced of any numerical data.

Could be doing a lot of things, without technically lying, but I trust ComCast in this even less than I trust random ACs. AC might potentially be a troll/shill/etc, spreading FUD for the lolz, but ComCast is positioned to directly profit from a false definition of "Average User."

Think: new user. If a new family joins comcast without any knowledge of their actual usage numbers... they might read this (or call ComCast and be told this info) and sign up for the lower tier... boom overages. It also gives ComCast a base number with which to demonize anyone going over their self-appointed average.

Re:Most won't notice

[rgbrenner]

Okay, he's a more up-to-date article: http://www.governing.com/blogs/by-the-numbers/us-ranks-high-on-internet-usage-despite-slow-speeds.html

The U.S. Telecom Association crunched a few sets of numbers (shown below) and found the country also ranks near the top in terms of data usage per user. The nation’s estimated 245 million Internet users consumed a monthly average of 25.7 gigabytes per user, according to the trade association. Only South Korea, which boasts the world's fastest speeds in many studies, transfers more data, with a monthly average of 49.1 gigabytes.

So he's still 2-3x above average.

Re:Most won't notice

[TheRealMindChild]

Think about it. In 5-10 years, we won't have Cable, we'll have HD Video on Demand Networks, something like Hulu or Netflix instead.

The future is now. My house lives on Netflix and Vonage. We went to my fathers house to watch TV, and the kids couldn't understand why they kept missing their show because of these "commercial" things. And when their pappy said "I need to change the channel real quick to see the weather", the look of confusion on their face can only mildy be explained as hysterical.

Re:Most won't notice

[Jason Levine]

I called up my cable company and told them I was seriously thinking of canceling my service due to the costs being so high. I pointed out that new users get one rate and are quoted that they will save $X. I pointed out that the rate I pay is much more than $X more than the new user rate. They locked me into a much better rate for a year. Next year, I plan on calling back and threatening to leave (again) if they don't reduce my rates.

Meanwhile, I'll also be working out a system to not have to have cable TV. (Some combination of purchased & ripped DVDs on a media center, Netflix, our local library, and possibly Amazon Prime.)

Re:Most won't notice

[adolf]

This trick has worked for decades with all manner of subscription-oriented, consumer-related companies. Glad it worked for you, but don't stop with the cable company: There's a good chance you're paying too much for other things that you use around your house, too.

Typically, you don't even have to make a comparison to a competitor or another pricing scheme -- just mention that you want to cancel because it's "too expensive," and viola! It gets cheaper.

Some money is better than no money.

Hell, some companies will even -give away- service for free, just for asking. I got a freebie AOL account once because I needed dialup while traveling (before the ubiquity of WiFi and 3G and no, I'm not proud), and got 3 months of free service when I called to cancel. Rinse, repeat -- I had a working account for over a year without ever giving them a red cent.

What's wrong with tiered?

[Scutter]

I'd much prefer a flat-rate unlimited plan, but I also recognize that a small percentage of users consume a disproportionate amount of bandwidth and that has to be managed somehow. I don't want a data cap. I'd much rather have the option of an affordable tier if I go over that cap, provided I'm given easy-to-use tools to see what my current utilization is. What I don't want is for that next tier to be ridiculously expensive as a disincentive to use it. I don't think $10 for an additional 50GB is unreasonable, although cheaper would be better.

Re:What's wrong with tiered?

[Guspaz]

I don't generally have a problem with tiered, but $10 for 50GB is completely unreasonable. It's the equivalent of $64 per megabit, which is nuts for a home connection.

It's enough to make third-party IPTV unsustainable; if a household watches, between all TVs/people, 6 hours of TV per day at 4Mbps, you'll end up paying more than $60 a month just in bandwidth overage, above and beyond your TV bill! And 4 meg is a pretty damned conservative bitrate for IPTV.

$10 should be getting you 100-200 gigabytes per month. It's a reasonable cost, and it's roughly what existing large ISPs like Shaw are charging.

Re:What's wrong with tiered?

[log0n]

" but I also recognize that a small percentage of users consume a disproportionate amount of bandwidth and that has to be managed somehow"

And managed why exactly?

Leave your [cable] TV on for all 720ish hours in a month. You don't get penalized (outside of electricity bill) with overage charges for going over some arbitrary viewing cap. Hell, leave it running for an entire year and it doesn't cost any more (or less) than it would if you left the TV off entirely.

What's wrong with tiered is that it is an economic invention, not a practical or technical limitation.

I can only speak for me...

[GSloop]

I can only speak for me...but the scummy thing I see is they really want it both ways.

1) You can pay more for higher speeds
2) You can pay more for more bandwidth.

And we'll be really slow about moving the boundaries so as to capture as much money as possible.

Higher speed should just be included, and fine, charge a reasonable amount for bandwidth.
OR
You charge by the speed tier and however much bandwidth I consume you live with it.
[The pricing seems high too, IMO.]

But no, they want to make you pay both ways. [And pay again when you can't stream data (without meter) from other vendors - you have to pay extra to CC.]

Wireless carriers do it like this too.

Them: "No, you can't tether, that costs extra."
Me: "Why? You're capping my data consumption anyway. If it's not unlimited, then I should get to choose where I use my data - the phone, a tablet, or my laptop."

Either it's unlimited to a single device, in which case, I can stream netflicks 24x7 - or I pay for X amount of data and I can use it in any way, with any device I like.

But no. We'll pick the terms we like when it benefits us, and then mix and match to make even more.
Screw you customer! Just keep forking over the cash.

-Greg

Re:I can only speak for me...

[Cimexus]

Yeah I agree. In countries where they generally have always had caps, plans are often delivered at "whatever speed the infrastructure can support", and you pay for the download limit you want. The situation with Comcast differs in that you are being charged for speed tier, as well as volume downloaded. Furthermore, there isn't a range of different caps to choose from as there are in some other countries.

For instance, I'm on an ADSL2+ connection in Australia and have a cap. However, plans don't have any particular advertised speed (on DSL at least, cable or fibre is a different story) - they are simply "ADSL2+", which supports up to 24 Mbps down, and up to 2.5 Mbps up. The speed you actually get will be as fast as your modem can manage to sync, given your line length and condition. Some people with short phone lines will get the full 24 Mbps. Some with very long lines will only get a couple of Mbps. And most get somewhere in between ... but the point is you get as fast as your line will support.

The only choice you need to make with regards to your plan is how much download quota you want (and you can change this month to month to suit your needs). My ISP (Internode) currently offers 30 GB, 60 GB, 200 GB, 300 GB, 600 GB and 1.2 TB caps. I don't see caps as a bad thing IF you have a range of them to choose from, as it means low volume users who impact the network less can pay less, those that do use a lot pay more, and it helps the ISP predict and manage their network capacity to ensure a congestion-free experience (and for me, quality of connection is more important than the sheer amount I can download). Also note that once you go over your cap, you aren't charged more here ... they just throttle your speed down.

I Hope Not

[MoldySpore]

I really hope that people won't give in without at least expressing their anger to Comcast by finding another ISP if available, when they implement tiered pricing. I hope Comcast users push back like us TW users did.

One of the MAIN reasons these ISP's are introducing tiered pricing is simply to avoid the costs of upgrading their infrastructure. Instead of modernizing their networks and equipment to handle today's higher demand for more and more bandwidth, they simply implement overage fees and/or tiered pricing to keep people's usage within the confines of what their infrastructure can handle. It really is a scam on so many different levels. This is why the US is so far behind in broadband when looking at other country's broadband statistics.

Money hungry as ever, the largest ISP's over here just don't see the need to provide a higher level of service to home users when it means investing hundreds of $Millions, possibly more, to do it.

In addition to that, you have places like Rochester, NY where no competition can EVER break into the market because 1 or 2 ISP's have monopolized the space for new fiber and/or copper runs, effectively creating a stagnant market where users have no choices for service (ISP's such as EarthLink give the ILLUSION of choice, but really only lease space on another larger ISP's lines, such as Time Warner).

Re:I Hope Not

[cpu6502]

>>>This is why the US is so far behind in broadband when looking at other country's broadband statistics.

False. According to speedtest.net, the average U.S. speed is 1 Mbit/s faster than the average speed for the E.U. And yes there are some EU states that have very fast internet, but there are some U.S. states that also have very fast internet: Like New Jersey. New York. Washington.

Vice-versa there are EU states like Greece and Spain and Portugal that have internet slower than the U.S. average. Thank your lucky stars you don't like there. (Or in the UK where they have decent speeds, but are censoring the net.) The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but rarely is.

Re:I Hope Not

[vawwyakr]

I think its more to eliminate competition. They don't want to provide you access to the competition they want you to pay them for their entertainment services.

Re:Even better - just meter the whole damn thing

[Crookdotter]

Because obviously when that model applies, I pay for every byte coming down the pipe. Internet adverts I don't mind so much. When I HAVE TO PAY to receive them, then that's a different story. Browsing with images switched off? Check. Flash, fancy HTML5 anims and stuff off? Check. Youtube use for random funny cat videos? Not while I have to pay for each of them.

Unmetered internet is the way to go.

Re:Even better - just meter the whole damn thing

[Hatta]

Gas, power, and water utilities manage to deliver and upkeep what's arguably a more complicated infrastructure with the same model, why should data be any different?

Because gas, power, and water can be saved for another day. Any bandwidth we don't use right now is lost forever. It's actually more economical on a dollars per byte basis to keep your network near saturation. If you discourage people from using the network, you're increasing everyone's per byte costs.

The right way to deal with contention for network resources is to build out infrastructure. If ISPs are allowed to profit from network congestion, there is no incentive to build out infrastructure.

Metered internet access provides exactly the wrong incentives for *everyone* involved.

Well, that does it.

[MacGyver2210]

"First, we fucked them with television. We fucked them too much and they don't watch television on cable anymore.
Then, we fucked them with advertising online and through what TV remained, but we advertised too much, and now everyone ignores our ads or pirates our shit.
We tried to fuck them with BitTorrent, but even the government wouldn't let that slide. We had to unfuck BitTorrent. Apparently it isn't just for pirating shit.
Now they want internet, so we're going to fuck with internet a bit and see if we can't squeeze a few more cents out of them."

What the fuck, Comcast? Get a clue.

they also have certified meters

[Joe_Dragon]

they also have certified meters and most of the ISP meters are off and bill you for overhead and ARP data.

FTC and unlimited

[Anonymous Coward]

So the FTC will bust Sketchers for advertising shoes that don't give you a great butt (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/cases/skechers/index.shtm), but they have no problem with carriers that advertise limited data plans as unlimited?

Re:Even better - just meter the whole damn thing

[Hatta]

That makes zero sense. The more the datalines are used, the more electricity is being burned-up.

The electricity it takes to send a 0 or 1 down the line is negligable. The only power savings you're getting from running under capacity is if you're so under utilized that you can put your servers to sleep. That's equivalent to reducing network capacity, which we would very much like to discourage.

"internal traffic"?

[Dahamma]

I'd love to see someone implement a bittorrent client with an option to limit peers to other Comcast customers, and then see how they start redefining "internal traffic"...

Re:"internal traffic"?

[Eil]

"Internal traffic" counts only towards Comcast's own content services like Xfinity. All other traffic (including to your neighbor) will whittle away at the cap.

Remember, data caps are not about network or quality management. They're about keeping the provider from becoming a "dump pipe" for premium content elsewhere. (In Comcast's case, high-def streaming TV.)

Re:How can they complain?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Here in rural Manitoba we get 7Mbps down / 768Kbps up for $46 + tax for a 60GB cap. Fucking sense of entitlement.

I realize it's fun to play songs on the hate parade when talking about Americans, but entitlement is not the word. At the next town over they can get unlimited service with a different provider. That's an issue of value, not entitlement.

How bout this

[way2trivial]

I have a cable modem at home
I have one at work
1 mile apart and they are 4 hops apart..
before I got a commercial account at home, I was warned about the bandwidth
95% of which was backups from work to home
(I keep two NAS's synchronized)

would that be internal enough for you?

This is relevant to my interests

[jtownatpunk.net]

Comcast put me on probation last year. I move a lot of data. All non-commercial. I asked if there was a service plan that would allow me to move more data. The conversation went something like this:

"No."
"I'm willing to pay more money to be able to move more data."
"That isn't an option."
"What about business service? I know you also provide service to businesses and charge more for the SLA and heavy traffic."
"I don't have any information about the caps on business service plans but you can't change your plan or open a new account when you're on probation. In six months, you can inquire about business service."
"That's ridiculous. I didn't know there was any problem with my usage until 15 minutes ago. That's the first I heard that there was an issue. I'm offering to give you more money for a higher level of service. You're in business to sell the service I'm that I'm trying to buy. Why would you not want to take my money?"
"I'm sorry, sir, you cannot change your service while on probation. If you go over the 250 gig limit at any time while you're on probation, your account will be closed and you won't be able to open another account for 12 months."

It baffles me. If they'd offered me 50 gig chunks of data at $10, I would have taken it. It's not cheap but it's not outrageous and it's better than being banned from purchasing their services for a year. My only other options here are "up to" 3 meg DSL and satellite. Oh, and 3G cellular. Hell, they would have made a lot of money from me because I would have said, "Screw it, it's only another $10." Probably would have been paying an extra $20-40 every month.

Re:How can they complain?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why we can't have nice things.

perceived bilking?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

"will they once again balk at a perceived bilking?""

No, they will balk at getting fucked like they have been getting fucked by Comcast and the rest of them as usual. There's no "perceiving" involved. It's just a dag blasted fact.

Tier *trials*, cap removed elsewhere

[abrotman]

The article doesn't say they're definitely implementing tiered pricing for everyone, they're trying it in a few markets.. In markets where tiered pricing is not being trialed, the caps are completely removed.

http://blog.comcast.com/2012/05/comcast-to-replace-usage-cap-with-improved-data-usage-management-approaches.html

Re:Boggles

[fnj]

Boggle on. You're not very imaginative. There probably should be a cheapo option for customers like you whose demands are so minuscule. For my part, I can easily get up dangerously close to 250 GB within HALF a month without half trying, and I then have to curtail my usage for the rest of the month.

I'm not even going to say what kind of stuff I do to pile up the GB. It's not particularly daring or esoteric. There are so many ways. Look, I've got a pipe that flows a sustained 2 MB/s - that's 120 MB/min, 7.2 GB/h, 172.8 GB/d, 5184 GB/mo. And you seriously think using an average of 4.8% of that capacity "boggles the mind"?

Re:Even better - just meter the whole damn thing

[thegarbz]

I think you look at these energy storage methods. All three of them require a huge initial outlay, ongoing maintenance and don't actually store very much energy at all, certainly not enough to even remotely entertain smoothing the peaks in demand.

They make more sense for small installations and emergency power, not for powering cities.

But all of this is elementary. The fact is that electricity is CURRENTLY not stored, and yet doesn't have the same kind of issues network bandwidth does.