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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?"
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.
William George
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
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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"...
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...