Comcast Is Raising Its Data Caps From 300GB To 1TB (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Comcast has announced today it will be raising its monthly data cap of 300GB to 1TB beginning June 1st. They will however charge more to customers who want unlimited data. After June 1st, less people will need to buy unlimited data from the company. Previously, users were charged an extra $30 to $35 a month for unlimited data but now they will have to pay an additional $50 for unlimited data. "All of the data plans in our trial markets will move from a 300 gigabyte data plan to a terabyte by June 1st, regardless of the speed," Comcast's announcement today said. The reason for the change? Customers are exceeding the 300GB cap. In late 2013, Comcast said only 2 percent of its customers used more than 300GB of data a month. That number was up to 8 percent in late 2015.

Comments

Seriously? In 2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile... Google Fiber is rolling me out service where I can go through 1TB in an afternoon.

Re:Seriously? In 2016?

[FlyHelicopters]

I have fiber from AT&T, and while they DO have terms in the contract that lets them limit me, they never have.

And yes, I've downloaded 1TB in the period of a few days, which is way beyond the "cap", but I've never been bothered about it.

Perhaps because I don't torrent?

Re:Seriously? In 2016?

[fbobraga]

I have fiber from AT&T, and while they DO have terms in the contract that lets them limit me, they never have.

There are campaigns right now to legally forbid data caps on home internet, here on Brazil: what I think of it? Pure nonsense...

"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[jxander]

If broadband ISPs insist on having data caps (which they really shouldn't), they need to adopt a schedule like the old cell plans. Not necessarily the same "night and weekends" model ... but that old jingle was stuck in my head

People who shape their traffic and plan large downloads at overnight aren't clogging up the lines. Why punish customers who are making their best efforts to not impact other people? We should be rewarding that behavior.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Lumpy]

Comcast hates giving you what you paid for.... Comcast rewarding customers? HA!

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[fustakrakich]

People who shape their traffic and plan large downloads at overnight aren't clogging up the lines. Why punish customers who are making their best efforts to not impact other people? We should be rewarding that behavior.

Because they'll clog the lines during the overnight. Comcast has a ton of money. They can afford to install fatter pipes. If people only made a stronger demand for municipal service, the threat of actual competition would make pricing and service much more reasonable.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[unrtst]

For the extreme users, you both may be right, but that's still just the 1% - 2% of top users.

300gb/month is approximately 5.5 hr of HD streaming from netflix per day (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-much-monthly-bandwidth-doe-136401)

That may seem like a lot for one person, but it wouldn't be very difficult for one person to use that and hold down a normal job.
If you consider a household, which both the comcast and netflix subscriptions allow, then you could easily burn through that much, as at least 8% of their customers are doing now (according to TFS).

That's just legit streaming, with no torrents or other large downloads, nor any intensive work stuff, and completely ignoring all other internet usage. I doubt those users are going to schedule their streaming TV/movie watching for off peak hours. There's a reason the peaks are where they are now, and it's damn near all streaming video.

IMNSHO, I think:
* they shouldn't be allowed to charge per GB without offering better tools for their users
* once they do though, they should offer a base package (300-1000gb seems fine for that), and then a flat per-GB fee above that.
* get rid of speed restrictions if they use caps or charge per-GB (if everyone is paying same price per-gb, everyone should get the same bps)

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[JoeMerchant]

"back in the day" (1990s) I had a dialup provider who fingered me for "violation of the TOS" unspecified infraction, and terminated my account - which was fine since their 14.4Kbaud dialup service was delivering about 100 baud of actual throughput during prime time hours after they signed on more customers than they could service.

I'm pretty sure they didn't like the fact that I used to download usenet newsgroups 8 hours a night, and since most people didn't do that, they just jettisioned the 2% of their customer base who was using up 25% of their bandwidth. Didn't help them, they continued to provide absolutely unusable service to all the customers who signed on for year long discount lock-in contracts, and were replaced by newer providers who did slightly better at managing growth.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[The Raven]

They can't. Even if they thought it was a good idea systemically.

• What's sucking most people's bandwidth? Streaming.
• What can't you timeshift? Streaming.
• What can you timeshift? Torrenting.

So if they implemented time based data surcharges, they would drive users to piracy. Since Comcast and Time Warner both have significant media holdings, any policy that incentivized piracy (would be a non-starter.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Shadow99_1]

Looking at my usage in the TWC control panel, I regularly use 300 GB+ almost every month. All of which is streaming from Twitch or Youtube, web surfing, and gaming. Most of my entertainment is from those sources.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[fustakrakich]

The best way price the service is by content agnostic simple bandwidth with guaranteed minimums (not the phony *Up to* a gazillion MB/s). Rationing data is not needed. Pay for the pipe, not what goes through. You can still offer incentives for off peak usage. The American consumer fell down in not demanding it be done that way. We really need muni-fiber to put up some real competition against these people.

Re: "Unlimited nights and weekends"

[jxander]

Then pick a different time.

The 8% of users who are exceeding 300gb per month simply should not be able to saturate the lines. If 8% of users can create a traffic jam, we've got bigger problems.

Meanwhile, Comcast can see their own metrics, even if they don't release that info publicly. So they can pick a time-frame that's currently underutilized, make that the "unlimited" time, and the big-downloaders will adjust accordingly.

Re: "Unlimited nights and weekends"

[fustakrakich]

It's best to regulate the bandwidth, not the volume of data. Then "saturation" is not an issue.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[FrankHaynes]

The American consumer fell down in not demanding it be done that way.

Sorry, not all of us are rich enough to pay off every legislator down the chain to oppose Comcast's government-enforced monopoly.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Wycliffe]

Comcast hates giving you what you paid for.... Comcast rewarding customers? HA!

They aren't rewarding customers. Having a nights and weekends policy would only benefit them. The extra capacity is free and being wasted at night. Yes, they might lose a small amount of money from overage fees or people that don't pay to upgrade to unlimited but this should be more than compensated for if even a small percentage of their customers scheduled their large downloads for after hours. This would increase their capacity and improve their performance instantly without them spending a dime. I'm very surprised that noone who is considering caps in the first place hasn't already done this.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Ichijo]

What can't you timeshift? Streaming.

Yes, you can.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[fustakrakich]

Just stop reelecting the ones that are bought off. Don't blame them for winning. The power comes from the voters' preference. They are the ones selling out to the highest bidder.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[mrprogrammerman]

I thought the whole point of the data caps was to compete with Netflix and other streaming services. Obviously their services would get a free pass on the limits.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[FrankHaynes]

Sure, because the next guy will be squeaky clean of course.

Look, you can always tell that a politician is lying because his lips are moving. Pick this thief or the other thief, your choice.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[fustakrakich]

You take your chances on the first attempt. But why in the world would you reelect him or the party when he screws up? And then you got these kind of guys in there for five or six terms, what is up with that? The problem is now self inflicted. It's not even politics anymore, it's a pathology.

Re: "Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot if you think capacity is the issue.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[squiggleslash]

Probably because downloading stuff overnight is so sufficiently niche that a marketing campaign wouldn't be worth spending the money on.

Free nights and weekends (not to mention tiered pricing based upon time periods) worked because it was when the networks were naturally idle, but a time when a lot of people wanted to make personal calls. The networks were more idle during these periods because businesses were (mostly) closed and so fewer people had to make calls, but that didn't mean subscribers didn't want to talk to friends and family, it's just they couldn't justify the costs.

The networks were even more idle during the periods you're now talking about because people neither had to make calls, nor wanted to, but the operators didn't make them even cheaper because there was no point.

The number of people who want to download huge files for offline use and who are willing to stay up until a particular time of night to start the download is similarly tiny,

In fact, the number of people who download huge files, period, is tiny. Want to know why so many people are now routinely breaking the bandwidth cap? Look at Roku, the Amazon Streaming Stick, and SmartTVs.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Anonymous Coward]

Could bandwidth be saved on by not doing Windows Update anymore?

In all seriousness, as much as I don't like the concept of a data cap, they probably should exempt certain services, like OS updates, antivirus updates, maybe ad networks, and .gov websites.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Anonymous Coward]

thats one person.

4 people just browsing the web loaded with bloated ads can easily do 300 gig a month without streaming or downloading ANYTHING.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually when i went over the 300GB cap, it was when I was watching youtube on Roku which NEVER stops until you manually stop it from playing. I would set the sleep timer on the TV. Go to bed, go to work, come home, go to bed and turn on the Roku, to see that i've been burning bandwith via youtube for 24 hours straight.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Anonymous Coward]

The lines aren't clogged up an any time. As soon as you realize this is a move to monetize bandwidth rather than congestion control, it makes more sense. If it really was about congestion they would just throttle everyone equally during heavy congestion to keep the links from saturating.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[tlhIngan]

* they shouldn't be allowed to charge per GB without offering better tools for their users

"they" shouldn't provide the tools at all.

NIST or equivalent body should be generating the standards for measuring traffic use, and if Comcast wants to charge per-GB, they need to provide everyone with a NIST-calibrated and certified meter. Just like your water meter, your gas meter, your electric meter has calibration stamps and seals to indicate that yes, what they measure is accurate.

That meter should have a 0-cost way of reading it - i.e., a display showing how much you've used.

Until that is satisfied, there is no way to do this properly.

Think about it for a moment. There is no standard way to measure a byte. is it 1TB or 1TiB? What bytes are you including? TCP/IP headers and above? Or are you going to toss in DOCSIS headers as well? (your cellphone provider typically includes OTA packet headers and SI prefixes in their plans - the former adds around 10% overhead on average, the latter, well, you know).

Also, will there be a way to disconnect? If you're being DDoS'd, it's going to be annoying to pay for that kind of traffic, so if there is a way to disconnect and incur 0 usage...

Thus, if you're going to sell something on a per-anything, you need to make sure your measurement tools follow a standard.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[unrtst]

Blah, semantics on "they", but I agree 100%.
You noted some of the questionable areas, such as headers, DOCSIS, DDoS's, etc.
For all header stuff, I'm fine with or without it included, and it's easier to include it, so that's fine - as long as it's sold that way.
For DDoS's, there would have to be some way to work with them on that, similar to getting SMS spammed on a cell phone with a limited plan - they'll work with you, and block that stuff. If they can't block it, that's at least partially their fault. Point here is that I don't expect this to be automatically handled.

That said, my largest concern would be broadcast traffic and scans.
If all my neighbors are generating traffic that I'm ignoring, I don't want dinged for that - I guess there should be a way to filter before the meter.
If there are a bunch of spam/virus scans/attacks, I don't want dinged for that. Currently, blocking that traffic is the users responsibility. That shouldn't be the case when charged per-GB because they are allowing that on their network and you have no control over what people send to you.
Perhaps a stateful meter will be needed - only outbound connections, or established sessions coming in. Inbound SYN is metered only if the inbound firewall allows it. It'd be quite a clusterfuck, but that's why they shouldn't charge per-GB :-)

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[The Raven]

I hadn't heard about this, thanks... but until it supports HBO, Hulu, Twitch, YouTube, and a dozen others I'm not remembering off the top of my head it's close to irrelevant.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[fustakrakich]

Metering the content instead of the bandwidth is completely ass backwards. "Saturation" is a purely bandwidth issue. The "content" doesn't change, it is merely copied into memory/cache/storage. And what's the deal? I thought "broadcasting" should make it a non issue.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Dr. Spork]

My usage is very similar (streaming, youtube, twitch), and in April I'm well past 600GB - actually, that's for two people in my apartment. To be fair, I do feel like I've been hogging bandwidth this month, and making it past 1TB seems unlikely with anything I do now, but if Twitch or Netflix started streaming in 4K, I'd be over that cap every month.

Re:"Unlimited nights and weekends"

[Anonymous Coward]

This would increase their capacity and improve their performance instantly without them spending a dime. I'm very surprised that noone who is considering caps in the first place hasn't already done this.

Teksavvy in Canada used to do this (before some back-end changes by the incumbents made it impractical in early 2016):

* https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/3qp3rb/teksavvy_raising_their_prices_and_removing_zap/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/3qpa5k/teksavvy_prices_going_up_zap_the_cap_gone_and_new/

Only to Avoid Net Neutrality Infringment

[Anonymous Coward]

Raising the data cap is the only way they can deliver their own content and not get in trouble with the FCC. "Zero metering" of Comcast content will probably draw the ire of the FCC.

Continuous Rate: 4Mb/s

[crow]

If I'm doing my math correctly, 1TB is about 4Mb/s over a month. Or closer to 3, depending on the definitions they're using (base-2 TB vs. base-10, etc.).

I run a tor relay at over 1MB/s, so that alone would more than double the new cap. I've very glad I'm on FiOS. Though I suppose I'm at the mercy of Verizon if they start doing the same thing.

Re:Continuous Rate: 4Mb/s

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm doing my math correctly, 1TB is about 4Mb/s over a month. Or closer to 3, depending on the definitions they're using (base-2 TB vs. base-10, etc.).

I run a tor relay at over 1MB/s, so that alone would more than double the new cap. I've very glad I'm on FiOS. Though I suppose I'm at the mercy of Verizon if they start doing the same thing.

385.802469 kBps

That is how you legitimize the caps

[Trachman]

In the past Comcast has never specified what the caps were. And I am talking about residential plans. They were only reporting top 5% users (or in their thinking abusers). Theoretically in the past you could have used 2TB. They would have included you in the shitlists, but that would have been it if you only were flamboyant for one month.

Right now it is a cap that been added. Some might think it is yuge, that they will never use it.

Several things will happen:
  - More people will switch to Netlfix and their clones
  - More people will no longer be buying television. Only the internet. To watch Netflix.
  - Netflix will have even more HD, or 4KHD movies

Well, at some point when they will need to increase profitability they will reduce the cap. Believe me.

Re:That is how you legitimize the caps

[Burdell]

Comcast has had defined caps (250G then 300G) in some markets as a "test" for a while (including mine, for 3-4 years now IIRC).

Re:That is how you legitimize the caps

[KingMotley]

Correction. Comcast has defined caps in ALL markets, however, only in a select few trial areas have they actually been enforcing them. I'm currently in one of the areas not in the so called trials, but I do have a cap -- they just don't squat about it if it I exceed it (which I do every month). The 1TB cap I can almost live under.

Re:That is how you legitimize the caps

[KingMotley]

Going here: https://customer.xfinity.com/M... tells me:
"927GB used Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended."

Re:That is how you legitimize the caps

[Anonymous Coward]

- More people will no longer be buying television. Only the internet. To watch Netflix.

Or they'll buy devices like Amazon Fire TV.

Re:That is how you legitimize the caps

[nanoflower]

I've been dealing with Comcast caps since 2008. Started at 250GB and then moved to 300GB a while back. At least 1TB is better than 300GB but they will probably stay at 1TB until the FCC does something else that makes Comcast nervous.

What about throttling?

[skogs]

So Netflix has equipment inside the Comcast network and works fine, but as of a few weeks ago my connection is completely useless for regular non-text based use. I don't come anywhere near even the 300Gig transfer. What is up with that? I've complained but nothing happens.
I can't stream Linux Action show from Jupiter Broadcasting.
I can't stream twitch.tv (I find geek and sundry, kerbals, and others as excellent background noise similar to talk radio...but not enraging like talk radio)
I can't even stream youtube reliably.

This is tested across three different linux machines, two windows machines, two phones, and various other devices attached to TVs.

I get better bandwidth with 1 bar of 4g on my phone than I do with the land line that I pay stupid amounts of money for.

Re:What about throttling?

[Truekaiser]

When comcast did this to me several years ago, I moved to at&t. I recently moved from at&t to google fiber after they doubled the bill to penalize us for not ordering their uverse thing and just have them as an isp.

Re:What about throttling?

[Nutria]

but as of a few weeks ago my connection is completely useless for regular non-text based use

When this happened to me, I logged into my cable modem (SB6141) and looked at the signal strength status page. It was waaaaaayyyy down, so I called Cox -- on Saturday afternoon -- and they came out Monday morning. After replacing a bunch of cable and connectors from the pole to the corner of my house, the signal is much better and speeds are greatly improved.

Re:What about throttling?

[Howitzer86]

Last time this happened to me, YouTube was throttled so much that it was faster under TOR than under the normal unadulterated connection. Granted, while you probably shouldn't use TOR for streaming videos... you can.

If you have VPN access to your work network, that'll work a lot better. I did a lot of that once I was given access.

Magical bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

But weren't they complaining recently that the bandwidth hogs were ruining it for everybody because bandwidth in their network was a scarce resource? If they were complaining about 300GB/mo/household, how are they going to provision for 3x that amount without outlaying at least 2x in capital costs for upgrades to support it? Where are those massive upgrade costs on their balance sheet?

TL;DR: You can tell Comcast is lying when its marketing dep't opens its mouth.

Re:Magical bandwidth?

[guruevi]

Regardless of what any carrier tells you, bandwidth is measured in bps not Bpm. The scale of a month is irrelevant to the networking media or any intermediate devices.

Re:Magical bandwidth?

[KingMotley]

I agree that it is a poor metric to be billing on. They really should separate out the data on how much bandwidth you use during peak hours from how much you during non-peak hours. I think that would go a long way towards curbing peak usage unnecessarily. All of a sudden that steam download of a 50Gb triple-A title can wait to download at 3am if it means saving a few dollars for a lot of people rather than starting at 7pm.

Re:Magical bandwidth?

[guruevi]

Again, it is not how much data you consume over a lengthy period of time, it's literally a measure of how many bits are flowing the split second you are using it. And any system will use as much as it can, even visiting a 10kb websites can use 20Mbps worth of bandwidth for a very short period of time (there are limits off course due to the speed of light and latency).

For Comcast to be honest they should say: Hey, we give you 1Mbps down guaranteed, 10Mbps burstable.

Re:Magical bandwidth?

[KingMotley]

You do realize how silly what you just said is, right?

Again, it is not how much data you consume over a lengthy period of time

...

it's literally a measure of how many bits are flowing the split **second** you are using it.

So you are arguing that they shouldn't be able to measure it per month because that is measuring data per month and month is a length of time, but they should be measuring it per second.. which second is a length of time. LOL.

And

For Comcast to be honest they should say: Hey, we give you 1Mbps down guaranteed, 10Mbps burstable.

How about up to 10Mbps? Oh wait, that is what they say.

Re:Magical bandwidth?

[guruevi]

You don't understand the technical differences. Bits per second is a measurement of data transfer rate, how many characters physically fit over a data line, it is not a measurement of limits. A 10Mbps line is only capable of 10Mbps whether you measure it over a month or a year.

MB/month is a data capacity limit and they are an artifact. There is no physical limit to the amount of data you can transfer over any length of time as long as you remain within the bounds of your data transfer rate. Your line doesn't dissolve after 6GB is transferred, the switches don't break at 100TB.

To give you a similarity: Say you have a water pipe with a pump, the pump is connected through a pipe to an infinite water supply. What you are saying is: the pump is running at 200Hz and the cost to install and maintain the pipes is $5/month, what would be the cost of 10,000 gallon of water per month.

Let's hope others follow suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Texas, I'm stuck with Suddenlink. They're not so bad. I get 50 down, 5 up, 800 channels on TV, and bundled unlimited local and long distance calling for $145 month. I think this is a little steep, but there is only one other offering, and they cannot compete for speed or reliability. I live in a semi-rural area, so I'm not complaining too much. My cap is stuck at 250GB month. I have never checked or received a warning that I might have exceeded this limit.

Re:Let's hope others follow suit

[Nutria]

At some point when I wasn't watching, Cox bumped my cap from 250GB to 700GB. (No, I wasn't getting any usage warnings, and my bill hasn't gone up either.)

Re:Let's hope others follow suit

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the ISPs see the writing on the wall. You cannot legitimately keep families or even Web-savvy users under a limit as small as 250GB. Netflix and similar services by definition demand no ceiling. Yet in Korea, Japan, and much of Europe, bandwidth goes for a song.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[geek]

Why should Comcast give everyone unlimited access to a self imposed limited resource?

Fixed that for you

A better solution

[brennz]

Comcast needs to have its own service, Stream TV, imputed against Comcast's own data caps. This will ensure that Comcast does not gain a corporate advantage via exploiting data caps in a monopolistic fashion.

Then, every other ISP needs to have the same thing occur to prevent the same malfeasance by Comcast from spreading further.

However, fundamentally, I think the definition of wired broadband need to change to assume the following.

Wired bandwidth you are provided is a constant stream.

Can we just have municiple broadband?

[rsilvergun]

It literally costs $7 bucks a month to provide service (including support). Cox themselves admitted this in their SEC filing last year. You don't even get to ask (in a whiny voice) "well who's gonna pay for it?". They're charging 10 times the going rate. The existing subscriber base could pay for everyone and their dog and their dog's squeaky toy to have unlimited internet and we'd _still_ come out ahead. Christ, what is it with this country and it's dread fear of public utilities? People, outside of the south where they do it on purpose to scare folks off the big bad gov't DMV has at 15 minute waits for a decade. I wait longer than that to buy milk from a real check cashier.

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[qzzpjs]

I've heard this number before but that number is actually $7/month per 1 mbit/s. Multiply that by the amount of mbit/s they get from their upstream connection. That said, it's still probably far far less than the total number of mbit/s they sold each of their users so they are making a huge profit.

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Overzeetop]

Well, if an earlier poster got his/her math right, then it costs $28/mo for everyone to average 1TB/month (4Mbps average). I'd be willing to be metered at double that rate, to be honest, and I'm a pretty big bandwidth user for a 3 person house (~400-600GB/mo). It would still cost me 1/3 of what Comcast charges me (And I've never been charged for cap-exceedence).

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Making a huge profit is the entire reason they exist. It gets kind of old listening to the entitled generation whine about how they don't have unlimited free internet and have to *gasp* PAY for what they use. They have no concept of the costs involved in building and running a broadband network. They think since data is made of ephemeral bits and bytes it shouldn't cost anything.

Re: Can we just have municiple broadband?

[johnsmithperson123]

Y'know, I'm a small government fan but also an aggressive anti-truster. Seems to me that we should just start threatening to smash the ISPs into tiny little pieces if they don't improve.

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[inode_buddha]

Those broadband networks were paid for a decade before these kids were born, by guys like me with our municipal bond issues and subscriber fees. And if you say anything about "upgrades" I'm gonna laugh right in your face.

Re: Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have FTTH municipal broadband in Longmont Colorado. Speed is 1Gbps (that's 1000 Mbps for you comcast folks) Up AND down for $49/Month. Forever. No stupid "specials" that eventually expire. No data caps either! And yes we stream HD all time.

If our small city can do it, so can yours. The city only recently rolled out this service, and hundreds of residents have ditched comcast and centurylink for service that is more than an order of magnitude faster, at a much lower price. Local competent customer service too, This is the future.

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Nutria]

What the hell are you talking about? There's nothing in my local ISP (Cox) that's the same as it was 15 years ago, much less 30 (when I was just a cable subscriber). Heck, even the last 40 yards of coax from "that box on the street corner" has been replaced a couple of times.

Re: Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do you pay for television?

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[AntronArgaiv]

I've heard this number before but that number is actually $7/month per 1 mbit/s. Multiply that by the amount of mbit/s they get from their upstream connection. That said, it's still probably far far less than the total number of mbit/s they sold each of their users so they are making a huge profit.

I don't understand how the cost can be related to the maximum throughput. The major expenses are infrastructure and personnel (and I bet payroll is the biggest). For a given infrastructure over a given geographic area, there's a max supportable bandwidth, then you have a big infrastructure cost to support anything higher. Once you pay that, though, you have another maximum bandwidth (say 10 or 100 times the previous)

So, to say it's linear ($7/mbit/s) doesn't seem right. It's more a function of population density and coverage area, I would think. I suspect the Comcast network in eastern Massachusetts is far from being saturated, unless there's a snowstorm, maybe. Would be interesting to see their network utilization graphs.

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's costing them $7/mbit, then they're inept at what they do. I can purchase retail transit for $0.30/mbit. Wholesale is cheaper and peering is closer to $0.10/mbit in costs. Level 3 doesn't even charge that much, and they have the highest quality most expensive transit bandwidth in the world.

Re: Can we just have municiple broadband?

[Beezlebub33]

[nice story omitted] This is the future.

I'm not sure. With the mergers, the lobbyists, wholly owned legislators, content provider-ISP relationships, etc., I think that it may not be the future. They are doing everything they can to reduce the community broadband competition, like they did everything to gain monopolies in their service areas. A lot depends on who runs the FCC. The decision to override the state laws against community broadband (see this) could easily be overturned by the next administration. It could easily kill your service.

Re:Can we just have municiple broadband?

[pnutjam]

To be fair, it's probably saturated on one port, wherever they want to gouge someone like Netflix.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

For most of the civilized world it was a limited resource...10 years ago. And most of the world kept up and have very high data rates for a reasonable monthly cost. But the US is an outlier because the telecom and cable companies pocketed their rent-seeked profits (i.e. dividends, stock buybacks, Congressional junkets, etc.) instead of upgrading infrastructure.

If Comcast invested in their infrastructure there's no reason every home shouldn't have 100Mbs service. At that rate none of this would be an issue as that's more than enough to serve multiple streams of Netflix and anything else to the average household.

Point is, caps shouldn't even be a conversation topic in the year 2016.

Sorry, no tears for Comcast and their ilk here.

Not Limited Everywhere

[Tenebrousedge]

Comcast does not have caps in all locations. I have uncapped bandwidth on Comcast in Portland, OR.

Re:Not Limited Everywhere

[amxcoder]

I recently switched to Comcast from ATT Uverse, and the 300GB cap says it's not 'in force' on my account page. I have a 200mbps plan, and they offer faster than that, I think up to 400 or so at least. What areas do not have at least 100mbps plan on cable? Is that rare or a lot of places?

Re: Not Limited Everywhere

[justin1409]

I signed up for the Comcast business internet. There is no caps on their business internet.

Reminds me of the Oregon Trail game

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I have 1,000 pounds of meat from one simple hunting session!

Sorry, there's only room for 20 pounds in the wagon.

AAWWWW!!!!

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[jxander]

Because the limits are false.

Comcast, Cox, Time Warner, etc. have made their own little monopolized diamond business, creating artificial scarcity.

The problem is that they've done this to a basic utility service, instead of an exorbitant luxury item like diamonds.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

It's not "self imposed" but cost imposed. Data caps are a proxy for bandwidth use. If everyone used too much bandwidth, they'd have to buy more. So caps impose usage penalties designed to reduce overall bandwidth usage, to decrease cost.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[jxander]

There's a fundamental aspect of bandwidth that I think you're missing. It's always there. Any time that the lines are under-utilized is simply wasted. All those late-night hours when the lines are empty ... that unused bandwidth doesn't queue up and wait to help offset rush hour the next day.

Think of it like lanes on the highway. If we could somehow convince the big traffic jammers (big-rigs, perhaps) to run between 8pm and 4am, that would alleviate traffic for the average commuter.

Re:APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ helps vs. caps

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing sucks. Use Google.

Re:AVERAGE webpage = BIG as DOOM for DOS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandwidth is cheap. No need to worry about it.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, it's full of stars.

The empty void between your ears, that is.

Re:APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ helps vs. caps

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymity is only important for those that have something to hide.

Re:APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ helps vs. caps

[Anonymous Coward]

Malwarebytes' Steven Burn lied to you.

Re:AVERAGE webpage = BIG as DOOM for DOS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your talk's cheap. I pay for bandwidth. I have a right it all. Ads don't. I don't let ads steal it or infect me to steal money or identity or worse.

Write your congress-critters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Usage caps are nothing but a money grab.

If you pay for 50Mbit/s, then by god, you should be able to use 50Mbit/s every second of every day of every month, and with compression, even more than that.

At 50Mbit/s, that equates to roughly 540,000,000,000B/day say 500GB a day to account for retransmits, congestion, etc..
That equates to over 16 TB a month, and that's just download, not counting data upload, and only 50Mbit/s.

Call your local police department and file extortion charges against them, since you pay for your XXXMbit/S service, and you never agreed to any "usage caps".

Better yet, go to your local town meetings and force a vote to kick them out of town and build your own.

There's a small town not far from where I live that gets 1Gb/s up and down for 25.00 a month after they built their own network, and it's a small town of less than 1500 people.

Bigger cities could surely beat that easily. Oh, and if your town council tries to weasel out of it, force the issue by demanding audits of their personal finances.

Congratulations Xfinity subscribers!

[Anonymous Coward]

We are now raising bandwidth caps from 300 to 100 GB a month!

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[FrankHaynes]

What a pity that Comcast's enforced monopoly results in usage of their network. Boo-fucking-hoo for them.

If they operated their retail network like real carriers do on a wholesale level by setting a 90th percentile rate based on actual usage, charge for THAT and make reasonable allowances for overages that would be closer to fair. As it is now, it's a shell game since their metering favors the house and not you, the customer.

I'd prefer HONEST metering, but Comcast aint interested in that.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Woldscum]

A year ago Cox raised the limit of "unlimited" from 400 to 2T in my area.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast said 99% of their bandwidth is free. All they have to do is build the infrastructure to connect the bandwidth to the end-users. Bandwidth is never the issue for fixed line in metro or small cities, only last-mile congestion. Luckily we have fiber that is 20% cheaper to maintain than copper, has no congestion, and is about 1/2 the price to install. That's why I pay $45/m for my dedicated business 100/100 fiber connection in Central USA with no datacap and guaranteed no congested. All owned by a small local private ISP that has rejected all state and federal subsidies, grants, and loans.

The packetloss, jitter, and pings on my home connection puts my work's 10Gb connection to Charter Comm to shame. Charter is bigger, so they have more enterprise features that my work needs and my ISP can't do yet.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

So you want wholesale pricing on residential lines? I don't see that working out as well as you seem to imply.

Re:APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ helps vs. caps

[Anonymous Coward]

You trolled anonymously! Downmodding apk's parent post can't hide he crushed you totally especially here https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

Re:Security & WebDev Pros disagree w/ you

[Anonymous Coward]

No one reads this shit.

HDR video streaming is coming

[Anonymous Coward]

HDR streaming video at 4K looks really, really nice, IMHO. I for one am glad to see a service provider flip the script on the T-Mobile 'DVD quality streaming is good enough' policy even if it is the evil known as comcast.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that whole thing wouldn't have happened if comcast didn't massively oversell it's infrastructure, right?
They are a bunch of idiots, and they deserve to be shamed. Fuck you, and fuck comcast.

Reasonable enough, I guess

[man_ls]

While I'm not thrilled with the concept of traffic limiting in general, this is an amount of data that will easily accommodate a full family of average users, or even a couple of power users.

I've been keeping track of my bandwidth usage for 5 years, even though I've always had true-unlimited plans via business class service. My absolute highest month, ever, was 670 GB. Most months are around 250 GB, and I consider myself a power user, like most people on this site probably do.

Sounds like they've found a reasonable compromise if you ask me.

Re:Reasonable enough, I guess

[Aqualung812]

Family of 4 on Comcast here.
We did 1.4TB in January, and 1.2TB in Feb.
667GB in March, but we went on vacation for 14 days.

We don't torrent. We don't have cable TV service, we use Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

We may be the exception, but I see more families heading my direction rather than ours.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

The person you're talking to, is you, in the mirror. Just thought you might want to know, since you seem to be a bit stupid. Well, very stupid, actually.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Nutria]

If we could somehow convince the big traffic jammers (big-rigs, perhaps) to run between 8pm and 4am, that would alleviate traffic for the average commuter.

Like torrenting stuff instead of using Netflix...

(Is there a way to tell Netflix that you're going to watch some movie or TV shows *tomorrow* night and have it download the data for you from 10PM to 6AM?)

Why not discount low use?

[Gavagai80]

I use less than 30 GB a month. That's a tenth of the old limit and less than a thirtieth of the new limit. Instead of paying my $50 a month bill as usual, can I return my unused portion for a $45 discount? Odds of that ever happening are of course zero.

Re:Security & WebDev Pros disagree w/ you

[Anonymous Coward]

I just did. It's enough evidence against you trolling for me to see that you have nothing to stand on compared to its proofs.

I just reviewed my router logs

[Hadlock]

Turns out I've had the same router since 2013, which keeps bandwidth logs.
 
With one rare exception (where I managed to blow through 150GB in a single day??) I've never exceeded more than 200GB, that exception month being 227GB. I consider myself a power user, but in reality most months floated around about 120GB/mo.
 
300GB sounds fine for most users, I have to really push it to try and burn up 250GB, let alone four times that amount. Maybe I need to upgrade to a 4K display to stream 4K netflix? Although from across the room I can't see the pixels on my 1080p display so that seems excessive.
 
Either way 300GB is probably slightly too low, but only just barely. I suppose if you had five kids who each spent a couple hours a day watching netflix you could exceed 300GB in a month?

Re:I just reviewed my router logs

[Beezlebub33]

Yeah, with wife and kids, and them all streaming netflix an hour or two, my work from home (and having to transfer imagery, docker images, etc.), plus gaming (Eve, roblox, minecraft server), it's easy to blow through 300GB in a month. Not every month, but enough.

Re:I just reviewed my router logs

[Howitzer86]

See, that's when you're supposed to buy multiple connections. You know, like how you're required to get multiple otherwise-useless TV set-top boxes now to access basic cable.

I remember when they switched over. I had a TV card that was compatible with the digital cable signal. It was great. I could tell the software to record something at a specific time, just like a DVR. Then the signal became encrypted and the card became less useful. I could hook up the set top box to the computer, but the computer couldn't change the channel on its own anymore. I had to rent a Comcast DVR if I wanted that feature again.

Re:I just reviewed my router logs

[Obfuscant]

You know, like how you're required to get multiple otherwise-useless TV set-top boxes now to access basic cable.

Who requires you to get multiple STB just for basic cable access? I can see "one", but not "multiple". And even "one" probably isn't required. Comcast would have been happy to let me turn mine in -- it means one less OnDemand user.

I had to rent a Comcast DVR if I wanted that feature again.

There are other, non-Comcast options. SiliconDust sells them, for one.

AVERAGE webpage = BIG as DOOM for DOS!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... @ 2.3mb (that's just avg. mind you too). Multiply that by multiple pages on many sites and it adds up fast!

* Simply by BLOCKING ADS (& especially video ads or script sources) that steal your bandwidth/speed (as well as security due to infected ads).

APK

P.S.=> It's why I posted about it here in this article-> https://news.slashdot.org/comm... & others like it this week since it helps saving bandwidth (besides giving you more speed, security, reliability + anonymity online)... apk

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

Your first mistake is thinking bandwidth is a limited resource for major ISPs. It's virtually unlimited compared to your home connection. Netflix will send as much data to you as you want as a subscriber and charge nothing for it...they're not limited with their bandwidth.

Yet you bought into the idea that the major ISPs are...

Backbone and transport circuits are huge, and cheap now for the carriers. They're also not really even being utilized. Wish I could post the graphs.

Oh so much better...

[Drethon]

Just like being force fed fewer bricks: http://ars.userfriendly.org/ca...

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of an exorbitant luxury item like diamonds.

Diamonds are an "exorbitant luxury" because their prices are kept high by artificial scarcity.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AntronArgaiv]

It's not "self imposed" but cost imposed. Data caps are a proxy for bandwidth use. If everyone used too much bandwidth, they'd have to buy more. So caps impose usage penalties designed to reduce overall bandwidth usage, to decrease cost.

Except that Comcast has explicitly said that the caps are not about resource management. They are solely a money-making scheme. And they are not uniform across Comcast's network. For example, I live in Eastern MA, where Comcast competes with Verizon FIOS (whiich has no caps). Guess what? Comcast has a 250G cap which is "not currently enforced".

http://time.com/money/4143682/...

The security community KNOWS better... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: He's a good man w/ a good rep in the security field & it "irked" me he demanded to see my code @ 1st (as I don't want it "out there 'Open SORES' style" for GOOD reasons both gov't. https://slashdot.org/submissio... & security pros galore see happening in abuse of it for malicious purposes https://www.helpnetsecurity.co... + what happened to GOOGLE w/ Chrome source being abused to create a malware too http://it.slashdot.org/story/1... )

* HOWEVER - it was a good thing he did since he BOTH hosts + RECOMMENDS it (as my work IS truly, the BEST of its kind, bar-none doing so in PURELY my portable single "moving part" Win32/64 executable code for fast fix + no dependence on OTHERS' work who may or MAY NOT patch or @ least quickly vs. faults in their work...).

APK

P.S.=> Lastly/Per my subject: In fact, he was instrumental in 10 major antivirus companies rescinding false positives on my work https://news.slashdot.org/comm... along w/ my efforts also proving ME right yet again... apk

Re:The security community KNOWS better... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

so what you're saying is DNS isn't reliable for the end user because the end user relies on 3rd parties to make sure it's updated, but your self-fellating bullshit is cool because...the end user relies on a 3rd party to make sure it's updated?

gotcha. the cognitive dissonance is strong with APK.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Yeah, it's easy enough to schedule off-peak usage with torrents or sabnzbd. Maybe by not "rewarding" people for doing stuff at off-peak times, ISPs are trying to encourage customers to move away from stuff like Netflix, which happens to be the ISPs competitor since they're in that business too.

And of course, the other reason to ignore peak/offpeak is that there's no "clogging" at peak. The caps weren't for conservation purposes; they were for content anti-competitive purposes.

Single-issue voters

[tepples]

But why in the world would you reelect him or the party when he screws up?

Presumably because he hasn't screwed up on other issues that are important to other voters. For example, a lot of voters think increasing or decreasing a woman's right to choose to kill her unborn child outweighs numerous sins in other areas.

Re:Single-issue voters

[fustakrakich]

Regardless, my whole point has always been that it is not the "system's" fault. All choices are still personal no matter what the motivation.

I'll let the security community speak for me

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & this link (titles of my replies blowing you away easily are self-explanatory w/ supporting links verifying HOW SECURITY ISSUE RIDDEN & FULL OF HOLES DNS is, along w/ being a RESOURCE HOGGING NIGHTMARE vs. hosts) https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9007355&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=51969075

* As always? It's been a PLEASURE dusting you completely & systematically, logically w/ undeniable verifiable concrete proofs from verifiable sources!

APK

P.S.=> You're weak - & you're right about 1 thing: I do my homework & come on STRONG completely annihilating unidentifiable worms like you (as I've done this to you before & EVERYONE knows it - hence the downmods of my posts wherever they crush you, like here https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9039579&cid=52002315) by using FACTS you cannot validly technically overcome (the bane of trolls like yourself IS truth)... apk

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[plague911]

Any they are not necessary. So big whoop. The internet is necessary for modern life which is the whole point.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. If there was a problem with limited bandwidth they would just throttle everyone equally at times of heavy traffic to prevent link saturation. There are technical solutions to limited bandwidth that work and don't cost customers money, but tellingly those tools aren't used. It should be obvious to anyone but an astroturfer why.

Finally enough bandwidth for a Steam sale!

[BrookHarty]

Finally enough bandwidth for a Steam sale!

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you don't know what you're talking about. I buy "wholesale" bandwidth for servers an I can EASILY get 20TB for less than $80. While bandwidth isn't free, you need to stop drinking the ISP Kool aid. They are price gouging every customer and stealing from every tax payer.

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ helps vs. caps

[Anonymous Coward]

By blocking ads & far more threats too APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...

Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/antivirus + less security issues/complexity. Compliments firewalls (w/ layered drivers blocking less used IP addys vs. hosts blocking more used domains) & DNS (lighten dns load). Gets data via 10 security sites.

Works vs. caps & HTTP PUSH ads w/ firewalls.

* Ads rob bandwidth/speed paid for, security (openbid adnetworks abuse), privacy in tracking + anonymity.

Hosts add speed (hardcodes/adblocks), security (bad sites/poisoned dns), reliability (dns down), & anonymity (dns requestlogtrackers) natively. Hosts != blockable by ClarityRay (like. souled-out to admen inferior wasteful redundant slower usermode browser addons)

APK

P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/... (Verified by Malwarebytes' S. Burn "I've seen the code & yes it is safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... )

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

1st off, data caps and bandwidth are not the same thing.

IF everyone had a 10 gb data cap but all decided to stream movies at the exact same time, is the bandwidth there to support that?

Bandwidth is basically how wide a pipe comcast has. Data caps refer to total traffic over time.

To help with bandwith, you get customers paying for higher speeds. And this is how it should be. You want to pull 50 mpbs, then you pay for that speed. If they have too many customers with high speed plans, then they use the profit to build out the network to support wider 'pipes' for more bandwidth.

Datacaps are meant to limit how much data you pull in a month. It has nothing to due with available bandwidth, instead its a tool to punish those users who actually use their connections to pull data.

Datacaps for a 50 mbps user vs a 10 mbps user only means that the faster user will potentially hit the cap sooner.

Its nothing more than a ploy to hurt those cord cutters who want to watch hulu and netflix instead of paying for expensive cable.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Obfuscant]

What a pity that Comcast's enforced monopoly results in usage of their network.

Where is Comcast a government-enforced monopoly ISP?

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

Yes, "wholesale" bandwidth is nearly free. I remember when "Internet" was free. But a T1 to the POP, get unlimited Internet for free. The "trick" was that the connections to the POP were expensive. The ISP "Kool-aid" is that the cost isn't getting the Internet to the user, but getting bandwidth capacity to the user.

Buying Internet in a datacenter is unrelated to the commercial considerations of a residential ISP.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

Nearly everywhere they operate, they are the government-enforced monopoly CATV/cableTV, thus the only ISP capable of using that connection method.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Obfuscant]

Nearly everywhere they operate, they are the government-enforced monopoly CATV/cableTV,

Everywhere they operate they may be the only franchisee for cable TV, but they have non-exclusive franchises. In fact, federal law prohibits exclusive franchises. That makes it NOT a government-enforced monopoly.

As for ISP service, there is no franchise system for that, and thus no government monopoly there, either. So what if they are the only incumbent cable-TV delivered internet service? That doesn't make them a monopoly as an ISP. "ISP" and "cable" are not synonyms.

Hate on Comcast for real wrongs, not this fictional "government-enforced monopoly" stuff.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Anonymous Coward]

it's only unrelated so far as the massive NSA diseducation campaign is concerned. The masses having no coherent clue about how things work is what keeps the NSA's position of relative dominance stable. If the masses could somehow unwind the 30 years of miseducation running on the 180 day abandoned email 4th ammendment logic track, the NSA would all of a sudden have to stop playing second life all day with their deconfliction unit frenemies.

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[Nutria]

My (large) ISP is not in the content creation business.

cron

[tepples]

The number of people who want to download huge files for offline use and who are willing to stay up until a particular time of night to start the download

You don't have to stay up if cron or Task Scheduler stays up for you.

is similarly tiny,

When Microsoft is pushing out a new 3 GB "build" of Windows 10 to hundreds of millions of Windows Update clients, that's certainly not "tiny".

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

So ISPs are expensive because the Internet is free, but the ISP charges an NSA tax? How is that even related to the discussion at hand?

AVERAGE webpage = BIG as DOOM for DOS!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... @ 2.3mb (that's just avg. mind you too).

* Anyone seeing how/why my program helps by BLOCKING ADS (especially video ads or script sources) that steal your bandwidth/speed (as well as security due to infected ads)?

APK

P.S.=> That's why I posted about it-> https://news.slashdot.org/comm... saving bandwidth (besides giving you more speed, security, reliability + anonymity online)... apk

Re: Which they really SHOULD

[jxander]

Not that I know of ... but that would be an interesting new feature. Especially for shows that come in seasons.

It should be pretty simple for Netflix to preload the next 2 or 3 episodes of a given show. Maybe just load 90% of each frame, so that I can't actually be watched off-line, but the download requirements to stream it during peak hours are reduced significantly. Watch a few episodes per night, let Netflix queue up the next few for tomorrow.

Of course... that all assumes that Netflix and Comcast can play nicely, and that comcast is genuinely trying to provide their customers a better experience. Dangerous assumptions on both fronts.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

In fact, federal law prohibits exclusive franchises.

Federal law may prevent "exclusive" franchises, but doesn't prevent sole franchises. The local government is enforcing "sole franchise" status, even if not "exclusive".

So what if they are the only incumbent cable-TV delivered internet service? That doesn't make them a monopoly as an ISP. "ISP" and "cable" are not synonyms.

Non sequitur. Read GP. " Comcast's enforced monopoly " There was no mention that the enforced monopoly was an ISP monopoly. That was asserted by you, as a strawman non sequitur. Either they are the sole licensee for the CATV service (making them the "exclusive" one, for the English definition of that word, even if not the legal definition), or they are not.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[Obfuscant]

Federal law may prevent "exclusive" franchises, but doesn't prevent sole franchises.

Being the only franchisee isn't a "government-granted monopoly". It is a representation of the economic truth of the matter.

The local government is enforcing "sole franchise" status, even if not "exclusive".

There is no "sole franchise status". There is a franchise which, of course, the government would enforce as any other contract. But they cannot enforce "sole franchise", because that would make that franchise exclusive. To be enforcing some "sole franchise status", the government would have to tell any applicants that they cannot have one because Comcast already has the one sole franchise. And federal law, as I've already pointed out, prohibits that. The government is not enforcing a sole-franchisee status.

Non sequitur. Read GP. " Comcast's enforced monopoly " There was no mention that the enforced monopoly was an ISP monopoly.

The context is ISP data caps. Cable television doesn't have a data cap. And the GP did, indeed, refer earlier to a "government-enforced monopoly" in that context. You can switch contexts to try to prove some evil plot on Comcast's part, but that still doesn't change the fact that they do not have a government-enforced monopoly in ANYTHING.

Either they are the sole licensee for the CATV service (making them the "exclusive" one,

They are the sole franchisee only because nobody else has bothered to get one, not because the government is enforcing some special "sole franchisee status". "Exclusive" has a meaning which is not synonymous with "sole", in either simple English or the law.

The fact is that exclusive franchises (government-enforced monopolies) are ILLEGAL for cable television systems, and Comcast does not have exclusive franchises anywhere. Hate on them for real things, not this fictional nonsense. And please stop wasting time complaining about this when even the most cursory review of franchise ordinances show they are non-exclusive -- and specifically so.

Re:Which they really SHOULD

[AK Marc]

But they cannot enforce "sole franchise", because that would make that franchise exclusive.

But they do. When your opinion and reality conflict, believing your opinion to be more correct is a mental illness called "neurosis".