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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Why should Comcast give everyone unlimited access to a self imposed limited resource?
Fixed that for you
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.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
Comcast does not have caps in all locations. I have uncapped bandwidth on Comcast in Portland, OR.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
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.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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.)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
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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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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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.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
A year ago Cox raised the limit of "unlimited" from 400 to 2T in my area.
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.
So you want wholesale pricing on residential lines? I don't see that working out as well as you seem to imply.
Learn to love Alaska
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
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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?
moox. for a new generation.
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.
Just like being force fed fewer bricks: http://ars.userfriendly.org/ca...
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/...
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.
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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.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Any they are not necessary. So big whoop. The internet is necessary for modern life which is the whole point.
Finally enough bandwidth for a Steam sale!
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.
There are campaigns right now to legally forbid data caps on home internet, here on Brazil: what I think of it? Pure nonsense...
What a pity that Comcast's enforced monopoly results in usage of their network.
Where is Comcast a government-enforced monopoly ISP?
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.
Learn to love Alaska
Nearly everywhere they operate, they are the government-enforced monopoly CATV/cableTV, thus the only ISP capable of using that connection method.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
My (large) ISP is not in the content creation business.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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".
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?
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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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.
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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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.
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".
Learn to love Alaska