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Comcast Rolls Out $70-Per-Month Gigabit Internet Service In Chicago (pcmag.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via PC Magazine: Comcast is now offering Chicagoans gigabit internet speeds. PC Magazine reports: "Launched on Wednesday, the program uses DOCSIS 3.1 technology to deliver speeds up to 1Gbps over existing network infrastructure. DOCSIS 3.1 runs through standard cable connections already in place at your home or office. So Xfinity and Comcast Business Internet customers can simply sign up for a plan and plug in a new modem; no fiber installation required. The service, according to Comcast, allows you to download a 5GB HD movie in 40 seconds, a 60MB TV episode in four seconds, a 150MB music album in two seconds, or a 15GB video game in two minutes. Initial users have the choice of a promotional contract price of $70 per month for 36 months, or $139.95 per month (plus tax and fees) with no contract."
Yeah, if the server you're downloading from supports those speeds, which it likely doesn't.
*60MB in four seconds, a 150MB in two seconds*
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I don't think I'd want to watch a video with such atrocious bitrates, even if it was SD.
The summary should note that the $70 deal is only good in cities where there is Google Fiber. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/comcasts-70-gigabit-offer-is-only-good-in-cities-with-google-fiber/
Guess this is a preemptive action against Google's rollout. Wonder how Comcast is doing with their local official bribing campaign in Chicago?
TL;DR: Every time I hear "Comcast", I think of how an ass smells.
Fuck you Comcast!
Comcast and the rest of the cable companies are the modern day digital equivalent versions of the highwayman robbery!
oOoooooOOhhhh how touching! - Q, ST:TNG
For it to be 60MB... wow. Make it at least 300MB
56kbps
Uh-huh. I notice they're being conspicuously silent on upload speeds. "Gee, how nice I can download a movie in a couple minutes, but how long will I have to wait to upload the video of my daughter's ${WINTER_HOLIDAY} pageant?"
Meanwhile, Google Fiber is 1Gb/sec symmetric.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Even more importantly, if you haven't burned through your cap for the month first. I haven't heard much recently about it, but a bit ago Comcast was still planning on instituting a 300GB a month cap, despite selling the service as unlimited. Gigabit won't do you much good with a 300GB cap...
=^_^= This is my cat face. I hope you like it.
they went to 1tb
Good luck with that. I predict you will get much less than 1Gbps, especially at busy times of the day when lots of your neighbors are also getting "up to" 1Gbps and watching tv, and you will be locked into a 3-year contract or paying twice as much for non-contract service. I used to be a comcast customer. We had to reboot their router about once or twice per day. We regularly lost internet connectivity. In fact we regularly lost the cable TV signal and some of the channels never did come through clearly. Then they scrambled the signal that we were already paying for and replaced it with a message that they had done it "for [our] convenience." We couldn't watch the channels we were paying for unless we went and got one of their descramblers. We could get a descrambler for one TV for free for a limited time, or something like that (I believe we had to pay for a second one to descramble for the second tv in a different room).
We've had google fiber for a couple of years now and I've only had to reboot the router one or two times that entire time. Every speedtest is over 900Mbps (both up and down). I hope I never have to go back to comcast.
Heck, for Gigabit, I think even a 1TB is low. I know it is for my family... there's 5 of us in the house, usually watching different things at the same time, and the only thing keeping us from watching multiple 4k streams at the same time is our bandwidth. Assuming each of us watched 2 hours a night and did nothing else, we would be through the cap in about half a month.
Have fun hitting your 250gb cap.
Most of the ISPs I've had or researched all increased prices after a year or two of service. Comcast's ~$50 service went to ~$70. CenturyLink's services increase by about $30. (The 40/40 Mbps $40 service becomes $70, the $110 gigabit becomes $140).
You can hit a 250gb bandwidth cap in 35 minutes if you're downloading at 1Gbps.
I'm sure Crapcast will be happy to charge you by the megabyte past that figure, after all the other fiber competition is removed from the area via the magic of free markets.
The bigger question is, where the hell are you allowed to download a 5GB movie? It sounds to me like the Comcast arm is catering to torrenters while the Universal arm is busy preparing to sue anyone who uses it.
You can still buy a movie on iTunes and legally download it to your computer.
Don't know how many people still do this; it usually doesn't cost less than the Bluray so if I'm going to outright buy a movie I'd rather just get the physical disc, which almost always includes a download code anyway these days.
Bell Canada "Gigabit Fibe" FTTH up here in Canuckistan. $150 CAD for full unlimited 940 Mbps up / 100 Mbps down. I pull down 3-4 TB a month.
Probably because it's Fri night, and the woman wants to watch a chick flick, and instead of driving to the store you buy it on iTunes.
Is unamusing to note my internet from Xfinity is ~$70 / month for 50 / 10 speeds :|
Probably because it's Fri night, and the woman wants to watch a chick flick, and instead of driving to the store you buy it on iTunes.
But why not stream it instead for a fraction of the price? Or do you actually watch the same chick flick more than once?
I haven't bought a movie since my daughter turned six. At five or younger they really like to watch the same movie over and over. I guess they feel secure already knowing exactly what is going to happen next. She must have watched "Barbie Rapunzel" at least a hundred times.
Is there really that much stuff in 4K to watch?
My granddaughters do that. They'll watch a show then rewind it and watch it again. Sometimes 3 or 4 times. I bet they've watched Tangled at least 200 times.
There's more every day. Netflix's library is actually halfway decent with new content already, relative to how new the standard is. And it's clear that content for 4k will be pushed out a lot harder than the HDTV content was when it first became available. So right now it may be a little sparse still, but in 6 months or a year or a year and a half? I'm quite sure we'll be swimming in it.
I'm assuming that Google fiber is available in that area, because Comcast is pretty much only providing these offers in areas where they have some actual competition. Elsewhere, it's the usual monopolistic rates.
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At my peak in bachelorhood I was having trouble reaching 250 GB/mo according to my DD-WRT router. I don't know how one family could burn through 5TB in one month.
moox. for a new generation.
I watch pulp fiction every Sunday after church.
Says the cow!
So... this is just two dudes in a cow costume and one of them is Charlie Brown?
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
I burned thru a terabyte and a half just by loading my steam games on my new PC.
I wouldn't mind the terabyte cap - as long as they capped their cable tv watchers (and surfers) on the same limit.
Unfortunately, con cast is looking to screw over the cord cutters and since it's either at$t or con cast in the metro area - there is no realistic budget plan that gets you a decent speed for less than 50 bucks.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
So now you can reach your data cap in 40 seconds! WOW!
Then like 20% of their customers are murdered! How do you factor in that beyond attrition a good percentage of your customers will be murdered in a place where they perhaps have the best gun control?
Love me some idiot liberals!
I think they are spying on me for that price so I have pornhub playing 24/7 on a spare PC.
Same as my kid :( so much time wasted.
A monthly cap is very telling. It means that they don't have the capacity to deliver what they sold.
The idea with the cap is that the user will limit how much the use the bandwidth so that the average will be low enough for them to handle.
If everyone decides to use the bandwidth at the same time the company will not be able to deliver even if no-one is close to exceeding the cap.
If a monthly cap exists you should take it as a sign that you won't be able to get what you paid for.
I can't think of much in content I need to watch in 4K?
term "contracts" for television, telephone and internet access, especially for home and small businesses is a fucking scam.... 3 fucking years? more than double the price if you don't sign up? for a commodity item that will only decrease in price? scam. scam. scam.
its $140 per month, plus modem, plus franchise fees, plus unbundled service surcharge, plus taxes and other made-up bullshit, so probably closer to $200 per month. and that's not counting the booze and other pain and depression 'medications' needed for dealing with comcast morons and service.
I can get 6 Mbps at 300GB/mo or 10 Mbps at 250GB/mo but either way we paid the telcos to expand broadband to everyone and they didn't. Fuck this third world country.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
>"Comcast Rolls Out $70-Per-Month Gigabit Internet Service In Chicago "
>"Initial users have the choice of a promotional contract price of $70 per month for 36 months, or $139.95 per month (plus tax and fees) with no contract."
So it is *NOT* $70/mo, which is only for new customers, only for a short time, and only with a contract. It is probably more like $150 to $160 per month after additional money for hidden fees and then more for taxes.
I am extremely sick and tired of these misleading and dishonest pricing structures of cable companies.
There are five of us also - monthly we use around 900GB to 1.3TB. This is mainly Netflix, Skype and other streaming services. We don't watch any 4K. We don't torrent.
This is on an unlimited 80/20 VDSL service in the UK.
Jason.
Try Wide Open West. They cover much of Chicagoland, video is unencrypted QAM (so most people don't need a cable box) and their internet service doesn't have data caps.
Is there really that much stuff in 4K to watch?
4K is in the same state right now as the first days of stereo, when the only 'content' everyone had to show off was that vinyl demo record of the train running through the middle of the house.
I know that it was a long time after 1080p was introduced before there was much to watch. I finally upgraded to a 1080p TV when I noticed I couldn't see the score during live televised football games. Even then a lot of the shows I saw weren't 1080. I do love HD though and I know I'll be wanting a 4K system sooner or later. I just like to wait until it's economically reasonable. Right now I have a 500GB data cap and I think 4K would eat that up pretty quick.
That would be nice. I'm guessing they have no plans to include South Georgia in their coverage area in the near future though. I get internet from a local cable company and they're pretty good compared to what they have North of me in Macon. They've got Cox cable who are some seriously greedy bastards. My cable company is pretty limited by the fact they cover such a rural area. I'm paying 100 dollars a month for 75/5 speeds which is high but service is great.
You aren't paying for a wide open faucet. In the first place, it would cost way more than that, and secondly, it would be pretty much impossible without some serious advances in backbone technology.
can I get 1/2 gb service for $35 ??
You're on slashdot, no chick flicks here
I don't even know why that should matter? If they claim that I could get 1 Gbps then it shouldn't matter if I use it for looking at a 4k movie every weekend or for streaming number from random.org.
Their business is the amount of bandwidth they provide. The content of the data is my business.
AC here.
I don't live in the US so when I pay $40 for 30/30Mbps I actually get it 24/7 without caps.
1Gbps symmetric would cost me $100/month no caps.
I can get it now without advances in backbone technology.
Should they run out of bandwidth they can increase the price until people no longer want it instead of lying about what they can deliver. That way you can make an informed choice about what you pay for.
The problem that exists in the US is that the market is locked up by a few greedy companies that rather use lawyers to lock out competition than compete.
It is a political problem rather than a technical one. You have to learn to tell people who feel entitled to a minimum profit to fuck off. In true capitalism competition drives down prices until profits become marginal.
Nobody loves a contract but they are pretty standard in the ISP business where there is hardware involved. For a typical WISP it's somewhere two to four hundred bucks installation plus a year's contract. Presumably they will require a spendy new modem. Having a $70/mo rate locked in for three years is fantastic if you're not planning to move.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Where as that $70 is conceivably forever and if you pay the $300 construction fee your internet is free for upto 7 years. Sneaky marketing Comcast, now tell us whats up with Tennesee.
Nicely done USA, finally you have the same as we have in here Finland! All tho DNA Valokuitu Plus is still a bit cheaper
PFSense says I'm using about 11 TB/month
it would be pretty much impossible without some serious advances in backbone technology
The backbone is about 70% idle and 90% of the fiber is dark. We're not even using the latest tech. Current tech in use is good for 100Gb per fiber, but the latest tech from the last 8 years is good for about 32Tb/s. Supply is way outpacing demand. I'm paying $50/m for a dedicated 150/150 fiber connection.
An uncapped fiber ISP selling 1gb/1gb with no congestion issues said 1.5% of their revenue goes to infrastructure and even less to bandwidth. Nearly all of their cost is customer support, sales, and advertising. Bandwidth hasn't been an issue for a long while.
The have very limited coverage in the Chicago area, and are not an option for the vast majority.
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The bigger question is, where the hell are you allowed to download a 5GB movie? It sounds to me like the Comcast arm is catering to torrenters while the Universal arm is busy preparing to sue anyone who uses it.
Comcast's own mobile apps allow subscribers to download movies from their On Demand service for offline viewing. You can't export or copy it, but it does actually download the whole thing.
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I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're