Who's upset about the 250GB/month bandwidth limit imposed by Comcast?

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10-03-2008
SlyMaelstrom

Who's upset about the 250GB/month bandwidth limit imposed by Comcast?

Are there any other Comcast subscribers on the forum? If you're not familiar with it: Comcast, which is the second largest Internet Service Provider in the United States has imposed a 250GB bandwidth cap to all residential subscribers as of October 1st, 2008. (LINK)

Now, I'm a fairly technical person... maybe not the most technical when compared to the members on this forum... but to the average Joe, I'm a right-out geek. However, I don't feel at all restricted by this bandwidth limit... the fact is that there is a ton of outrage over this by people that won't even come close to being affected. While, I can see the concern for the few that will be affected (People that run some private servers from home or people that use online data backup repositories)... but am I the only one that thinks the outrage over this is way overblown?

To me it's like... a 24-hour McDonalds decided to change its hours to 7:00AM-3:00AM because the one guy that gets the munchies at 4:30AM just isn't paying the electric bill and night manager's salary... except, for some reason... all of those prime-time fast food lovers are going nuts...

I don't like limits as much as the next guy, but this isn't the government here... it's a private company offering a service... they make their own rules and rightfully so... so if their change in rules don't affect you, then I personally think you or anyone you know then you shouldn't complain about it. Personally, I think this is just aftershock from Comcast's P2P throttling that the FCC banned recently.

I don't want to be a Comcast fanboy here, but I've been with Comcast, Cablevision (one of the top 10), Time Warner (I think one of the top 3), and Earthlink (I had a stint with their DSL in the early 21st Century)... and Comcast is by far the best service that I've been with.
10-03-2008
abachler

bandwidth limits are stupid. The equipment costs the same amount to run whether you make maximum use of it or it sits there idle. I can see throttling bandwidth during peak times so everyone gets the same amount, but having allocated total bandwidth sounds like their IT guy is an accountant and doesnt really understand the technology. Just go with a different ISP ASAP, you will have nothign but headaches from them.

As for teh 4:30 munchies, I generally patronize the sotres that are open when its convenient to me,. If McDonalds is closed when i need a burger adn Wendies is open, Ill probably start going to Wendies durign normal hours too. Thats also a bit fo a non-uissue, since any fast food joint that doesnt have a night crew probably doesnt do nightly cleaning, and I wont be eatign there anyway. If the crew is there anyway they might as well be open for that one guy.
10-03-2008
psychopath

I'd, personally, be just fine with 250GB....we only get 60GB with Rogers here. :/
10-03-2008
cpjust

I use Rogers, but I don't think I'd even use 250GB in a year, let alone in a month.
10-03-2008
psychopath

For the average household, 250GB/mo is defiantly more than enough. The problem we have, is there's eight uni students (myself included) with an addiction to "bandwidth consuming activities" living in the house. 60GB doesn't get real far.
10-03-2008
Elysia

I believe that they previously had an undefined bandwidth cap.
Don't get me wrong on this one, but it's good that at least they publically set a limit so people can SEE if they're approaching it.
Of course, I do not agree with bandwidth limits anyway. Screw the ISP and get another one. People in the US really have to stack to the good ones since more and more ISPs seem to be turning evil.
10-03-2008
Dino

Let me see... A 2GB limit (or 1/125th of 250GB) would allow about 280,000 porn pictures @ 256KB each to be downloaded, per day, every day for 30 days.

Nope, shouldn't affect me.

NO WAIT - my math was wrong. That's only 4096 pictures per month... They're going to ........ some people off.

edit#2: Math still wrong. 250GB is about 32K pictures @ 256KB each per day. phew.
10-03-2008
Perspective

Quote:

Originally Posted by abachler

bandwidth limits are stupid. The equipment costs the same amount to run whether you make maximum use of it or it sits there idle. I can see throttling bandwidth during peak times so everyone gets the same amount, but having allocated total bandwidth sounds like their IT guy is an accountant and doesnt really understand the technology. Just go with a different ISP ASAP, you will have nothign but headaches from them.

Most of these ISPs report that %5 of their users use up %95 of their bandwidth, as long as the cap is around double what the average person could ever need I think it's a fine idea.
10-03-2008
Salem

You mean 10GB/day isn't enough?

I mean, if you're worried that it's only enough to download 4 hours worth of DVD quality TV and panicing over what to do with the other 20 hours in the day, then maybe.

My ISP has a much better idea that midnight to 6am doesn't count to your monthly allowance, so if you've got a lot to grab, and the sense to schedule things, then you don't lose anything when the network would otherwise be pretty idle.
10-03-2008
robwhit

I think this would affect gamers most. And the comparison between the average joe's bandwidth usage and an the average gamer's bandwidth usage is pretty disparate.
10-03-2008
master5001

I am happy to see Comcast actually posting an official cap. They have always inflicted bandwidth degredation to me after a certain point. Except when I was living in Oregon. Why do this? Well first off I should point out that in nearly every other country unlimited bandwidth is unheard of. Secondly, with a show of hands, how many of us rent out web-space? Now be honest here, I won't tell Comcast.

Either a lot of hands just went up or a lot of people just got a good idea as to how to make their old computers useful. I think a 250GB cap is a fair enough... Although, believe it or not, I can exceed it if they give me a chance. Especially when I was doing web hosting.
10-03-2008
whiteflags

>> I believe that they previously had an undefined bandwidth cap.

They merely kept it a secret and advertised it as such. Reportedly, before announcing the cap, people would get very angry letters from comcast, banning their IPs from the network, or something like that.

If I could pay $.01/Mb each month for internet I would. That way I can pay for what I use, and hogs can be hogs and line the telecommunications industry's pocket.
10-03-2008
master5001

I use way less net these days, but once upon a time bandwidth was a 5.2GB/day habit for me. Though even at that rate, I would be fine with the 250 cap. Fine indeed :)
10-03-2008
VirtualAce

This would definitely affect me since I regularly download patches, SDKs, and play games online. If they restrict my bandwidth I'll probably restrict my payment that month.
:D
10-04-2008
Elysia

Quote:

Originally Posted by master5001

...Well first off I should point out that in nearly every other country unlimited bandwidth is unheard of...

Is it? I have never heard of limited bandwidth over here.
At least never something that makes it to news. And of course, my own connection is unlimited.
10-04-2008
SlyMaelstrom

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

Is it? I have never heard of limited bandwidth over here.
At least never something that makes it to news. And of course, my own connection is unlimited.

Well it wouldn't make the news if it had already been in place for a long time. Besides... I'm not sure that I'm the only one who doesn't know where "here" is referring to in your case.
10-04-2008
Elysia

The point was that unlimited bandwidth isn't unheard of.
10-04-2008
SlyMaelstrom

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

The point was that unlimited bandwidth isn't unheard of.

I think that point was made when master5001 typed "nearly." :)

Regardless, your statement to back up the point is still invalid... even though the point wasn't in question in the first place. Anyway, I'm almost sensing some sort of defense mechanism coming out of you for asking where you're from... so please don't feel any pressure to answer it.
10-04-2008
cpjust

Quote:

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Besides... I'm not sure that I'm the only one who doesn't know where "here" is referring to in your case.

I've been waiting to hear that answer for over a year now. ;) I can only guess, based on the times she usually posts the most, that "here" is somewhere in Asia.
10-04-2008
SlyMaelstrom

Quote:

Originally Posted by cpjust

I've been waiting to hear that answer for over a year now. ;) I can only guess, based on the times she usually posts the most, that "here" is somewhere in Asia.

*shrug*

I really don't care about the answer... it just seemed pertinent for us to understand the point s/he was making. Once this topic bites the dust then so will my interest.
10-05-2008
zacs7

Just a query, how much is this 250GB internet? Australia has no such thing, to get 24Mbps with 25GB is around $90 AUD. Australia has crap internet :(
10-05-2008
SlyMaelstrom

Quote:

Originally Posted by zacs7

Just a query, how much is this 250GB internet? Australia has no such thing, to get 24Mbps with 25GB is around $90 AUD. Australia has crap internet :(

Hmm... agreed. My service offers 16Mbps (though I get 30-34Mbps on it for some reason) at the 250GB cap for about $55USD. Personally, I think a lot of people are complaining for nothing.
10-05-2008
Elysia

Well, I can only say you need to download a heavy amount of movies to transfer that much bandwidth each month.
And just for the curious, my service is 24/10 (unlimited bandwidth) for around $40. Could be cheaper, but it's monopoly on this stupid apartment. So to speak anyway.
10-05-2008
SlyMaelstrom

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

Well, I can only say you need to download a heavy amount of movies to transfer that much bandwidth each month.
And just for the curious, my service is 24/10 (unlimited bandwidth) for around $40. Could be cheaper, but it's monopoly on this stupid apartment. So to speak anyway.

All regions in NY and NJ are monopolized somewhat by the ISPs. Basically, in any given town, you only have one option for highspeed internet. Recently with Verizon breaking this with its FIOS connections. Hopefully as they make a bigger impact we'll see the prices drop even more.

Eventually, though, it's apparent that everyone will switch to FIOS once 30-40Mbps just isn't cutting it anymore and FIOS is the only option.
10-05-2008
Mario F.

Over here we have unlimited bandwidth if we pay for it. Usually somewhere between 10 to 15 (us money). Otherwise the limit is pretty much agreed on by all providers to be on 60Gb on a 24Mbps connection.

Last month I've been pretty much active with several linux distros downloads since I've become somewhat unhappy with my SUSE distribution on the lenovo laptop I bought a few months ago. Overall I spent 37Gb of active torrent downloads, listened to radio, chat on skype, updated a couple of websites and downloaded meaningless packges for Linux... I used up 46Gb in September. Honestly, I never used this much before.

So... quiet frankly 250Gb is huge! Casual, gamers, and even power users won't feel a thing. Besides downloading and watching illegal movies is no excuse.
10-05-2008
abachler

Quote:

Originally Posted by robwhit

I think this would affect gamers most. And the comparison between the average joe's bandwidth usage and an the average gamer's bandwidth usage is pretty disparate.

Yes, gaming and running a chat program liek Ventrilo or Teamspeak eats enourmous bandwidth without it necessarily being 'illegal downloads'. Once again the industry is 10 years behind the times on what is actually occuring in their field. The base assumption is that using a lot of bandwidth either indicates illegal activity, or that it in some way harms the ISP. As stated above, the equipment costs the same to operate whether you use nothing or all the available capacity. It really boils down to the ISP's not wanting to expand capacity to meet demand and needing some way to justify that decision. Bandwidth isnt a typical commodity, if you dont use it t doesnt accumulate. When I sign a contract I am contracting for a certain bandwidth rate, not a certain total download amount. If They are goign to switch to a total download based model then I want my entire allocation in one second. If I buy 1000 pork bellies I expect them to all be delivered at one time, not trickled in 2 or 3 at a time as they feel liek it. If on the other hand I contract for 50 pork bellies a day that doesnt mean I want all 1500 at once either. If they are going to switch to an allocation based model they need to be extremely exploicit about what they are selling. Many ISP's tried this model in teh early days, compueserve even had a connection time based model. In the end the market determined that what people want is unrestricted access at the fastest rate possible.

Ultimately I think they are just trying to switch tot he same business model as cellular service, because the math is simpler which means they need less technically saavy managers, which is alwasy a bad thing even if you can get away with it.
10-05-2008
GanglyLamb

I really dont understand what everyone is complaining about. I pay 45 EUR / month to get 20 GB monthly (this includes up and download). And I even have to share this with 4 people... do the math yourselves (to #GB/daily_per_person) because I know I'll cry otherwise.

Let me just hope my savings that are in the bank will last till the end of the year or even better that my bank will last till the end of the year (these days one can never know for sure), and maybe Ill be able to upgrade my internetconnection to another provider (more expensive but at least a higher limit).

:edit:
On the other hand I can understand that people feel upset about it, in the end you were used to a certain service and now the quality of it is less but you probably pay the same monthly fee.
10-05-2008
abachler

No, it bothers me because it makes no sence, they arent increasing prices because the cost of bandwidth is goign up, they are arbitrarily puttign restirictions on use that are out of touch with the technollogy. It would be like a taxi charging you not by the mile, but by how many hot dog's the drivers cousin can eat.
10-05-2008
cpjust

Quote:

Originally Posted by abachler

No, it bothers me because it makes no sence, they arent increasing prices because the cost of bandwidth is goign up, they are arbitrarily puttign restirictions on use that are out of touch with the technollogy. It would be like a taxi charging you not by the mile, but by how many hot dog's the drivers cousin can eat.

They're doing it so they won't need to increase prices for the 95% of people who don't come anywhere close to that limit. Why should I have to pay more for bandwidth that I'm not using?
10-06-2008
robwhit

What rates do the ISPs pay to connect their networks to the trunk lines?

Quote:

Originally Posted by zacs7

Just a query, how much is this 250GB internet? Australia has no such thing, to get 24Mbps with 25GB is around $90 AUD. Australia has crap internet :(

Probably because of all the transoceanic lines. That what you get for living on a giant island.