It's official: Comcast starts 250GB bandwidth caps October 1

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

cable ISPs charge by the month, not year.

For stand-alone the charges are typically monthly but Comcast pushes their packages hard, especially for joint TV-Internet where the selling point is "As Low as $XX.00 a Month". Of course to get that low you have to sign up for at least 6 months, usually 12 or 24.

[Twobit Whore]

No, they offer you promotions.

You don't sign contracts. It's not a cell phone.

P.S. When you give -internets, it's "you're". Retard.

[Snugglebear]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

No, they offer you promotions.

You don't sign contracts. It's not a cell phone.

Yeah, I thought you could cancel whenever you want.

[Malakriss]

Maybe it's different by area, but the best "monthly" Comcast price around here required advance payment for the next x months. So if you were billed just last week for the next 6 months but decided to cancel, getting a refund for the unused 5 months would be as hard as canceling for AOL or Enzyte.

In some cases they would collect their equipment the week after you canceled even if you had more time, but they 'still provided the services, you just didn't have the hardware to utilize it'

[chaos]

I've been considering switching to Verizon's DSL anyway. I was concerned about the speed drop, but really it would be worth it to be able to actually download a torrent. I don't realy do much to max out Comcast's connection except torrents, which they are limiting anyway.

And Comcast, at least in Northern VA, is OBSCENELY expensive compared to Cox or even Verizon. They all in one package costs twice what mine did when I had Cox. And they weren't fucking with my downloads.

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

At least we have alternatives. Don't like the cable limit? Go to DSL, satellite or dialup.

We don't have competitive alternatives, barring the few areas of the country where FIOS or VDSL is available. Cable companies are a government-sanctioned monopoly, and bullshit like this is exactly the point when the government should be stepping in to prevent them from abusing their monopoly. I'd also prefer it if the US didn't continue to slide down into third world levels of infrastructure, and that's the path we're on now if things don't change.


And I don't know what magical city you live in but getting the rated speed on a cable connection is not common at all. I upgraded from 10Mbit to 15MBit earlier this year and nothing changed whatsoever (other than my bill). The only time I download at anywhere close to max speed is from about 3-6AM, the rest of the time I get about 900KB/s tops.

PS-I currently use about 35-40GB a month, but I don't care if these caps don't directly affect me. It's still a case of a company with a monopoly thinking they can get away with anything they want.

[Aegdaien]

Originally Posted by Terial

I know 250gb is a high number, but for gamers and those of us who download movies via Tivo or PS3 video download in HD, this cap is shit.

Games:
Warhammer Beta 10gb
Conan Beta 10GB

random patches per month (~ 15gb)

2 HD movies ~ 100GB

that takes me up to ~ 135GB

Perhaps if you didn't download DL Blu-Ray rips you wouldn't have this problem. HD VOD isn't even close to 50gb/movie.

[Northerner]

Originally Posted by Zuuljin

So in the magical land of Europe they have servers capable of handling unlimited traffic for an unlimited number of people? Or perhaps there just are not as many people using whatever service is offered in Europe therefore they can keep the caps off longer?

Think of it like traffic roads. You take your local freeway, which everyone is on, and it fucking drags. Or you find this backroad (different internet company) where you can go as fast as you want! Awesome! But soon everyone starts hearing about this magical road of unlimited speed and they drive over there, and suddenly your super fast road is clogged up just like the old shitty freeway.

Usage will keep increasing and increasing. I think it just about doubles, or more every year. Europe may be fine now, and maybe for the next 2 or 3 years, but soon they will be clogged just like everyone else.

The presumption is that is will double in 8 months or so. It is generally thought of as either Moore's times two or close enough to not worry about the fiddly bits. We have and are continually making pipes big enough to not only handle present loads but to dwarf them. It is scary as a source simply because what cost 100M$US even a decade ago to lay is now literally 30M$US and that is with worse install costs. Data moving and storing is cheap now. It really is. Handling it remains expensive and I both blame and love Cisco and others for that.

It is also really just not a big damned deal. Infrastructure is still presently outstripping demand or so closely tied as to be considered 'good'.

[Sheaf]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

No, it's really not equivalent at all and people need to stop making this retarded analogy.

You watching more TV doesn't limit your neighbor from watching TV. You downloading megafiles 24/7 DOES limit your neighbors ability to download.

They are completely not the same at all.

Should the infrastructure be better? Of course. And Europe admittedly does have better structure in some areas due to population density.

You are such an idiot. It's on the same lines for Comcast. Want to know why Comcast's HD channels look terrible compared to FiOS? Because Comcast has to compress the feeds. Why do they have to do that? Because they don't upgrade their infrastructure. It's completely in their hands.

Look, it's very simple. If you offer X bandwidth, you should deliver at least X bandwidth. Comcast doesn't because it is too cheap to upgrade the infrastructure and somehow every ISP in the US gets away with charging for certain bandwidth and never ever delivering it. There are no other limiting factors. They just don't spend the money to make sure people have fast, unlimited bandwidth and good HD channels.

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Sheaf

You are such an idiot. It's on the same lines for Comcast. Want to know why Comcast's HD channels look terrible compared to FiOS? Because Comcast has to compress the feeds. Why do they have to do that? Because they don't upgrade their infrastructure. It's completely in their hands.

Look, it's very simple. If you offer X bandwidth, you should deliver at least X bandwidth. Comcast doesn't because it is too cheap to upgrade the infrastructure and somehow every ISP in the US gets away with charging for certain bandwidth and never ever delivering it. There are no other limiting factors. They just don't spend the money to make sure people have fast, unlimited bandwidth and good HD channels.

So answer this for me, Do you want them to set the maximum speed to what the lines could handle if every customer was using the system concurrently? Or would you rather have them figure out a maximum speed based on usage patterns which would allow them to set a higher cap?

You act as if they should support every single user downloading/uploading at 16/2 concurently, but if they had the infrastructure to do that, they could offer 60/10 etc.

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Hachima

So answer this for me, Do you want them to set the maximum speed to what the lines could handle if every customer was using the system concurrently? Or would you rather have them figure out a maximum speed based on usage patterns which would allow them to set a higher cap?

You act as if they should support every single user downloading/uploading at 16/2 concurently, but if they had the infrastructure to do that, they could offer 60/10 etc.

If they sell you 16/2 you should be provided 16/2, but the issue with Comcast is that their network can't handle 60% of the user base at less than maximum bandwidth. Yet still they continue to sell 16/2 to more and more customers without upgrading their network to handle more.

By your last sentence it should be obvious what the answer is: they don't have the infrastructure to even offer 16/2, because their actual capability can't even support every user at 8/1.

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Malakriss

If they sell you 16/2 you should be provided 16/2, but the issue with Comcast is that their network can't handle 60% of the user base at less than maximum bandwidth. Yet still they continue to sell 16/2 to more and more customers without upgrading their network to handle more.

By your last sentence it should be obvious what the answer is: they don't have the infrastructure to even offer 16/2, because their actual capability can't even support every user at 8/1.

So you are in favor of lower download speeds even when the network can support higher speeds. Interesting.

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Hachima

So you are in favor of lower download speeds even when the network can support higher speeds. Interesting.

Did you just imagine something there or were you suddenly stricken to be deaf, dumb, and blind?

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Malakriss

Did you just imagine something there or were you suddenly stricken to be deaf, dumb, and blind?

Are you sure they can't handle 61% of the users and not 60%? Why not make up a few more percentages for us?

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Hachima

Are you sure they can't handle 61% of the users and not 60%? Why not make up a few more percentages for us?

Yeah, deaf, dumb, and blind. You can't respond to when someone calls you out on making up shit that they supposedly said, so now you try bashing number examples like they're some sort of published journal entry? Holy fuck you're stupider than a 3rd grader on reading and comprehension skills.

Comcast does not have the network to handle their current customer base. There have been numerous threads and articles on the matter where comcast does not provide the speeds you pay for. The majority of the people paying for 16/2 don't get close to that speed. Even worse is that people with lesser plans try upgrading and their speeds remain the same because that's the max they can provide.

Anyways, welcome to the Khorum club, Hachima.