The FCC Has Received Over 13K Complaints About Comcast’s Data Caps

Even though the company is huge and serves millions of customers, 13,000 complaints about data caps sure seems awful high. It makes you wonder what the numbers are for other large ISPs.

We were told that more than 13,000 complaints had already been filed with the Federal Communications Commission that fit our search criteria about Comcast’s unethical practice of imposing data caps. Due to the time it would take to process all 13,000+ of these complaints, we weren’t able to get our hands on all of these complaints, but we did obtain just under 2,000 of them.

This isn't even rolled out Nationally, its only in a few TEST markets. I cant wait until they roll this out to everyone and get beat up from their customers. Hopefully 10000s of disconnections.

As always, I'm happy it isn't in effect in my area. As a result, I've actually been pretty damn happy with my internet service from Comcast. If they do, you'd better believe I'll start looking into that CenturyLink fiber.

I hate data caps BUT...cellphone companies cap their data usage. Why wouldn't Comcast do any differently? I don't see how anything can be done as long as wireless companies are allowed to cap everything.

Comcast has been on a Slamming and Shunting campaign for at least the last year.
A Shunt is when a new customer has been moved to an Available or Less busy Comcast Hub often located across the country.
As a result they can say a package of XXX speed has been sold.
But the connection is routing across the nation and back.
Shunting usually happens after a customer has been Slammed.

Shunting also happens en mass to old customers without any notification of coarse

bomni said:

I hate data caps BUT...cellphone companies cap their data usage. Why wouldn't Comcast do any differently? I don't see how anything can be done as long as wireless companies are allowed to cap everything.

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Cell phone companies dont charge you per usage tier and speed tier.

It's in my area and it SUCKS.

Even thought I'm not in the "test" city (Over an hour away from it in fact) they still count me as being "in the area" so it affects me.

Really hope EPB expands and I can switch to Fiber, 1gb speed (10x more then what I get now) and no data caps for TEN dollars less then what I am currently paying.

ChedWick said:

Cell phone companies dont charge you per usage tier and speed tier.

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Actually, they do. Well technically some of them do.

bomni said:

I hate data caps BUT...cellphone companies cap their data usage. Why wouldn't Comcast do any differently? I don't see how anything can be done as long as wireless companies are allowed to cap everything.

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Cell phone is a whole different ball game in the first place. It's best to think wireline and wireless as completely separate, because I don't think anyone even puts them in the same category.

erexx said:

Comcast has been on a Slamming and Shunting campaign for at least the last year.
A Shunt is when a new customer has been moved to an Available or Less busy Comcast Hub often located across the country.
As a result they can say a package of XXX speed has been sold.
But the connection is routing across the nation and back.
Shunting usually happens after a customer has been Slammed.

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Could you link to more info about this? I think this might be happening to me, because I'm downloading a bunch of stuff from different locations and then suddenly my internet just goes down. I could say it's just random glitching, but frankly this has happened two times now in the past week or so. I start up all these downloads and then all of the sudden my connection goes down. This is starting really piss me off. If Comcast didn't have a monopoly, maybe they'd actually give a crap.

For what it's worth, I'm still somewhat advocating guns and pitchforks level rebellions vs these ISP's but realistically very few people will do something like that over an internet connection. We need some sort of way to make these entities feel real fear. That's the only way we'll see any change.

erexx said:

Comcast has been on a Slamming and Shunting campaign for at least the last year.
A Shunt is when a new customer has been moved to an Available or Less busy Comcast Hub often located across the country.
As a result they can say a package of XXX speed has been sold.
But the connection is routing across the nation and back.
Shunting usually happens after a customer has been Slammed.

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As someone who worked at Comcast on the very same CMTS your cable modem connects to, this is untrue. If anything, the nightly routine is upgrading 10GB interfaces to 100GB, and adding capacity to existing CMTS. Basically every night there's an upgrade going on somewhere. We did not move random people from one CMTS to another, that would be a ton of work.

Marcdaddy said:

This isn't even rolled out Nationally, its only in a few TEST markets. I cant wait until they roll this out to everyone and get beat up from their customers. Hopefully 10000s of disconnections.

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The whole "test markets" is them just trying to cover their ass and keep media attention down as they slowly roll it out to everyone.

bomni said:

I hate data caps BUT...cellphone companies cap their data usage. Why wouldn't Comcast do any differently? I don't see how anything can be done as long as wireless companies are allowed to cap everything.

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Funny how you say that when more and more cellphone companies with cap are ready switch to unlimited plan.
There only doing to try save there TV service just like CableONE which odd as they still seeing hugh subscribers loss but funny thing is that not going to save them.
Do worry Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix will be next as more people move to online steaming there new real problem coming up and they are Television Media Networks building there own App Portal
2nd problem swtich from what was all ready unlimited in frist place for min years and now there change back to Speed Tiers and XYZ data caps is load of BS.
My god if Google can sell a service for $130 that TV DVR with 8 Tuner + Gigabit Internet that alone is way better deal then what I have rigth now which way more and the way keep going there cut out low income people.

[21CW]killerofall;1042035997 said:

Actually, they do. Well technically some of them do.

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I'm aware of none. Only scenario I can think of is when you run out of your data limit or his a soft cap they throttle you. But no cell phone providers in the US that I'm familiar with sell plans based on speed tiers and data caps. You get w/e speeds they're capable of which can vary pending coverage, congestion and mobile phone ability. Maybe I'm out of the loop, idk. I do know its BS to charge what they are and limit your speed and how much you can access.

Marcdaddy said:

This isn't even rolled out Nationally, its only in a few TEST markets. I cant wait until they roll this out to everyone and get beat up from their customers. Hopefully 10000s of disconnections.

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That only happens if there's competition from UVerse, Fiber or some other non DSL broadband provider.

But have no fear, when they roll this out, they'll have a plan that's really unlimited for an extra $30-$35/year. It's already being tested in some markets.

It's a huge ripoff. I get unlimited data with faster speeds from TWC (and there's no competitor in my area) for 55 bucks. Comcast would charge around 100 for my plan with a cap.

shspvr said:

Funny how you say that when more and more cellphone companies with cap are ready switch to unlimited plan.

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which carriers are switching to unlimited? The trend I've seen is towards buckets of data. They're all doing their damnedest to get people off grandfathered unlimited plans. I can't imagine they'd want to go back, because there are more constraints on bandwidth with wireless than there is for wired internet.

nilepez said:

which carriers are switching to unlimited? The trend I've seen is towards buckets of data. They're all doing their damnedest to get people off grandfathered unlimited plans. I can't imagine they'd want to go back, because there are more constraints on bandwidth with wireless than there is for wired internet.

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GIVmobile, T-Mobile, MetroPCS and Boost Mobile Unlimited Talk, Text and Data

It just makes no sense for people on like say, Extreme (105mbps) which is like 90 bucks to have the same 300gb cap as someone on the $30 plan at 20mbps.

It's absurd to think someone paying an extra 70 bucks should be beholden to a low cap when they are paying for that speed because they most likely:

1. Stream a lot
2. Play games
3. Need bandwidth.

shspvr said:

GIVmobile, T-Mobile, MetroPCS and Boost Mobile Unlimited Talk, Text and Data

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Aside from T-Mobile, none of those are Tier one providers. Not sure what network GIV uses (never heard of htem before), but Metro is riding on T-Mobile and unless something's changed, Boost is a Sprint prepaid imprint.

I'm not 100% sure about T-Mobile, but sprint has always had an unlimited data plan. I've got one. I suspect T-Mobile get's preference of Metro if there's a lot of traffic. Boost probably works the same way, but it doesn't matter, because Sprint's network is very spotty and even when you have LTE, you'll often get speeds that are below top 3G speeds. The point is with the possible exception of T-Mobile, you'll get throttled in some way, simply because your company doesn't own the towers or the back haul.

Regardless, this doesn't represent a trend. Companies all put in boxes in the last 2 years to handle data buckets, and they're not going back anytime soon, because for the vast majority of customers, buckets cost the same or less than unlimited and they high bandwidth users, because they clog the towers.

Personally, if I switch to Metro or Cricket, I'm going with a cheap plan. Most of my data consumption occurs in areas with WiFi (home/work). On Cricket, I'd take the $35 plan. On those occasions where I'll be on the road a lot, I'd bump it up to the 45 plan.

Now if you don't use anything but your phone for data, then I get wanting an unlimited plan, but otherwise, just seems like the prepaid buckets are a better deal (at least with Cricket).

shspvr said:

GIVmobile, T-Mobile, MetroPCS and Boost Mobile Unlimited Talk, Text and Data

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Edit: just realized T-Mobile bought Metro a few years ago. That doesn't mean they don't cap LTE speeds. AT&T owns Cricket, but 4G data is capped at roughly 8Mbps (which is screaming fast for most Sprint users), so it's possible that T-Mobile does the same. No matter what, I'd expect them to give priority to T-Mobile subs over Metro.

Limits are 1 thing.

Insanely low limits or insanely high price per-GB overage is STUPID for 2015.

Stiler said:

It just makes no sense for people on like say, Extreme (105mbps) which is like 90 bucks to have the same 300gb cap as someone on the $30 plan at 20mbps.

It's absurd to think someone paying an extra 70 bucks should be beholden to a low cap when they are paying for that speed because they most likely:

1. Stream a lot
2. Play games
3. Need bandwidth.

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What's sad about a 300GB/month cap is that averages out to 1.157mbps 24/7. My girlfriend's *free* google fiber hookup is better at 5.2mbps.

Sufu said:

As someone who worked at Comcast on the very same CMTS your cable modem connects to, this is untrue. If anything, the nightly routine is upgrading 10GB interfaces to 100GB, and adding capacity to existing CMTS. Basically every night there's an upgrade going on somewhere. We did not move random people from one CMTS to another, that would be a ton of work.

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Sorry to say I watched it happen.
From what I could tell it wasn't very hard to shunt a couple hundred people from one hub to another to make room for new customers.
Don't have Comcast so I dont know how you could see what CTMS I am on.
Was just as shocked to watch the techs show me how to track by exact date, time, ip address and read email subject lines. All a legitimate part of the job.
Work for an ISP and you'll quickly see just how little privacy there is behind the doors.
If you want to know if your shunted to a remote hub lookup your private IP address then Google it and you'll see if its being distributed from a local area hub or not.

bomni said:

I hate data caps BUT...cellphone companies cap their data usage. Why wouldn't Comcast do any differently? I don't see how anything can be done as long as wireless companies are allowed to cap everything.

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You surely can't think data caps on home connections are fine with a large company like Comcast. We are already screwed on cell phone data plans which did not exist before and now everything is BW heavy, such a streaming, gaming, game downloads, online backups, etc.

I don't have the cap YET on my 105 internet but 300gb is nothing. Just downloading a GTA V is 60gb.. that's crazy to think 1 game download can take 20% of your allocation without incurring charges. How about the fact that everything in this day and age is about sharing. Sending photos, movies, and useless snapchats. I come home everything not having to worry about how much data i used being outside my house. I don't expect to be scared to use the internet because I can blow through a 300gb cap easily.