Comcast 1TB Internet Cap Is Becoming A Reality

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
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My condolences to Comcast subscribers. The company believes that those who use more Internet data should “pay more” and is implementing a data cap that will begin for many in November.

Comcast has begun the commercial rollout of a usage-based data policy that limits usage to 1 Terabyte (1024 Gigabytes) a month before customers are charged $10 for each additional bucket of 50 Gigabytes. Per the current policy, those overage charges will not exceed $200 each month no matter how much data a residential customer uses. Comcast, which is also giving customers two courtesy months before data overage fees would be applied, stressed that about 99% of its customers don’t use more than 1 TB in a month (with median usage of 75 megabytes).
 
Do they have a reliable and accurate way to measure data usage? I would assume your states weights and measures office should be calibrating those ISPs to make sure you're not being ripped off, just like they do for gallons of gas, lbs of deli meat and when selling precious metals to jewelry and pawn shops.
 
Just got an email on this last week stating that it is starting in my area.

I really hope some state laws strike shit like this down stating you cannot charge extra for usage when there is no other competition in the area. It's one thing for cell-phone data, because the 3 major carriers are fairly equally distributed across the states. It's another thing when comcast is the only cable internet option.

This probably won't affect me, because I don't stream/download all that much - but it REALLY needs to go.

Verizon Fios / Google fiber... come to my city and I'll switch ASAP just because of the principle that I will not tolerate shit like this. Even if I have to pay more per month, I don't care anymore if it screws over Comcast.
 
Time to get the bureau of weights and measures involved.

How is this data measured?
What's included - Do frame headers count? How about dropped packets? Unsolicited UDP packets?

You know when phone companies charged by the minute they had to provide you with a list of every call, duration, what time, etc. This allows the customer billing accuracy. If you think I'm going to put faith in Comcast being accurate and trust their measurement then you can go sit sideways. Charging by usage... OK fine, but now I expect an account of everything you are billing me for. Feel free to mail my 1500 page document monthly. Sorry Comcast you saying "you used this much because we determined it to be so" isn't going to fly with me.
 
Are the caps going to go up over the years as consumer usage increases? Or is it going to stay 1TB until that amount of usage becomes common?

I think they understand that TV as a product for them to sell to subscribers is slowly fading away. They are doing everything they can to monetize the internet services that they sell. You get 1TB, but if you use 2TB, that is more than $200 in overage charges. That's maybe not a big deal now but it will be in a few years when 1TB doesn't seem so large anymore.

Of course the ones to blame are really the cell phone companies, who have completely changed the way people view data and what they consider to be reasonable caps. The way people embrace 10GB/month cell data plans with open arms, it was only a matter of time until wired providers figured out a way to make money off that ignorance also.
 
heatlesssun said:
It's time for the FCC to intervene on this.
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It will never happen for a few reasons. Especially with a cap that high. I am not for data caps but I understand why they exist. You are not charged a fair amount for your connection. I know everyone things they are getting fucked over, but if you owned an ISP you would charge the same because you are getting charged by somebody else to hand data to them. You charge a rate however that is sufficient to cover what is normally used as you aren't going to pay for a network that is able to be used at 100% all the time. At the same level those that don't use their internet service that much are over paying per MB used, other are under paying, but in the end it mostly balances out. So I can see setting a limit that 99% of the people fall under and say if you hit this limit we are going to charge you a little more. The other option is that everyone suddenly has to start paying for exactly the data they are using at all times. Makes it fair in that nobody is overpaying or under paying, but it is going to cost you a lot more as you aren't being subsidized then by the people not using their service as much.

Domingo said:
Just got this e-mail myself after years of being cap-free in Denver. I've never gotten close to that before, but that doesn't mean it won't happen going forward. Games are getting bigger and bigger and movies are, too.
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I have hit that a few times. downloading 4 free xbox games month, buying a few other games, redownloading part of my steam library onto a new computer and watching multiple hours of 4K Netflix and streaming a lot of other shows will get you up there.
 
GotNoRice said:
Are the caps going to go up over the years as consumer usage increases? Or is it going to stay 1TB until that amount of usage becomes common?

I think they understand that TV as a product for them to sell to subscribers is slowly fading away. They are doing everything they can to monetize the internet services that they sell. You get 1TB, but if you use 2TB, that is more than $200 in overage charges. That's maybe not a big deal now but it will be in a few years when 1TB doesn't seem so large anymore.

Of course the ones to blame are really the cell phone companies, who have completely changed the way people view data and what they consider to be reasonable caps. The way people embrace 10GB/month cell data plans with open arms, it was only a matter of time until wired providers figured out a way to make money off that ignorance also.
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Did you decide to ignore the part that states that overages will never exceed $200?

Like any other data caps I would expect to see that change over time as more and more people start to transmit more data.
 
With more and more 4k content available to stream, I can see this really being a problem for me. I'm already at 258GB's for October, and they say I average 702GB's a month. I have a 65" 4k TV and It's only natural to want to stream 4k content from Netflix or YouTube or Vudu when it's available. This data cap worries me, but I'm not about to pay an extra $50 a month for unlimited data usage, just in case I go over the cap.
 
*shrug* My firewall says I've used 200.96 GiB in the last 28 days of uptime. Should be fine.
 
I used to work for a telecom. It's ironic (more like moronic) how at some point the markets need regulation to stop some of the more shitty practices after it was regulation that made them monopolies in the first place, thus allowing them to do whatever the fuck they want for long periods of time.

Free markets DO work IMO. They just need some basic requirements that everyone must follow.
 
I've had caps with Comcast for quite a while. It sucks, but for me it's not an issue. I don't need 1TB per month or even year. The caps have gone up since this started. It was 250 or 350GB/month, depending on the tier of service and they bumped everyone up to 1TB. Those numbers might not be super accurate, but that's from my memory. If you download a Linux ISO, 12 movies and 2 games every day, you're going to really have to watch it or pay more. I think Comcast business class service is uncapped, but it's about twice the price and slower to move forward with speed bumps and features.

The Comcast data meter so far has been reasonable, but I can imagine being DDOSed and that counting against the limit. Or even just a broken application trying to get some update that doesn't exist or something innocent. Hasn't happened to me yet.
 
Exavior said:
Did you decide to ignore the part that states that overages will never exceed $200?
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I said "over $200" because at $10/50GB, one extra TB worth of data would be $204.80. But if there is a cap of $200 I guess it's all good :rolleyes:
 
Exavior said:
It will never happen for a few reasons. Especially with a cap that high. I am not for data caps but I understand why they exist. You are not charged a fair amount for your connection.
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Wrong.

If you were accurately charged by usage, the first thing they would do is make the bill amount SMALLER for those that use the least amount of data. Thus, that isn't what they are after. They simply saw their current revenue and said "How can we make this number bigger while trying to justify it to all the customers?"
 
Sigh. Well it sucks, but at this point until we get competition into the marketplaces we will be stuck with this kind of practice.

But at the same time I would love to get 1tb of net for 100$......
 
i'm sorry. it's all my fault. :(

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Comcast isn't doing this for today or tomorrow. They're doing it for years down the road. "99% of the customers do not use over 1TB", so why bother? Well 5 years from now, 10 years from now ... you'll be using significantly more bandwidth than you are today. By then the cap will be common place, people have long accepted it, and that 1TB cap will not seem like a lot of room. At that point Comcast can really begin to monetize a cap by charging a lot more for data.

Compare it to that free cloud storage. 5GB of iCloud may of seemed like a lot several years ago but now it's barely enough or not enough for many users. Same concept. Give people more than they need so they think it's OK then in the future really clamp it down on them by not raising the 'free' space anymore.
 
I've had to limit everything I've done for the past couple years due to the 300GB cap that was suspended earlier this year. 1TB looks to be reasonable for most user's. The good news is the maximum overage fee being +$200. So the old days of multi-thousand dollar overages are gone. Also you still can port over to comcast business and get unlimited data. The price is higher but its still cheaper than the residential services+ $200 overage fee. All we need now is competition in the neighborhoods.
 
bigdogchris said:
Comcast isn't doing this for today or tomorrow. They're doing it for years down the road. "99% of the customers do not use over 1TB", so why bother? Well 5 years from now, 10 years from now ... you'll be using significantly more bandwidth than you are today. By then the cap will be common place, people have long accepted it, and that 1TB cap will not seem like a lot of room. At that point Comcast can really begin to monetize a cap by charging a lot more for data.

Compare it to that free cloud storage. 5GB of iCloud may of seemed like a lot several years ago but now it's barely enough or not enough for many users. Same concept. Give people more than they need so they think it's OK then in the future really clamp it down on them by not raising the 'free' space anymore.
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+1 I agree.
 
I don't have comcast, so this does not affect me yet. But I wanted to say that my plex server does about 700 to 900 GB per month to external users alone. If this were to be implemented, how would they take into consideration the people who stream most of their entertainment?
 
ob1 said:
If this were to be implemented, how would they take into consideration the people who stream most of their entertainment?
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I'm sure they will be happy to give out coupons for their subscription TV services.
 
Let's get one thing straight since there seems to be a few people here who claim to .... 'understand' .... no, no you don't.

Data caps exist for one purpose and one purpose only. To bring in additional revenue. There is literally no additional network strain or cost to these companies.

I feel absolutely horrible for you guys that have data caps because all you are are pawns right in the middle of greed.

My GF and I moved to Kansas City for Google Fiber 4 years ago. We had to wait 10 or 11 months to get it installed. It's amazing. There are days we download 200 or 300GB, sometimes more. My GF has a web dev business and she often backups web content for clients. We stream a lot. Download games, demo's, etc.

Before any of you buy a house or move into an apartment. Do your research and take it very very serious when it comes to your internet.
 
1TB is a ton, but if you have Gigabit network speed, not so much. They seem to want to cap it based on max speed. Back when it was 300GB aand 30MB donwload speed, same limit, extra money. idiots.
 
News flash: Everything Comcast does is to bring in extra revenue. I know. I'm a subscriber.
 
SixFootDuo said:
I feel absolutely horrible for you guys that have data caps because all you are are pawns right in the middle of greed.

My GF and I moved to Kansas City for Google Fiber 4 years ago. We had to wait 10 or 11 months to get it installed. It's amazing. There are days we download 200 or 300GB, sometimes more. My GF has a web dev business and she often backups web content for clients. We stream a lot. Download games, demo's, etc.

Before any of you buy a house or move into an apartment. Do your research and take it very very serious when it comes to your internet.
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Good advice, but perhaps not as dire of a situation as you imply. ANY house or apartment that can get Xfinity / Comcast Residential can also get Comcast Business. Comcast Business has no caps.
 
All I have to say is, municipal fiber can't come soon enough. Then I can finally ditch these greedy assholes.

1 TB should be okay for now (I average around 500 GB supposedly, and that's not even using 4K content...) but my guess is it won't take long to hit this as content gets bigger. He'll, even with Steam downloads some games are hitting 50-60 GB apiece.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
This is best for consumers, every day we run the risk of running out of internet.
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They'll never cut you off, just jack up your internet bill up to $200 higher than you're already paying per month.

Will be a fun surprise when you get a $400 comcast bill in the mail.

1TB may not seem like a big deal in 2016, but it can stifle innovation, and if its not regularly bumped up, in five years when people are trying to stream 4K 3D 7.1 atmos regularly and have all cut TV service with Comcast so are consuming 100% of their media over the internet, this can be a problem.
 
At some point, the rising bandwidth usage of forced advertising will start being a real factor for some folks. In the traditional cable model, ads don't count against a 'cap' on usage. Leave your TV on 24/7/365.25 and the bill is the same as when it is off. Internet streaming counts ads at the same rate as actual desired content and could well increase usage of ad block/script block programs to lower the data usage.

Data caps CAN serve a legitimate purpose in smaller markets. While the local ISP provider may advertise a 20mb download speed for each customer, the actual service to the entire town might be 50mb. So penalizing those that try to download 24/7 can allow other to actually get some data. Of course, the local ISP rarely open on just what the real max service capacity for a market is.
 
Dead Parrot said:
At some point, the rising bandwidth usage of forced advertising will start being a real factor for some folks.
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Also, what about other types of unsolicited traffic? If you don't like someone, can you just basically DDoS their IP until they get $200 in overages?
 
Damn, having been in one of the areas that had the 300 gig cap first, like 3-4 years ago (and trying to space out my over-runs 4 months apart), I was amazed at the 1tb announcement when I got the email. But, yes, I also blame wirerogue for any anger and problems since the upgrade.
 
There is a huge struggle right now that is only worsening for control of the internet. They do this with data caps, they do this with these companies entering into muti-year contracts with apartment complexes / leasing companies. Even Facebook is in talks right now with the White house to offer 'free internet' to Americans.
 
I don't like this because I have several terabytes of data I want to back up to the cloud between all of our devices at home(I shoot a lot of raw pictures and video). I guess I will have to fork over for their "unlimited" plan
 
bigdogchris said:
Comcast isn't doing this for today or tomorrow. They're doing it for years down the road. "99% of the customers do not use over 1TB", so why bother? Well 5 years from now, 10 years from now ... you'll be using significantly more bandwidth than you are today. By then the cap will be common place, people have long accepted it, and that 1TB cap will not seem like a lot of room. At that point Comcast can really begin to monetize a cap by charging a lot more for data.

Compare it to that free cloud storage. 5GB of iCloud may of seemed like a lot several years ago but now it's barely enough or not enough for many users. Same concept. Give people more than they need so they think it's OK then in the future really clamp it down on them by not raising the 'free' space anymore.
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Don't forget back when Comcast did the original bandwidth cap (250GB) ~2009-2010 that lasted only a couple years, they were claiming the average usage was 5GB. The averages spiked to 34GB by 2012 and are now around ~56GB in 2014 and it's climbing quickly. Now that internet speeds are at a point you can take your entire household off of Cable television and stream online we're seeing massive increases in that "average usage" that Comcast loved using to justify the original cap of 250GB, year over year. It was a racket then and it's a racket now. Comcast claimed they would increase the bandwidth limit as things grew but if you just analyze the original 5GB usage in 2009 to 50GB in 2014 there was a 10x usage increase. That means the cap, if growing with the usage was accurate, they'd put it at 2.5TB to represent 2014.

People like to nitpick over usage patterns of some users, but it's always following the ISP's narrative which is complete BS and should be disregarded. The meters are inaccurate. The price gouging is inexcusable ($50 more for unlimited or pay up to $200 in fees? Cell phone model) and most people would probably take throttling over fees if it really was about limitations, which as a Network Administrator I can tell you is how you'd solve bandwidth issues. You either increase the amount available or prioritize traffic and limit users. How they can get away with absolutely lying and deceiving their customers and the federal government shows how corrupt our system has become.
 
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