Comcast Dramatically Expanding Internet Usage Caps

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Do you know why Comcast is expanding internet usage caps to more areas? Because most people in those areas have no other choice for broadband internet service. :(

Comcast continues to ignore customer backlash, and continues to dramatically expand the company's broadband usage caps and overage fees. A close look at Comcast's usage cap "trial" FAQ indicates that the company plans to quietly expand caps into Little Rock, Arkansas; Houma, LaPlace and Shreveport, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Greenville, Johnson City/Gray, Tennessee; and Galax, Virginia starting December 1. In all of these markets users now face a 300 GB monthly usage cap, with $10 per 50 GB overage fees.

 
Welcome to my hell. We've had this in Atlanta for years. I've lived in three different houses since I moved up here and I've always had the same two choices: old school AT&T ADSL (max 6mbps) and Comcast. Some people don't even have the luxury of the two choices.
 
$10 per 50gb is not that bad, I have a 225GB cap with 1$ per extra GB (no limits).
 
Welcome to my hell. We've had this in Atlanta for years. I've lived in three different houses since I moved up here and I've always had the same two choices: old school AT&T ADSL (max 6mbps) and Comcast. Some people don't even have the luxury of the two choices.
Been with Comcrap in Atlanta for years and understand completely. Now, I'm just counting down the days until Google Fiber is up and running in my building. Latest forecast is mid-January 2016. The day I cancel my Comcrap service will be a joyous one, indeed. :D
 
Yay for me using the only ISP in my area that doesn't have data caps.

My choices are:
AT&T
Mediacom
WoW (Knology)

WoW is the only one that has no data caps and decent pricing.

Comcast is out here as well, but not in my area, but they have gay data caps as well.

There are a couple other providers out here that I can't get that supposedly have no data caps AND better pricing.
 
If they're gonna put caps on data then they should open the pipes for unlimited speeds.
 
Looks like I'm screwed if they start that here. This is normal usage for a family of 4 - Netflix streaming, YouTube, Homework, occasional game download, etc... The only reason that October is lower is that we were on vacation 12 days. No other choices for me either.

Uvd0ZMA.jpg
 
This is how Comcast will slowly drain the life from streaming video services. 300GB isn't hard for a household to use up, and this is before 4K video is a common thing. People will start getting overage charges and signing up for cable TV will turn into the affordable solution. Well played Comcast.
 
Looks like I'm screwed if they start that here. This is normal usage for a family of 4 - Netflix streaming, YouTube, Homework, occasional game download, etc... The only reason that October is lower is that we were on vacation 12 days. No other choices for me either.

Uvd0ZMA.jpg

They are going to roll it out everywhere. They are slow rolling it and referring to it as a "trial" to avoid mainstream media attention. In Maine we have had the Comcast caps since almost the very beginning of this. One of my good friends now signed up for cable TV simply because his house couldn't keep it under 300GB.

I live in a TWC neighborhood, people a mile away have Comcast and no one has the choice of provider.
 
$10 per 50gb is not that bad, I have a 225GB cap with 1$ per extra GB (no limits).

Are you kidding? That's terrible. And for $35 they offer unlimited but I'm sure they won't advertise that anywhere to anyone that doesn't know about it.
 
Great. Perfect icing for them just deleting all personal web page content with barely a hint of warning. I used that to host schematics and BOMs for DIY electronics projects that I post in a few forums, and now they're all gone. (well, I have backups, but now I have to sort through them all, and match them to the current board revisions for everything) If I had ANY other viable choice in my area I would have ditched them already. There's nothing.
 
Makes my time warner cable in upperstate new york not seem so bad.. okay just kidding it's still pretty bad.

I do only pay $39/mo for it. And it does have terrible speed.. and it doesn't get hit with the after work / sunday night netflix crowd that just destroys the pipe and leaves no bandwith around those times.

Yea, I guess it is pretty bad still.
 
$10 per 50gb is not that bad, I have a 225GB cap with 1$ per extra GB (no limits).

The funny part about this is that people basically predicted this 7 years ago already. Back when they were randomly disconnecting people because they were using too much data, then finally decided to put a number behind it. That number was 250GB. The top tier of the time was 8mbit downloads. Fast forward to today and the top tier is 150 - 250 mbps depending upon the area. So in all that time they were gracious to raise the cap by 50GB (20%) even though the speed increase is around 20 - 30x. I'd say everyone was spot on back then saying they will just throw out a number and never increase it, so that eventually they can start charging for more.
 
Like someone said, with streaming on the rise. Comcast is going to make it cost a whole lot more to watch TV on the internet.
 
I wonder how this would not be considered anti-competitive in courts when there is data that shows how little bandwidth actually cost, and the fact that the caps are there because of lack of competition while keeping internet streaming from competing with tv. How long until that is an anti-trust class-action suit?
 
This is awesome I'm sold! I'll be ditching Google Fiber as soon as this feature is available in my area. I've been patiently waiting for a data cap it's one of the best features you can have in this day and age.
 
All part of the master plan....

Hook people on streaming/downloadable content, then put in caps so they are going over all the time and paying fees or paying a much higher rate for no caps.

Saw this coming years ago and its only going to get worse.
 
I wonder how this would not be considered anti-competitive in courts when there is data that shows how little bandwidth actually cost, and the fact that the caps are there because of lack of competition while keeping internet streaming from competing with tv. How long until that is an anti-trust class-action suit?

We've had caps for many years from multiple companies (including wireless) ... I would think if there was a legal avenue open here that someone would have tried it ... the best you might hope for would be the ISPs become like the power and other utility companies (regulated monopolies)

The only way to bypass this would be to do something that provides incentives to add more ISPs in an area ... Federal grants to cities maybe or tax free status for companies entering new markets
 
I have been looking at houses for the past few months, and one of my requirements is that it has decent (45 Mbps or better) internet service from Uverse. I did this so that I could avoid Comcast, because I use about 500 GB per month (according to my router) and don't want data caps.

I will say that Comcast has the same speeds no matter where you are in Nashville, while Uverse varies wildly, even in my one zip code. Some homes have no Uverse service, while some have Gigabit service.

There is a Google fiber hut being built within a couple of miles of my current home and the home I am buying, so I plan to go to that if it is available.
 
I wonder how this would not be considered anti-competitive in courts when there is data that shows how little bandwidth actually cost, and the fact that the caps are there because of lack of competition while keeping internet streaming from competing with tv. How long until that is an anti-trust class-action suit?

Comcast will just point out this impact a minority of their total customers and they are just offering fair usage based services. Given the cell phone industry has already set a long established precedent of making people pay a lot for small amounts of data, I can't see the government forcing Comcast to change.
 
I hate the caps soo much and I fucked a good thing, for whatever reason there was a glitch and for the past year I had been getting unlimited data. They couldn't see my data usage. Well, my promotional period ended and my monthly bill doubled so I decided to jump on another promotional plan. That fixed the glitch and now they can track my usage.

I should have kept paying what I was paying, I miss it.
 
Also, forgot to mention that ATT gigapower is moving in to my city and google fiber should be coming as well. Can't wait to drop Comcast like a hot rock.
 
I moved to Comcast Business about a year ago. I knew this was coming. I pay more, but the customer service is night and day plus I have a dedicated IP.
 
I have been looking at houses for the past few months, and one of my requirements is that it has decent (45 Mbps or better) internet service from Uverse. I did this so that I could avoid Comcast, because I use about 500 GB per month (according to my router) and don't want data caps.

I will say that Comcast has the same speeds no matter where you are in Nashville, while Uverse varies wildly, even in my one zip code. Some homes have no Uverse service, while some have Gigabit service.

There is a Google fiber hut being built within a couple of miles of my current home and the home I am buying, so I plan to go to that if it is available.

Uverse does have data caps. I mean they're practically colluding. Comcast started doing it in Atlanta, and then shortly after here comes Uverse. It's a monetization scheme, and it's so obvious that they're colluding on it...

Ugh... The state of internet at the moment just pisses me off so much. Seriously, it'd be nice to have an uprising about this. Peaceful or otherwise. But these days, those kind of things don't really happen...
 
Yay for me using the only ISP in my area that doesn't have data caps.

My choices are:
AT&T
Mediacom
WoW (Knology)

WoW is the only one that has no data caps and decent pricing.

Comcast is out here as well, but not in my area, but they have gay data caps as well.

There are a couple other providers out here that I can't get that supposedly have no data caps AND better pricing.

I'm in the same boat, we have the option of either crappy AT&T DSL (6 mbps down, and like 0.25 mb up, too slow to even make a skype call) or Comcast with a data cap.

Great part is, there's a WoW office literally 300 ft from my house, but Comcast bought all of the lines for every house next to it and WoW cannot offer us service.
 
TWC doesn't do data caps, I am very thankful in the middle of BFE they decided to run lines. Price keeps going up because they are the only ones out here, unless I want 6mb dsl or satellite (shudders). Love living out in the country but got real lucky, and my gf thought I was nuts when i was shopping for internet to create house search areas lol.
 
Do you know why Comcast is expanding internet usage caps to more areas? Because most people in those areas have no other choice for broadband internet service. :(

Comcast continues to ignore customer backlash, and continues to dramatically expand the company's broadband usage caps and overage fees. A close look at Comcast's usage cap "trial" FAQ indicates that the company plans to quietly expand caps into Little Rock, Arkansas; Houma, LaPlace and Shreveport, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Greenville, Johnson City/Gray, Tennessee; and Galax, Virginia starting December 1. In all of these markets users now face a 300 GB monthly usage cap, with $10 per 50 GB overage fees.


Tough to say if they have no competition. It looks like Laplace has Cox cable and Chattanooga has gigabit fiber (I didn't check any other cities). However, I agree that that's generally what allows this, but TWX doesn't have a cap, and in most cases they don't have much competition either.

Whatever, their cap is too low. 3-5 years ago, when they first had them, I didn't think it was a big deal, but I think if they have to have a cap, it needs to move to at least 500 GB.
 
Funny that Charter just dumped data caps... But I think they put a big emergency brake on speeds. I never use to get buffering when watching ESPN. Now I can't watch it in the evenings.
 
Makes my time warner cable in upperstate new york not seem so bad.. okay just kidding it's still pretty bad.

I do only pay $39/mo for it. And it does have terrible speed.. and it doesn't get hit with the after work / sunday night netflix crowd that just destroys the pipe and leaves no bandwith around those times.

Yea, I guess it is pretty bad still.

Yeah, but TWX is upgrading their network. A few months ago I went from 30/5 to 200/20 (or is it 30?). I keep saying I'll lower my plan, because most websites aren't pushing enough bits for me get much beyond 100 Mbps.
 
i just checked and i am averaging 600 gigs per month. if they start capping again i am going to quit the internet.
 
Since Comcast is really the only show in town for me in Alexandria VA I have a feeling they are going to try this shit here next year.
 
Back
Top