Terabyte-Using Cable Customers Double, Increasing Risk of Data Cap Fees

Megalith

Megalith

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OpenVault, a company that tracks and provides broadband data usage levels, has released new research showing US cable Internet customers using an average of 268.7GB per month, with 4.1 percent of households using at least 1TB. This is double the amount from last year, which saw 2.1 percent of households hitting 1TB. Despite this growth, companies still want to pretend data caps serve a purpose aside from profit and don't make service worse: Comcast, for instance, claims “99 percent of our customers do not use 1 terabyte of data.”

OpenVault's new report is based on household usage in December 2018. The data comes entirely from cable networks, so it does not include any fiber, DSL, or wireless Internet services, an OpenVault spokesperson told Ars. OpenVault declined to say how many households were included in the data, and it's not clear which cable provider networks were studied. The 268.7GB average household data used in December 2018 was "up from 226.4GB/HH [household] at the end of June 2018 and a 33.3 percent increase over the YE 2017 average of 201.6GB/HH," OpenVault said.
 
We're 80GB away from this months 1 TB cap. Got the kid RX580 rigs for Xmas...lots of game installs happened, and their baby sister pretty much has YouTube running 24/7, and the wife has Netflix on ALL the time. Did 823GB in December. 400-600GB the months before that. Your typical? family of 5.
3 gaming PC's. 1 workstation. 1 laptop. 2 smart phones. 2x Nintendo Switch. 1 Smart TV. Netflix + Amazon Prime Video. Echo Dot + Samsung SmartHub w/ a few light switches/doorlock, an Arlo camera, etc.

I don't feel like a heavy user.
 
coynatha said:
We're 80GB away from this months 1 TB cap. Got the kid RX580 rigs for Xmas...lots of game installs happened, and their baby sister pretty much has YouTube running 24/7, and the wife has Netflix on ALL the time. Did 823GB in December. 400-600GB the months before that. Your typical? family of 5.
3 gaming PC's. 1 workstation. 1 laptop. 2 smart phones. 2x Nintendo Switch. 1 Smart TV. Netflix + Amazon Prime Video. Echo Dot + Samsung SmartHub w/ a few light switches/doorlock, an Arlo camera, etc.

I don't feel like a heavy user.
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I have five teenage daughters and a wife that works with me occasionally running a Satellite office out of our house, our ISP is tiny and has no caps because we locals all pooled our money to fund his expansion of our capacity out here. If we were looking at caps, though, we'd be in deep shit.
 
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It's not looking good for me. After 2 years of averaging around 850-950GB I've used up my 2 grace months the last two months. Why even bother going with a faster tier with Comcast if I'm struggling to stay under my 1TB cap.
 
I don't have any kids yet like some of you here. Its just really me most of the month since my wife works a ton. I use about 700gb a month. If I had kids I would need to pay another $30 a month for the unlimited data option from comcast. Good thing I am moving so I can go back to Entouch (a local provider) which is unlimited fiber.
 
I work for a cable company and while i hate data caps i can say that the company i work for has a very generous cap on there gigabit service 60mbit up / 1200 down with a 6TB data allowance
 
250GB is average for streaming use.

We don't need data caps, we need INFRASTRUCTURE to handle demand.

We will NEVER achieve on-demand 4k streaming without sufficient bandwidth available.

Besides, I have heard it suggested from people who work in the network departments of major institutions that we probably have plenty of backbone right now, it's just that the providers either don't have enough bandwidth on their own networks, won't update their equipment on the final miles or are ACTING like this is a big deal when it really isn't for profit.

How can these companies sell 100MB or 1GB internet connections and then out of the other side of their mouth say they can't support the bandwidth? Why does ANYONE need a 100MB or 1GB connection if the entire purpose isn't to use a huge amount of data per month? And if they can not support that kind of usage, then why aren't the internet connections limited to an average they CAN support?
 
Hmm.

I need to figure out what plugin to run on my pfSense router to log this stuff for me. AS of right now I don't have a clue how much the house uses, but I'm fairly certain we are in the top few percent...
 
Regularly hit 800-900GB/month when I was on Comcast and monitored my data usage. Once I moved to NC and got Google Fiber with no data caps I surpass 1TB per month with ease since I stream all of my entertainment (Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Twitch, YouTube, etc). Not to mention many game downloads are 50-80GB now so downloading just one or two of those games already takes a good chunk of your monthly data. Thinking about subscribing to a IP TV service as well which will only increase my data usage further.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
I have five teenage daughters and a wife that works with me occasionally running a Satellite office out of our house, our ISP is tiny and has no caps because we locals all pooled out money to fund his expansion of our capacity out here. If we were looking at caps, though, we'd be in deep shit.
Click to expand...

You have 5 teenage daughters, you are already in deep shit.
 
Advil said:
How can these companies sell 100MB or 1GB internet connections and then out of the other side of their mouth say they can't support the bandwidth? Why does ANYONE need a 100MB or 1GB connection if the entire purpose isn't to use a huge amount of data per month? And if they can not support that kind of usage, then why aren't the internet connections limited to an average they CAN support?
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Yeah, my philosophy is that when I am paying for a listed bandwidth, I am paying to max out that bandwidth 24/7, and if I choose not to do so, that is my choice.

So, when I am paying for 100mbit downstream, I am paying for ~31.3TB per month

When I am paying for a gigabit connection, I am paying for ~313.3TB per month.

If they try to limit me to less than this, I am not getting what I paid for.

The only way I should ever have a 1TB per month limit, is if I'm only paying for 3.2Mbit downstream.
 
Surprise - if you have bandwidth, you'll use it.

I'm actually ok with the concept of paying for data use.

I just don't like the way any of the telecoms are selling it right now.
 
Comcast user here, been paying the extra $50/month for unlimited which is bullshit. Not paying isn't an option though...

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coynatha said:
We're 80GB away from this months 1 TB cap. Got the kid RX580 rigs for Xmas...lots of game installs happened, and their baby sister pretty much has YouTube running 24/7, and the wife has Netflix on ALL the time. Did 823GB in December. 400-600GB the months before that. Your typical? family of 5.
3 gaming PC's. 1 workstation. 1 laptop. 2 smart phones. 2x Nintendo Switch. 1 Smart TV. Netflix + Amazon Prime Video. Echo Dot + Samsung SmartHub w/ a few light switches/doorlock, an Arlo camera, etc.

I don't feel like a heavy user.
Click to expand...
You don't feel like one, but you are one. Of your description I see 2 of the people mentioned move the data transfer of video service from "traditional" methods (i.e. through the actual cable TV or satellite side of things), now I know you're speaking tongue cheek with using Youtube 24/7 but if she did in fact do that and lets say 1080p videos because... come on! then that's 540GB of data there, lets say it's only 8 hours a day then we're at 180GB. And now much Netflix is the wife watching "ALL the time" again lets say 8 hours a day of HD content, that's 720 GB a month. Now not everything will be HD sure, so adjust as you see fit but yeah simply moving from "traditional" TV to "modern" TV (i.e. stream everything) uses up a fuck ton of data. That doesn't even account for the kid with the new computer instead of just transferring a HD over you choose to redownload games, and modern games easily push 50GB+...

Now you might not feel like a heavy user but you are. At least compared to "traditional" methods.
 
I haven't measured my usage since we moved.

At the old house, I had 5MB service over radio wireless. We would routinely use 300-500G/month on that. Most of that was updates - Windows updates, iOS updates, Steam updates, etc. A good chunk Netflix (we would usually get 480p, on very rare occasion would it support 720p). Occasional game purchases, but not heavy. No torrents or anything. Moderate web browsing but not really heavy multimedia (not a lot of Youtube or anything).

We moved, now I have 12MB DSL. I don't get anywhere near 12MB, but it is faster than what we had on radio (and, oddly enough, less reliable than the wireless service). I could imagine that my usage has gone up - just by virtue of Netflix now coming through mostly in 720p and occasionally in 1080p. The rest of my usage hasn't really changed any. I doubt I'm hitting 1TB but probably a lot closer than I was before.
 
You say he's abnormal but you really think the average non tech person is going to be copying games from an old HDD when he gets a new PC? Hell no they won't.

You think the average person is concerned with data usage from their TV service? Nope, they care about which one is cheaper, and with IP TV becoming a bigger thing these days they need to factor this in for down the road. Eventually, and sooner rather than later because I know my old ISP was already moving this way when I stopped working there 2 years ago, all cable is going to be IP based and all those channels will just be one large 32 chan DOCSIS pipe for purely internet services to the house

You're also not taking into account any smart home or IOT developments. You have to be a power user these days to get security cameras that DONT stream everything to the cloud 24/7, more and more devices are becoming connected in the average person's home, I know I use my google homes for a lot of background music through the day, all of these things combine for even more data usage that the average joe isn't going to be controlling or even able to control in some cases.

He's not a heavy use case, and as more and more of the older generations die off (the ones that use their 100mb plans to check emails 3 times a month on their old Windows Vista machine) the stats will become more and more obvious. 1 TB caps are bullshit, I would say move that number up to 3-5 if you still are operating under the 5-10 year old assumptions that were in place when they were invented.
 
Geno750 said:
Comcast user here, been paying the extra $50/month for unlimited which is bullshit. Not paying isn't an option though...
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Why not switch over to Comcast Business if you're already practically paying for it?
 
Holy crap! We averaged just over 6GB/month in 2018 and I am going to guess most of that is streaming television shows.

I thought we were excessive in our use. WOW!
 
sfsuphysics said:
You don't feel like one, but you are one. Of your description I see 2 of the people mentioned move the data transfer of video service from "traditional" methods (i.e. through the actual cable TV or satellite side of things), now I know you're speaking tongue cheek with using Youtube 24/7 but if she did in fact do that and lets say 1080p videos because... come on! then that's 540GB of data there, lets say it's only 8 hours a day then we're at 180GB. And now much Netflix is the wife watching "ALL the time" again lets say 8 hours a day of HD content, that's 720 GB a month. Now not everything will be HD sure, so adjust as you see fit but yeah simply moving from "traditional" TV to "modern" TV (i.e. stream everything) uses up a fuck ton of data. That doesn't even account for the kid with the new computer instead of just transferring a HD over you choose to redownload games, and modern games easily push 50GB+...

Now you might not feel like a heavy user but you are. At least compared to "traditional" methods.
Click to expand...

And Comcast will cut our internet service to 75Mbps (from 150Mbps) if we cancel the TV side of the bill. It's a big reason we keep it. Plus, we love the Xfinity box & remote, DVR, and OnDemand portion. 90% of the channels are unwatched 90% of the time.
 
BSmith said:
Holy crap! We averaged just over 6GB/month in 2018 and I am going to guess most of that is streaming television shows.

I thought we were excessive in our use. WOW!
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6GB per month while streaming TV shows? Do you stream it at 480p at the lowest possible bitrate?

I'll go through 6GB of data in a couple hours; let alone a month. But I stream at 1080p and 4K (when available), and regularly download games that are several gigabytes.
 
I'm going to have to get Comcast support on the phone, and have them explain data caps to my 9, 7, and 4 year old. :D :D :D They only understand the opportunity cost of money in vBucks. lolz
 
Geno750 said:
The speeds are lower than what you get for residential in my area. I'd only be paying for the increased uptime.
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It's $139 for 150/20 or $199 for 300/25, what are you paying with the extra $50 for unlimited and what speeds are you getting?
 
This is going to be like AMT (alternative minimum tax). They will say "oh only 1% of people use 1TB" and then they never lift 1TB ever. So in 10 years from now when everyone is using 1TB, everyone will be caught up in the metered billing.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
You have 5 teenage daughters, you are already in deep shit.
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Nah, they're great kids, plus they take after their mum so they're all on their way to 6'+. The boys are all terrified of them.

It kind of sucks when your 13 year old daughter looks at you and says "Now I'm taller than you are daddy!"
 
Nanogrip said:
Why are there caps when the movement of streaming is towards 4k+?
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Simple - the data link providers are also content providers and they don't really want people switching to streaming, they want people to keep using their content. Which is also why you see many providers not count the traffic streamed from THEIR services as part of your monthly usage. This will never change until the carriers are separated from the content and treated as the common carrier that they are. They've done it for other utilities. I can't choose who runs power lines through my neighborhood, it's obvious impractical to allow unlimited numbers of companies to run lines, but I don;t have to buy my power from them. There is a fixed cost part of my bll that pays for the line and maintenance thereof. Actual power consumed is a separate portion of the bill and I can contract with any number of suppliers for that. Same with my gas. Some day maybe (not holding my breath) we will get real change and we will pay an ISP to be an ISP and not a movie studio and TV studio and whatnot, they will provide a line and charge me a fee that covers the cost of the line and maintenance, and I will get my content wherever I ant to get it. Tiered pricing, no problem with that - my house has 200 amp electric service, that base price would be higher if I had 400 amp service. And there are no caps on electricity usage, if I run at 190 amps 24/7 for a month, the line charge does not change.

Luckily, I do not have caps on my Comcast. But I think the highest I ever got was 500GB in a month. I torrent a lot, and watch Youtube videos all the time, always picking max resolution when offered. But I don;t watch TV, practically none, so I'm not streaming shows 24/7. I'm not much of a gamer, the last 'new' game I downloaded was World of Tanks.
 
Thank goodness for our local "Business" capless cable plans. I use between 2-3 TB on average per month. However its not true capless, I used 7 TB one month and they tried to force me to fiber. I keep an eye on usage now :)

Its hard not to consume data though. DirecTV now, Netflix, Youtube and 2 Nest cameras keep us using quite a bit. In addition to the 7 PC's, 4 tablets and 3 TV's under constant use in the house.
 
My cellular plan’s (four lines) LTE data usage is >1TB monthly. At my primary residence my Charter Spectrum cable service sees >2TB per month. The wife will turn on Netflix and it will be FHD/4K full bore as she reads a book, etc.
 

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I have two kids + wife - we typically have at least 2 people watching Netflix or YouTube while someone is home, sometimes more. My monthly data rate is in the realm of 700-800gb every month. I have Spectrum with no caps - costs $80 a month.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, my philosophy is that when I am paying for a listed bandwidth, I am paying to max out that bandwidth 24/7, and if I choose not to do so, that is my choice.

So, when I am paying for 100mbit downstream, I am paying for ~31.3TB per month

When I am paying for a gigabit connection, I am paying for ~313.3TB per month.

If they try to limit me to less than this, I am not getting what I paid for.

The only way I should ever have a 1TB per month limit, is if I'm only paying for 3.2Mbit downstream.
Click to expand...

The problem is THEIR philosophy is that they oversell bandwidth like planes do seats. When the most only use a small fraction, a few using 100% means that is like 20-50 more accounts they cannot create. So to make up some of that and dissuade you from downloading they start adding in fees and throttling.

It is bs and I agree with what you said, that is how it should be handled. Sad thing is, you know if they switched to that model they would charge an arm and leg for it.
 
Nooo! you don't say/s.. its almost like they could see this coming, and added all those overpriced fees..
How is it that 1TB can cost 50$ or less and the next TB costs 100$... its the magic of data.
 
And people give me crap about buying 4K blurays :-D

From my personal experience, the only thing that will stave off crazy caps or price hikes is competition. Where I used to live was Comcast /Xfinity exclusive and you can guarantee that every 2 years your price got jacked up. When I called to do the "Promo rate dance" with the customer service - the guy actually said "Go head - leave" I knew that smug bastard was staring at his computer and there was some note on there that the building I was living in had an exclusive contract with them.

My current place, not a few minutes away - has a few different ISP venders and SURPRISE Comcast is begging for customers to sign up / come back. $50 bucks for 155mb down. More than enough for me. My co-worker also lives in an HOA with a Comcast contract and he's paying $90 for 50mb down.
 
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