Comcast Considering 250GB Cap, Disconnecting Pirates

I keep reading a lot of posts here that comment that 250 gigs is more than enough. I have one question; do you people live alone? I know with just myself, 250 gigs would likely be enough. Heck, I probably fit under about 150 gigs, even considering TV shows and all that I download. That being said, I also have 2 roommates with very similar usage patterns. I can only imagine my friends that have 5 or 6 people in a house so they can pay rent + tuition and their house bandwidth usage.

Realistically 250 gigs is enough for one person on average, but certainly I can see where there will be months where I could break that, and certainly once you get more than one person in a household, all bets are off. Something like rollover + per person usage would certainly be nice, but I can seriously never see Comcast pulling that one.
 
FoBZY said:
well you have to start asking yourself - if the general population of australia can "survive" on 12GB a month then maybe you should be getting outside more or something :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I do understand that the population in 3rd world countries do need to spend a greater part of their day foraging for food or working for their pittance.

I don’t know that I could hit the 250 gb. But to say people who do need to go outside is, well, not bright. You do understand I can have the computer downloading, oh say, the movie I purchased from Itunes, while I am outside? You know, having some first world disposable income and all.

Have a nice day :)
 
500 in one month was pretty excessive, I was running torrents almost 24/7...

I still only had a 4mb connection back then... .3 up...

I have a connection twice as fast now and half the limit... GG... (If this limit actually goes through)...
 
Elf_Boy said:
You know, having some first world disposable income and all.
Click to expand...

So buy two accounts and have 500GB instead. Need more? Use all that disposable income of yours and buy more.

Or perhaps, I don't know.. use all those guns lying around to shoot your neighbours to steal their internet connection.
 
For those complaining about the complaining, I'm thinking the general consensus here is that to impose a cap in the first place is bad.

Once a big ISP imposes a cap and gets away with it, soon every little podunk ISP will start imposing a cap. The next thing to happen is the cap gets lower, and lower, and lower and the monthly fees will go up, and up, and up.

First, comcrap was throttling bit torrent and then denied they did, even when proof was evident. So they lied and lied. Do you really think an ISP like that would remain honest and stick by their claimed limit? If they impose a limit in the first place is just one of many steps towards it becoming the norm for every ISP world wide to do the same.
It will soon become common place to pay for internet access but oh, you want to actually get ON the internet? Good golly all mighty, that's unheard of. If you want to actually pay for internet to actually access the internet then you'll have to pay our ridiculously outrageous fees and then we'll charge even more fees if you even think about doing anything including windows updates. We're monitoring that, buddy.
 
FoBZY said:
maybe not but you have to be using whatever your downloading yeah? so stop installing linux, watching movies and downloading porn for a bit mkay?
Click to expand...

So says the guy who's been here 6 years.

I'd imagine such a superior fellow would have left 5.9 years ago.

Keep in mind you're on a computer enthusiast site right now, responding to us :rolleyes:
 
great theres another 500kb to everyones cap. way to waste our bandwidth moron.


to all you guys complaining about how you only get 12gb a month caps and blah blah blah. well guess what we dont want to end up with craptastic (comcastic) service like you have, thats why were complaining.
 
biofrog said:
So buy two accounts and have 500GB instead. Need more? Use all that disposable income of yours and buy more.

Or perhaps, I don't know.. use all those guns lying around to shoot your neighbours to steal their internet connection.
Click to expand...

I havnt been ranting about the cap. Please dont make general statments about all americans, or non-austrelians, and I wont feel the need to be sarcastic about your limited ability to comprehend.
 
MentatYP said:
Because obviously Comcast will keep the same prices and monthly cap for 4 years while technology gets cheaper, faster, and better :rolleyes: I'm not saying they'll upgrade their infrastructure and change the cap out of the kindness of their hearts, but market demands will force them to.

I'm also not saying 250GB is enough for everybody, just for me right now. As connection speeds increase and downloadable movies become more common, I'm sure I'll eventually reach the point where it isn't anymore (although we're a long, long way from matching Blu Ray quality in downloadable form that's also practical--any less quality and no thanks for me). And I can see now from the posted examples that there are heavy users that can legitimately use 250GB+. Having just bought a PS3 (welcome to 2006!) and an HDTV (welcome to the 21st century!) and seeing how big those demo downloads are, I might be eating my words soon.
Click to expand...

Comcast will not upgrade there infrastructure and raise caps.... Thats why they are saying their network is bogged and want to filter shit at the moment. They don't want to upgrade when they can charge your ass the same because you have no other option to pick. They can charge the same and you will pay because lets face it, for a lot of us your only choice is comcast.
 
Wow in Japan my aunt has like 10 or 12 mbit line for 4000 yen a month (bout 40 bucks) and practically 0 down time, super low latency, no "peak time" concerns, unlimited... Sad thing is she only uses it for email.

What about familes with 3-4 or 5 computers? What about digital deliver of things like sound libraries online!!!! Thats 50 dvds!!! Not that thats a usual thing, but come on! Isn't the law of averaging there to prevent caps??? Someone there needs to take some math classes and realize that they are just pissing people off and losing customers when they could be spending the money to make their connections better.

Good service, good support = growing business

Do they put the same restrictions on business connections? Any ideas on how much that costs? I'm already paying 60... or is it 70 a month for internet.
 
I use my pc when I need it. I play my games when I want. I download updates when they are released. I work full time 40 hours, Add about 2 hours each day of traveling. Add about
2 hours each day for eating away from the pc. add 8 hours a night for sleeping.
Oh and I read as well. There is not enough hours in a day for the average individual to have the time to actually use their broadband to such a degree that they would approach this cap. IF you can hit this cap... You need to back away from the pc and really think about WTF you are doing with you're life. Linux distro's? ... How many times do you reinstall linux? Every day? Technet sub from MS the average individual does not have that subscription.

This will affect an extremely small number of Comcast subscribers. IF this makes the rest of their subcribers connections more stable and faster.. AWESOME for them.

Leechers,Pirates you have caused this for yourself. It amazes me how many pcs I work on a daily basis where all these damn teeny boppers have so many torrent apps installed to download entire TV shows/Porn/albums.. Because they can... not because they need to! That sense of entitlement is what has caused this cap. So many damn thieves its pathetic. I hope the rest of the isp's follow suit. I am an inhome technician and I have seen so many situations where the kids are abusing the internet and the parents have no clue.. until I tell them. The Free lunch is over kiddies! Welcome to the real world!
 
ReubenRosa said:
2 hours each day for eating away from the pc. add 8 hours a night for sleeping.
Oh and I read as well. There is not enough hours in a day for the average individual to have the time to actually use their broadband to such a degree that they would approach this cap. IF you can hit this cap... You need to back away from the pc and really think about WTF you are doing with you're life. Linux distro's? ... How many times do you reinstall linux? Every day? Technet sub from MS the average individual does not have that subscription.
Click to expand...

I'm a programmer working from home, throwing a few hundred megs a day each way to SVN repositories. Add in general usage of a few gigs a month, whatever streaming video/audio I want, then add in downloads over Steam for games, game patches for other games, music/video I buy, TV shows I download to watch later, and I can easily throw through 3 digit bandwidth usage in a month. Add in that I have 2 roommates that have the same usage pattern, and yes I can see us using 250 gigs a month and then some.

Yes I may be in an extremely low percentage of users with this type of usage pattern, but you have to figure that between people that work from home, a good portion of them will be using a lot more bandwidth than you do. Also, with an increasing amount of people using game consoles or media center PCs for downloading and watching video, there is a LOT of high bandwidth content flowing around the internet. Also, just because people aren't sitting in front of their computer, doesn't mean they aren't using their bandwidth. People do have a tendency to let large downloads start then walk away and do other things. This all then goes back to people now using their consoles and PCs for large audio and video downloads.

The cap may seem ludicrous now to a lot of people, but bandwidth usage is only going to get higher. More people will start using their PCs as their main entertainment center, with some people likely moving exclusively to streaming HD content to their PCs. When you start getting into content running in 720p or 1080p, filesize will increase substantially, and total bandwidth usage will follow. Instituting this cap now will only lose them more customers in the future as people start using their internet connection for things that they aren't now, and start running into this cap on a routine basis. Companies that don't institute caps will be the ones to benefit unless Comcast quickly changes their mind at that point. You also have to look at other nations that have unlimited usage, such as Japan. Yes they are a significantly smaller country, so replacing the infrastructure is easier. That being said, Comcast right now is not even looking into this path. Rather they are just trying to further extend the aging infrastructure we already have. This is really a sad state of affairs, as it is only putting our country further behind the technology curve compared to countries who are further embracing advances in internet technologies.
 
You don't have to be on the PC to be downloading... how is that hard to understand...?

Telling people to "back away from the pc and really think about wtf you are doing with you're life" is ridiculous.

They can upgrade their ridiculously old infrastructure to make their connections more stable and faster, not cripple the connection to people who are actually making use of it...

Definitely cannot wait until I get FIOS...
 
I wish Verizon had Fios in my area. Sadly crapcast has a monopoly on Philadelphia. The only other option is DSL from Verizon.
 
And you think because its better faster technology that Verizon won't inact caps down the road? ... till people stop pirating on the web and really use it legitly there will be a need for caps.

So you share a pc with 3 others.. Are they paying your internet provider for that connection per month?
Of course not. You guys "share" it. when you all use that much then you should be on a BUSINESS line not a residential service.
 
You're telling a family of 4 who all own personal computers to buy a business line?

Really?

Legitimate or not, it is very easy to break that 250GB cap, ESPECIALLY with 3-5 other people sharing the same line.
 
When your paying 42 bucks a month for 1 account. damm straight if your going to have ussage that goes beyond what the average 1 person would use Then yes get a business line if you feel that you need SO much bandwith in your household. 90% of most users never would approach that cap.
They check email. chat online. Maybe post on a forum. Read some news. And thats it. Not everyone is a hardocp user.
 
Caps are unnecessary, but if they do cap they need to have a real-time utility for indicating bandwidth usage. I think they should stick to booting bandwidth hogs instead of degrading my service to create another revenue stream.
 
5-600GB cap would be plenty imo

You'd have to be going full-speed 8mb connection for a week straight to hit that, those are the real bandwidth hogs imo... I did that for a few weeks and got a call from them the next month... threatening termination :eek:

They said I used about 5-600GB of bandwidth, back when I had a 4mb connection, which means I was going full-speed for half a month...

While this was with 4 other people using the line, they weren't downloading or uploading like I was...
 
biofrog said:
STOP all the absolute bitching and whining. AARGH, the totally unbelievable ignorant US masses scare me. It breaks my mind that the majority of you complain about 250 GB limits. I am just STUNNED...

Welcome to the REST-OF-THE-WORLD!

Here in Australia, I have it good.
~$65.00 USD per month
10GB Peak time quota
15GB Off-peak time (2am-10am) quota
ADSL2+ at ~2MB/sec max speed
64kbit Shaped or $6 per GB over quota

That is a standard account here in Australia, and that is better that a hell of a lot of other countries. Hell the biggest Telco here charges for uploads also. But oh no, you have to have your unlimited accounts, high speeds, massive redundancy. You get given silver, and you want gold. You get given gold, you want platinum.

How about changing how you use your internet? FULL backups over the net?! LOL. Linux distro's?! Do you download & reinstall Linux EVERY single day of the month? Hell even that would only take 50 GB. Online gaming!?!? HAH, Someone said 30MB/hour for WoW and clearly calculated the maths wrong. 24/7 play is 21GB per month, not 216GB, and that is playing every second in the month where you would not be downloading anything else!

Just crazy, and yes I get really annoyed when people don't see how good they already have it.
Click to expand...


thats a standard account in australia because you have an internet population of Delaware. When you have as many people on the internet as the US then you will have more competing companies and prices lowering thus removing caps. Its a matter of companies offering a service then renigging on it. They should have to pay for the cost to switch over for anyone who chooses to change because of the service change.
 
biofrog said:
STOP all the absolute bitching and whining. AARGH, the totally unbelievable ignorant US masses scare me. It breaks my mind that the majority of you complain about 250 GB limits. I am just STUNNED...

Welcome to the REST-OF-THE-WORLD!

Here in Australia, I have it good.
~$65.00 USD per month
10GB Peak time quota
15GB Off-peak time (2am-10am) quota
ADSL2+ at ~2MB/sec max speed
64kbit Shaped or $6 per GB over quota

That is a standard account here in Australia, and that is better that a hell of a lot of other countries. Hell the biggest Telco here charges for uploads also. But oh no, you have to have your unlimited accounts, high speeds, massive redundancy. You get given silver, and you want gold. You get given gold, you want platinum.

How about changing how you use your internet? FULL backups over the net?! LOL. Linux distro's?! Do you download & reinstall Linux EVERY single day of the month? Hell even that would only take 50 GB. Online gaming!?!? HAH, Someone said 30MB/hour for WoW and clearly calculated the maths wrong. 24/7 play is 21GB per month, not 216GB, and that is playing every second in the month where you would not be downloading anything else!

Just crazy, and yes I get really annoyed when people don't see how good they already have it.
Click to expand...

You live on an island.
and
You have one ISP that monopolizes pretty much the entire market.
and
You have an internet userbase that's probably less than one of our states in size.

Hmm...connect the dots here?
 
I guess the question is whether you guys want Comcast to keep their existing invisible caps and terminate people for overuse OR you want Comast to define a cap and just charge extra for overuse.

Those are really the only two choices. Comcast isn't going to get rid of their caps.

Personally, I have no problem with 250 GB a month, even with three people in my family using the internet daily.
 
snowcat said:
I guess the question is whether you guys want Comcast to keep their existing invisible caps and terminate people for overuse OR you want Comast to define a cap and just charge extra for overuse.

Those are really the only two choices. Comcast isn't going to get rid of their caps.

Personally, I have no problem with 250 GB a month, even with three people in my family using the internet daily.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. The rebels in here saying "don't accept it!" are nuts - its already been accepted a long time ago!! The cap is there and done, Comcast is simply redefining the cap as 250gb instead of "enough."
 
InorganicMatter said:
My thoughts exactly. The rebels in here saying "don't accept it!" are nuts - its already been accepted a long time ago!! The cap is there and done, Comcast is simply redefining the cap as 250gb instead of "enough."
Click to expand...

I'd rather have a hidden cap of 500GB than a defined of 250...

Cause... one is twice as big as the other :p
 
I vaguely remember reading in a magazine a year ago that someone hit their bandwidth cap of 350GB for their month with Comcast, even though they don't officially advertise that they have caps, they already have them in place, this is just letting you know so it's official and you can't bitch about it.
 
Holy shit I just went through and read what everyone uses,


the obesity is strong in this thread



:p


How do you guys see the light of day?
 
As long as they stop throttling how you use the internet, I'm perfectly fine with a defined cap. I had surgery earlier this year and spent a lot of time watching streaming video off of netflix, and backed up some photos to an online storage area and ended up getting a usage warning. I'd rather have a way of knowing when I'm in danger of being shut off, rather than just having it happen at some point.

As competition rises, they'll have to raise the cap to keep up with the price/value ratio.
 
i love how you guys are telling other people how they should use THEIR internet service based on how YOU use yours. get your fucking head out of your ass, we arent you WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS. fuck what you use per month, im not you. and to tell people "step away from the computer blah blah blah" i LOL in your general direction. go back to grazing sheep.
 
acme420 said:
i love how you guys are telling other people how they should use THEIR internet service based on how YOU use yours. get your fucking head out of your ass, we arent you WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS. fuck what you use per month, im not you. and to tell people "step away from the computer blah blah blah" i LOL in your general direction. go back to grazing sheep.
Click to expand...

You definitely need to step away from your computer and meet people or something. Your social skills are sorely lacking.
 
Azhar said:
You definitely need to step away from your computer and meet people or something. Your social skills are sorely lacking.
Click to expand...

Nah... being blunt and honest doesn't make your social skills suck... especially if you're trying to judge it off 1 post on an internet forum...

If there's going to be a cap, tell us what it is, and give us a way to monitor it... =/
 
Posts like this make me glad that Comcast won't run cable to my house and that I'm stuck with Verizon for now. Granted I'd love to have a 10-15Mb line vs. the 3Mb one I have but at least they're not throttling/capping me.
 
ReubenRosa said:
And you think because its better faster technology that Verizon won't inact caps down the road? ... till people stop pirating on the web and really use it legitly there will be a need for caps.

So you share a pc with 3 others.. Are they paying your internet provider for that connection per month?
Of course not. You guys "share" it. when you all use that much then you should be on a BUSINESS line not a residential service.
Click to expand...

The main differences between the home and business lines for comcast are web hosting/domain support, static IP support, and a commercial modem or IP Gateway. None of these things are necessary for a household internet connection, and are the reasoning for the increased price (along with higher upload speed relative to download speed). Now honestly, switching to this would do nothing for the fact that people in multi-person households still need more bandwidth on average than people in 1 person households. When Comcast offers on its website purchases of network devices and installation, it is obvious they intend for one connection to serve one household.

Switching to a business line also does nothing for the fact that the bandwidth is still being used, and will therefore do nothing to changing the service for the local area, if indeed the bandwidth usage was affecting anyone (which I kind of highly doubt).
 
it works because all they need to charge these bandwidth abusers more. Thats point of business lines.
 
ReubenRosa said:
it works because all they need to charge these bandwidth abusers more. Thats point of business lines.
Click to expand...

Their business lines start at about $1500 a month. :eek:

Paying $10 for going over the cap is much more realistic.
 
hey you want to be a torrent abusing fool... and hog bandwidth doing so.. Pay the price. :)
If they forced people to pay more for huge bandwidth well guess what's going to happen.. Less people trying to pirate. Cause if you can't afford paying for that huge bandwidth bill... your going to either pirate less Or not have internet acess.
 
You realize torrents aren't illegal...

Honestly... I'd rather have slower speeds than bandwidth limits... What's the point in having an 8mb connection if you'll use up all your "bandwidth" in 3 days of actually making use of the speed provided... ?

Oh joy! I can download that small file a few seconds faster... Wooooo...
 
speed is the limit on how fast you can go.

bandwidth is the amount of traffic on the street.

they arent trying to write tickets for going over the speed limit, theyre trying to write tickets for driving too much.
 
they sell you a car that goes x mph, not a car that can only go x amount of miles. i dont think a lot of you know the difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top