The Consumerist has an article about Comcast’s download cap. I found this part very interesting.
Comcast even has a system ready to go where if you exceed the limit a popup will ask you to purchase additional gigabytes, our source says. The graphical user interface is completely designed and everything, but Comcast hasn’t deployed it, because they’re waiting for either another ISP to do it first, or to figure out how to do it without angering their customers, whichever comes first.
CEO Brian Roberts is said to have seen a demo and given his thumbs up.
If your 5 channels are broadcasts, you can get that from Comcast.
On another note with Comcast, they are now starting to require customers to sign 2 year contracts when you call to change services. With FIOS breathing down their necks, Comcast is looking to lock as many people as possible into their overpriced service.
Comcast is a business that is out to maximize profits. The bandwidth abusers are something like the top 0.01% bandwidth users and always will be no matter how little they use. Comcast is out to minimize bandwidth usage no matter how cheap it has become so they can maximize profits. Comcast will always threaten the top bandwidth users even if they are only using 50 GB a month rather than today’s “limit” of 200 to 300 GB. Charging for HSI service based on bandwidth usage first hit the headlines 3 to 5 years ago. Comcast probably had a plan to charge more for additional bandwidth back then. If Verizon or AT&T start charging more for additional DLS bandwidth, I would expect Comcast to do the same because I doubt most of those in Comcast areas would have any other available HSI provider at that point that did not charge based on usage. Even if you do not use much bandwidth today, you will in the future when you stream more audio and video. Do you really think Comcast wants you to watch even legal TV shows over the Internet and rent movies over the Internet for no additional charge when they provide premium channels and movies on demand themselves. Someone has to pay for all the past acquisitions and mergers by the cable and telecom giants. That person is the consumer. Don’t ever expect your Comcast HSI bill to go down if they charge more for additional bandwidth. They will not give low bandwidth usages a break.
It’s the logical result of no (or very little) competition.
It wouldn’t happen if the politicians were not bought and paid for.
Let them Jack their prices up or offer less. Good !
I dropped Comcast two years ago. In my area Comcast prices are outrageous.
What we really need is a politician with a spine to give the whole telecoms industry a restructuring.
Just my two cents
stop bitching and download more..
max your limit and move on if/when they cut you off..
if everyone does, will they cut us all off?
i try to live by these simple rules..
What happens when proliferate the homes of individuals who have no idea what a gigabyte is, but they’re sucking up bandwidth like mad? Maybe a killer IPTV box will come out – Grandma knows if she plugs it in, she can watch The Price Is Right all day, but she doesn’t know about the giant bill at the end of the month.
It’s only a matter of time before it becomes a real problem.
..by the way, didn’t we pay a tax for YEARS for these companies to build these networks? And they’re still not robust enough to provide the usage we want?
^^^ “What happens when ***DEVICES*** proliferate. . .”
I got all excite using that new big word, I forgot the noun.
[Duplicate post. - ed.]
^^^ “What happens when ***DEVICES*** proliferate. . .”
Comcast’s CEO gets to buy his 5th house!
If you think that getting rid of Comcast will do anything, you are sadly mistaken — if and when they do this, everyone will follow suite immediately.
Mike T
This isn’t anything new. Back in 2003, I received a violation letter from Comcast stating that I was using 100 times more bandwidth than the national median. You can view a scan of their letter here:
http://www.wbttools.com/comcast.pdf
My response? I switched to another ISP immediately.
[Fixed. - ed.]
This is a far better solution than extorting money out of YouTube or other Internet services. I hope other ISPs adopt this solution.
Remember, when ISPs started offering all you can use Internet, BitTorrent was not in common usage and speeds were so slow that video downloads were not practical.
It is a much better idea to ask people to pay for high usage levels than to cut then off or throttle their service when they cross some limit they did not even know about.
Internet users have always paid for their usage, initially you paid more for a direct connection than for dial up. Today you can pay more for faster access.
This requires no legislation to maintain Net Neutrality, it lets market forces solve the problem.
Ask you provider what the rules are BEFORE you join up. I spoke with my current ISP to make sure that they did not filter BitTorrent and they did not have bandwidth limitations before signing up. This is when you still are in control, when you are a POTENTIAL customer. Make sure the ISPs know these are issues you care about.
In order to implement this without alienating their customers Comcast should provide a utility so the user can monitor their monthly bandwidth usage.
This may be the first time I agree with Comcast about anything. I still can’t forgive them for buying and dismantling TechTV.
#33, LB,
You make a good point. Unfortunately, the telecoms and cables companies don’t play fair. They might verbally promise you the moon, but are only beholden to the signed contract. So it doesn’t matter if the sales rep promised 10 M/s download speeds, the contract will limit you to whatever they give you. It won’t matter if if the sales rep promises you unlimited d/ls, the contract might have a limit. You want a special contract? Ya right.
Oh, BTW, there will probably be some clause in the contract that says they may unilaterally change the contract without notifying you. It is your responsibility to visit their web site and read the contract every month to find out what has changed. If you don’t object within 30 days and continue to use the service then that means you accept the change.
Our elected representatives have let us down by nor protecting the consumer from these predatory practices.
If this happens, advertisers should pay me for the 1 MB animated flash ad with audio that downloads without my consent.
Seriously, a lot of these flash ads are bandwidth hogs because everyone has broadband today.
That advertising guy who said using adblockers is stealing is crazy.
yup, if this gores through I’ll just break my contract. I can get faster internet for cheaper but comcast was easy.
The end customer shouldn’t be penalized for what the webpages do as advertizing. A lot of today’s webpages have gone from small static thumbnails as ad. To video clips. I’ve had to block a few of these shockwave ads comming from pages I frequent. Simply because they jam up my dialup connected browser, waiting for them to fully load and play. I have no problem see the old Jpeg and GIF ads. So wouldn’t us receiving all these video ads also go toward maxing out the download limit? If these carriers are going to charge anyone for eating up bandwidth, it should be webpages that supply these video ads, and video clips, in place of text articles. Like your local news stations, that just don’t want to take the time to transcribe their reports.
So this ‘story’ is based on rumor and speculation.
Come on, does anyone with a brain think this is real?
Grow up and start using your heads people, instead of letting your rash emotions get the best of you.
#38 said penalized, hehe