Comcast: Same Old Story, But 250 GB Cap Now Official
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Comcast, Internet
Chicago (IL) – Following a slap by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week, Comcast today said that it will limit the available bandwidth to each of its customers to 250 GB per month.
If you exceed that limit twice within six months, you could face a termination of your service. Depending on your view, you may be upset or you may be relieved hearing that 250 GB number, but the real surprise may be that this number has been always in place. Comcast just did not talk about it, which means that Comcast has not answered the real questions yet: What are the current network management policies that involve bandwidth throttling and how will that change in the future?
Last week, the FCC ordered Comcast to disclose its network management practices, submit a compliance plan how the company will transition from discriminatory to nondiscriminatory network management practices by the end and disclose details about its future network management practices.
In an apparent first step, Reuters today reported that Comcast is setting a "data usage threshold of 250 gigabytes per account for all residential high-speed Internet customers.” 250 GB per month is quite a bit for residential use, representing 50 million e-mails, 50,000 MP3 songs or 124 standard-definition movies. This number should eliminate every bandwidth concern of regular residential users, even if they are planning on streaming Netflix movies via their cable connection. Of course, if you are downloading and sending data 24/7, 250 GB may not be enough.
Comcast said that if you exceed that 250 GB limit, you will get a call letting you know that the company has identified your account as one of those 1% that show “excessive use”. It will be a warning and the company will suggest an upgrade to a more expensive, commercial-grade plan. If you don’t upgrade and exceed that 250 GB limit a second time within six months, your account could be terminated for up to a year. Comcast said that a typical user on its network currently uses a bandwidth of about 2 GB per month.
What is interesting is the fact that Comcast always had that 250 GB policy and the company apparently always warned users in cases of “excessive use”. The only change is that those 250 GB, which were a secret until today, are now official. On August 18, we actually ran a story noting that such a cap was in place. Sources close to Comcast confirmed to us today that the company did not change its bandwidth cap this week and that 250 GB has been the cap for quite a while.
So, while this change to its “Excessive Use FAQ” is viewed as a reaction to last week’s FCC order by some, it is not. Comcast has yet to comply with the FCC order issued by September 19, as the terms of use, which include a blurry description the firm’s network management practices, were still dated January 25, 2008 at the time of this writing.
Comcast still describes its network management, which the FCC found to be discriminatory, as a way “to deliver the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers”, as “minimally intrusive” and as a practice that “will change and evolve along with the uses of the Internet and the challenges and threats on the Internet.” The problem is that Comcast has not yet responded to the FCC and detailed how, when and in which places the company throttles the available bandwidth. We still don’t know what software and hardware the company is using. And we don’t know how that will change down the road and if the FCC will consider that change as a “reasonable” measure.
-
Previous News Article
Why Google Android Will Surpass... -
Next News Article
IFA 2008 – Samsung’s iPhone...
I can not believe the FCC is going to let them do this. It is completely unfair and is going to allow the cable companies a way to stop the use of online video services. This will essentially set a president that will allow more and more ISPs to restrict your usage so you must use their Television service too. Also allowing them to throttle your connection whenever they deem necessary could stop you from streaming HD video from your internet connection so that you will more likely to use their HD services. If comcaste is not able to fulfill the demand of their paying customers they should have to lower their advertised speeds to what they can actually handle.
Comcast is just pure crap. With this in effect, other ISP's will tag along to place "caps" on bandwidth as well. This is going to create a new profit segment for them - low end under the cap and unlimited usage at outrageous prices. Total BS.
thank god i don't use comcast. this is bull shit... "Comcast said that a typical user on its network currently uses a bandwidth of about 2 GB per month." come on now gamers will use way more than the 250gb of bandwidth they provide.
Ok, I've used comcast for about the last 3 years, and I dont know why everyone is bitching about the cap. The article even stated that the cap has been in place even when we didnt know about it.... and nobody bitched about it then because very few people exceeded that cap. The other comments here saying that they wont be able to stream videos and gamers will over use the bandwidth and such.... seriously, think about what you're saying. Are you really going to watch 4 movies a day? And gamers... Im a gamer myself, and trust me, you wont even touch this cap unless you have games running 24/7.... Everyone is overreacting to this... its not really a big deal.
Way to bend over and take it jaywalker256. It is no unreasonable to watch 4 movies or the equivalent in tv shows online a day with a family of 3 or more people. One thing you have missed is that they said 124 "STANDARD DEFINITION MOVIES." A lot of content online is HD not standard definition! So that 250gb can go faster than you think.
I've used Comcast for about a year and it's been great. However, my Dad says that our bandwidth usage is not on the bill, so it seems unreasonable to limit something that we can't measure.
Appearantly USA ISP's can't match the European ISP's, where high bandwidth is 24Mbps with NO cap, and they are a lot cheaper too.
Exactly Eggrenade, I called them today and complained that they should at least give customers access to their bandwidth usage by logging in online like cell phone companys do. I don't like the cap, but even worse is to give me a fast car without a speedometer. Everyone that feels the same way should call them and speak up.
Exactly Eggrenade, I called them today and complained that they should at least give customers access to their bandwidth usage by logging in online like cell phone companys do. I don't like the cap, but even worse is to give me a fast car without a speedometer. Everyone that feels the same way should call them and speak up.
Oops, double post.
I just wanna say I'm glad I don't use comcast. If you are using it by yourself it may be ok but with multiple users on one line 250gb is not enough at all. With all the streaming and downloading that goes on in my home I'm glad Time Warner hasn't cut me off.
I hope you guys on Comcast can find an alternative even if it's not as fast.
They haven't changed the cap, just revealed what the cap has always been.
Do you think it should be unlimited? That would cripple Comcast's local loops and neighbors of people who use too much bandwidth would see severe problems with their service.
I certainly don't agree with everything Comcast (or any company) does, but bandwidth caps on *cable* internet is something that is needed at this time.
If you want unlimited bandwidth, get an OC-3 to your house or something.
Appearantly USA ISP's can't match the European ISP's, where high bandwidth is 24Mbps with NO cap, and they are a lot cheaper too.
Europe's ISP's,in general,totally SUCK ass.
I would NOT go there for good internet,unless you maybe count SOME of Sweden.South Korea and Japan is where the faster and cheaper internet is...If I needed a fuck load of speed,I would just ask my local fiber installer to give me 500 megabytes of bandwidth(yes,bytes,not bits)Wait.That would cost like,over a thousand dollars.With installation.
lol, silly Americans, let me give you some perspective. Here in South Africa the fastest line you get is 4mb (if it actually gets that high as its upto 4mbits) at a cost of R413 which is at about R7.50 to $1 is about $55. Thats for just the line, now we need to buy the data at ~R70-80 a gig. Typical cap is 3gigs so if you were to come on down here and try get a 250 gig cap would cost you... $2166 if we going at R65 per gig.65*250 / 7.5.
So why don't you get over it and enjoy it.
This isn't the middle of Nowhere, Africa. This is the U.S. we invented the dang thing, we should have the best, not be ranked 26th.
The fact of the matter is this: technology changes quickly. This is not a policy ment for TODAY, but TOMORROW. When very high speed connections (10mb+) become common, and most of the users are younger generations that have never known a time without the internet, we will see what this is for.
Eight years ago I had a computer with a 6 gig hard drive and 56k modem.
I could load a text page quickly and that was about it. I doubt I would pass 50megabytes a month of usage.
Now I have terrabyte hard drives and a fast cable connection.
I can download full movies/music with realative ease. I use probably around 100-200 gigabytes a month.
In eight more years I'm sure I will have petabyte drives and fiberoptic internet. And I guarantee you, I will be using WAY more then 250 gigs.
But I can promise that that 250 gig cap won't be increased to compensate.
Ive been using Comcast for the last few years and never had a problem and I know I have gone WAY over their 250cap if its always been in place. Giganews keeps a monthly tally of my downloads. I just logged in and checked my last 6mo and Ive been over 300gb/mo and thats just what I got from newsgroups. Also on Tuesday I queued up 400+gb on the Newsgroups. It finished last night. I expect to be getting one of those calls any day now.
who cares, 250GB is a fricken ton. If you're downloading more then that, then yeah, you should be paying extra for that.
250gb !!
well, canada's rogers AT&T only offer me 70gb per month
and every gb i exceed will charge $2 CAD.
so, that BS is better than my BS.....
Wel, in Africa we have a cap of 3GB its more like 7 USD per GB... Oh with a bandwidth of 1-4MB/s, most ppl here have 384Kb/s adsl, with 3GB limit... And yes its lots more expensive as to what americans pay..
in ontario canada i use cogeco.ca cable company - 100gb limit - then they send bandwidth abuse warning letters - if you don't stop, they suspened your service - i've lost mine for a day. but in my area there is no alternitive.
Exactly Eggrenade, I called them today and complained that they should at least give customers access to their bandwidth usage by logging in online like cell phone companys do. I don't like the cap, but even worse is to give me a fast car without a speedometer. Everyone that feels the same way should call them and speak up.
I'm sure they will very soon so customers can figure out what is really the usage. Hopefully this will quiet customers down.
250gigs a month is plenty for average user unless you're running a mini ISP for an apartment building which is against the TOS.
If you use alot of bandwidth then don't be greedy, upgrade to the next tier and PAY for it!!
Sheesh. Cheap bastards.
thank god i don't use comcast. this is bull shit... "Comcast said that a typical user on its network currently uses a bandwidth of about 2 GB per month." come on now gamers will use way more than the 250gb of bandwidth they provide.
If you have a 500kbps connection (fairly good for residential broadband in many areas), you would need to be maxing out your line for 138.8 hours to hit that 250gb cap in a month. That's 40 hours a week for three weeks solid. If you're on a 1mbps, that's 69.4 hours in a month, or 2 hours a day, every single day, maxing the line out. Keep in mind that, while watching a 2-hour movie, you're not maxing the line the entire time -- only during the loading, which isn't the full 2 hours.
Suffice to say, you'd have to have a seriously, ludicrously hardcore lifestyle of watching 2+ movies a night every single night for this to be an issue. To those talking about passing the 250gb/month limit with movies/music: Try actually buying products for once instead of stealing them left and right, and you might lower your internet bill.
it's not about being cheap or not dude.....other isp provide unlimited bandwidth and out of no where comcast puts a limit on their coustomers' internet service....i guess they just want their coustomer to switch to another isp if they don't like it....coustomers shouldn't/don't want to worry about if they will go over the limit or not period.
neways i shouldn't even care since i'm not even using comcast.
why would coustomers want to worry about if they will go over the limit or not.....250gb of bandwith might not matter to most ppl now but in a year or two later things will be different....it's just not a good selling point to put a limit on your internet bandwidth...it's as simple as paying the same amount of $ for a isp with a limited bandwidth vs one without a bandwidth limitation
I get 18GB peak for $50/month in Australia. I wish Comcast was here so we could get some decent caps going. Meh, they'd probably follow suit with Telstra.
I'm not surprised this happened, in a way you guys are lucky. I live in turkey and we have caps starting at 2 or 4gbs... It goes up to 10 gb and then has a 'unlimited' service plan where you obviously pay a lot more...
250gb is a treasure trove in comparison!