What is Digg?223 Comments
- jordanrobbins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+195One of the most viable options is to call your state utilities commision (and tell the company that you are going to do so). I had some trouble with SBC a while back and i called the utilities commision in california and they put me on hold, connected to SBC and conferenced the call in. It was amazing! SBC bent over backward to resolve the issue and apologized profusely for the attitudes and actions of the CSRs. These companies are heavily regulated by the government and shudder anytime someone goes through the utilities commision.
Its very easy to find your local Utilities commision number. Its usually in the front of your phone book. USE THEM!!!!! For anything utilities related. That includes internet service, Phone, Electric, Gas. I will never call directly to sbc again (sorry AT&T, the utility overlords). - aurath, on 10/12/2007, -8/+182Theres the element of false advertising too. They call it an unlimited account, and its not.
- wmarcello, on 10/12/2007, -1/+67Easy answer. Is ISP 'x' abusing its customers? Most likely, yes.
- donjaime, on 10/12/2007, -6/+63What they do with their bandwidth is their goddamn business. Comcast would NOT let them know what the transfer caps were. I find that unacceptable. And from the looks of the article, these people were give the run around by different comcast departments. They WANTED a business account, but were told that they would not be allowed one. The only option they were given was a $1000 dollar a month dedicated line, which is ridiculous for what they wanted to do with it.
Net neutrality is very very important. Whether you want to run a webserver, or talk to someone over skype, you should not pay more for specific types of traffic. - lazlonger, on 10/12/2007, -17/+72aren't you a cocky *****. work for Comcast? You should....
- masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5320gb a month? I've done that in a day or so. Good ol' bittorrent.
- pintomp3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+52what's a "large" file? 2GB? 2MB? 2KB?
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -5/+53It's Comcastic!
- tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -4/+50I thought we paid for a certain limited bandwidth per second. So legally on a line of 3Mbps that is 3*60(for minutes)*60(to get hours)*24(to get a day)=648000Mb per day (648Gb/day) times that by 30 to find out how much you can use in a month = 1,9440,000 Mb in a month or the equivalent of 1.9Tb a month. 1.9terabits = 243 GigaBytes. This guy used a few hundred GB in one month? Heaven forbid...especially if he was on 5Mbps speed or a 10Mbps speed. Technically he should've been able to download 81 GigaBytes per month for each Mbps he had. 10 Mbps = up to 810 GigaBytes.
The above calculations are extreme ESTIMATES of course (not even taking the whole 1,024 stuff into account)...but honestly, how is it the guy's fault if his modem was faulty or if Comcast didn't set a limit themselves? The people he spoke with were obviously ignorant too...how did they not know that the modems can be hacked or faulty and remove the bandwidth caps? They must not read Digg...idiots... - deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -6/+51"Doesn't Comcast advertise unlimited use?"
No? I can't recall ever seeing a Comcast ad that advertised the service as being unlimited. They usually say "always on" instead. (I may be wrong -- I try to ignore advertising whenever possible) The Comcast Terms of Service clearly give them the right to suspend or cancel your service over excess bandwidth usage. It sucks, yeah, but it's clearly stated.
Also, here's a trick I've used in the past: Some ISP's monitor your bandwidth based on your WAN IP. If you spoof your router's WAN MAC 2-3 times a month you will force a new IP to be pulled which means your bandwidth will be split over 2-3 different reports. Doesn't work in all situations (if they tie to your modem MAC or modem's private IP for instance) but it's worth a try. - nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -3/+48Actually, Comcast does advertise its internet as unlimited. There is an ad on a bus that runs near my house that says "Unlimited Television, Unlimited Internet, Unlimited Long Distance (Limited to only $33/month)"
I don't know if this is their actual policy, or just some sort of cute advertisement, but I distinctly remember the ad (I though "Unlimited Television" sounded odd).
Either way, they should tell you what the limit is if there is one. This "we can't disclose that information" is a load of crap and a perfectly valid reason for theconsumerist to be upset and call it a "scam" . . . the terms of service should be CLEARLY DEFINED . . . "excess usage" is subjective. 10 years ago 500 mb/month would be "excess usage." Nobody is saying comcast is doing something illegal, they're just saying it's wrong. - monergism, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42Life must be rough.
- superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29I am suddenly inclined to find out Time Warners cap on my "unlimited" road runner account
- nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29It seems like this could be a good tool to get out of a one year agreement . . . download a lot of stuff.
- raada, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28Unlimited or not. If you pay for having, say 6Mbit/s, you should be able to use that for as long as you pay for it. Everything else is ridiculous. If not, it is like saying: you can surf really fast but you are never allowed to do it.
You pay for bandwidth and not for per byte transferred. - volve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24To throw my experience into the mix, they called and left a message for us the other day. Trouble is, you can't actually call them back. If you call their number, it's either a busy signal (seriously?! in this day of communications?!) or an answering machine.
Anyway, after they called approximately 5 times, we were finally home and they said that in January our account had downloaded 260GB of data. They claimed that they had no details of any limits, nor even any user averages they may have ranked us against. Handy eh? The guy was quite polite though, so that's good.
Seeing as we pay for the extra speed tier, you'd think they could be a tad more clear with this whole issue. The normal Comcast support line doesn't even recognize the 856-324-2025 number that this magical, mystical "Policy Observation Department" appear to orginate from. It's all very fishy. The most odd part is that they DON'T try to up-sell you. They don't even mention business accounts or add fees or ANYTHING. Surely this should be accounted for but a burstable fee or something? Ie. you do 2x the average they call to warn you, but then after that they charge you X amount extra? Wouldn't that make sense instead of losing a customer for a whole year?
It's all very, very odd. - u235sentinel, on 10/12/2007, -4/+27No? I can't recall ever seeing a Comcast ad that advertised the service as being unlimited.
Hi. I'm the Frank mentioned in the article. I'm currently preparing several avenues of resolving this dispute but wanted to make this very clear while I had a moment.
If you read my blog you would have come across the very advertisement I saw on Comcast's internet site when I signed up. I'll be posting it again shortly. I hope this is very clear as it's what put me into this mess. BTW, my neighbors still believe this is the case and were not aware that Comcast has changed the agreement. If you call customer service at this very minute they will tell you there are no data or bandwidth caps. They said it so I believed it :-)
BTW, on consumerist I must be dense. I couldn't find how to create an account to respond to yahonza's comment. Hopefully he will be checking the blog or this Digg comment.
One more note. I'm perfectly happy to limit myself to whatever Comcast wants. It's their service. Being a heavy internet user for work and play and a past consumer of their HSI product, I believe it's not unreasonable to ask how much is too much? So far nobody knows.
I appreciate the comments and support. Hopefully someday I can (again) get rid of this 28.8 connection. It sucks :-) - jersey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21This is standard operating procedure for these companies. I got capped by Optimum Online (Cablevision) because I uploaded too much. They claimed files sharing, but couldn't prove it... which isn't a surprise as I was FTPing video files to my students for homework assignments.
And no, they wont tell you what the limits on "unlimited"are. Then when you get capped, they wont uncap you until you request it, then they have to call you back. Well, that doesn't work so well if you have a out of region cell # as your only contact, as I do. They cant call the #, and when I call and explain, they tell me too bad, I shouldn't have broken the rules in the first place.
Here is 1 of the 7 capping discussions, and it's 107 pages long. Yes, 107 pages. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15784791 - UrfTheWog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Man that blows. And these companies are the same people that say "there's no need for net neutrality". Give me a break.
- freakon, on 10/12/2007, -6/+24Lol... just tell em something like "whats a bandwith" They wont bother.
- peskypescado, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19300GB is not an unreasonable amount to download in a month these days. Especially if you have 6 people using the service (parents and children). That's the point.
- hasbeen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15That argument used to be valid. But nowadays you have all these streaming video/audio sites, and hence your monthly usage can add up pretty quickly. In other words, there are plenty of legitimate means to get such a high usage. Although that's kinda beside the point.
The common rebuttal of "if you don't like it, don't use it" also can't apply to this, as Comcast is a natural monopoly. Anyway, this discussion has been going on for years at dslreports. Personally I consider this extremely poor customer service, shady, and quite frankly, unacceptable. But hey... - digitaldd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Well they do have their TOU on-line here: http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp
And the section on Network and Bandwidth is clear except it doesn't mention what an acceptable amount of bandwidth is, it does say they may suspend your service if you fail to comply.
Network, Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitations
Comcast may provide versions of the Service with different speeds and bandwidth usage limitations, among other characteristics, subject to applicable Service plans. You shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or impede Comcast's ability to deliver and provide the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network services.
You further agree to comply with all Comcast network, bandwidth, and data storage and usage limitations. You shall ensure that your bandwidth consumption using the Service does not exceed the limitations that are now in effect or may be established in the future. If your use of the Service results in the consumption of bandwidth in excess of the applicable limitations, that is a violation of this Policy. In such cases, Comcast may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your Service account or request that you subscribe to a version of the Service with higher bandwidth usage limitations if you wish to continue to use the Service at higher bandwidth consumption levels.
In addition, you may only access and use the Service with a dynamic Internet Protocol ("IP") address that adheres to the dynamic host configuration protocol ("DHCP"). You may not configure the Service or any related equipment to access or use a static IP address or use any protocol other than DHCP unless you are subject to a Service plan that expressly permits otherwise. - Domdogg123, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15That is a terrible argument. They should not be advertising 2.7gigs a person unless they can deliver that much.
- tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@Volve
Interesting...they claim you use 2X average and thus have to change...but if they did that to everyone, then it's not TRULY based off the "average" is it? By removing anyone going above a certain limit, they change the entire statistic to continually get a mean much lower than it really should be without meddling. - peskypescado, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15@monergism
I did the math, if they had the 4mbit plan (not the 8mbit one) they could have used just under 25% of their connection constantly for a month and gone over the invisible/unwritten limit. It only takes 970kbit/sec average to download 10GB a day. So that means they can only use the full 4mbit 5.7 hours per day without going over the limit. If they have the same policy for the 8mbit it would be 2.8 hours. That is ridiculous! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19@jordanrobbins
You do realize what != insinuates, right? - totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Here is the thing:
EVERYONE benefits if companies like Comcast set clear guidelines on this stuff( as BillDoE above shows, its not clear at all).
Comcast benefits because they have clear rules to point to, not that ***** "I'm the CEO as far as you are concerned" making them up as he goes along.
Consumers benefit because we can choose our carriers based on what they promise/deliver.
Regulators benefit because the Consumer and Corporations both are agreeing and operating under set guidelines.
So what is the goddamn holdup? - BillDoE, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12The thing about these so called limitations is that Comcrap won't tell anybody what that limitation is.
Network, Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitations
Comcast may provide versions of the Service with different speeds and bandwidth usage limitations, among other characteristics, subject to applicable Service plans. You shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or impede Comcast's ability to deliver and provide the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network services.
You further agree to comply with all Comcast network, bandwidth, and data storage and usage limitations. You shall ensure that your bandwidth consumption using the Service does not exceed the limitations that are now in effect or may be established in the future. If your use of the Service results in the consumption of bandwidth in excess of the applicable limitations, that is a violation of this Policy. In such cases, Comcast may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your Service account or request that you subscribe to a version of the Service with higher bandwidth usage limitations if you wish to continue to use the Service at higher bandwidth consumption levels. - sophiaperennis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Best part of the whole story:
"S- Well we aren't able to give you residential or business acct., but we can give you a commercial acct.
Me- What is that?
S- It would be a direct line for your own use connected to your house.
Me- Wow, how much would that be?
S- About $1700 to install and then about $1000 a month service fee."
Insanity ensues. - peskypescado, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@richestorags
You obviously didn't read the article. They used ~300GB for two months. Which is only 25% of the rated speed of comcast's lower tier service going 24/7 for a month. - steveatdownmix, on 10/12/2007, -8/+17But unlike Comcast, Cingular specifies that "large file" downloads are not allowed on the service.
*****? Sure... But it's laid out in plain English. - Justin6512, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10COMCAST=EVIL
- JimXugle, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Welcome to the world of government-sanctioned monopolies!!
Thank uncle sam for your situation.
Bitch and moan to Congress until you get a reply. Ask for true telecom competition. Explain your situation. Someone will listen eventually.
But DO NOT ask for socialized Internet connectivity. - RichesToRags, on 10/12/2007, -25/+33400GB's a month. Damn, just get a Netflix account. If its all porn, then get yourself a freakin life.
If thier running a webserver, then f'em, they need a business account. Not even BigBiz deserves to be ripped. - tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10The Article says he was paying for an unlimited business account and they shut that off. Originally he was on a consumer account, but Comcast switched him to a business account and then said his business account was still using too much and shut that off entirely too. RTA
- Hellmark, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Verizon does DSL, and as stated several times in the article, DSL is not available in the area. Verizon isn't available for anything other than cellphone service where I am. How can they switch to something not available?
- subversive1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I agree with Pesky.I went through this ***** with Mindspring way back when.I had one computer and a total of 3 family members using it.I get a snarky email telling me I am using too much bandwidth.DSL had just come into town a month later...Adios *****!
- tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -9/+16Also, if they are as desperate for broadband as they claim, they can get satellite internet for around $69/month. The equipment is like $450 to install it...it may not be AS FAST as Comcast, but it's a heck of a lot better than dial-up and way better than paying $1,000/month! They aren't stuck with either Comcast or Dial-up...I would be frustrated if I were them...but they're ridiculously saying they have "NO OTHER OPTIONS" but to pay $1000/month or use dial-up.
- nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Except that there are several legitimate services that you can have on top of your interent connection which hog bandwidth. Internet television, internet telephone, etc. Particularly with internet television, it's easy to use 25% of your connection all the time. My father-in-law uses a slingbox style device which has a constant draw of about 2mbits/second . . . he leaves it running all the time. Don't act like just because you're using a lot of bandwidth it's not "legit." A lot of people are ahead of the times . . . in 25 years ask yourself if you use more than 300gb/month for "legitimate" uses.
- masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Searches? How would changing a computer name fix that?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6What the hell is all this about him "abusing" his bandwidth? He's paying for a certain upload and download speed, he should get said speed. If they want to limit the speed because it slows things down for everyone else then they should provide lower speeds at lower cost, or they should take some of the untold millions they are getting paid and upgrade their equipment to cope with people using the full amount of bandwidth they paid for.
- thomasjcollins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"...you can download 1megaBYTE per second on a 768k line."
???
768k means 768 kilobits per second.
768 kbps / 8 bits per byte / 1024 Kilobytes per Megabyte = 0.09375 MegaBYTES per second - nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8"leechers like this"
Are you serious? Comcast "leeches" $600/year from your pocket for internet access. Comcast does everything it can to take as much money from you as possible. At the very least you should be able to use your overpriced internet to its fullest.
And with regard to the "shared" cable. As long as comcast tries to pass laws making co-op wireless networks illegal, I feel no sympathy for their distribution problems. How can you complain about having slow interent due to your neighbors when Comcast fights to make it illegal for your neighbor to share his internet with you. - jordanrobbins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Taken from the Time Warner Cable modem subscription aggreement http://www.timewarnercable.com/centralny/customer/policies/cmservicesubscriptionagreement.html
b) The ISP Service has maximum "throughput" limits (i.e., limits on the rate at which data may be sent to or received from the Subscriber at any time), as set forth in the price list and Subscriber Materials for the ISP Service.
(c) Subscriber acknowledges and agrees that Operator and ISP shall each have the right to monitor Subscriber=s "bandwidth consumption" (i.e. aggregate volume of data that may be sent or received) at any time and on an on-going basis, and to limit excessive bandwidth consumption by Subscriber (as determined by Operator and/or ISP) by any means available to Operator or ISP, including suspension or termination of ISP Service.
(d) Operator reserves the right to implement specific limits on the maximum amount of bandwidth consumption available to Subscriber per month for the level of ISP Service subscribed for by Subscriber. Once such limits are implemented, if Subscriber exceeds the bandwidth consumption limits assigned to the level of ISP Service for which Subscriber has subscribed in any month, Operator (or ISP if ISP is billing Subscriber for ISP Service) has the right to limit bandwidth consumption by Subscriber in excess of such level by any means available to Operator or ISP, including suspension of ISP Service, and/or to impose additional fees and charges on Subscriber. - masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8 ^ ^ richestorags
That's why they need to use some of those millions and billions they're making to get you a decent node. - keyboardduder, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Get DSL, Fiber, anything you can, get away from cable. They smear anything else that is competition and they are scared that people will leave them. They own the TV trasmission, why let them own you and your internet? I have verizon DSL and its frickin awesome! 3Mbps, only paying 29.99/mo instead of paying 42.95 for 6Mbps on a service that watches what you do! This hapened to my friend too, they sent him an email saying "stop using bittorrent" and he said back "im making backups" and comcast replied, "well, be prepared to prove it" theyre oligopolistic jerks who try to make their service seem so much better by smearing the competition when we all know that no one really needs 6Mbps, you can play WoW just fine on a 768k connection, you can download 1megaBYTE per second on a 768k line. Its useless propagangda that actually gets people to buy their *****. I cant wait until verizon starts offering TV in my area, so i can finally get rid of comcast. Theyre horrible people.
- NetJoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8It doesn't matter how much he was using. He cannot make an educated choice because they intentionally refuse to say what they're selling. When I buy bandwidth for work, we negotiate based on transport and usage separately. If we're burning 60M of a 100M pipe we pay something for the pipe, then pay for the 60M used everybody knows what they're getting. If we need more, we open it up, the ISP is happy to send a bigger bill and we can manage the budget by using a traffic shaper.
As a consumer I've tried to find that kind of a pricing strategy, everybody is happy to sell you a fat pipe but I have yet to find anyone that will put utilization rates down on paper. If your spending less than a couple thousand dollars a month they wont even talk to you.
Companies that I've tried to get an answer out of include: Comcast, Qwest, Verizon, Covad, Integra, and Speakeasy. So far nobody is willing to give me a straight answer.
Oh and for the enterprise sales guys that might read this... Just how do you think I feel about an enterprise bid from you when I know your intentionally misleading your customers. -
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