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203 Comments
- THX8612, on 09/04/2008, -5/+61I paid for what they advertised, UNLIMITED ACCESS! If they cut me off and I'm going to take them to court. The race is on, if they can get FIOS to my house this will be a moot point.
On another note, CN8 (Comcast's Channel) had NO coverage of the DNC, but they did air the RNC in a show they titled "America's next Prez." That kind of propaganda is enough reason for me to drop them. - EdgarAllenPwn, on 09/04/2008, -4/+42Maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that they're advertising UNLIMITED usage and not delivering on that promise.
- Infinitedigga, on 09/04/2008, -2/+39Those 250 Gigs will be a drop in the ocean in near future. They do it now so 250 GB look like you will never spend in a month.
- sensate_mass, on 09/04/2008, -5/+31If this becomes universal, then there will be no more open private access points, and people, in apartment buildings for example, will be much less willing to share accounts. That's one of the main points of this initiative, to force more people to have their own accounts.
- RealmDown, on 09/04/2008, -3/+27If they keep the analogy going, I picture that super fast guy in the commercials hitting a brick wall.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+21You.... don't know what a "cap" is do you?
- smacksaw, on 09/04/2008, -3/+20My sister-in-law is going to be living with us soon. She does 3D animation. Luckily, we won't be having Comcast after Oct 1st. She would wreck our limits.
Anyway, we need to keep saying this: it is not a cap on today, it's a cap on the future. If there are alternatives to Comcast's video-on-demand, Comcast wants you to suffer dearly for using them. We will use that 250GB sooner than later.
I am sick of this idiotic "American-only" view of the world. We live in the internet age. You can find out anything about the rest of the world. If Korean and Japan can have better internet, so can we. Comcast does not have the interests of Americans in mind, only their own interests. Robust internet strengthens the country. Communication and commerce are keys and cross party lines. Comcast cares not about those things. - yaosio, on 09/04/2008, -6/+21"The video-on-demand services Malik claims Comcast is trying to block barely exist yet, so most of us have no experience with them."
The non-existant Hulu, Netflix, Xbox movie service, ITunes, ABC video, NBC video, Fox video, the horrible CBS video made by people that have never heard of the Internet. Of course, the Internet can also send more information than just video, despite what he wants us to believe, so we also have Steam, Direct2Drive, Gametap, Gamersgate, Stardock Impulse. None of these exist though!
"If you're going to spend that much time watching HD video, you're going to do it with commercial content instead, most likely movies downloaded through Apple TV, Xbox Live, or some similar service. And that means you're going to be spending quite a bit of money, because this content is generally going to cost you $2 to $3 per hour."
There is no such thing as a subscription service for movies, games. :( I must have been dreaming about Netflix and Gametap. :( Also ABC, Fox, and Hulu do not have free HD content either. It all costs you $3 an hour!
"Anyone who might be flirting with 250GB/month of usage in the next few years probably ought to be thinking in terms of a commercial account anyway. And after that, as bandwidth gets cheaper and new high-bandwidth services come on line, Comcast (and other ISPs) will inevitably increase the residential usage cap accordingly."
Bandwidth costs go down every year, so they should be increasing the cap every year as well. - 68024, on 09/04/2008, -2/+16The problem with this though is that it's a foot in the door for Comcast. It may not impact many people right now if any, but it gives Comcast the opportunity to revise its caps in the future and say, "but we've been using caps for years!" Plus like mentioned above- 250Gb may not be in the future what it is today.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+12Thats the danger they face by acknowleding a limit. People will realize they are using maybe 20gig a month if the email and browse the web, and they use maybe 80gig if they watch movies.
On the otherhand, if people start running usage meters, they are naturally gonna want to use what they buy. Comcast is in trouble is all their users start using 249gig a month...
I think that is why they delayed naming the limit for as long as they have. - sockpuppets, on 09/04/2008, -1/+12"If you pegged your internet (I have 12Mb) I could do it in under a week."
You'd be dead from that rate of fapping. - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+11could you even download 250gb a month with the speed comcast provides lol
- Kral, on 09/04/2008, -0/+10The author is gullible enough to believe Comcast will advance it at the same rate bandwidth increases:
"And after that, as bandwidth gets cheaper and new high-bandwidth services come on line, Comcast (and other ISPs) will inevitably increase the residential usage cap accordingly."
If Comcast had planned to do that, they could just tie your cap to your connection rate rather than saying "250GiB". Instead, it becomes like the minimum wage, where it's intentionally not tied to inflation so increasing it can be conveniently overlooked.
However, it's still better than them monkeying with packets which breaks the internet. Now if we could just get the FCC to rule against companies forging DNS NXDOMAIN, like Time Warner. - stackshady221, on 09/04/2008, -8/+16Are you ***** kidding me? Please tell me this is a joke. ***** the ***** that wrote this article, because this is the end of the internet as we know it. I can see it now -- all the ISPs will start to do this, and we will be paying to use more bandwidth. What if I watch movies on Netflix?
This is complete *****. I suggest everyone who reads this contact Comcast and demand that the get rid of this *****. - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+9PLUS I bet this is just like the ***** E-mail thing. Remember the ***** storage that Hotmail and Yahoo provided and then after Gmail hits the scene and starts kicking their asses they can suddenly give a gig or two? This 250gig cap is a crock of *****.
- sockpuppets, on 09/04/2008, -3/+11Well now you know their limit. Everyone was bitching about it being secret, now they told you. Don't like it? Don't use comcast. Seriously I am not a comcast fanboy but they finally told everyone what they wanted to know. So +1 point comcast.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+8Right, because your usage rates must reflect those of every comcrap user.
- smacksaw, on 09/04/2008, -0/+8@ norman619
Yeah, and you probably worked in billing since your answer has no technical grounding in reality.
HOSTS
Now Google. - NoCt1, on 09/04/2008, -2/+9Its the internet. Even if I will never come close to hitting it I dont want to have the 250gb marker staring at me as I browse or something. Its always the first step in something. Comcast had the balls to do this and then whos to say they wont try to do something else.
- pvaculin, on 09/04/2008, -0/+7I believe your premise except for one thing. That is the fact that Comcast is first a cable operator. It appears to me that they will attempt to stifle usage of IPTV in favor of their own programming. What they would do is to not count the programming you would receive from Comcast but would count other programming that is quite prevalent throughout the Internet. Video and HD are the future and 250 GB is not much with that sort of content.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+7I hope they lose tons of customers.
- NoCt1, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6True, plus I figured I would just constantly download and upload the same thing back and forth between a server and my pc just to keep coming to that marker.
- Spuy767, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6@ reformation: Sorry, but they pissed me of because when I first moved to my new house, I had a satellite installed, then I had comcast come out to run a new cable for intenet because the old one wasn't working properly. Long story short, the tech cut wires that ran to my satellite, ran a cable across my yard above ground, and then when I had the audacity to ask them to come out and bury the cable, they dug up a huge swath in my yard to bury a cable that's a quarter of an inch wide instead of using the equipment that they're supposed to use which cuts a hole just wide enough for the cable. Oh, and they never came out to replace the wires that their tech cut that ran to my satellite, so I had to spend about 30$ of my own money on Coax, y's and a booster to make the satellite work again. So comcast can eat my dick sack, I'm going to steal bandwidth from them until they figure it out.
- Corvidae, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6Aside from idiotic, if you're having to back up that much data on a regular basis, you'd want the commercial service anyway. Poof, no more limit.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6If you work at home and use up that much bandwidth in your work, you're no longer a "residential user" which is what these caps apply to. You should be on some sort of business plan or line.
- Abomonog, on 09/04/2008, -4/+10That limit is less space than my HD holds. Any limit is bad. Especially when they are claiming to offer UNLIMITED access.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -3/+9i have atlantic broadband they as yet do not have caps
i don't own a tv
i consume a lot of media i watch videos and movies and listen to music all day every day
i want everything to be available streaming that is what i want for the future of the internet i don't think i am exactly singular in this
so yes they are potentially getting in my way
and though at this point maybe the limit 'isn't that bad' it isn't good and there is no assurance that they will not further increase the limitation for the same reason they imposed it
so i am not happy
and my first thought is what are my alternatives
i don't like the word thought concept power of LIMIT connected in any way to my / our internet - NJank, on 09/04/2008, -2/+7wah wah... aussie networks suck... wah wah.
- dazparkour, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5In this country - they ruled unlimited ACCESS meant that SLOW access (Less than half a KB/s when capped) was acceptable if there was enough small print in the terms of use. Bastards.
- kylere, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5I wonder how much they paid him to be their apologist, his article is shortsighted and shows a high level of ignorance. CNet clearly is more and more of a corporate shill each day.
- magamiako, on 09/04/2008, -3/+8Colorblind:
At the company I work for, where we have multiple DS3's and fiber piped into the building, my office (the NOC, internet savvy, tech savvy individuals) use the most amount of bandwidth in proportion to the rest of the company. A majority of this bandwidth is simple remote desktop usage or some youtube/break/video service watching.
At home, where I can utilize a torrent service without getting my head chopped off, I will typically use far more bandwidth than this. Some of this comes from torrenting legitimate and illegitimate items. Some of this, believe it or not, actually comes from being a part of beta testing software.
With games getting ever so larger and digital distribution becoming ever more popular, it's not unreasonable to assume that even one person, if not multiple people, could end up using so much bandwidth.
World of Warcraft, for example, uses a torrent stream for transfer of its patch files. While there are tons of mirrors available on the internet, it's primary method of distribution is torrent. Over time, these patches add up to gigabytes in downloads. Steam, an online digital distribution service, pushes gigabytes worth of games out to someone who purchases games completely legitimately.
Granted, a single person using all of these items is very unlikely to hit this cap--but when you've got say, 3 or 4 people whom are college-aged living in a rented house/apartment, all of whom are internet savvy, this can become a problem.
The largest problem comes from the fact that for many years Comcast offered Unlimited internet service. I consider this, no matter which way you spin this, to have been a bait and switch tactic. Had I known at the time of purchase that they had metered bandwidth, I would have probably considered DSL. Keep in mind, this decision was made long before it was publicly known even about Comcast's "invisible" cap.
I think also a large part of the problem is that people feel that they pay so much to Comcast, and for a vast majority of users this involves extremely poor quality customer service--that we feel it as an insult that they wish to penalize us for promises that they were unable to deliver. We wonder, where the hell is our money going? If you have the "triple play", you are spending upwards of $150/month. You don't get to choose a-la-carte cable channels, and if you choose to opt out of cable TV service, you are forced to pay MORE for the internet bill. For what? Techs that don't show up when they're supposed to, but show up and are completely clueless about what they're doing.
We had problems with Comcast cable and internet for years, and every single tech that came out would just come in to the house and replace an end on the cable coming into the house from the outside, and that would be that. Keep in mind, eventually, after 3 years, we finally had the service fixed when they had to climb up the pole and completely replace the line--something I can only assume the previous techs didn't want to do because it would take too much time. - killtrocity, on 09/04/2008, -5/+10I could see blowing through 250GB in a household with 2 or 3 teenage guys. Alone, I use over 100 gigs a month simply browsing the internet, downloading all sorts of files/programs/games, streaming TV in HD from ABC, and playing games on my PS3. Hell, in college, a friend and I downloaded over 50 gigs in a day using DC++ without even trying.
- honesttussey, on 09/04/2008, -2/+7I have to backup 294GB of data this month to a remote server PLUS anything else I wanna do on the internet. Good thing I don't have Comcast. I'd be *****.
- roodammy44, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5"That being said, I seriously doubt a residential account would ever reach 250Gigs"
Also, 640KB of memory should be enough for anyone.
Computers change. They set it so high for now so in 5 years when everyone uses 250GB, they can charge more for higher amounts. Limits are never good. - Corvidae, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5They won't tie it to expanding bandwidth, they'll tie it to competition. (assuming there is any) If someone else puts out a service with the same speed and a higher cap, Comcast will up theirs to compete.
So the key is making sure the phone and cable companies are unable to block competition by regulation. - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5Backing up 294 GB of data on a simple cable line would be absolutely idiotic.
- Scottc320, on 09/04/2008, -5/+9...yet (IPTV)
- Kallius, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Rogers' overage charges stop at $25 per month. So once you hit 80 GB (and $25.00 in overage charges), you can continue using bandwidth "for free" until next month.
- Slovenian6474, on 09/04/2008, -4/+8So, are they still advertising this as "Unlimited"? A 250gb limit unlimited connection.
- fokov, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Exactly! They are afraid of all the people downloading TV shows making cable tv service unnecessary, their first or second line of revenue. With people keeping talking about IPTV, and now having TVs with the ability to stream video directly off a PC or USB key, cable TV is going obsolete.
As internet usage continues to climb, they should get off their butts to make their network better to handle it, not sit around and bitch about it. I barely watch TV shows on the TV, and if mine is on it is on the movie channels with no commercials. When you stop watching all the advertising, it gets REALLY annoying when you come back to it. Same thing after a fresh install of firefox, without ad-block web sites tend to suck.
I've been messing with linux and trying out a few distros. That combined with my (ab)normal usage, I already passed 100 GB this month. There is a machine here (not mine) that is always talking to the network, even tho it isn't doing "anything." This leads down a road where comcast will actually benefit by infecting their clients with spyware/adware so they will use more of their bandwidth, then charge them extra $ per month. Those are shameful business practices and they will be used. They are also afraid of all the independent news online, which currently gives a free voice about truths. They don't like that either. This is what happens when government creates and supports monopolies. - ATLien74, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Oh really? Well what if you just happen to be a musician with his own home recording studio, and you collaborate with other musicians all over the country as well as across town? Transferring large high quality music tracks can quickly bust that 250gig limit wide open. Should I not be doing this? Should I just quit making music, because Comcast thinks I might be a pirate just because of the large volume of data I transfer? So what if you're really into video editing? That makes music files look tiny in comparison.
You don't have to be a pirate to move large amounts of data. When I signed up, I signed up for an unlimited service....which I will be dropping at the end of this month and switching to a slightly slower, but definitely unlimited DSL line. ***** Comcast. - schoate09, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4norman619 = pwned
- Zippo, on 09/04/2008, -2/+5Could be worse. Rogers' 10Mbit connection has a 95GB/month cap. Their 5Mbit connection has a 60GB/month cap.
That's why I'm sticking with Aliant... They don't have any caps, at least for now. - ren1999, on 09/04/2008, -1/+4Comcast has violated its advertising promise of unlimited bandwidth. Drop their service and get DSL or something. Then take Comcast to court. End them for imposing greedy caps instead of using a little of their huge profits to upgrade their infrastructure. 250gigs is not enough for people who do downloading and multi-player gaming. Download services like Netflix will only become more popular. Soon we'll be streaming television through our connections. Comcast is not thinking of its future.
- bigdaddyguido, on 09/04/2008, -1/+4I love how the article basically says: "well this won't be a problem if you only use sites designed in the late 90s or early 00s."
This cap is for the future of the Internet (present for some of us) where we daily stream ED or HD video, lossless radio and have mobileme accounts
allowing us to regularly up/download many gigs of our own data. Stop living in the past and join the rest of the rest of the developed world - lololol1, on 09/04/2008, -2/+5I hit my new Rogers cap the other day... 60 gbs
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+4sockpuppets,
Im delighted by 250gig. I was worried I was bumping into the limit after I started watching movies on my xbox. Thanks to this acknowledgement on comcasts part, I know that I am not even close. - fokov, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3If they all start to do this, we should create our own company and provide a full privacy, uncapped, internet connection. With the amount of people that would want a service like this, it would succeed.
- Knowltey, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3direct2drive isn't illegal. And torrents aren't always illegal either, perhaps Halsfield is in the right.
- evilWEED, on 09/04/2008, -2/+5lol 250gb
i already used 56gb this month... in 4 days :D
most of it comes from iptv and p2p uploads and music streaming (legal). for what else would i want a line with 5mbit upstream...
but i'm not a comcast user. i'm not even in the usa...
but i guess comcast should stop crying and start upgrading their lines between their backbones. in japan they get 155mbit lines to their home and no one cries. in germany soon 100/20 FTTN will be possible... -
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