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August 29, 2008

internet

Comcast is staging an intervention

Posted Aug. 29, ’08, 7:38 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Internet

Comcast After many rumors and conjection, it’s official. Comcast is bringing its customers back to the days of metered internet. Remember when you used to run a little timer that would track your monthly internet online time? Get ready to have a little meter measuring your downloading for the month.

As of October 1st, Comcast thinks you’re abusing your internet if you download or upload 250 GB. Of course, the internet really started to take off when unlimited plans were offered and people could stop thinking about and worrying about what they were doing and for how long. Comcast argues that most users won’t run into this based on these stats:

  • Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
  • Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
  • Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
  • Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

Add in data synchronization, Skype, high definition movies, a Slingbox, online gaming, and maybe a little Bit Torrent (don’t tell). 250 GB doesn’t seem like that much anymore, now does it? I’m glad I moved off Comcast and onto FiOS. My sympathies to all you Comcast users.


14 Comments

James said:

I'm glad that Cox is the cable internet provider around here. They're friendly, helpful, and non-tyrannical.

August 29, 2008 7:43 AM
Gray said:

So, what does this mean for people that use Vonage?

August 29, 2008 8:14 AM
Joe Schuller said:

So, I can get unlimited data for my phone, but at Home I have to watch what I download. DSL providers must love hearing stuff like this.

August 29, 2008 8:20 AM
Khürt Williams Author Profile Page said:

This sucks! I have Comcast and Verizon is VERY SLOWLY rolling out FIOS in NJ.

August 29, 2008 8:39 AM
Eduardo said:

I guess the only option would be for current Comcast customers to air their displeasure to the Comcast or switch to another service provider in protest-otherwise other service providers might follow Comcast's lead.

August 29, 2008 9:16 AM
Anonymous said:

Cox also has the same limit. Again people on the internet over reacting.

http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

August 29, 2008 9:17 AM
ehren Author Profile Page said:

No good. I just switched to Comcast because they are really the only option for high speed internet here (Qwest has DSL, but 600k stopped being 'high speed' around 2000.).

I guess I'll be holding off on that Apple TV for a while...

August 29, 2008 10:24 AM
Gianni Chiappetta Author Profile Page said:

Still phenomenally better than the 60GB or 95GB that Rogers offers in Canada.

August 29, 2008 10:48 AM
Chris said:

That's it, I'm switching to AT&T DSL. We haven't gotten FiOS yet, but AT&T's U-Verse is a little bit faster and a lot cheaper than Comcast, and now with this, I'm definitely switching.

But, in the long run, this won't last. Once Comcast's competitors start marketing their unlimited bandwidths, Comcast will change its mind.

August 29, 2008 3:59 PM
Anonymous said:

Switch to another provider is not an option for many. In many places in this country, Comcast has a geographic monopoly.

Internet has become a utility, and the consumer should be protected from monopolistic practices of the utility provider.

Can you imagine getting a note from your electric company saying you've used too much electricity - we are terminating your account for 1 year after which, you may sign up again for an appropriate service level - but we don't have one - good luck with that.

August 29, 2008 8:03 PM
Anonymous said:

And that is still hugely better than the 12GB we get here in Belgium

August 29, 2008 11:17 PM
Anonymous said:

I'm sorry, it used to be 12GB,
now it's 25GB with 12Mb/s or 20GB with 15Mb/s,
both for 42 EUR (62 USD)

August 30, 2008 12:28 AM
rufus said:

You guys have got it good...downunder here in New Zealand we've got retarded plans that are like 20GB limits. Sure, you can have more, but boy you gotta pay!

August 31, 2008 3:45 AM
South Dakota said:

Many folks have choices - we can and should vote with our checkbooks.

Even here in the rural part of South Dakota where I am at, I have a choice of at least 3 broadband options.

Yes, some may not be as good as others, but letting Comcast get away with this will only set a precedence for other carriers to follow suit.

August 31, 2008 4:11 PM
Picky Author Profile Page said:

I hope that the FCC slaps this down with a huge fine to boot! Talk about going backwards. 125 Standard Def movies would average over 2 GB per movie, if they're actually of good quality. How many HD movies would that be? Certainly not even 30 (~8GB a piece, and that's conservative) and that's with nothing else being downloaded.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I look forward to the future where we can download most of our content at will, but with stuff like this, it will keep people away from pushing those services out because no one could afford to go for them.

Also, this obviously excludes random, large downloads. For example, I had to download the last iPhone SDK Beta three times because it was corrupt the first two times, which is over 3 GBs. Throw in XCode, which is a little over 1 GB, and it starts to add up.

Right now I have Cox, but I don't really think they will hold off from the caps if the FCC doesn't stomp this out, especially considering that cable usually has a local monopoly, which prevents people from going elsewhere. I don't have the FIOS option, and DSL is a joke here compared to Cable.

September 2, 2008 6:12 AM

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