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Comments on news posted 2014-05-22 12:35:44: Comcast has slowly but surely been expanding their deployment of usage caps, largely in less competitive markets where users can't vote with their wallet. ..

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blackice
join:2014-01-02
Pittsfield, MA

blackice to buzz_4_20

Member

to buzz_4_20

Re: Pricing.

Business class on TWC for me in MA starts at $79 a month. Out in Los Angeles it starts at $69. Woo! Price discrimination!

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena to wchillman

Premium Member

to wchillman

Re: Comcast puts their other hand in my pocket

said by wchillman:

Let's call it what it is: a money grab.

Exactly. Even cable execs have admitted that it has nothing to do with capacity problems from them having an antiquated network, but they want to prevent you from using online video services like Netflix and Hulu in lieu of their television service.

It's all about money and greed. Nothing else.

It's funny: In Europe most providers in the 90s STARTED with caps, because their networks were older and needed upgrades.... and by the time the 21st century came around and networks were upgraded, they started loosening, and eventually cancelling any caps.

In the USA its the other way around, most companies started with a AUP (acceptable use policy) of some sorts that did not include caps, and as the internet developed and video services on the internet became a household name, they saw dollar signs. They want more $$$$ from you.

That's all they want. Money. "Data thresholds" my ass. They need to make sure they reach the "Bonus threshold" for their CEO's.
maartena

maartena to Moffetts

Premium Member

to Moffetts

Re: It's not a "meltdown"

said by Moffetts:

...it's an "unrequested fission surplus."

:D

I saw someone once write:

It's not rape. It's "involuntary penetration."

Same thing Comcast/TWC is trying to do. Rape us, but calling it something that doesn't sound as harsh as rape.
maartena

1 recommendation

maartena to firedrakes

Premium Member

to firedrakes

Re: Newspeak

said by firedrakes:

comcast we lie more then fox news

That's not possible.
maartena

maartena to IowaCowboy

Premium Member

to IowaCowboy

Re: I voted with my wallet

said by IowaCowboy:

I get my TV through DirecTV. I come nowhere near a so-called cap.

The purpose of their cap is to force you to buy THEIR TV. You have a choice, satellite. And if your apartment throws a fit, OTARD rules.

It's raining out right now with a rumble of thunder now and then, no problems with my reception. The only time I lose reception is the thunderstorms that cause the National Weather Service to issue Severe Thunderstorm/Tornado Warnings.

If you changed TV provider, you aren't voting with your wallet. DirecTV raises their rates by about 5 bucks every year, and expensive sports programming is one of the reasons why.

And having your cable provider's TV service does not exclude you from having caps. You will get them, regardless of what TV service you subscribe to.

YukonHawk
join:2001-01-07
Patterson, NY

1 recommendation

YukonHawk to BimmerE38FN

Member

to BimmerE38FN

Re: Teen Spirit...

Sorry.....I don't fart...I just pass gas.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

1 edit

jjeffeory to maartena

Member

to maartena

Re: I voted with my wallet

Well less money would be going to Comcast, so actually, you would be voting with your wallet.

Of course DirecTV's annual rate hikes suck too, but for now, DirecTV, er at&t is a different company than Comcast.

It's true that Comcast caps would still be an issue for a person doing this, but less money going to Comcast this way is still a form of protest.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

1 recommendation

tshirt to rit56

Premium Member

to rit56

Re: Pricing.

said by rit56:

Tshirt is a Comcast, industry shill.

Incorrect, as always. If you have actual fact based disagreement with my post above as it responds to buzz_4_20 See Profile's post please make it, repeatedly calling someone a shill adds nothing to this or any other discussion.
tshirt

tshirt to buzz_4_20

Premium Member

to buzz_4_20
Soon you won't have to worry about TWC pricing
That is one of the things I have tried to research before responding to any TWC posts, and they make it very difficult to find anything but promo base fees, ...extras, non-promo and business prices all seem to be mysterious /variable/ "call for details" which is to me is a terrible high-pressure sales tactic.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan

Member

Shoveling that BS...

"Data Thresholds"... Fighting to change the nature of conversation, eh Comcast? Well I'll keep calling them Caps.... Caps, Caps, Caps....

Comcast already has a "real-time congestion management system" and somehow finds the way to keep raising speeds. It also seems to have plenty of capacity, as my Netflix streams are flawless... now that the pesky "peering" issue has been addressed.

I called Comcast out on this in 2009....
»The real reason for the cap ~by IPPlanMan~
»Again, the 250 GB Cap is to prevent competition with CC TV

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

1 edit

tshirt to camper

Premium Member

to camper

Re: Pricing.

said by camper:

...

life is always full of changes. Sometimes they are benficial (speed increases being one example) but I think CC is being fairly straight forward with the two product lines, one with speed as priority the other with total throughput/bandwidth cost control being prioritized.
tshirt

tshirt to SunnyD

Premium Member

to SunnyD
said by SunnyD:

and the only thing that I "get" as an advantage is a SLA and a bit more download headroom.

Which is what was asked for above, more, in fact a lot more bandwidth (all you can eat, for now)
said by SunnyD:

Not to mention bundled product pricing are

No bundling is required.
But if you want it many different combos are possible including 2 account one HSI, one BCI.

And No it's not 5 cents, but few things are anymore.
tshirt

tshirt to catchingup

Premium Member

to catchingup
said by catchingup :

Yes, all consumers should have..

Only if they want to...isn't it nice to have a choice.
onthecake
join:2003-08-08
Kansas City, MO

1 recommendation

onthecake to maartena

Member

to maartena

Re: Newspeak

They own MSNBC so actually it is

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

1 edit

tshirt to maartena

Premium Member

to maartena

Re: It's not a "meltdown"

said by maartena:

Same thing Comcast/TWC is trying to do. Rape us,...

except you can walk away and if you say NO! then they can't force you to buy.
So It's nothing like rape.
You should apologize to everyone every effected directly or indirectly for making a poor analogy between a less then favorable (to you) service offer and an act of violence.

PlusOne
@66.249.88.x

-2 recommendations

PlusOne to tshirt

Anon

to tshirt

Re: Pricing.

said by tshirt:

said by rit56:

Tshirt is a Comcast, industry shill.

Incorrect, as always. If you have actual fact based disagreement with my post above as it responds to buzz_4_20 See Profile's post please make it, repeatedly calling someone a shill adds nothing to this or any other discussion.

+1
floydb1982
join:2004-08-25
Kent, WA

floydb1982 to buzz_4_20

Member

to buzz_4_20
Last month I used 3,343 gigabytes of bandwidth. I would switch from Comcast Cable to the Qwest DSL service in my area but I couldn't get the DSL service because my phone line is 22,500ft. I tried to sign up for DSL but I was told by Qwest that they only service there DSL upto 15,000ft.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9 to TechyDad

Premium Member

to TechyDad

Re: Weasel Words

Technically, caps would be hitting a wall and then stopping service. Crossing the threshold means venturing into metered service. Given the choice between the two, I'd prefer capped with an option for metered beyond the threshold.
openbox9

openbox9 to masterbinky

Premium Member

to masterbinky
They're being called "increments/blocks" of data.

»customer.comcast.com/hel ··· ata-plan

Do any providers still call their offerings unlimited?

plencnerb
Premium Member
join:2000-09-25
53403-1242

1 recommendation

plencnerb to IowaCowboy

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to IowaCowboy

Re: I voted with my wallet

Right and the other thing is, since he has Direct TV, he does not really need to use something like Hulu, Netflix, etc to watch TV. I am making an guess / assumption here that he does not have them, so if I am wrong, please IowaCowboy See Profile correct me on that point.

Bottom line is that I do agree with him. Yes, he will have a cap. But, if he is a casual surfer, he will probably never hit it. Comcast will loose out on him as his money for TV is going to Direct TV. Comcast does not get his "TV Dollars" either in the form of overage charges due to him streaming everything via Netflix or Hulu or whatever, or in the form of paying for Cable TV Service from Comcast.

Why is it so hard for people to see that?

--Brian

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Agreed 100 percent.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff to plencnerb

MVM,

to plencnerb
In this case, "voting with your wallet" is futile. If everybody switches to satellite, don't be surprised when the data cap keeps getting lower and lower anyway. This has never been about data usage, it's about TV revenue.

If you're not gonna give comcast tv money, they don't care who you're giving it to now. They'll get some of it back by lowering the cap until they replace that lost revenue. So even though you may use less data than the cap today because you have satellite, it doesn't mean they won't lower the cap further to make up for that. In that way, switching to satellite could be a false choice (this is all speculation, after-all) as Comcast can find other ways to screw you.

I think that's what the other poster was trying to get at before the thread derailed.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

1 edit

jjeffeory

Member

That's part of the delicate dance in this area. If enough people suddenly get rid of their TV services at the same time, then maybe Comcast won't keep lowering their data cap. ...and Comcast can find other ways to screw us.

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker to StopAttacks

Premium Member

to StopAttacks

Re: Pricing.

said by StopAttacks :

said by rit56:

Tshirt is a Comcast, industry shill. It's not worth trying to have a normal conversation about anything with him. He always defends Corporations.

A Personal attack just exposes the weakness of the attacker's position.

I would say this is more of an observation based on tremendous amounts of data rather than an "attack"
AeroSquid
join:2002-09-06
Kansas City, MO

AeroSquid to buzz_4_20

Member

to buzz_4_20
I feel like your post hit the nail squarely on the head. These mega monopolistic ISPs want to charge you at both ends and everywhere in between. A classic case of "naked capitalisim" dtripped of its clothes showing its true colors: naked GREED, They don't care. They have no incentive to raise your overall speed except thatit will bring you against their artifical paywakll that much soonerl. I truly feel sorry for any and all who don't have Google Fiber available to them. As it sloely but inexorably rolls out it changes the rules. Before contract signing day TWC came to my house and offered me their fastest internet (100 down, 5 up) at least in my neighborhood. Ironically this did not include TV snd after the fees and such being tacked on it was over $199 for about 1/10th of what Google offers for about $30 less a month. I'm a 20 year vetran of TWC. Had OG Road Runner installed in 1998 (1.5 down 384k up(lol)). I moved to a new house last summer and LOST Google Fiber, not an easy thing to do. However I had faith they would be back and sure enough they did show up in my new Fiberhood, late June is our approx install date. I'll be happy to be back on 1000/1000 gigabit internet. It changes the game and gives you an advantage in many ways. I worked at a large company with about 10k people on campus on any given day. Those 10k managed to share a 50/50 line with minimal griping. You could still download a Win 7 image in a few minutes. My point is gigabit service to the home is simply a deal breaker. A game changing technology. Once you have it can you ever go back to comcast and their data caps? Living in KC can be hard... our pro sports team let us down on such a constant basis we have come to sccrpt it. Most of us live and die by the KU mens basketball team lol. It's all we got. Rock Chalk Google Fiber Hawk. Spread your wings and show these companies bent on profit what's really going on.

/rant over, sorry about that and thanks for listening.
HiDesert
join:2008-08-17

3 recommendations

HiDesert

Member

Public Utility

Its high time to make broadband a public utility. Comcrap buys congress and what it wants. Its sad.

anon name
@76.237.92.x

anon name

Anon

It's not called "withdrawal" it is called "discontinuation syndrome"

This reminds me of the time when I was drugged out of my mind with antidepressants and all the add-on pills that dealt with the side effects of antidepressants.

When I finally decided to get off them, because they were killing me, I checked online. Sure enough there is vast documentation of withdrawal effects. The psychiatrist said nonchalantly, there is no such thing as withdrawal. I had a stroke because of this, and a heart attack. Now I'm missing a lot of my old self, my old brain. After it was all over, he still insisted that there is no such thing as antidepressant withdrawal. He said what I went through was discontinuation syndrome. Then his attorney filed a letter and sent it to me saying that I went off them against his approval. The reality was, he knew in advance about my intention of going off them and trying to get by on therapy alone, since my life had calmed down tremendously except for the drugs.

He was the one who told me to stop taking them, as there are no withdrawal effects. Yet he pre-emptively had his lawyers try to gaslight me into the idea that he didn't do what he did.

So, it's not "withdrawal" it is "discontinuation syndrome" but only if he actually admits doing what he did. Sort of like Comcast. It's not a "data cap" it's a "data threshold" and their cum dumps at the FCC and in Congress are paid well enough to get used to the taste.

toejamin
@69.232.206.x

toejamin to PlusOne

Anon

to PlusOne

Re: Pricing.

-1
even with my limited exposure, I agree with rit56
toejamin

toejamin to tshirt

Anon

to tshirt

Re: It's not a "meltdown"

as expected, you take the analogy past the intended point he was making

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT to newview

Member

to newview

Re: Comcast puts their other hand in my pocket

said by newview:

each member of a family of 4 can watch ONE Netflix HD movie per day

There goes the traditional "family hour" for family cohesiveness.
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