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r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984 to mjfink420

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to mjfink420

Re: The dreaded call from Comcast

Comcast Business Class Prices
50/10 - $189.95
22/5 - $99.95
16/2 - $89.95
12/2 - $59.95
Business class cost more due to paying for uptime and better customer service. The OP does not need those extra costs.

Comcast Residential Prices
50/10 - $99.99
20/4 - $57.95
12/2 - $42.95
1/.384 - $24.95

You should not have to pay for the business extras just to use your connection without caps.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

said by r81984:

You should not have to pay for the business extras just to use your connection without caps.
"business extras" INCLUDES using more data.

The residential product is differentiated on SPEED, not total bandwidth USED.

You are able to use all your speed you pay for, up to 250GB.

The business product is differentiated on SPEED + more bandwidth + far far better service. It also is not uncapped (although the caps are not disclosed and are apparently far higher then residential, the verbiage is in the contract.)

Lets NOT rehash this again, please.

To recap:
Residential - pick your speed, all speeds capped at 250G - comcast lets you use ALL your speed UPTO your CAP, and you KNOW THIS WHEN YOU BUY IT.

Business - pick your speed, all speeds capped far beyond typical use*

*but I bet you $5 if you use 100% of your bandwidth in a month you'll get a call.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

1 recommendation

r81984

Premium Member

Remeber when comcast did not have caps???
Seriously, stop trying to justify caps.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese to r81984

Premium Member

to r81984
said by r81984:

Comcast Business Class Prices
50/10 - $189.95
22/5 - $99.95
16/2 - $89.95
12/2 - $59.95
Business class cost more due to paying for uptime and better customer service. The OP does not need those extra costs.

Comcast Residential Prices
50/10 - $99.99
20/4 - $57.95
12/2 - $42.95
1/.384 - $24.95

You should not have to pay for the business extras just to use your connection without caps.
If he would like to use it for work purposes, then yes, he does need it.
unoriginal
Premium Member
join:2000-07-12
San Diego, CA

unoriginal to r81984

Premium Member

to r81984
said by r81984:

Business class cost more due to paying for uptime and better customer service. The OP does not need those extra costs.

If a residential customer moves from res to small biz service and is using the exact same cable drop and modem as they were before how exactly does Comcast guarantee better uptime? I can't speak to better CS but I know someone in San Jose that recently made this move and says that their traceroute and overall routing are exactly the same as before. No change. Just a bigger bill to avoid the 250GB cap of the residential service.

nerdburg
Premium Member
join:2009-08-20
Schuylkill Haven, PA

nerdburg to r81984

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to r81984
Data transmission cost money. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.
nerdburg

1 recommendation

nerdburg to unoriginal

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their traceroute and overall routing are exactly the same as before. No change. Just a bigger bill to avoid the 250GB cap of the residential service.
Yes. If you want unlimited data transmission, you have to pay for it. Is it really that complicated?

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to unoriginal

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to unoriginal
said by unoriginal:

If a residential customer moves from res to small biz service and is using the exact same cable drop and modem as they were before how exactly does Comcast guarantee better uptime? I can't speak to better CS but I know someone in San Jose that recently made this move and says that their traceroute and overall routing are exactly the same as before. No change. Just a bigger bill to avoid the 250GB cap of the residential service.
In the business class TOS we have 24/7 access to a totally different technical support team, and truck rolls in under 12 hours. That yields better up time.

And yes, we pay more for more bandwidth.
JohnInSJ

JohnInSJ to r81984

Premium Member

to r81984
said by r81984:

Remeber when comcast did not have caps???
Seriously, stop trying to justify caps.
Stop asking to not pay for a cap-less service. Seriously.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

2 edits

r81984

Premium Member

said by JohnInSJ:
said by r81984:

Remeber when comcast did not have caps???
Seriously, stop trying to justify caps.
Stop asking to not pay for a cap-less service. Seriously.
Well since the bandwidth you use does not change the cost of your connection all connections should be capless.

AVonGauss,
Caps do not prevent peak usage thus the network must be built to handle everyone regardless of use.
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

1 edit

AVonGauss to r81984

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to r81984
said by r81984:

Remeber when comcast did not have caps???
Seriously, stop trying to justify caps.
Remember what the speed tiers were back then? Remember the complaints about nightly slow downs? Its a circular argument and my examples are poor because node size has changed as well as many other factors.

Out of curiosity, are you even a Comcast customer?
rendrenner
join:2005-09-03
Grandville, MI

rendrenner to r81984

Member

to r81984
So why charge for different speed tiers? I think everyone paying the economy rate should get the same speeds as me on the 20m tier . I mean its the same modem, the same drop and same tracert right?

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

1 edit

r81984

Premium Member

said by rendrenner:

So why charge for different speed tiers? I think everyone paying the economy rate should get the same speeds as me on the 20m tier . I mean its the same modem, the same drop and same tracert right?
Charging less for lower speeds is just a way to get more customers that could not afford the real price without losing the money you can get from customers that can afford the connection. It is just a way to justify letting poorer people pay $20 a month and not pissing off those paying $60.

Any money over the actual cost is profit and that is better than nothing.
The line and equipment used to connect your house cost the same regardless the tier you purchase.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to rendrenner

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to rendrenner
said by rendrenner:

So why charge for different speed tiers? I think everyone paying the economy rate should get the same speeds as me on the 20m tier . I mean its the same modem, the same drop and same tracert right?
I give up. To see my identical replies to this and other identical questions, see any of the other 1000000 threads where all this is rehashed over and over.

You can vote with your wallet. That's what capitalism is all about.

mod_wastrel
anonome
join:2008-03-28

1 edit

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Member

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Personally, I can only laugh at those who think that customers who use their connection more than other customers actually cost the ISP any more money to provide them service than those who use less. I mean, really, someone using their connection more when it's mostly underutilized by customers as a whole is justification for charging them more? or simply kicking them off the network altogether? Yep, there's a sucker born every minute.

You gotta just leave 'em in their ignorance and move on.

nerdburg
Premium Member
join:2009-08-20
Schuylkill Haven, PA

nerdburg to r81984

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to r81984
Well since the bandwidth you use does not change the cost of your connection all connections should be capless.
"Bandwidth" is a data transmission rate. and has nothing with the 250MB cap.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

said by nerdburg:
Well since the bandwidth you use does not change the cost of your connection all connections should be capless.
"Bandwidth" is a data transmission rate. and has nothing with the 250MB cap.
Well the data transmission rate of 250GB cap in 30 days is: 771.6 kbps
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

1 edit

AVonGauss to mod_wastrel

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to mod_wastrel
I guess I could make a similar counter post directed towards those that think they're just bits and don't have any associated infrastructure or transit costs involved. Kind of like electricity and electrons, those electrons were already moving, right?

I think many would agree there can and should be a better way of dealing with the situation rather than mysterious calls and booting paying subscribers from the network, but ignoring basic facts of the situation doesn't seem like it adds anything helpful to the mix.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

said by AVonGauss:

but ignoring basic facts of the situation doesn't seem like it adds anything helpful to the mix.
I agree that is why people need to stop fighting for the right to pay for caps.
It is crazy that there are those that will try to argue how caps are necessary and if you use your connection you should pay more than someone that does not use their connection.
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

1 edit

1 recommendation

AVonGauss

Premium Member

said by r81984:

I agree that is why people need to stop fighting for the right to pay for caps.
It is crazy that there are those that will try to argue how caps are necessary and if you use your connection you should pay more than someone that does not use their connection.
Who's fighting for the right to have a cap or for that matter who is saying they prefer having a cap?

Let's try it this way, if you have a gigabit uplink, how many 100 Mbps connections can you support running at 80% 24/7 before you have to upgrade your uplink?
jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL

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For some perspective:

I pay $50 for a VPS server from a host in Virginia with Tier 1 bandwidth and 1TB transfer monthly limit.

Anyone in the hosting industry knows how much one Tier1 pipe costs, these guys have multiples of them! And even expanded to the west coast

I also get top notch support 24/7 *7* days a week by incredibly knowledgeable group of guys who rarely if ever take more than half hour to get back to me when I break my server because I know next to nothing about CentOS!

I started at 10GB hard drive space and that's been going up ever since, every where with free upgrades.

Of course they have no investors to please and non-stop profits to produce and the CEO is a cool guy, not some stiff flying in a private jet with $100mil salary. He actually gives a damn if you're happy with his service or not.

I would advise you pay attention to the quarterly reports, it's an eye opener if you can decipher the meaning of ARPU and other such terms. It can show you how much the average user costs the company vs the revenue they take in

Consider that Comcast has it's own network, it's cost of maintenance is included in your monthly price. Comcast peers with other networks but even if they were to pay for the connection, the average megabit costs $3-$4 monthly lots less for them probably after negotiations. With 40-50 people all sharing it's no big deal.

Comcast isn't hurting by someone pushing gigs of bits of porn torrents going up and down

Now are you clogging the local node with your porn, perhaps but that's how the network is designed I imagine

My 2c
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

AVonGauss

Premium Member

And if you go over 1TB of transfer in a month, what happens?

nerdburg
Premium Member
join:2009-08-20
Schuylkill Haven, PA

nerdburg

Premium Member

After reading this thread, I'm convinced that data transmission should be free and unlimited. So if he goes over 1TB, nothing should happen. That is my fair and balanced opinion.

pflog
Bueller? Bueller?
MVM
join:2001-09-01
El Dorado Hills, CA

1 recommendation

pflog

MVM

You know, it's the same people complaining about the cap who would complain when comcast increased the cost of service 50-75% in the event they lifted the cap and had to split nodes/etc to accommodate the potential extra utilization.

Comcast probably strives to operate each node at a targeted capacity that's not too much but not too little. Too much available means waste, too little means poor(er) quality of the service due to saturation.

I don't necessarily agree with the cap (or disagree with it for that matter), but the people that think bandwidth is essentially free to Comcast are mistaken.
jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL

2 edits

jagged to AVonGauss

Member

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said by AVonGauss:

And if you go over 1TB of transfer in a month, what happens?
$1 per 4GB for overages/25c per gig
some of it still profit to them, a few years ago you could plug in a data center and get 10cents or lower per GB with Tier 1 traffic going trough AT&T, Level3 etc

LarryE
join:2000-07-29
Chicago, IL

LarryE

Member

If people know what the cap is, and what the consequences are, why do they continually insist on testing Comcast to see how long it takes to get cut off? If you don't want to play by the rules, then don't play the game. Be a responsible adult. Next you'll be complaining because the cops busted you for selling all those movies you're downloading from Vudu.
jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL

jagged

Member

said by LarryE:

If people know what the cap is, and what the consequences are, why do they continually insist on testing Comcast to see how long it takes to get cut off? If you don't want to play by the rules, then don't play the game. Be a responsible adult. Next you'll be complaining because the cops busted you for selling all those movies you're downloading from Vudu.
So what you're saying is that we should just shut up, sit down and take it?

So you're okay with having 1 wired service in your area? Or that the ISP sets low caps then has $3 per GB for overage even though they've already amortized costs for upgrades and network into the price you pay monthly? And their actual cost per GB is CENTS not dollars

Right, we should just shut up and sit down
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

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1 recommendation

AVonGauss to jagged

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to jagged
Exactly, they charge, .25 per GB being nominal for this setup. Now, the question is, did they really get charged any more from the data center? Depending on their arrangement, not necessarily.

A data center situation is not a fair comparison, but the last paragraph in your prior post demonstrated the issue with residential service.
said by jagged:

Now are you clogging the local node with your porn, perhaps but that's how the network is designed I imagine
Cable, DSL and U-verse all have this issue, the capacity to the node is not infinite and residential is not billed with the intent for 100% utilization but rather nominal utilization. If you want to get upset about a perceived injustice, why does it cost more for 6 Mbps DSL / U-verse versus 3 Mbps? The line is dedicated, the hardware is the same, it boils down to capacity from the node to the CO and profit. If you add Verizon FIOS in to that mix, your injustice meter should shatter in disbelief - but then again, it cost them a bundle to deploy that network. Verizon FIOS has a similar problem, but the capacity is much higher so the concern becomes more of transit at the moment with current usage levels rather than a capacity to the subscriber issue since the crunch occurs at "the office" where it is far cheaper to add capacity.

Comcast is not hurting for cash, I don't think anyone is saying such, but infrastructure is not free to deploy nor maintain and the Internet works because of cooperation at many levels and transit fees. I don't personally care how much or what people are transferring, but I don't want it to degrade my experience and I would be willing to bet if it was usage based billing you would see their usage in most cases drop.

This is a general statement, but it bothers me when people believe that the entire system somehow magically works and it does not cost money to operate. If it was so damn cheap to become a residential ISP, you would have local private ISPs popping up all over the place.

LarryE
join:2000-07-29
Chicago, IL

LarryE to jagged

Member

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said by jagged:

said by LarryE:

If people know what the cap is, and what the consequences are, why do they continually insist on testing Comcast to see how long it takes to get cut off? If you don't want to play by the rules, then don't play the game. Be a responsible adult. Next you'll be complaining because the cops busted you for selling all those movies you're downloading from Vudu.
So what you're saying is that we should just shut up, sit down and take it?

So you're okay with having 1 wired service in your area? Or that the ISP sets low caps then has $3 per GB for overage even though they've already amortized costs for upgrades and network into the price you pay monthly? And their actual cost per GB is CENTS not dollars

Right, we should just shut up and sit down
Exactly. As I said, you know what the cap is and what the consequences are for going over it, so what about that don't you understand? Just because YOU don't like the rules, doesn't mean it's not a fair game.
jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL

jagged to AVonGauss

Member

to AVonGauss
said by AVonGauss:



This is a general statement, but it bothers me when people believe that the entire system somehow magically works and it does not cost money to operate. If it was so damn cheap to become a residential ISP, you would have local private ISPs popping up all over the place.
I'm not saying infrastructure doesn't cost money, yes it does cost money, but that cost is already amortized in the monthly fee we all pay Comcast. Besides, their last mile has been built years ago, with heavy tax breaks and subsidies, and it's already paid for itself many times over.

Additionally some of their costs are offset further by extra fees and charges. So it's not like anybody is getting a free ride.

Comcast has their own network outside of the last mile, I would imagine they also have peering agreements with Level3, AT&T etc for transit and even if there is any cost to move bits trough the internet in addition to whatever agreements, I seriously doubt they would pay more than $0.10 cents per GB transfered knowing how much CDN pricing is and taking into account Comcast'sr size, user base and how much bits they push daily.

CDN pricing which is more expensive because it requires less latency is dirt cheap the more bits you push.

The analyst over at BuisinessofStreaming.com pegs Netflix streaming cost at around $0.03 per GB to deliver media (doesn't include rights holders fees obviously)

$0.03 per 1GB!

Today you can buy CDN data from Level3 or other providers for between $0.02 and $0.08 cents if you push over 500TB! Those guys own their own fiber, Level3 ever buries it's own fiber in countries around the world.

I can't read Comcast quarterly earnings but if I had to guess the $19.99 HSI promos in my area come really close to what the true cost of delivering HSI is. Q4 2009 COmcast had ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) of $42 stable with 7% growth.

I can't speak much but my partner bought a product using his employee price. Two actually, one was a very popular name brand. Total cost was $20, store pricing for me and everyone else would be at least $300, if not more. I couldn't believe it until I saw the receipt to make sure. It was such a good deal the company limited employees to two purchases yearly.

That 6Mbps DSL is just an additional SKU and no extra cost, it costs the same to deliver. Adding SKUs is a well known way for a business to increase revenue and profits. It's used to steer (especially) non-price oriented customers into more expensive higher margin products and offerings who either cost the same to produce/deliver or just barely more. Years ago indy ISPs were buying DSL for $20-25 from the carriers. It's lower now, those costs fall constantly

So my point is I guess, costs for the network have already been covered in the monthly fees long before you get to the end of that $42.95 monthly fee.