US Cable Support > Mediacom > [RANT] 250 GB , really?

[RANT] 250 GB , really?

its been 250GB/mo for as long as i can remember, its aparantly in the useage agreement which i can never find when i want to refernce it (its not on the mediacomcable.com site or at least not easily accessiable)

the thing that strikes me is we have been told over and over again "its not enforced" so, are they now enforcing it? if so mediacom just hit a new low, ever since roco took over they are less and less competative. (charging for voicemail, modem rental, phone modem rental, contracts, etc things that USED to set them appart from satellite )

edit: found it »www.mediacomtoday.com/aup this should be on the main mediacomcable.com website under the "internet" tab, instead of hiding it on a separate website entirely!

Ok, so the limit's always been that low, they just haven't enforced it.

I noticed the modem charge started appearing about a year ago myself, haven't gotten a call about this until today. Honestly, if this is the direction mediacom is going to take (adding ridiculous garbage like this to your customers), it'll be a not so short period of time before I find someone else who won't play this ridiculous game

reply to twhiting9275
I hear you on the cap stuff. Guess I can't really complain (not on MC) but even my router states i don't use that much data and I do download 20GB a day sometimes. I use about 180GB/month without trying though.

I was curious though how a normal family is as I live alone. I setup my friends Netgear router to monitor WAN data. She works from home so constant connection to Citrix servers at work sending reports and such (still not really lots of data) but she has 2 teenage boys and a boyfriend living there so should be considered "average" IMO. Based on her router (dunno if it's super accurate or whatever) but it says she uses about 11GB a day x 30 that's about ~330GB/month and that's not really trying. I bought her a Roku for Christmas last year so she watches some Netflix and Hulu and whatever. She has normal cable TV package as well so it's not like she's a cord cutter. Her kids generally do some youtube videos, they have 0 MP3s downloaded (as that's "sooo outdated, just go to youtube and play music that way" ) LOL. Kids have an older Desktop and iPhone, and mom has a laptop. BF has a Mac he uses for photos. That's all the network connected devices there. They don't have a PS3/Xbox to download Demos with and if they had a better PC they'd probably get games online via illegal methods So This is all "legal" usage for now with no 1 file being 20GB each.

Still though, this goes to show that 250GB is not so "above average" as I once thought. Maybe for a grandma or people that don't really use the internet. Maybe just check emails or facebook and such but no real usage.

reply to twhiting9275
oh im agreeing with you, 250GB is amazingly low, my router is running tomato and i know my numbers dont match up with mediacoms, so here we go with the "whos watching the meter" thing. i know theres a LOT of traffic hitting my router from the outside and if all of that is being counted, then we got a problem.

sadly i have no "real" alternative (no dsl, dialup? cellular, or satellite) so ive put up with it. but it wont take much more for me to say screw it, and if there going to be enforcing a cap that just might be enough to push me over and drop them.

ive just seen mediacom go downhill when it comes to nickle and dimeing for the last couple of years, they are in my view no different than any other provider, so in area's where there is competition people at least "can" switch. people like me tho, its mediacom or nothing.

a few years back we where going to get a second cable operator people where so excited to finally have competition, sadly that fell thru (something to do with the basic tv rate).

reply to twhiting9275
Do business connections have a cap? If so, this is going to put a halt to us getting fiber from MC.
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One Big Ass Mistake America

reply to twhiting9275
Meanwhile Comcast, which implemented their 250GB cap way back in 2008, atleast raised theirs to 300GB for entry-level services. Mediacom, once again, is behind the pack.

reply to twhiting9275
This is just plain sick. On one hand Media"con" over sells it's bandwidth and just shrugs it's collective shoulder. On the other end it it gets "pissy" over a 250gb limit. I tell you, Roco's gonna hate having to appear in small claims courts in every city he serves.
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reply to twhiting9275
Are you guys really surprised? Caps now, overage fees soon. It makes so much sense. Why invest tons of money and expand your network if you can charge more and not only make more money but reduce utilization?

No cable company has to do it. They simply want to make more money and invest less. Sure they will insult your intelligence by telling you this will somehow improve your service but you guys know what's going on. I told you guys all of that DirecTV and Netflix streaming will end up costing us more in the long run.

Also (assuming the franchise agreement allows it) I see cable cos forcing TV service with internet.
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I speak for myself, not my employer.

reply to SmackWeasel
Bandwidth is not an issue in all areas. in fact in my area peak utilization is around 50%.
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I speak for myself, not my employer.

reply to Anonymous

reply to twhiting9275
Here is what ChrisL has to say over at the Mediacom forum:

Currently this is a soft cap. We are not charging overage fees, we are not limiting or throttling traffic or making any changes to the network that would do this. All we are doing currently is informing certain customers who are very high end users throughout the company that there usage is high and we are trying to gain more information as to why they are so high. Some do not know how much bandwidth they use (open networks with no protection, etc.) and all we did was inform them and explain the 250GB cap. This has been in our terms of service for a couple of years now, but I don't have the exact date.

Thanks,
Chris

reply to GLIMMER
Mediacom already has the ability to very precisely measure bandwidth usage for each modem on their network. I'm sure once overage fees kick in customers will be able to see their usage by logging to their account.
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I speak for myself, not my employer.

reply to twhiting9275
if they do start enforcing the caps i sure wont need ultra 50 so i can hit the cap faster. id more then likely drop to the lowest tier. that so far, has been the best thing about MC is they are NOT enforcing the cap.

reply to GLIMMER

And where are you going to.go? Dsl there are going.to be caps.on that also. Att has low caps like 75gb. Look at comcast they have had a 250gb cap for.years and they are just now raising it to 300 and more for.higher tiers. Its about money nothing more it sucks but there is nothing that can be done about it

comcast business has no caps and is reasonably priced too. i have several friends who use that. sadly its not available where i am at. so with comcast to avoid caps you just become a business customer, and they are priced for biz about the same as residential.

reply to GLIMMER