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

1 edit

pflog

MVM

[Rant] I feel for the 50/10 biz folks

Ok so those of us on the 12/2 (now 16-17/3) and 22/5 (now 27/7) may have had a small increase in price, but we did get more speed out of the deal. It occurred to me that if I were paying $100/more more than the 22/5 folks at least I'm getting roughly double the price. Now the 27/7 plan has 70% of the uploads for half the cost (I suspect quite a few 50/10 business class clients were more interested in the higher upload). I wonder why the upgrades didn't include a bump to the 50/10 speeds? Or at least to 50/15 like some residential areas had? I guess I should be thankful a small price increase bumped the upload by 40% I feel bad for the 50/10 folks though...

====================
Mod Note: See also ---> »[Business] 50/10 promotion? Anyone have luck getting it?

Shoopdawhoop
@comcast.net

Shoopdawhoop

Anon

I know several 50/10 business subscribers (actual businesses, not residential torrent aficionados) and I know for a fact that the bill is of no concern to them.

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

pflog

MVM

said by Shoopdawhoop :

I know several 50/10 business subscribers (actual businesses, not residential torrent aficionados) and I know for a fact that the bill is of no concern to them.

I know I would feel ripped off paying over 2x the price for what you get. For small hosting or personal uses requiring a static IP for example, it doesn't seem very worth it to pay 2x the price for 10 vs 7 Mbps. Although the downstream is nice for those not using it primarily for hosting.

Cjaiceman
MVM
join:2004-10-12
Castle Rock, WA

Cjaiceman to pflog

MVM

to pflog
Yea, I've had 50/10 since '09, same price, same speed... I've seen just about every other package get a speed increase... except ours... come on Comcast... Also, why the heck does 100/20 business cost $600/month? That seems a bit high....

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

Ditto...

What makes it even more painful is that they got rid of residential caps (for now), and doubled the speed. I could have residential 100/20 for less than my 50/10...But I need port 25 - Although colocating my port 25 needs somewhere else and trying to get out of my business contract is starting to look attractive...
Hatax
join:2001-02-14
Saint Paul, MN

Hatax

Member

Just a thought, I recently went through this runaround with their tech support people and had the port 25 block temporarily removed... Curious to see how long it lasts for honestly.

Anyway, you could get an offsite host that offers email and then use it as an upstream relay for yourself. You relay mail into it over 465 or 587 and it will deal with getting it where it needs to go. Basically you take your SMTP server and set your upstream provider as the smarthost, not a difficult configuration to setup and it should achieve what you're looking for.

I used it for testing so I just SSH into one of my hosts and telnet to port 25 until I'm content...

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

My problem is the other way around - I smarthost to Comcast's SMTP now because I don't have a static IP, but for incoming mail, there is no other way..

I wish someone had a simple port redirector service that was cheap, but all the ones I have found want to charge by the domain name/number of emails/etc.

I'm not doing anything for now, mostly to see if they decide to reinstate caps, as I do go through a lot of data...If they don't, I might just move my email hosting to some other server.

Colocation is so cheap now - unmetered 100Mbps for $59, as an example: »fdcservers.net/server_co ··· tion.php

Even better, their Denver data center jumps straight onto Comcast:
1 67.176.66.1 (67.176.66.1) 18.593 ms 18.577 ms 28.566 ms
2 te-9-6-ur01.englewood.co.denver.comcast.net (68.86.129.161) 11.320 ms 11.345 ms 11.813 ms
3 te-0-2-0-6-ar02.denver.co.denver.comcast.net (68.86.179.185) 13.596 ms 13.615 ms 13.605 ms
4 pos-0-7-0-0-ar02.aurora.co.denver.comcast.net (68.86.128.246) 12.194 ms 12.237 ms 12.562 ms
5 he-3-9-0-0-cr01.denver.co.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.92.21) 13.405 ms 13.441 ms 13.429 ms
6 te3-5.ccr01.den03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.10.33) 11.645 ms 12.982 ms 12.962 ms
7 te0-1-0-3.ccr22.den01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.83.33) 12.554 ms te0-1-0-3.ccr21.den01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.83.29) 12.517 ms 13.417 ms
8 38.88.52.2 (38.88.52.2) 13.421 ms 38.122.114.26 (38.122.114.26) 13.041 ms 12.108 ms
9 mirrordenver.fdcservers.net (76.73.4.58) 11.859 ms 11.887 ms 11.885 ms

I pay $40/mo just in electricity...Having it all local is cool, but...

Oh, and based on my experience with residential port 25 blocks from before I went to BC, it won't last if you are actually doing anything on port 25 with any amount of volume. I wasn't spamming and they still blocked it because of the amount of incoming port 25 traffic I had..Went through the block/unblock thing about 4 times before I gave up. The blocking (as I understand it, when it was called TP25) is an automated process too..
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

AVonGauss

Premium Member

Depending on what else the server is doing, another option to look in to would be a VPS. The smallest VPS offering from a provider (such as Linode) would easily handle a mail server and/or perform port redirection.

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

Exactly my other thought!! - I have lots of thoughts about this

Either moving the email side entirely or having the port redirect on that VPS would easily work. It doesn't take much CPU/BW/anything...

MOWAA
join:2010-03-25
Fort Lauderdale, FL

MOWAA to pflog

Member

to pflog
There has been no increase in price for our 50/10 for business.
Granted were a non-profit and Comcast writes off a huge chunk on their taxes each year.

The only increase I saw is we went from a block of 5 ips at $5.00 a month to 10 ips for $15.00 a month.. again an acceptable increase.
frazell
LogicalApex
join:2009-04-14
Farmington, NY

frazell to n0xlf

Member

to n0xlf
DynDNS is pretty good with their services. I haven't used their gateway (use their DNS hosting), but I'm sure it is good and it is unlimited.

»dyn.com/email/dyn-email-gateway/

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

$50 per domain name, so that falls under my comment of:

"I wish someone had a simple port redirector service that was cheap, but all the ones I have found want to charge by the domain name/number of emails/etc."

Bummer...
travelguy
join:1999-09-03
Bismarck, ND
Asus RT-AC68
Ubiquiti NSM5

1 edit

travelguy to pflog

Member

to pflog
said by pflog:

For small hosting or personal uses requiring a static IP for example, it doesn't seem very worth it to pay 2x the price for 10 vs 7 Mbps. Although the downstream is nice for those not using it primarily for hosting.

The days where I would run a small server locally are long past. Amazon S3 for file hosting and EC2 to spin up a virtual machine or two works very well and costs next to nothing.

For the local systems I need access to, dynamic DNS pointing to my external router and a few port forwarding rules has me covered.
southietech
join:2000-12-02
Boston, MA

southietech to pflog

Member

to pflog
dnsexit does what you want for 25 bucks a year per domain. Got mine going to port 26

»www.dnsexit.com/Direct.s ··· Redirect

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

I figured out a solution for this. I'll give some details in case someone runs into this on a search.

-Start an free Amazon EC2 instance and provision an elastic IP on it.

-Fill out this form: »aws-portal.amazon.com/gp ··· -request
(they even give you RDNS - How cool is that?)

-Install socat and run something like "socat TCP-LISTEN:25,fork TCP:mail.yourserver.net:26" This can also be done with redir or iptables, but socat works nicely. This is a simple port redirect, not a store/forward.

With this you can have unlimited emails/domains for next to nothing - Simply point the MX record of a particular domain to the EC2 instance.

Don't forget to add the elastic IP to your internal/trusted networks on Spamassassin if you are doing your own spam filtering, otherwise it sees all of the source IPs as your EC2 instance and not where the mail actually came from.

Anyway, testing this now, but so far so good...Amazon charges for BW (I think $0.10/GB after the first GB), but the CPU usage should be next to nothing, so it probably won't ever go above their free tier.
derekivey
join:2006-03-30
San Jose, CA

derekivey

Member

Keep in mind that Amazon's free tier only lasts for a year. After that micro instances are around $16 a month I think.
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

AVonGauss

Premium Member

I don't want to advertise for another board or specific providers, but there are many VPS providers out there that can provide an instance to forward that low amount of traffic at a dramatically lower cost. Catching an advertised sale price, you can find a 256 MB instance w/ 500 GB a month traffic for $12-$24 per year in the US.

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

Amazon's billing is a bit cryptic, but I think it's going to be close to free - They bill by CPU usage over a certain threshold, so an instance like this may cost next to nothing...I'll keep an eye on the billing and see if I can get some more hard data on what it will cost..

In any case, Amazon aside, it's just nice to know that it can be done easily...
rayik
join:2005-08-04
united state

rayik

Member

Business page advertising 50 / 10 special or $88 / month with 2 year contract. I have 10 months left in the contract. I tried to extend the K at this rate. The billing dep could not do it. I have not tried sales yet
rmdir
join:2003-03-13
Chicago, IL

rmdir

Member

Link? That's less than 27/7, which doesn't make sense.
Hilbe
join:2002-12-13
Fishers, IN

Hilbe

Member

»business.comcast.com/lan ··· e50-8895

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

Makes me wonder if there is a speed increase for BC in the works..Maybe now isn't the time for me to bail out
rmdir
join:2003-03-13
Chicago, IL

rmdir

Member

I did last week for residential, although I kept the BC to see how stable the new one is. Apparently the gal I was referred to got me in under BC even though it's now a resi class. Account hasn't updated, but I think I'll be exempt from caps. $80 plus modem rental, no contract, no install, 105/20 with a free upgrade to 205 when the new speed tiers roll out.

ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA

ropeguru to Hilbe

Premium Member

to Hilbe
Now that REALLY pisses me off...

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

pflog

MVM

said by ropeguru:

Now that REALLY pisses me off...

I just noticed the fine print (emphasis mine):

Disclaimer:
Offer ends 4/30/13, and is limited to new Comcast Business customers. Not available in all areas. Requires subscription to Deluxe Internet Service. Minimum 2-year contract required. Equipment required ($9.95/month). Early termination fees apply. Equipment, installation, taxes, the Regulatory Recovery Fee or other applicable charges (e.g., international calling or per-call charges) extra. Call Comcast for restrictions and details. Comcast © 2013. 2012 rating by PC Magazine based on review of customer data from www.speedtest.net. A trademark of Ziff Davis, Inc. Used under license. © 2012 Ziff Davis, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

I share your disgust. The pricing shown for my area is 109.95/mo for the 27/7! That's like $20/mo MORE for the slower package. The 50/10 is $199.95.

I wonder if I cancel (I'm now out of contract) and then sign up again if I can get this promo.

That's a 55% price reduction. Way to shaft all your existing business class customers Comcast.
neufuse
join:2006-12-06
James Creek, PA

neufuse to pflog

Member

to pflog
Prices are high? sheesh... try living on bonded T-1's... we pay over $700 a T-1 and have 6 of them bonded! for a whole 8Mbit! that's $4,200 a month! I have pushed for going to FTTP MetroE from Comcast for a while now which is drastically cheaper for way more speed... but our higher ups are so stuck on "T-1 is the superior way"..... blah blah blah SLA blah blah blah.... sure we are on a fiber line to the CO... and we get all these T-1's on a single fiber to 8 iNID's (smart jacks)... but it's overpriced!

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

pflog

MVM

For someone using it to get static IPs and not running a business making 5+ figures a year, it is quite a premium cost. If they offered something in between residential and business in which I could get a static IP and just run sshd and httpd I'd gladly take it.

AnonMan
@comcast.net

AnonMan to neufuse

Anon

to neufuse
MetroE from Comcast or any provider will have an SLA also...

About 10 years ago we ran a business out of my house and had 8 bonded T1's. Wanted more speed but AT&T ran out of pairs running down the street lol back in the days took 4 wires for the T1, later switched to two.... Basically no one down the road can have 2 lines ever as they dug 12 feet deep and cut it on the main even.

Anyway after we needed more speed we had TWtelecom run fiber. We had 75Meg 6 strand (though only 2 used) fiber ran for free and just had 3 year contract and paid about 2k a month. We had SLA for up time and also latency as they are a tier 1 provider.

Comcast won't do latency SLA but will do up time. That said those T1's feed off fiber probably by now out the same plant that would feed you fiber from that provider if you wanted through them vs. Comcast even lol.

Until recently AT&T thought we still had the 8 T1's (morons lol) and they notified us when they did the switch down the road to the new node to support U-Verse VDSL2+ as they moved the T1 to peer at that point and fiber the rest vs. all the way back to the CO like back in the days.

n0xlf
join:2001-03-28
Castle Rock, CO

n0xlf

Member

So here's an update on my BC situation:

-Can't get out of the contract unless I can provide proof that I gave them some other source of income (ie - got someone to switch). Kind of odd, but that's the only way out they could think of. Otherwise it's 75% of the full remaining contract price, not including any discount (which in my case is thousands of dollars since I have 17 months left).

-They recognized that residential is faster, currently has no caps, and said "residential jumped the gun" on the speed tiers and that they might be working on something on the business side, but wouldn't provide details.

-I'm waiting for a call back on the $89 promo. They didn't even know it existed or if I could renew my contract under it. The only promo I've ever got before was for signing a 2 year contract, so that didn't include "new customers" like the current promo does.

Pretty bummed by the whole situation since I'm not a business in the first place...I might start a fund raiser to get out of my contract
AVonGauss
Premium Member
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL

1 recommendation

AVonGauss

Premium Member

said by n0xlf:

Pretty bummed by the whole situation since I'm not a business in the first place...

... and that's probably part of the reason you feel frustration, a true business user and non-business user will have different concerns and desires. Not nitting for having a business account, I think its more of a result of Comcast playing more games earlier on and the bandwidth threshold on the residential with (at least until now) no path other than disconnection.