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GlennLouEarl
3 brothers, 1 gone
Premium Member
join:2002-11-17
Richmond, VA

GlennLouEarl to SpaethCo

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to SpaethCo

Re: [Caps] Comcast testing at least two different cap plans

The so-called "above average" usage typically occurs because some customers use their connections when many/most others aren't using theirs. So instead of portions of the network doing nothing useful for 50% of the time, they'll be doing nothing useful for 45% of the time (just speaking relatively). This is something that drives the "need" to upgrade capacity? Hardly. Caps are marketing BS (aka "scam"). "Upgrades" merely look good in the ads.

If all you're doing is simply more of what every other residential customer is doing, that has nothing to do with business usage. And these business accounts use the same network as the residential accounts--nothing get "upgraded" (except for someone's invoice).

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

1 edit

SpaethCo

MVM

said by GlennLouEarl:

The so-called "above average" usage typically occurs because some customers use their connections when many/most others aren't using theirs. So instead of portions of the network doing nothing useful for 50% of the time, they'll be doing nothing useful for 45% of the time (just speaking relatively). This is something that drives the "need" to upgrade capacity? Hardly. Caps are marketing BS (aka "scam").

Take a look at the numbers from the 2011 Cisco Visual Networking Index report:
* The average broadband connection generates 14.9 GB of Internet traffic per month, up from 11.4 GB per month last year, an increase of 31 percent

* The top 1 percent of broadband connections is responsible for more than 20 percent of total Internet traffic. The top 10 percent of connections is responsible for over 60 percent of broadband Internet traffic, worldwide.
So there has been a 300% increase in average usage since 2011, and that capacity has largely been created by planned technology refresh upgrades. (ie, that's been paid for out of the portion of your bill that goes to upgrades) This still highlights the problem that you have with runaway usage at the top end, which is what caps and overages are trying to address: 10% of your customer base is responsible for generating the load that drives over half of your demand. The top 1% alone drives 1/5th. Do you let the top 1% continue to run away and drive 1/3rd? 1/2?

Personally, I favor the overage approach. From a network operator perspective, I'm willing to build all the capacity a client could ever want if they're willing to pay for it.

telcodad
MVM
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ

telcodad

MVM

Managing the growth in residential broadband usage

An article on the CED Magazine site yesterday about all this:

Usage-based service management
By Stephan Collins and Bob Hunt, CED Magazine - June 5, 2013
»www.cedmagazine.com/arti ··· nagement

From the beginning of the article:
quote:
The profitability of fixed broadband service providers is being threatened by the tremendous growth in residential broadband Internet usage.

Widespread consumer adoption of a diverse array of new bandwidth-intensive applications and services is driving increasing costs in broadband networks worldwide.

With faster connection speeds and relentless growth in per-subscriber usage, operators find themselves in an endless cycle of capital spending to expand network capacity in order to keep pace with increasing demand. Meanwhile, broadband ARPU (average revenue per user) remains relatively flat, so rising costs are reflected in lower profit margins.


FifthE1ement
Tech Nut
join:2005-03-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

FifthE1ement

Member

said by telcodad:

An article on the CED Magazine site yesterday about all this:

Usage-based service management
By Stephan Collins and Bob Hunt, CED Magazine - June 5, 2013
»www.cedmagazine.com/arti ··· nagement

From the beginning of the article:

quote:
The profitability of fixed broadband service providers is being threatened by the tremendous growth in residential broadband Internet usage.

Widespread consumer adoption of a diverse array of new bandwidth-intensive applications and services is driving increasing costs in broadband networks worldwide.

With faster connection speeds and relentless growth in per-subscriber usage, operators find themselves in an endless cycle of capital spending to expand network capacity in order to keep pace with increasing demand. Meanwhile, broadband ARPU (average revenue per user) remains relatively flat, so rising costs are reflected in lower profit margins.

Nice find telco, I usually use anywhere from 100GB to 200GB per month WITH NO TORRENTING (mainly normal browsing and Netflix and YouTube)! When I used to torrent I would use anywhere from 250GB to 1TB! I've even gotten a call from the dreaded Comcast security team (before 250GB cap) telling me if I didn't reduce my usage I would be terminated. Then I got into an hour long argument over how much was to much. They wouldn't state a number. So I said according to this conversation that, BTW I'm recording, if next month I do 999GB vs 1TB+ this month I will be OK, right? He wouldn't agree but they never called again. It felt like arguing with a five year old. According to the Comcast site most people only use 12-14GB per month, I call BS! I have never met one person who used that little, even with only email and normal web surfing!
said by Krisnatharok:

Nice to see higher limits. I am on either Blast or Extreme 50 (I think we are Blast / 30 Mbps upgraded to 50 Mbps, but we see speeds up to 90 Mbps, so I dunno), and we use about 250 GB/month.

This is for a family of three and about 10 devices between us--two of us game, all three of us stream video.

Exactly my point! Netflix can pull 4GB per show and if you have a big family with a couple computers, Netflix, YouTube, connected TV's, video game systems you could easily do 100+GB without breaking a sweat! And Comcast knows it which is why they raised the caps in the trial areas! Also why isn't Comcast's network crashing right now?! The whole reason they started caps was to stop heavy users from ruining it for the rest of their neighborhoods! Why isn't everything just running on fumes or crashing now that everyone can download as much as they want?! It's such a scam to get money and this period of 250GB cap suspension should be proof. Comcast are the biggest scamsters going around! Well next to Verizon and ATT anyway!

5th

entitled
@verizon.net

entitled

Anon

said by FifthE1ement:

The whole reason they started caps was to stop heavy users from ruining it for the rest of their neighborhoods! Why isn't everything just running on fumes or crashing now that everyone can download as much as they want?! It's such a scam to get money and this period of 250GB cap suspension should be proof. Comcast are the biggest scamsters going around! Well next to Verizon and ATT anyway!

5th

Because they keep investing to avoid "fumes" for 99% of the users.

Why shouldn't the 1% that use 20% not pay their fair share of upgrade investments?

FifthE1ement
Tech Nut
join:2005-03-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

FifthE1ement

Member

said by entitled :

said by FifthE1ement:

The whole reason they started caps was to stop heavy users from ruining it for the rest of their neighborhoods! Why isn't everything just running on fumes or crashing now that everyone can download as much as they want?! It's such a scam to get money and this period of 250GB cap suspension should be proof. Comcast are the biggest scamsters going around! Well next to Verizon and ATT anyway!

5th

Because they keep investing to avoid "fumes" for 99% of the users.

Why shouldn't the 1% that use 20% not pay their fair share of upgrade investments?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you! But first don't tell me the only reason you are capping plans is to protect your network from heavy users as that is a lie (as Comcast has said many times that their network would fall apart without throttling and caps, well guess what they have neither now and it's not falling apart). Also then let the higher users pay more and the lower users pay less.... But no, why would they want to do that? They can keep collecting $60 from people who only check their email once a week this way! Comcast is a bunch of scammers and they want to have their cake and eat it too! And it's Comcast's job to invest in their network and there shouldn't be any extra money put towards that! If you are a plumber and you come to a person house do you charge every home an extra $5 future new van fee? No, you add the cost into your total business plan. Today businesses, not only Comcast but all other huge companies, think they can charge us for what they are supposed to be providing as part of their service. I mean in my area the power company wants to charge us for them to change the poles that carry electric, WTF?
said by Aozora:

Yeah and this is quite scary. I'm wondering if Comcast does implement such stringent caps if they will service the same apartment with two HSI plans since we currently use about 750GB on avg.These caps were good in 2007. But apparently stuff uses more bandwidth nowadays or it sure feels like it.

At $10 for 50GB we would have to pay about 80 extra and it's cheaper to just get another plan in that case.

In the image is a low usage month where I believe I watch one episode of a show online if that.

You can get a business account which costs about as much as one and a half normal accounts and it has no caps. That will solve your problem. And if you use Netflix as your only form of video you will fack up a huge amount of bandwidth. Lets say you have just two people using Netflix (not even counting YouTube or other internet browsing) and you both watch 4 hours (minimal for most people) of tv per person. 8 hours per day and most content on Netflix is HD so 4GB per hour times 8 equals 32GB PER DAY! 32GB per day multiplied by 30 is 960GB or almost 1TB of data per month just on Netflix! Now add in more than two people in your home, video game systems, YouTube, internet browsing, computers, tablets, phones and you're looking at double that! I think a fair cap is 1TB or more! AT LEAST! And the bandwidth is only going to rise with more connected devices and quality of shows rising, 4K, new future apps and devices! These caps are limiting internet innovations in a huge way! The new video codecs aren't ready and compressed video quality always sucks anyway, simply look at Comcast's HD to make my point. According to ATT, Comcast, Verizon the internet apocalypse is coming yet there is no data to support this!

5th

telcodad
MVM
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ

telcodad

MVM

said by FifthE1ement:

said by Aozora:

Yeah and this is quite scary. I'm wondering if Comcast does implement such stringent caps if they will service the same apartment with two HSI plans since we currently use about 750GB on avg.These caps were good in 2007. But apparently stuff uses more bandwidth nowadays or it sure feels like it.

At $10 for 50GB we would have to pay about 80 extra and it's cheaper to just get another plan in that case.

In the image is a low usage month where I believe I watch one episode of a show online if that.

You can get a business account which costs about as much as one and a half normal accounts and it has no caps. That will solve your problem.
:
5th

FYI - You can see the latest Business Class tiers and pricing back in this thread: »Re: Business Class price increase