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NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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NormanS to rody_44

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Re: [Caps] Comcast New 300GB Monthly Limit And Overage Charges

said by rody_44:

Are you talking about the 4 dollars i pay for amazon videos.

Nope. Physical media.

Not sure at all what that has to do with this conversation.

Something about the Pollyannaish notion that U.S. corps. only base fees on cost plus a little extra for the company. The reference you are missing is that while both subtitled (subbed) and English voice (dubbed) required the cost of translators, they didn't each have identical production costs. Guess which would have had a lower cost, and which actually had a lower price. The answer is counterintuitive. It, along with other evidence, supports my contention that U.S. corporations, absent some natural, or artificial mode of restraint, will charge "What the traffic will bear".
NormanS

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said by tshirt:

And do you suppose that they PacBell> SBC>AT&T just passed it along at cost...or might Comcast paid a large premium for the plant?

I presume SBC sold it at most at cost, to be rid of it. Ed Whitacre was an old school telco copperhead. AT&T, being a separate corporation at the time was still trying to "find its center", more than a decade after divesting its interests in The Pacific Telesis Group and SBC (nee Southwestern Bell Telephone).

Then AT&T, unable to reach an accord with the local franchise authorities, spun off their HSI unit as, "AT&T Broadband Internet" (ATTBI). Given that this helped to put AT&T into a financial tight sot, which made them ripe for a buyout (SBC snapped them up at a bargain price!) I can only assume that each sale (SBC>AT&T, then AT&T>Comcast) was, at most, at cost.

... and paid a high interest rate or sold more stock to pay for it? and maintained, upgraded or replaced equipment over numerous cycles?

Purchase would likely have been a bargain, considering that an HFC was Ed Whitacre's unwanted step-child. I presume the Comcast CAPEX required to acquire, and complete, the plant was less than a full replacement of the old Gill/TCI plant; especially considering the corners cut by the Comcast contractors in completing the ATTBI plant (I posted an old thread about how those contractors left a downed cable drop in my mother's back yard. Comcast never did make good on that hazard).

I really have no idea about the pricing scheme, it's possible that that's the way the regional licensing works, but given PPV video is an optional service, it's well away from limited basic video or any "HSI AS AN utility" argument.

Except I was not referring to PPV. Just an example of U.S. corporate pricing when there is no natural, or artificial restraint against, "What the traffic will bear").
rody_44
Premium Member
join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA

4 edits

rody_44

Premium Member

I dont have any problem with regulating it. As far as the sbc and att broadband none of that is applicable around here. To tell the truth Bill Gates paid the initial expense to upgrade both comcasts and attbs plant. It was in the form of a loan tho which was paid back later. He picked three cable companies to lend the money to. Comcast was actually number 5 in size at the time. The three companies partnered and formed @home. At which time the bidding wars started and cable companies were selling for upward of three thousand dollars for every house passed without regard of whether they were upgraded or not. Heres a link from when they purchased mine in 2000. At the time they had 8 million customers and purchased our system which gave them another 1.1 million customers. It cost them 700 million to upgrade us. »corporate.comcast.com/ne ··· campaign
To make a long story short cable company value back then wasnt measured by if plant was upgraded or not. They replaced every bit of cable and it came out to 23,000 miles of it. Most of the systems were the same way if you want to do a little research. Most of the cable companies sold as a direct result of THEM not having the money to do the needed upgrades. Now att was a story of its own and that was upgraded but im sure they also did the upgrades. Both attb and comcast didnt even start upgrades till around 1990.

Of course back then they could get 23,000 miles for 700 million. They wont get that now and back when they spent that 700 million that was for two nodes to a headend. Article is dated 2000 even tho they started in 1993. It took them 7 years to complete everything and actually announce completion. Now who built what?

My options consist of 52 a month comcast, 75 a month fios and 3g , 4g. The only thing im proposing is hold the dam line and stop upgrading and charging everybody across the board for said upgrades. Metered billing is a start. Comcast is going to make the 10 percent no matter what they do and i understand that. If i had the slowsky dsl option like you i wouldnt care as i could go to that. But i dont. Heres a copy and paste about my system from dsl reports. notice it was upgraded in 1990 to only have to be redone when comcast took over. This gives you a example of the time frames of these upgrades.

mbernste
Boosted
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join:2001-06-30
Piscataway, NJ


Comcast generally buys antiquated systems. Suburban Cablevision's plant, though rebuilt in 1990, was too old to support an HFC infrastructure. In 1996, Comcast had to rewire the whole system (and that adds up to a lot of wire) to support a system that can have digital cable and high speed Internet.
--
Comcast BBQ
actions · [Send instant message] · 2004-Nov-7 7:33 pm · (locked

camper
just visiting this planet
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Bethel, CT

camper to SpaethCo

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to SpaethCo
said by SpaethCo:

Comcast's net profit margin is about 10%

 
Is that the profit margin for the HSI service, the profit margin for the cable TV service, or the overall profit margin?

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

SpaethCo

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said by camper:

Is that the profit margin for the HSI service, the profit margin for the cable TV service, or the overall profit margin?

It's overall profit margin.

camper
just visiting this planet
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join:2010-03-21
Bethel, CT

camper

Premium Member

said by SpaethCo:

It's overall profit margin.

 

OK, so you are proffering the overall profit margin to justify your assertions on the HSI expenditures.

I'm sure you realize that is not appropriate.

The HSI accounting information needs to be broken out separately to justify the assertions you make.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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NormanS to rody_44

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said by rody_44:

If i had the slowsky dsl option like you i wouldnt care as i could go to that.

Actually, I come close to matching quite a few cable subscriber's speed; which seems fast enough for Netflix and Hulu at 1080p:

Vudu speed test.

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

tshirt to camper

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to camper
It can't be.
That is, to average that 10% year after year it has taken the income from the CATV side (used to be 100% of income) shifting more and more to HSI and more recently voice and (probably still in the development/money losing/investment stage) home security/automation. It's the combined income that pays all the bills without any one of them, the others price would have to INCREASE.

camper
just visiting this planet
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Bethel, CT

camper

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said by tshirt:

It can't be.

 

Of course, it can. In accounting, every last penny can be accoutned for.

You just reason why it isn't.

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

tshirt

Premium Member

Would you be happier if they said HSI was breakeven or that it provided all the profit?
As a practical matter they need ALL that income to run it, and you as a customer have zero direct input into the price points of each product line.

camper
just visiting this planet
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join:2010-03-21
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camper

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said by tshirt:

Would you be happier if they said HSI was breakeven or that it provided all the profit?

 

Comcast's profit allocation among its various divisions does not change my level of happiness.

I did check the recent quarterly statement, and Comcast's profit seems to run around 17-18%, not the 10% stated here previously. The revenue for HSI is broken out, but I didn't see expenditures broken out. Operating cash flow margins seem to be around 40%.
rody_44
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join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA

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to NormanS
Norman i wish i could get what you have. I would be more than happy for that speed at a 30 or even 40 dollar price point. Im the average user and according to comcast the average user uses 17.4 GB a month. My whole point is what you have is plenty to watch netflix and check email at a price that you have. Thanks to all these upgrades I dont have anything close to that price point available to me. Im not willing to pay 50 plus dollars for any speed and as it is i call and cancel when my promo runs out and they put me on another promo. But i recognize that one of these days im going to call and cancel and they are going to say adios at which point im screwed

tshirt
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join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to camper

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said by camper:

I did check the recent quarterly statement, and Comcast's profit seems to run around 17-18%, not the 10% stated here previously

and that just in the last year or 2 that Comcast has broken away from the longtime industry average of 10% so maybe they are push it higher due to mange costs better than the rest or maybe it's an anomaly that will even out over time, though they seem to have done a lot towards the really expensive network improvements already (DOCSIS3 and IPv6) that should give them a better/bigger business advantage in the coming years, they may see more expenses coming (D3.1)
And yes it's a really high cash flow industry, a curve that it is easy to fall behind in a very short time.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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NormanS to rody_44

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said by rody_44:

I would be more than happy for that speed at a 30 or even 40 dollar price point. Im the average user and according to comcast the average user uses 17.4 GB a month.

I have a bundled service; voice and data. Voice is $19.98+taxes and fees (~$15 of T&F). Data is $19.97, flat. Data rate is constrained by distance (ADSL2+); my mother had the same service, same price. Mom got 4.9 Mb/s @ 9,156 feet, while I am ~3,000 feet out.

When I had AT&T DSL, I was pirating fansubbed anime (never touched MPAA/RIAA properties). I was tapering off, as anime became sufficiently mainstream to be readily available from Netflix, and the like. I could only download at 2.5 Mb/s; but when they introduced their caps, they provided a meter. On the downside from my peak I was still moving ~95 GB per month. My usage is currently about 3x the Comcast average:

Latest bandwidth use.


I just got streaming to my TV rigged this week ...

camper
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said by tshirt:

though they seem to have done a lot towards the really expensive network improvements already (DOCSIS3 and IPv6) that should give them a better/bigger business advantage in the coming years,

 

Yup. My comment here:
»Re: [IPv6] Why all the hoopla over IPv6?
rody_44
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join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA

3 edits

rody_44 to NormanS

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to NormanS
I dont really get into managing it norman. With me its stream whatever you want and i will worry about it later. I never even logged into netflix or amazon servers to dictate what stream i get. I will admit im thinking they default you to low bandwidth tho as when i do pick a HD stream i really cant see any noticeable difference. But My wall mounted Hd tv has a great picture even with a SD picture. That 28 GB probably includes in the area of 30 to 40 hours of streaming. Im also sure that 30 to 40 hours of streaming is way above what the average user would even get near. You get to my age and you tend to watch a little more tv than the average user. If me my wife and grandkids cant burn thru the cap. The cap isnt about streaming video at all. Unlike what Karl likes to preach.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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join:2001-02-14
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Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

said by rody_44:

The cap isnt about streaming video at all. Unlike what Karl likes to preach.

The cap isn't about streaming video, or congestion. Collecting from the "one percenters" won't generate sufficient revenue to upgrade the infrastructure, either. Amazingly, all ISPs across the board, that have "cap-and-overage", have settled on the same $10 per 50 GB cost for going over; but not the same volume for the trigger. About the only conclusions I can draw are, "protect the TV revenue stream", or, "because they can (charge what the traffic will bear)".

Zydia
@comcast.net

Zydia

Anon

A lot of this discussion has left out several of the largest rising usages for the internet.

First, streaming that isn't service (Hulu, Amazon, Netflix) based that is user generated (a la Twitch.tv and others). People who stream or watch streams will use up a lot of data very quickly.

Two, Gaming. Whether you're talking about console or PC, gaming is a huge thing and only becoming larger. New consoles will automatically patch when they're not being used now and this includes downloading content for games that users have purchased (and have a cd for). In fact, one of the big draws of new consoles is their ability to stream video (from services and user generated) straight to the tv (something that competes with TV services offered by ISPs). For players on PC, the market actually favors digital delivery these days and digital purchasing. It is incredibly easy to reach high data usage if you buy video games digitally. Games can range from 1gig to 40 gigs and players constantly patching/updating those games (required for most to play) will use a lot of data. This also, of course, ties closely into other digital purchases (video, music, books/magazines.).

Three, streaming music. My household streams radio and music via completely legal paid for services. This can also eat up bandwidth more quickly than you think if you're running it in the background.

Fourth and finally are devices. Most Americans use a variety of devices and many of these devices have limited internet usage so people rely on their wi-fi at home to do most of their updating/patching. While these may be small individually, they can add up.

None of these things are illegal but they can all be heavy usage.

When you are talking about average users, you need to factor in all the new changes to American media usage and the rise in video game popularity as well as how the new consoles being sold as entertainment centers, which is a huge change. User created content is also on the rise. (32 million people watched the streaming video of the popular video game League of Legends world championship tournaments compared to the 108 million that watched the SuperBowl on TV and only 3 million who watched it streamed).

I have had Comcast/Xfinity for about 10 years now. I have watched service decrease steadily over the last 5 years with frequent outages, horrible lag spikes and poor customer service. We use Comcast as they are the only viable alternative in our area and we have a tv, internet and phone plan with them. We have outages for hours at a time and we have terrible spiking lag during peak times.

We also have a very high usage rate. My roommates and I all game and watch streaming video (including Xfinity on our PCs). We also will sometimes stream video (the new PS4 allows you to stream directly from the console). We purchase the majority of our media online. We are paying $182 a month for standard cable, internet and voice. None of the plan upgrades we can look at will allow us to increase the 300GB data cap. They only increase our upload and download speeds (which are not the problem and honestly, we get lower than the speeds we pay for anyway, even if only a single person is using the service, so there's another underperformance issue). Our data usage for the month of November was 813GB. That means, at $10 per 50GB, we're looking at over $100 in overages in addition to our $182 a month, without any improvement in service.

I consider this to be wrong. As a previous user pointed out, Comcast plans charge by the provided speed, not by the data usage. The switch now, without any improvement of service and no way to switch to a plan that is more economical, is unethical. At the very least, they should increase the cap if you purchase a higher cost plan or a higher cap if you are a bundle user. If we find a better provider, we will be switching. To say we are displeased with the changes is an understatement.

RR Conductor
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Redwood Valley, CA
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RR Conductor to NormanS

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to NormanS
said by NormanS:

We have no boroughs here. Very few publicly owned utilities (City of Palo Alto, City of Sacramento).

We have a couple up here in Northwestern California, the cities of Ukiah and Healdsburg.
rody_44
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Quakertown, PA

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I actually think my conclusion makes more sense. Which is instead of having to build and maintain a network that must support what 1 percent of users use to the other 99 percent. They attempt to get the 1 percenters to conform at least to a more reasonable amount to what the 99 percent uses. Does that not make more logical sense. If it was about streaming video the cap would be much lower. Lets not forget comcast was fine with sandvine and managing that 1 percent of users bandwidth which doesnt go along with any theory of protecting the video side. Not to mention there is broadband cable internet providers that only cover the isp side and not video. Guess what, they have caps to. If it was all about protecting video they wouldnt be having a cap where you can stream 300 hours a month of video and still not go over it.
catnapped
join:2010-11-22
Elizabethtown, PA

catnapped to Zydia

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to Zydia
said by Zydia :

If we find a better provider, we will be switching.

They're counting on most people having no choice but to keep writing them those checks.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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NormanS to rody_44

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to rody_44
said by rody_44:

Not to mention there is broadband cable internet providers that only cover the isp side and not video. Guess what, they have caps to.

Not all of them. Mine surely does not. But a lot of smaller ones, such as Windstream, do have capacity issues.

iNick
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join:2012-12-11
Joliet, IL

iNick to Zydia

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to Zydia
this Exactly for me to download BF4 on the PC was almost 25GB then the updates are almost 2GB each and for me to download it on the PS3 was 35GB the same on my PS4 and each update is almost 2GB then for each map pack to come out is almost 2GB the same with CoD Ghosts for the Map Packs then we use Netflix a lot on the 4 devices at a time listening to Music from Google Music for $8 legally take up a lot of GB's from Comcast no CAP yet in Chicago hope it stays like that or else i'm switch to Business Class then

Bodyslide
join:2000-12-14
Woodstock, GA

Bodyslide

Member

So far this month. With 2 ps3's, 1 ps4, One Xbox, A few laptops and 4 smart phones we have done 43 gb in the first 5 days.

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

tshirt

Premium Member

said by Bodyslide:

So far this month. With 2 ps3's, 1 ps4, One Xbox, A few laptops and 4 smart phones we have done 43 gb in the first 5 days.

So if you have a big family (of devices) you need to budget more for 'food', and food delivery.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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NormanS

MVM

said by tshirt:

So if you have a big family (of devices) you need to budget more for 'food', and food delivery.

Oh, dear! Now we are having a byte famine. Or is it that Chimera called the "Exaflood"?
rody_44
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Quakertown, PA

rody_44 to tshirt

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to tshirt
You mean the way comcast has to budget more knowing that they will have way more service calls from high users of the service.

tshirt
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join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to NormanS

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to NormanS
Not a famine, the OP is paying for the various devices, but using/needing greater bandwidth CAPACITY to receive more bits per month.
He KNOWS he only purchases 300GB per month from comcast so if he orders more than that he'll obviously need to pay for the extra.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
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join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
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Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

said by tshirt:

He KNOWS he only purchases 300GB per month from comcast ...

I have looked at the Comcast site for ordering Internet service. I read the "Details and Restrictions" for a number of the plans. Comcast sells "speed", not "volume". None of the plans I looked at mentioned that Comcast is selling any number of "GB" per month. I tried reading the Acceptable Use Policy, I could not find any reference to "volume" of data, only delivery speed.

So, based on not being able to readily find what the Comcast "volume" limits are, how can he know he is only purchasing 300 GB per month? This service cap is not mentioned on the sales site.

tshirt
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join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt

Premium Member

Reread the OP of this entire thread.
The OP received (along with everyone else in the effected area) receive a notice (think addendum to the static ToS's you read) stating "At Comcast, we recognize that our customers use the Internet for different reasons and have unique data needs. Starting September 1, 2013, Comcast will trial a new monthly data plan in this area, which will increase the amount of data included in your XFINITY Internet Service to 300 GB and provide more choice and flexibility.
Not sure how much clearer they need to be to satisfy YOUR definition of notice, most people caught the gist of it, even if they don't agree.