dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
397
iamokaw
join:2014-08-14

iamokaw

Member

[Caps] Yup, another question about Comcast Business Class caps.

I'm stuck with a crappy local provider at home that still has a 200GB cap. As a cord-cutter, I use a lot of bandwidth for entertainment. As such, I often leave an old laptop at work with an external hard drive attached to it, and download large files or batches of files over night. I'm the sole IT person for the company, so I'm not worried about backlash there. My only concern is downloading too much and getting the dreaded call. Luckily, we have multiple offices, so I've been alternating between the 3 offices that are within 20 minutes of my house.

So I've been reading other threads about this, and I read the wonderfully vague TOS from Comcast; but I wanted to go over my calculations with you guys, and see what you think.

10-15% of maximum capacity seems to be the generally accepted rule of thumb for what's "safe."

We have 50mb down, so 50mb/8 = 6.25MB/s. Average month is 30 days, so about 2,592,000 seconds per month. That means maximum capacity of this connection is
16,200,000MB. I've never been clear on if they "market numbers" (1,000MB=1TB) or real numbers (1048576MB=1TB) so let's be conservative and go with market numbers. So my connection's maximum capacity is 16.2TB/month. That means that 1.62TB-2.43TB per month is safe, yes?

No one else in the office does any heavy downloading (trust me, I'm surrounded by technophobes), only 2 people use off-site backups, and all they keep on their computer to backup is MS Office docs and pictures of their kids.

So the big question: if I download about 500GB this month, you think I'll be OK?

Annon
@68.62.236.x

Annon

Anon

Business class does not list a cap, so no "safe" rule exists.

Download what you want. They push people to business to pay more when you use too much on the residential side.

They also wouldn't just cut you off, they would warn you.

Leave it all at one location and let it rip.
So long as you're not doing anything illegal you're within your ToS on the business class basically.
Bink
Villains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Colorado

Bink to iamokaw

Member

to iamokaw
You might not be okay if this is copyrighted content.

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

JohnInSJ to iamokaw

Premium Member

to iamokaw
You're find with multiple TB per month. If you start pushing 80% of your total available data you *might* get a call after a month or two.

You *won't* be ok if there are DMCA notices generated for your account. It's not clear if the same 6 strikes rules apply, or it's 1, or 2, but it's not nothing.

NetFixer
From My Cold Dead Hands
Premium Member
join:2004-06-24
The Boro
Netgear CM500
Pace 5268AC
TRENDnet TEW-829DRU

NetFixer to iamokaw

Premium Member

to iamokaw
I have the low end 16/3 Business Class Starter package, and your current 500GB usage would be a light usage month for me (I don't do any bit-torrent activity, and very little video streaming , but I do operate public servers). I seriously doubt that any business class customer (even on the low end package) would be harassed by Comcast for a steady multi-TB usage pattern -- and all that would happen if Comcast did object to your usage, would be to migrate you to a more expensive plan.

The only thing Comcast "monitors" for business class customers is the "content" of their usage -- and even then, unless it matched their algorithms for spam or botnet activity (or perhaps child porn distribution), they would only intervene if some outside party registered a complaint. As an example, my »portscan.dcs-net.net site has in the past been subject to "abuse" investigations by AT&T and Covad (when they were my ISP), but I have never been bothered by Comcast for operating that site).
iamokaw
join:2014-08-14

iamokaw

Member

No peer-to-peer here; this is straight FTP from a private source. That's how I know how much I want to download. Without going into detail, I've no concerns whatsoever about DMCA or copyright notices. My sole concern is Comcast; but it sounds like I'll be fine.