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Exclusive: Some Comcast Users Will See 500 GB Cap
Company to Scale Cap Size With Tier Speed

It appears that Comcast is tinkering with the idea of offering higher caps with higher tiers of service, and will again shake up their speed options sometime in the next year for the majority of users. A reliable source tells Broadband Reports that it does appear that Comcast is going to go forward with the model they're currently testing in Nashville, which implements a 300 GB cap with users paying $10 per each additional 50 GB in overages. In the ongoing trial, customers were given a "grace period" wherein they were only being charged after they crossed the cap three previous times in one month.

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Interestingly, our source claims that when Comcast proceeds with the deployment of this new cap system nationally, faster speed tiers will see higher caps. For example, users on the company's "Performance" tier (currently 15 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up) will see a cap of 300 GB. Users on the company's "Blast" tier (currently 25 Mbps down 4 Mbps up) will see a higher 500 GB cap.

Our source did not know what caps would be implemented on the company's faster 50, 105 or upcoming 305 Mbps usage tiers, or if Comcast is considering having no cap at all on their fastest tier. Generally, Comcast uses these caps as a way to differentiate between residential and business class services, and, like with other ISPs, to help protect TV revenues from Internet video.

Unlike other cap and overage ISPs (AT&T, CableOne, etc.), Comcast at least seems interested in scaling their usage caps with the times, and they've also been more than consistent in terms of offering faster and faster speeds. Comcast still intends to bump their Performance tier from 15/2 to 25/4 and Blast tier from 25/4 to 50/10 in all markets. That's alongside of the company's 305 Mbps tier that's intended to compete with Verizon's new 300 Mbps FiOS offering.

Back in May Comcast stated they were exploring two options: a 300 GB cap for all tiers, or scaling caps for each speed tier; it appears that Comcast is interested in the latter.

Update: Comcast's Tucson-area website already shows Comcast experimenting with higher caps for faster tiers, with their Performance tier seeing a cap of 300 GB, Blast getting a 350 GB cap, Extreme 50 getting a 450 GB cap, and their Extreme 105 tier seeing a 600 GB cap.
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JigglyWiggly
join:2009-07-12
Pleasanton, CA

JigglyWiggly

Member

datttt

if no cap on 50+ tiers...
then i will give cumcast a hi five
that wud actually be awesome

Robert
Premium Member
join:2001-08-25
Miami, FL

Robert

Premium Member

Re: datttt

said by JigglyWiggly:

if no cap on 50+ tiers...
then i will give cumcast a hi five
that wud actually be awesome

Que?
etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
united state

1 recommendation

etaadmin

Member

Re: datttt

said by Robert:

said by JigglyWiggly:

if no cap on 50+ tiers...
then i will give cumcast a hi five
that wud actually be awesome

Que?

No mas caps.

Jerm
join:2000-04-10
Richland, WA

2 recommendations

Jerm to JigglyWiggly

Member

to JigglyWiggly

Problem MATH

So lets get this straight:

For rough math sake, say $50/month for 300GB

At overage rates $10GBx300 = $3000!

So they are saying once we hit 300GB data is worth 60X more?!!!
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

Re: Problem MATH

said by Jerm:

So lets get this straight:

For rough math sake, say $50/month for 300GB

At overage rates $10GBx300 = $3000!

So they are saying once we hit 300GB data is worth 60X more?!!!

Yeah, that math doesn't make sense.. that's wireless data prices and crazy for wireline.. I thought the idea was $10 for every 50 additional gb...

Nevertheless, if you're on a plan that pays more than $100 a month for internet there should be NO, ZERO, ZILCH, ZIPPO caps..that would obviously be business class afforability wise, if not in QOS.. and 100 - 150 megabit tier-- currently AFAIK, the 50 megabit tier with Comcast is close to the $100 mark.. which is as I suspected, price collusion with Verizon.. and utter GREED!
tanzam75
join:2012-07-19

tanzam75

Member

Re: Problem MATH

said by tmc8080:

Nevertheless, if you're on a plan that pays more than $100 a month for internet there should be NO, ZERO, ZILCH, ZIPPO caps..that would obviously be business class afforability wise, if not in QOS.. and 100 - 150 megabit tier-- currently AFAIK, the 50 megabit tier with Comcast is close to the $100 mark.. which is as I suspected, price collusion with Verizon.. and utter GREED!

Unrealistic.

Metro Ethernet runs in the $1000 per month range. Nobody cares if you max out the line for every second of every day for the full month, because you've paid for that dedicated capacity.

Clearly, then, $100 per month business-class service depends on some degree of statistical multiplexing. You simply cannot max out the line without impacting other customers on the same node.
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

Crookshanks

Member

Re: Problem MATH

said by tanzam75:

Clearly, then, $100 per month business-class service depends on some degree of statistical multiplexing. You simply cannot max out the line without impacting other customers on the same node.

Well, presumably the higher price of the service would fund infrastructure upgrades to allow them to offer a lower contention ratio than they otherwise could. Business class service can also be prioritized over residential service during times of congestion. I'm not sure if Comcast does this but I know my provider (Frontier) does.

Another consideration is that most businesses care more about latency than they do about sustained transfer rates. They need webpages to load snappily, VoIP to work, VPNs to work, RDP to work, etc, etc. Online backups are about the only thing a typical business would need sustained data transfer speeds for, but even that isn't really a consideration, most online backups are incremental, and they can be scheduled to occur during off-peak times. Additionally, many businesses would care more about the upstream than the downstream, they need it for road warriors and the like. Torrent kiddies notwithstanding, the upstream side of the equation is underutilized in most ISP networks, so the contention ratio is less of a concern there.

My employer shares a connection with 55-60 employees; in the last four weeks we've used 78.21GB down and 26.55GB up. Our 95th percentile is 1.09mbit/s, meaning that 95% of the time we were using less bandwidth than that. Most employers would be even lower on the downstream, we've got classrooms that do a fair amount of video streaming, whereas most business entities really have no need for that.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to Jerm

Member

to Jerm
Nope. Comcast charges $10 per 50GB for overages.

Jerm
join:2000-04-10
Richland, WA

Jerm

Member

Re: Problem MATH

article has been edited to reflect this now, makes more sense!
tanzam75
join:2012-07-19

1 edit

tanzam75 to Jerm

Member

to Jerm
said by Jerm:

At overage rates $10GBx300 = $3000!

If you want to pay $3000 a month, you can pay for a dedicated line. The costs to run the line will either be paid by you up-front, or amortized over a contract period. Nobody will care if you push multiple terabytes through in each month, as you have paid the full costs of the line and are not impacting other customers.
Anon1280
join:2012-10-03

Anon1280 to Jerm

Member

to Jerm
said by Jerm:

So lets get this straight:

For rough math sake, say $50/month for 300GB

At overage rates $10GBx300 = $3000!

So they are saying once we hit 300GB data is worth 60X more?!!!

You're pretty bad at math pal, it's $10 per 50gb overage, meaning for $60 you get 300gb over...Lrn2Math
nysports4evr
Premium Member
join:2010-01-23

2 recommendations

nysports4evr to JigglyWiggly

Premium Member

to JigglyWiggly

Re: datttt

said by JigglyWiggly:

if no cap on 50+ tiers...
then i will give cumcast a hi five
that wud actually be awesome

Please stop typing like that.

JigglyWiggly
join:2009-07-12
Pleasanton, CA

JigglyWiggly

Member

Re: datttt

no
go be an engrish teacher if you care about what people's grammar on the internet is

mikeschr
@comcast.net

mikeschr

Anon

Re: datttt

Then fewer people will read and accept the points you're making. In that case, what's the point of posting at all?

Lowtarget
Premium Member
join:2003-12-22
Alger, OH

Lowtarget to JigglyWiggly

Premium Member

to JigglyWiggly
Even though our area cable service is with TWC. As long the company offers good service and unlimited bandwidth. That's what counts the most for me.

We really don't use that much bandwidth per month. But least it's something we don't have to worry about. We are on 30 Mbps down 5 Mbps up which is good enough for us.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Competitive Markets

I wonder if Comcast intends to enforce these caps in their competitive markets (most of their urban NE division).

Right now they're slightly beating Verizon FiOS on price here. Once they add overages, it will be likely that many users will pay the higher monthly price for FiOS rather than pay/worry about overages.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

1 recommendation

Os

Member

Re: Competitive Markets

I question whether they enforce those caps at all in areas, like most of the DC area, with high FiOS penetration. Shutting customers off under the previous cap system would have caused those people to just go to FiOS and never come back.

Comcast is beginning to advertise on the DC stations how they are increasing speeds at no additional cost, a slight at the FiOS Quantum marketing which did raise prices considerably for a lot of customers.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to whfsdude

Premium Member

to whfsdude
My guess is they will only enforce if someone goes way over. However the new overage system might be fully automatic. in which case unlike the old system where a person likely had to review huge overages, this new setup might just automatically bill.

That said with what the highest speed tiers cost, they should be uncapped. At over $100/mo for the fastest tiers, I think they make up for lost CATV revenues from the person watching Netflix instead.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

1 recommendation

Os

Member

Reasonable

If this is the approach Comcast will take going forward, 500GB is reasonable for Blast, and I wouldn't consider that punitive. If the cap is nonexistent for the Extreme 50/105/300 tiers beyond that, or even larger, I think people would have very little to complain about.

I would see Comcast much more favorably if this were rolled out instead of what they're trying in Nashville.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Reasonable

said by Os:

If this is the approach Comcast will take going forward, 500GB is reasonable for Blast, and I wouldn't consider that punitive.

Not really. You're restricting the activities that a household will do based on the cap. Onlive + Netflix + Backblaze + Bitcasa can eat up over a terabyte a month.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

1 recommendation

Os

Member

Re: Reasonable

Sure, any cap will be a restriction, but Blast is not one of the higher tiers. I'll withhold some judgment on the overall picture, not knowing what happens to Extreme, but very few people are ever coming close to using a terabyte per month currently. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect those people to pay for higher tiers for more usage. I do, however, think it's double dipping to charge those people for the higher speeds and then for the higher bandwidth. It should be common sense that the higher speed connection is going to use more bandwidth.

Comcast is at least showing they understand bandwidth usage is increasing, and that they're moving with the times. We have to give them credit for that.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Reasonable

said by Os:

I do, however, think it's double dipping to charge those people for the higher speeds and then for the higher bandwidth. It should be common sense that the higher speed connection is going to use more bandwidth.

(This is kind of on a tangent. and I'm not opposing your comment.)

If Comcast is trying to extend the life of their copper network and the caps were about limiting congestion, we should actually see an opposite of the what the plans reflect.

The most expensive plans would be slower speeds but would be unlimited.

Likewise, the high speed plans should be cheaper but capped.

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

1 edit

tshirt to whfsdude

Premium Member

to whfsdude
So you might need to skip one or more of those activities, or buy more capacity to fill that "need". I'm guessing the "$10 per 50GB " or similar will still be available.
for those that have higher bandwidth desires Fios (in those few areas they go head to head) might be a better deal, for most ComCast will offer equal speeds and adquite capacity at a lower price point which seem to be a primary market driver right now.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

Os

Member

Re: Reasonable

If I lived in a Comcast/FiOS market, I would still go FiOS because I feel they have a superior TV product. Also, still largely, higher upload. Of course, Verizon would rather offer me 3 Mbps DSL for all eternity, so I'm stuck.

But it's clear Comcast is lapping all the other cable companies in innovating with broadband.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Reasonable

said by Os:

If I lived in a Comcast/FiOS market, I would still go FiOS because I feel they have a superior TV product. Also, still largely, higher upload. Of course, Verizon would rather offer me 3 Mbps DSL for all eternity, so I'm stuck.

Not to get too local here but this applies to the DC Metro area, PHL, NJ/NYC, and Boston which are pretty big Comcast markets in the NE.

I know some users who are not switching to FiOS in DC even though it's available to them. This has actually been brought up a bunch of times on the local listservs and the subreddit.

1. The big reason to stay with Comcast here is they recently have been rolling out hundreds of hotspots in DC.
2. Price. Double play (TV + Internet) is about $20/mo cheaper.
3. Installation pains/effort.

With that said, Verizon is still finishing many neighborhoods and will have a complete rollout in the next year for all of DC proper. Conduit was just recently put up in my alley for FiOS and the tech doing it said by December at the latest for my whole neighborhood. If Comcast implements the cap in my neighborhood they will lose at least 50% of their customer base come next year.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

1 recommendation

Os

Member

Re: Reasonable

Don't forget Pittsburgh and Harrisburg in that.

Most of Allegheny County has FiOS now. I'm not sure of the deployment in Harrisburg, but I know it's in both Dauphin and Cumberland counties.

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

tshirt to whfsdude

Premium Member

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

If Comcast implements the cap in my neighborhood they will lose at least 50% of their customer base come next year.

You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?

how did they survive the 250GB cap?

BTW boston itself seems to be shunning Fios so that market can't really be on the list, and many of the others aren't fully rolled out.

Probably each service will have it's diehards, and a certain number will wander back and forth for a few promo discounts.
getting people to actually switch is very difficult, Fios had a big speed advantage (which most people wouldn't notice in a blind test) but now CC is close, CC is cheaper and can sit on that price for a while and even offer some promos, fios is still under priced for the debt load. (their wireline division is at a pathetic 2.8% margin, largely due to fios) investors expect the higher single digits or more for a regulated utility, so more price increases are almost inevitable.

And we've seen a number of people here that tried fios and then returned to a previous/different carrier.
It is apparently not nirvana for everyone.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Reasonable

said by tshirt:

You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?

I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much.

how did they survive the 250GB cap?

Was never enforced in DC.

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

tshirt

Premium Member

Re: Reasonable

So you believe people will go through the hassle, learning curve and expense of changing over to a more expensive service, out of fear of a cap they never exceeded and was never enforced anyway?
I don't think most users are motivated enough to do that, and few would even care/notice a cap policy change unless they were warned at least once.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall to whfsdude

MVM

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

said by tshirt:

You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?

I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much.

how did they survive the 250GB cap?

Was never enforced in DC.

I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. It isn't like people are going over like crazy and the cap was never enforced. The bandwidth cap is not like the amount of minutes on a cell phone plan.

Now that you mention it though, maybe Comcast can increase profits by telling people they should get higher tiers of service in order to get more bandwidth that they will never use.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Reasonable

said by Nightfall:

I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. It isn't like people are going over like crazy and the cap was never enforced. The bandwidth cap is not like the amount of minutes on a cell phone plan.

But you have to understand that most users don't know or keep track of their bandwidth usage. Power users, sure. So they don't really know how much they are using or will use.

When there is viable competition (FiOS) that states Comcast charges overages if you use more than your allotted data, which provider do you think people will generally choose?

Wireless is probably a bad example to use because so much of it depends on the phone selection over the actual service.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

1 recommendation

Nightfall

MVM

Re: Reasonable

said by whfsdude:

said by Nightfall:

I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. It isn't like people are going over like crazy and the cap was never enforced. The bandwidth cap is not like the amount of minutes on a cell phone plan.

But you have to understand that most users don't know or keep track of their bandwidth usage. Power users, sure. So they don't really know how much they are using or will use.

When there is viable competition (FiOS) that states Comcast charges overages if you use more than your allotted data, which provider do you think people will generally choose?

Wireless is probably a bad example to use because so much of it depends on the phone selection over the actual service.

Very true, but consumers aren't going over the limit like crazy. The limit is set to high that nearly all consumers can use Netflix, email, and browse like crazy and never hit it. Now, when consumers start hitting that limit, Comcast will either need to educate them on the limit or increase the limit.

As for competition in every Comcast market, wake me up when that happens.

The Limit
Premium Member
join:2007-09-25
Denver, CO

1 recommendation

The Limit to Nightfall

Premium Member

to Nightfall
If only 1%, then why the caps? That sure is a small amount, shouldn't affect a mammoth like Comcast.

•••••••••••••••

PapaMidnight
join:2009-01-13
Baltimore, MD

PapaMidnight to Nightfall

Member

to Nightfall
said by Nightfall:

said by whfsdude:

said by tshirt:

You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?

I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much.

how did they survive the 250GB cap?

Was never enforced in DC.

I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month.

I'd like to see nominal proof of that 1% declarator - especially in light of more and more people using online video such as HBO GO, Netflix, and even YouTube (where more and more videos are going HD).

•••••••
PapaMidnight

PapaMidnight to whfsdude

Member

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

said by tshirt:

You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?

I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much.

how did they survive the 250GB cap?

Was never enforced in DC.

I'll take it a step further. Some HD Netflix streaming (which Netflix defaults to when in Fullscreen Mode at 1366x768 and above), whether it be on PC, and Xbox 360 or other console, or Roku box will use Gigs upon Gigs of data before anything else is accounted for.

As for how they survived the 250GB cap, it was a soft cap that was rarely, if ever, enforced. I know I broke it on roughly a monthly basis. You should see my data transfer logs from my pfSense box.
PapaMidnight

PapaMidnight to whfsdude

Member

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

With that said, Verizon is still finishing many neighborhoods and will have a complete rollout in the next year for all of DC proper.

Believe it when I see it.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall to whfsdude

MVM

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

said by Os:

If this is the approach Comcast will take going forward, 500GB is reasonable for Blast, and I wouldn't consider that punitive.

Not really. You're restricting the activities that a household will do based on the cap. Onlive + Netflix + Backblaze + Bitcasa can eat up over a terabyte a month.

Of those services, only Netflix is one that a common household will use.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Even a 300GB cap is reasonable for internet video

I have a Netflix streaming account and an Amazon Prime free videos account and watch a good amount of videos on my SmartTV with WiFi and get nowhere near the cap. I watch about 10 hrs/week of online video and am on the internet constantly and still don't exceed 50 GBs/mo. If you are approaching or exceeding the caps it is likely you are doing a lot of online backing up of your systems hard disks or are a heavy user of bittorrent file sharing systems.

•••••••••

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

1 edit

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Winning the cord cutting war

If the purpose of caps is to cut down on cord cutters, they should give higher caps or waive caps for cable subscribers (such as a 500 GB cap for expanded basic subscribers, 750 GB for digital starter, 1 TB for digital preferred and unlimited Internet for digital preferred with one or more premium channels. And increase the caps by 25 percent if they add digital voice to the mix (triple play). I come nowhere near the 250 GB limit (I use about 20-30 GB per month but mom plays Internet games on the computer). As for my TV, that is what cable is for.

Comcast is a cable company and their core business is pay TV, the Internet and phone is a side product. It's like going to a restaurant and buying dessert (Internet) and a soda (phone) without buying the entree (cable tv). The restaurant would be put out of business if their customers occupied a table for dessert and soda without the entree. That restauraunt would rather sell all three (entree, beverage, dessert). If it was not for Comcast's cable TV offerings, you would be paying 4-5 times more for Internet because maintaining infrastructure is expensive. Plus, you have to pay for tech support (both field techs and call center reps), regulatory costs, among other costs. While I have supported the breakup of broadband monopolies, Comcast could divest their Internet business and still be profitable because they could still charge access fees (like paying a local phone company for dial tone) and the third party ISP would provide the Internet content (customer choice like paying for long distance). And they could waive those access fees if you subscribe to pay TV and you would only have to pay the ISP fees. They could also charge third party ISPs for access to their facilities (like CLECs are charged by the ILEC).

Comcast could also operate on the food court model where the cable plant is like a food court and the content providers/ISPs have to pay Comcast for access their network but the ISPs/content providers (the food court tenants) charge for their service but Comcast (the mall) maintains the infrastructure.

bobjohnson
Premium Member
join:2007-02-03
Spartanburg, SC

bobjohnson

Premium Member

Re: Winning the cord cutting war

That's what the bundle pricing is about.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

1 recommendation

IPPlanMan

Member

Been saying this for years now...

If this is indeed true, then I've been right about what I've said for years: Faster speeds results in higher levels of usage. Having the same cap regardless of provisioned speed was ridiculous. I've said that repeatedly on DSLR.

Being able to download things faster means that you'll download higher resolution content and more of it. You'll stream more because it's faster. You'll send full resolution movies/videos because it's faster. You'll do more in the same amount of time because it's faster. Why people argued against me on this, I'll never understand.

So for all those who said I was wrong, who said that faster speeds don't mean higher levels of usage... Looks like Comcast proved you all wrong.

•••••••
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

1 recommendation

elray

Member

Not surprising

As I've been explaining for years, caps will rise to keep Mom happy - industry only wants to keep the abusers at bay, not collect overage charges, contrary to the populist rhetoric you read from Karl.

If overage charges affected any significant percentage of households, there would be mass outrage, starting with she who holds the checkbook. Cable knows better.

••••
Weatherman1
join:2012-09-14
Bel Air, MD

1 recommendation

Weatherman1

Member

Caps.

If Comcast institutes caps which result in people getting charged for going over, they will lose more customers to FiOS in my area - plain and simple.

Right now, the price of Comcast with promos is about $10-$20 month cheaper than the equivalent FiOS package. That is the main reason why I stay with Comcast. I would much rather pay another $10-$20 to not worry about getting hit with going over a cap, plus have way more upload speed as an added bonus.

QoS_not_Caps
@comcast.net

QoS_not_Caps

Anon

Tucson, AZ Gets Lower Caps

Tucson, AZ is getting much lower caps starting on October 1.

Economy 300GB
Economy Plus 300GB
Internet Essentials 300GB
Performance Starter 300GB
Performance 300GB
Blast 350GB
Extreme 50 450GB
Extreme 105 600GB

Overage is $10/50GB

»customer.comcast.com/hel ··· s-tucson

These caps are behavior of sudo monopolies using their position to extort more revenue from customers. If there is really a bandwidth congestion problem, the real solution is QoS and bandwidth caps, not usage caps. The problem is the average user can't easily understand QoS and it doesn't easily bring in more revenue.

••••••

RR206
join:2001-12-11
united state

RR206

Member

Not a peep.

And I've done 2+TB in a month,1TB regularly on 50Mb.

•••••••••
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

1 recommendation

88615298 (banned)

Member

Still complaints

Geez people. Comcast unlike other companies are actually upping the caps. I will say that Charter had a 500 GB cap on it's 100 Mbps tier for 3 years now. Of course now Comcast exceeds that.

Anyway these caps are much better than the old ones and face the vast majority won't come close to the new caps and at least you won't get cut off now. Though I think a cap free time zone in the middle of the night is something they and other ISPs should have.

And before someone chimes in and says something stupid like "no caps" well that train left the station already so let's deal with reality.

ikyuaoki
join:2011-04-12
Wichita, KS

ikyuaoki

Member

cap boost

I have the Cox internet, premier tier.

If I do gets another boost cap from 250GB to 500GB that means I would get 1TB total of two sub accounts under my premier account for sure!
LocutusBorg
Premium Member
join:2005-12-25
Revere, MA

LocutusBorg

Premium Member

excellent

hoping this is how it works out. i need at least a terra for a cap

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy

Premium Member

I'd leave

Any provider implementing a cap would force me to leave their service.
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

88615298 (banned)

Member

Re: I'd leave

said by jduffy:

Any provider implementing a cap would force me to leave their service.

Yes because you have so many choices. Hate to break it to you by 99% will not come near a 500 GB cap.

ChuckcZar
@teksavvy.com

ChuckcZar

Anon

At least it's a step in the right direction

If their network can handle a cap increase great. Up in Canada Rogers increased their caps from an absurd level to just a ridiculous level and their whole infrastructure fell apart affecting both cable internet and digital television. They still throttle 24/7 but maybe someone should state check and see if the network or infrastructure can handle an extra load first.
InStitches49
join:2012-08-24
Hendersonville, TN

InStitches49

Member

Just Wish I'd Known!

I'm in the area where the 300 cap is being used now and just signed up for Comcast a little over a week ago. No one ever told me beforehand that there was a 300 cap. Now we're within it by a good amount right now, but the fact that this wasn't disclosed is what frustrates me. We had been with AT&T Bellsouth and the speed was terrible! Our daughter is taking an online college class and was constantly being kicked offline, so we thought this would be a better solution. However, if the price increases dramatically we'll have to go back with AT&T DSL (hope not until at least she finishes this course). Little did I know or even know enough to ask

•••

Airwolf7
Premium Member
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY

Airwolf7

Premium Member

These screen caps might clear up Karl's article.

Even though I live in Franklin, KY I am a Comcast customer in the ongoing trial in Comcast's Nashville, TN market.

I just logged into my Comcast account and took these screen captures.


My Current Data Usage


The image above would be good to replace the image in Karl's article because it shows more detail about what is going on in the Nashville, TN trial.


300 GB Usage Allowance


The image above would clear up what Karl said below in his article.

"In the ongoing trial, customers were given a "grace period" wherein they were only being charged after they crossed the cap three previous times in one month."

Maybe word it something like this below. I'm not a writer. I'm just a dumb redneck hick from Kentucky so spiff it up however you want.

In the ongoing trial, customers are given a "grace period" wherein they are only being charged $10.00 per 50GB block of data after they crossed the 300GB per month cap three times.
azstu
join:2007-05-13
Tucson, AZ

azstu

Member

Re: These screen caps might clear up Karl's article.

Can anyone offer a suggestion as to why I do not see a usage meter on my account page. and never have.. ? Is this a common problem.. any help would be appreciated. I live in Tucson area. thanks
martyp7
join:2004-01-30
Vallejo, CA

martyp7

Member

data caps

Well we have dsl here and are moving to uverse to get the higher data cap.

we have over a few times and its just watching a few movies streaming in our bedroom from cinemanow while one daughter streams from netflix. And the other daughter video chats with school friend .

its getting really easy now to hit 250 or 300 gigs a month with out trying yo hard
jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL

jagged

Member

Already seeing discrepancy 189GB vs 178GB

just check my Comcast.com account. It says that as of 9/24/2012 we've used 189GB.

My router however, running the latest DD-WRT version, says my WAN port had: September 2012 (Incoming: 138765 MB / Outgoing: 39228 MB) - 177,993MB total

So who's the liar now?!