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Charter Confirms New Caps
Says new $140, 60Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 tier will be cap free
Yesterday we cited an anonymous insider at Charter who informed us that the company would very soon be implementing new caps. Today, Charter's Eric Ketzer confirmed the plans, and informed us that Charter's new, $140 60Mbps tier will not have any limitations. Speeds of 15Mbps or slower will have a 100GB monthly cap, while 15-25Mbps speeds will have a 250GB monthly cap. "In order to continue providing the best possible experience for our Internet customers, later this month we will be updating our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to establish monthly residential bandwidth consumption thresholds," Ketzer confirms. "More than 99% of our customers will not be affected by our updated policy, as they consume far less bandwidth than the threshold allows," he says.
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Civrock
Premium Member
join:2005-06-25
Wilkesboro, NC

Civrock

Premium Member

Monitoring Tools

They better implement own monitoring tools for users on their website. I know there's free third-party ones out there but none of them accurately monitor the monthly bandwidth usage for all the different network setups out there Charter users have.

Also wondering how spam and such will be counted...

NickD
Premium Member
join:2000-11-17
Princeton Junction, NJ

NickD

Premium Member

Re: Monitoring Tools

instead of capping upgrade the network

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

SpaethCo

MVM

Re: Monitoring Tools

said by NickD:

instead of capping upgrade the network
They did.

You can get around the caps by leveraging the benefits of those upgrades and signing up for the 60mbps tier.
Warez_Zealot
join:2006-04-19
Vancouver

1 recommendation

Warez_Zealot

Member

Re: Monitoring Tools

said by SpaethCo:

said by NickD:

instead of capping upgrade the network
They did.

You can get around the caps by leveraging the benefits of those upgrades and signing up for the 60mbps tier.
lol, $140/mo for internet!? That must be a joke. I bet you won't even get 80% of the advertised speeds.
cahiatt
Premium Member
join:2001-03-21
Smyrna, GA

cahiatt

Premium Member

Re: Monitoring Tools

said by Warez_Zealot:

....That must be a joke. I bet you won't even get 80% of the advertised speeds.
I'm having trouble with getting even 15% my paid speeds. My CBN account is choking down with 300k out of the supposed 2.0 meg of upload that I'm supposed to have....

hobbularmodule

Anon

Re: Monitoring Tools

said by cahiatt:

My CBN account is choking down with 300k out of the supposed 2.0 meg of upload that I'm supposed to have....
2.0 Mbps = 2.0 megaBITS per second, not megabytes. 2.0MB = 2048 bytes; 2.0 Mb = 256 bytes. So you're actually getting MORE than advertised.

chrtrsux
@charter.com

chrtrsux

Anon

Re: Monitoring Tools

2.0 Mbps = (2.0 * (1024 Kbps/Mbps) * (1024 bps/Kbps) / 8) Bps
= 262144 Bps

bob from aus to Warez_Zealot

Anon

to Warez_Zealot
you got it easy dude, i would love to have that. instead i get this

»my.bigpond.com/internetp ··· ault.jsp

iteg
@integraonline.net

iteg to Warez_Zealot

Anon

to Warez_Zealot
Cable never has a guaranteed speed! You need to use a T1 if you want a guaranteed speed. Plus you can bond T1's together. On another note, Cable and DSL is technically a residential product. There is no service level guarantee on either. This means that if your service goes down, it can take up to 2 days to fix the problem! Try to pay your employees to sit on their hands for that long! Now does it take that long? Not very often. But I have a client that encountered that situation. And it was a costly mistake! They switched to a T1. They pay a little more, but it's called piece of mind insurance that his employees won't need a 2 day lunch break!
Plus Charter has a horrible reputation for their business customers!

Flibbetigibbet to SpaethCo

Anon

to SpaethCo
said by SpaethCo:

said by NickD:

instead of capping upgrade the network
They did.

You can get around the caps by leveraging the benefits of those upgrades and signing up for the 60mbps tier.
Brilliant suggestion. All I have to do is move halfway across the country to St. Louis, buy a house in the "right" neighborhood, and sign up for five-times-what-it's-worth "service?" Great idea!

Matt3
All noise, no signal.
Premium Member
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC

1 recommendation

Matt3 to Civrock

Premium Member

to Civrock
said by Civrock:

Also wondering how spam and such will be counted...
Spam and non-solicited traffic is minuscule. They are statistically insignificant.

gattaca
Premium Member
join:2003-05-28
USA

gattaca to Civrock

Premium Member

to Civrock
The least they can do is provide users the tools needed to monitor than own usage.

The funny thing is Charter probably spends much more on providing phone/e-mail and other technical support to users than it does for network upgrades. I suspect the kinds of users who will be hitting this cap (myself included) are also the kind of people who never bother Charter with mundane technical support calls.

Not to mention the fact that realistically, Charter shouldn't give a damn if I download a lot of content overnight, for example. During peak hours I can almost understand, but explain to me how Charter suffers if I schedule a multi-gigabyte download for midnight?

And yes, I do legally acquire content that I can - iTunes music, licensed software, etc. - but there are some things that can't be acquired legally because there are no reasonable means to do so (overseas television shows and the like.)

Not to mention the fact that everyone in my family uses Netflix and Hulu for streaming. We're screwed.
me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO
·Google Fiber

1 edit

me1212

Member

Re: Monitoring Tools

Do (most)DSL ISPs have caps? I know that they(for the post mart) don't have the speeds cable does, but I for one would rather have a 5m DSL with NO caps than a 10m calbe with a cap, syre it may take longer to buffer a video, but I have time, and if theres a good game that comes out, with great online play I COULD play all I want, but I don;t have DSL and don;t know if most have caps. I do know that DSLs(for the most part) don;t try to prussure you into a bundle.

xt
@alter.net

xt to Civrock

Anon

to Civrock
They should try Gomez it is the best for monitering!
tthnow
join:2006-06-07
Oakland, CA

tthnow

Member

omg I am screwed.

I have to fork out $140 for unlimited usage? looks like I have to at this point. The highest tier I have in my area is 16 megs.
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

88615298 (banned)

Member

Re: omg I am screwed.

said by tthnow:

I have to fork out $140 for unlimited usage? looks like I have to at this point. The highest tier I have in my area is 16 megs.
All I have is 10 mbps. I have to get two 10 mbps connections and still not have the bandwidth allowed by the 16 mbps tier.

uid1307457
Premium Member
join:2005-12-30
Tempe, AZ

uid1307457

Premium Member

Re: omg I am screwed.

said by 88615298:

said by tthnow:

I have to fork out $140 for unlimited usage? looks like I have to at this point. The highest tier I have in my area is 16 megs.
All I have is 10 mbps. I have to get two 10 mbps connections and still not have the bandwidth allowed by the 16 mbps tier.
just get a business account dummies
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

88615298 (banned)

Member

Re: omg I am screwed.

said by uid1307457:

said by 88615298:

said by tthnow:

I have to fork out $140 for unlimited usage? looks like I have to at this point. The highest tier I have in my area is 16 megs.
All I have is 10 mbps. I have to get two 10 mbps connections and still not have the bandwidth allowed by the 16 mbps tier.
just get a business account dummies
Not I'd rather have the 16 Mbps that is available to all the other Charter customers. I don't like the 250 GB cap but I can live with it.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine to uid1307457

Member

to uid1307457
said by uid1307457:

said by 88615298:

said by tthnow:

I have to fork out $140 for unlimited usage? looks like I have to at this point. The highest tier I have in my area is 16 megs.
All I have is 10 mbps. I have to get two 10 mbps connections and still not have the bandwidth allowed by the 16 mbps tier.
just get a business account dummies
Not always the case.

My ISP caps business accounts at 60G and my residential account is capped at 100G.
geonap
lolatidiots
join:2005-12-14
Los Angeles, CA

geonap

Member

cap my a$$

ok... so, if 60mbit isn't available, then we must not be subject to a cap.
me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO

me1212

Member

Re: cap my a$$

that may not be how they see it, if they don't offer it to you and they cap you sue them take them to the supreme court and tell them you would like to pay for the 60m, but they wont let you.

hayabusa3303
Over 200 mph
Premium Member
join:2005-06-29
Florence, SC

hayabusa3303

Premium Member

its either

pay up alot or get screwed.

Sr Tech
Premium Member
join:2003-01-19
Meriden, CT

Sr Tech

Premium Member

Re: its either

Pretty much, one stupid marketing attempt to force you to a more expensive tier.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: its either

Hey, at least there's an uncapped tier. Comcast charges the same amount for 50/10 and still caps!

For areas where there's no 60 Mbps tier though they should offer something uncapped for residential customers...

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

Re: its either

said by iansltx:

Hey, at least there's an uncapped tier. Comcast charges the same amount for 50/10 and still caps!
At least comcast OFFERS a tier with 10mbps upload. 60/5 is pretty weak.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: its either

Agreed, however at this point I'd rather have an uncapped 3xT1 than 22/5 with a 250GB cap from Comcast. Heck, I'd rather have an uncapped 4xT1 than a 50/10 250GB capped line from Comcast. Oh wait, 4xT1's cost a LOT of money...

Why would I be willing to give up so much bandwidth? Easy...I just recovered from a perfect storm of Comcast deprioritization. Almost makes me call up Qwest and get DSL!
tthnow
join:2006-06-07
Oakland, CA

tthnow

Member

I will fork put

Do I like paying $140 a month for it? no! but do I have a choice? no!

As much as I download I guess it pays me back at the end. Hell I get all my movies, tv shows, and other illegal activity from there.
me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO
·Google Fiber

me1212

Member

Re: I will fork put

It might not be ethical(the ISP isn't being so why should you?) but if you have a neighbor who is willing to split the cost with you, you could split the cost of a GOOD wireless router that will cover both ur houses(put in a WEP code and others if there are any) and you can BOTH have unlimited inernet(one will bo via wireless only though) its not reselling, and the cable ISP can't get you for ANY law violations, cause as far as you are concerned, your just letting you neighbor use for some reason, and for ever. It WOULD only be $70 for both of you and both of you would have unlimited acces.
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

Lazlow

Member

Re: I will fork put

Now that is an idea. Only I would run a Cat6 cable between the houses.
me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO

me1212

Member

Re: I will fork put

That would work, but too much may tip off the ISP, where as with wireless has NO traces, and is next to undetectable, but you could alway burry the cable.
NYFreddie8
join:2006-11-28
Westwood, NJ

NYFreddie8 to Lazlow

Member

to Lazlow
Can't run CAT between houses. Different ground states. You'll short out your network adapters in short order. You'll need fiber or BNC.
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

Lazlow

Member

Re: I will fork put

We have run Cat5 (underground) for lots of sites without issue. Guest houses, apartments over detached garage, shops out on farms, etc.
johan_hammy
join:2003-08-08
Dekalb, IL

johan_hammy to NYFreddie8

Member

to NYFreddie8
BNC would do the same... anything that can carry electrical current will have that issue. Look into Polyphaser for boxes that solve that problem. Well, I guess if they're whining about Internet speeds and prices, they'll certainly whine at Polyphaser's pricing.
blazecom
join:2005-12-05
Columbia, MO

blazecom to tthnow

Member

to tthnow
unfortunately the problem is that our ISP's are all lazy and do not want to actually provide a product, and also if you guys really are angry about it, start a petition against it, and then state in the petition that if the demands are not met that everyone signed will disconnect service..... (GET LOTS OF NAMES)

Personally I believe that any product is to be tailored directly to the customer, the customer does not have any caps, so why should their internet connection?

chris

morbo
Complete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000

morbo

Member

Re: I will fork put

said by blazecom:

start a petition against it
petitions don't work. what works is calling and actually cancelling your service and telling them the reason why. many people have to actually do this for it to work. even then, it's a long shot because charter is so far in debt they need a bank style bailout from the government.
BigVe
join:2005-07-15
Gulliver, MI

BigVe

Member

Why?

"More than 99% of our customers will not be affected by our updated policy, as they consume far less bandwidth than the threshold allows,"

Why even have a cap if it's less than 1% that even uses to much bw just deal with them

•••

Gaffe
Cable n. 1 A legal means of theft.
join:2003-09-25
Alexander City, AL

1 edit

Gaffe

Member

Next I will be getting mugged by charter techs in an alley.

Great so i can download for less than 1 hour per night. I'll be looking for alternatives. The good news is that I will be moving soon. I will definitely try avoid TW and Charter markets.

•••••••••
bboe
join:2004-02-03
Monterey Park, CA

bboe

Member

Check this out

'http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21857722-HSI-Charters-New-Caps-Policy'

Not cool at all.
envision
join:2007-10-30

envision

Member

but yet

their stock sits at roughly .02 a share, they gave their CEO a massive pay roll plus a massive singing bonus.

Force people to use the next tier just to make money. Maybe charter should fold and close doors.

Boredness
So bored...
Premium Member
join:2005-07-07
Fresno, CA

Boredness

Premium Member

HAH HAAAH!

The only way to stop the caps and throttling of these looser ISP corporations is to send your money elsewhere if you can. If you don't they win muuhahahahahahaaa!

The internet will be controlled and conquered by the elitists if we don't stop them! Hit them where it hurts, their Swiss bank accounts.

••••••
SpookyET
join:2001-04-30
Lawrenceville, GA

SpookyET

Member

Lame company

The reason why these people can do these things is because nobody protests. You get raped in the arse, and you say, 'Thank you. Come again.' I look at your comments, and you all accept it.

It's simple. Write a letter to the CEO add thousands of signatures. Some say petitions do nothing, but trying won't cost you significant money.
bgraham2
join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY

1 edit

bgraham2

Member

How Much Bandwidth are you using?

All the posters are moaning about caps but no one really mentions what they are using.

I do a lot of newsgroups, (all legal stuff), and 30 gigs lasts me about 4 weeks. I have no idea how much bandwidth I consume. My router says that in 520 hours I downloaded 1006158047 bytes.
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

88615298 (banned)

Member

Re: How Much Bandwidth are you using?

said by bgraham2:

All the posters are moaning about caps but no one really mentions what they are using.

I do a lot of newsgroups, (all legal stuff), and 30 gigs lasts me about 4 weeks. I have no idea how much bandwidth I consume. My router says that in 520 hours I downloaded 1006158047 bytes.
Check again because that's only 960 MB. A movie download from Amazon.com would run about double that.

mmainprize
join:2001-12-06
Houghton Lake, MI

mmainprize

Member

The don't download movies CAP, Pay us for TV rules

That is what this is plain and smiple.
What everyone needs to do is we all plan ona time and we all order on demand movies and bring the system to its knees. Then complain about it not working. That is not part of the CAP, i hope.

I can tell you one thing for sure. I have a 200 a month bill but if i can't download what i want when i want then i don't need a High Speed connection, i could get by with dial-up. If i get dial-up then i don't need charter phone cause i need a land line. If i drop both HSI and Phone then my TV rate will go up so i will just get Dish.

Now is that what charter wants from its highest paying customers. I can tell you for sure that the trend is only moving towards more people wanting to get movies and many other things over the net and drop TV and phone services. That is what this is all about and this CAP is to make you not be able to do it without paying the higher costs.

StevenB
Premium Member
join:2000-10-27
New York, NY

StevenB

Premium Member

Instead of removing the 1%

They decide to penalize the 99%. It's the MSO way!
onfire
join:2003-03-28

onfire

Member

Charter caps

Charter, meanwhile, will update its "acceptable use policy" on Monday, Feb. 9, to establish maximum data-consumption limits, spokeswoman Anita Lamont said.
Not even a 30 day notice? Charter sucks more and more each day.

KoRnGtL15
Premium Member
join:2007-01-04
Grants Pass, OR

KoRnGtL15

Premium Member

What a bunch of crap.....

How nice and sweet of Charter to throw a bone to the customer with no cap on the 60mb/2mb plan.

Apophis
Jaffa Kree
Premium Member
join:2001-12-27
Holmen, WI

Apophis

Premium Member

140.00, I'd Pay

for a 60mb Connection, Id pay 140.00 per week, screw per month.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

Re: 140.00, I'd Pay

I pay 79.95/mo for a 30mb connection but I think it's expensive.

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958

Premium Member

Better be able to monitor

We better be able to monitor bandwidth ACCURATELY and for free, although I can see Charter finding a way to charge for that too.

I wish I had a clue as to what I use a month right now!

anon1234
@suddenlink.net

anon1234

Anon

Why are people ignoring DSL?

DSL doesnt have caps does it? The phone companies have no vested interest in stopping video downloads.

Everywhere can get DSL now..even my parents that live in the boonies.

Anyway, a 100GB or 250GB cap is not much of a factor. I practically live on heavy bandwidth cam sites and youtube, as well as spending about 16 hours most days on the net, and I'm only using an average 4GB per day so far this month. So the 100GB cap would crimp me a little bit, but the 250 wouldnt touch me at all (thats almost 10GB per day, more than double what I seem to be using!). Thats on a an 8MB cable connection from suddenlink btw, no caps that I'm aware of.

And again, I'm off 4 days per week, and sit on the net 16+ hours those days, on many live video sites with 4-5 browsers open streaming video at once at times.

I cant imagine what the people whining in this thread are doing to use that much BW..

Oh wait, I know exactly what theyre doing, running 24/7 downloads of warez and pirated video from newsgroups. That is literally the ONLY way to use that much BW. In fact, those people are downloading so much theres no possible way they even have time to watch it all! Seriously! They are literally just downloading crap and letting the majority of it sit on their hard drive without watching it, then eventually deleting it. Serious pack rat mentality.

kingtj
@ellenterprises.com

kingtj

Anon

Re: Why are people ignoring DSL?

Uh, no and no, unfortunately.

AT&T provides DSL here in St. Louis, Missouri - and they ALSO provide their U-Verse service, delivering TV over IP combined with broadband, and VoIP as an option on top of it all.

I don't believe they've put a formal "cap" on anything yet, but I've heard runmblings about them wanting to do it. If Charter does it successfully, it'll be that much more motivation for them to do likewise. And yes, they'll say "Hey, if you're downloading all that video content and exceeding your usage cap, you should consider paying up for U-Verse, so we can stream your TV to you!"

Also, where I work, DSL is totally unavailable still. They never built it out to this part of the city. (I wish they did, because all we can get is a way overpriced T1 circuit to get 1.5mbit transfer rates.)
said by anon1234 :

DSL doesnt have caps does it? The phone companies have no vested interest in stopping video downloads.

Everywhere can get DSL now..even my parents that live in the boonies.

moon1234
@charter.com

1 recommendation

moon1234

Anon

Letter to US and State representatives

Here is a copy of the letter that I sent to my U.S. and state representatives:

Dear Representative Baldwin,

I am writing to ask for your help. I currently have Charter Cable Internet Service. I currently enjoy my internet service for watching TV, You Tube Videos, online multimedia and to work from home. My family also uses similar services.

Charter has recently stated they will be implementing monthly data usage CAPS of 100GB of data per month. I currently pay $39.99 per month for my internet service. This new cap is very punitive for our family. I would like you to look into legislation that would make artificial caps illegal.

President Obama has stated that our country needs to expand the availability of broadband service to more Americans to help get our economy moving again. Charter's usage caps serve only to deter people from using emerging video and multimedia services such as Netflix, Apple TV and others. Charter's usage CAPS are self serving as Charter also sells video services via their cable TV offerings which are not subject to any caps. The move to CAP data usage is an unfair business practice that stifles access to alternative media sources.

The average Netflix HD video is between 4-6 GB per 2 hour movie. This would mean I would be limited to 20-25 movies per month before I would reach the Charter imposed cap. With multiple family members who use computers in my household (My three older children, myself and my wife) that would mean we would only be able to watch 4-5 movies each per month. This does not include ANY other activity on the internet.

To put it another way, at 4-5GB per movie the cost just to Charter to is $1.60 to $2 per movie. Netflix must also be paid for their service. This brings the price per movie close to $3-$4 each. Not surprisingly this is very close to what Charter charges for a pay per movie. At this price it is now cheaper to rent a movie from Blockbuster video or another video rental store.

So you now begin to see that the data caps are not about managing Charter's network, but is directly targeted at killing or stifling competition to Charter's services.

As technology becomes more advanced and more services are available from the internet that require significant amounts of bandwidth, we need common sense legislation that prevents incumbent providers from stifling innovation and expansion of the economy.

I urge you to look into this matter. I suggest an amendment to the stimulus bill. This amendment could bar internet providers who accept federal dollars, use public rights of way or eminent domain from imposing any type of artificial usage cap.

The United States needs to lead the world in new technology and emerging internet technologies. We need to encourage expansion of our economy through new broadband internet services. We don't need artificial caps that stifle innovation and economic development.

Sincerely,
Matthew Becker
rid0617
join:2003-07-20
Greer, SC

rid0617

Member

Re: Letter to US and State representatives

Hopefully you will get a real response and not a form letter. Maybe all of us need to do this. I'm stuck on DSL and AT&T will be capping my speed (3.0) at 60gb. Then they say you should upgrade to a higher speed even though it is not available in my area.
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