Limited Internet Access from Comcast.

Zac · **Posted:** September 25th, 2008, 5:54 pm

Comcast wrote:

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.

On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.

In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy becau se a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.

In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Fre ... -about-Excessive-Use.

Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.

Just something I thought I should get out there. I wonder why they're doing this? Slow down illegal traffic downloading?
250GB is still a lot, but I still wonder why? How about you, what are your thoughts on ISP's doing this across the world?

Adbot · **Posted:** September 25th, 2008, 5:54 pm

Chief Snake · **Posted:** September 25th, 2008, 9:21 pm

You're all greedy and have absolutely nothing to be worried about. Why are you complaining? A 250GB cap should not affect anything.

Sorry to be so harsh but I admit I'm just a little jealous. We have to suffer with a 6GB cap for a similar price, you'll survive with your 250GB.

As for why they are doing this.. I dunno. Save money? It is a little step in the wrong direction since unlimited bandwidth should be the way of the future, but come on. 250GB?

Shane · **Posted:** September 25th, 2008, 11:05 pm

We've been hearing about this in the tech community since early August. There's no reason not to have unlimited bandwidth... there's a tonne of dark fibre sitting below your roads. It was built in the late 90's and early 2000's but then the bust occurred, it was never activated.

250GB is fine for now. My cap is 100GB. It still works for me, but in the next 5 years we'll see the pinch. If you look at things the whole phenomena of online movie rentals and purchases along with IPTV is coming along nicely. So once this has taken over in the next few years, you'll hit your cap and comcast will be happy. Why?

That's their business, being a content provider. If they can limit what you see, it gives them more power. It's anti-competitive and wrong.

And as Chief said don't be greedy. Does anyone actually know how much bandwidth they use in a month? I know I barely go to even half of my 100GB... unless you're downloading all of Rev3 twice

There's nothing to worry about... yet.

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

I'm not too worried. Even with me being home, I don't go through *that* much bandwidth. I've been telling my parents that 250GB isn't *that* bad, especially considering I'm not home.

250GB is definitely enough for now, though I'd love to see true unlimited bandwidth across the board. Considering how much that is available to do online, including watching nearly all of your favorite shows, I'd love to be able to know I'd never hit a limit watching all I want.

Sworder · **Posted:** September 26th, 2008, 9:16 pm

Um.. as far as I know, I have no limit.

Gontcha · **Posted:** September 27th, 2008, 4:05 am

I've had a 10gb limit, now it's increased to 25gb. I see a 250gb cap as unlimited bandwidth.
I use about 12-17gb/month

Adbot · **Posted:** September 27th, 2008, 4:05 am

Zac · **Posted:** September 27th, 2008, 5:31 am

Sorry Chiefy and Shane. Didn't mean to be greedy, I wasn't trying to. Also, yes I enjoy have a 250GB cap. because it's still pretty much unlimited. I'd probably use up 5-15GB a month. I also have brothers on my network which probably use about 2GB each. That's a nice total of 19GB total.
Not even close to 250GB.

Do you think for these "high bandwidth caps." will decrease over time to a smaller amount such as 100GB?

Earth · **Posted:** September 27th, 2008, 8:41 am

i used to have comcast but then i convinced my parents to switch to at&t just as fast half the price and no cap that i know of...

trekkie · **Posted:** September 27th, 2008, 10:25 am

yeah i will have to switch to att. comcast is just way too expensive. besides comcast sucks. i wish i could get out of comcast at my dad's place but comcast is basically the only provider in the entire area. sucks a lot