Comcast is at it again

^ Do you live in a like a remoteish area of town? Because I used to live somewhere like that and with cable internet I got three times the advertised speed because there were so few houses close to me.
 
No, I live in an apartment complex. Comcast does have the Powerboost which makes the downloads/uploads go faster for the first few minutes, which skews the speed tests a bit. However, my normal speeds are 700kB/s down and 150KB/s up (that would be around 6mb down/1mb up, which is the advertised speeds).
 
Shawn said:
Oh, and how many ISPs offer hispeed in your area?

Where I am I can pick from 3 or 4 hispeed internet providers, and all of them apply some sort of limit on your usage. I don't think it has much to do with lack of competition, as it does with how dumb and easily influenced the average consumer is where you are.

The plan I'm on is limited to only 60gb/month upload and download combined, which I've went over once already since I've been with these guys. But I don't mind, since it's faster than all competitors, doesn't require a modem, and doesn't have any others limits like lowering your speed and stuff.

But keep in mind this is the cheapest plan I'm on... does Comcast only offer one tier of service? Even though 60gb/month isn't much, I'm comforted by the fact that I'm only barely maxing out the cheapest plan I could possibly be on. Another $30 a month and both my speed and bandwidth would double.
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Hmm, not sure.. Around 15 probably..

The only plans that are limited are the ones that are advertised as being limited, for people who dont use their net much and don't want to pay a high monthly..
 
smib said:
I could not agree more. This whole thing pisses me off to no end. It doesn't matter that I don't use 250GB/month, I pay $53 a month for 8Mb/s dl to use whenever I want, meaning constantly is an option. That puts my theoretical cap at about 2,628GB per month, so I DEMAND that my monthly rate be reduced accordingly, to $5 a month.

Ok I admit that's not entirely reasonable, but the fact is they are lessening what I get, so I think they should also lessen what I have to pay.
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I think you are on to something. Instead of limiting to XXX amount of gigs a month, you pay for what you use. Thus, the person who only sends emails and surfs the web would pay far less than the 24/7 downloader of HD movies.

Of course...it makes too much sense, so it will never be implemented.
 
jayhawk said:
I think you are on to something. Instead of limiting to XXX amount of gigs a month, you pay for what you use. Thus, the person who only sends emails and surfs the web would pay far less than the 24/7 downloader of HD movies.

Of course...it makes too much sense, so it will never be implemented.
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They could never give you overages or make money on bandwith that you are not using. Sucks for us but for them it works.

Much like cell plans. For years there was no roll-over minutes and even now not everyone offers it. So for people like myself, I never use all my minutes and I am stuck paying the same price regardless.
 
250 GB is an immensely huge amount. One of my external hard drives is smaller than that.

At the most you'd probably dl 1-2 games (max) and a few songs (maybe we'll say 100 songs, i don't know), a couple of movies, and a top gear season just for kicks. Oh and you log onto youtube a lot and eat up bandwith there.

With all that you wouldn't even exceed 20-30 GB. So 250....

Is it really that bad?

Comcast has a lot of other problems. The service I had back in the old apartment was crap. The internet kept cutting out and none of the 5 technicians that came over could do anything about it. It wasn't until the 6th tech came over who (unlike the others was Nigerian and didn't speak english as well) detected the issue and fixed it. Then once I had given up the service after we left the apartment I still kept getting bills for a cable box that wasn't plugged in, and had been delivered to the comcast warehouse or whatever.

I'm sure tons of people find no issues with comcast, and I know its a fast service, but after all the problems I went through with them, all the phone calls that I had to make and all the techs that came over scratching their asses and wondering what the problem was.... I find a bandwidth limit should be the least of anyone's worries.
 
b_tapper said:


sloooow comcast
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That's really not that slow. It's probably about right for what their advertised speeds are in your area. I know in many areas they offer 6mb/768kbs up, which is what you seem to be getting.

My speeds just look so much faster because of the Powerboost (which may not be available in your area either). In reality, my download speed is about the same as yours when the Powerboost wears off, and 6mb isn't really that slow for your average cable in the US.
 
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LurkerPatrol said:
Comcast has a lot of other problems. The service I had back in the old apartment was crap. The internet kept cutting out and none of the 5 technicians that came over could do anything about it. It wasn't until the 6th tech came over who (unlike the others was Nigerian and didn't speak english as well) detected the issue and fixed it.
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I've had this issue as well, and their customer service is terrible. I'm just glad I only have to deal with it when I'm home from school.
 
b_tapper said:


sloooow comcast
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You think so? This is mine:


Also, ditch or tell Comcast "no thanks" to the cable modem they provide. I bought a Motorola Surfboard for $60 and I get 2 more megs out of it than the one provided.
 
I bought my own modem, there's no way I was going to lease one.
It's funny my parent's comcast is sooo much faster than mine is also.
Though I really want verizon fios (which isn't a choice for me), my friend has that and everything seems to load instantly.
 
jayhawk said:
You think so? This is mine:


Also, ditch or tell Comcast "no thanks" to the cable modem they provide. I bought a Motorola Surfboard for $60 and I get 2 more megs out of it than the one provided.
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I use the free one they gave me and my DL speeds are faster than yours, so I'm fine with it :D
 
jayhawk said:
You think so? This is mine:


Also, ditch or tell Comcast "no thanks" to the cable modem they provide. I bought a Motorola Surfboard for $60 and I get 2 more megs out of it than the one provided.
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I use the free one they gave me and my speeds are faster than yours, so I'm fine with it :D

Cole P said:
I've had this issue as well, and their customer service is terrible. I'm just glad I only have to deal with it when I'm home from school.
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Yep, their customer service does indeed blow chunks. However, so does the customer service from other ISP's I've had too.
 
They already have. Do you know how much a leased line costs? A hell of a lot more than $50/month, I assure you. Comcast has done a lot of underhanded things before (like throttling bittorrent and running false advertising claiming "unlimited" usage), but this is straightforward. They've always had a limit, now they're just telling customers what it is up front.
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That's beside the point because it's not the way they sold it to you. They sold you an Internet connection that's "this" speed for "this" much per month. Nothing was ever said about bandwidth limitations. This is a violation of contract, plain and simple.

If a customer goes over the monthly limit again during the following six months, Comcast will suspend service for a year.
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WHAT?!?

Someone call the DEA, because whatever they're smoking is too strong to be legal.

It's dumb enough to be implementing these bandwidth caps in the first place, it's dumber still to not bother offering any sort of bandwidth measuring tool, but this is unfathomably stupid! For many people in the US, this doesn't just mean no Comcast, this literally means "NO INTERNET". This has got to be illegal on some discriminatory basis.

I think you are on to something. Instead of limiting to XXX amount of gigs a month, you pay for what you use. Thus, the person who only sends emails and surfs the web would pay far less than the 24/7 downloader of HD movies.

Of course...it makes too much sense, so it will never be implemented.
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While this might be a good idea in theory, it will never work in practice because ISPs are just too dang greedy. Most people have no idea what bandwidth actually costs (hint: next to nothing), so ISPs can and actually do make several thousand percent markups on bandwidth pricing.
 
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I'd really love to know how much I use especially since I do a ton of streaming from my home computer to my work one watching tv combined with all my downloading.
 
Pretty sure they would implement a usage meter like all the ISP do here
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Nope, Comcast has basically said "screw you" on that matter. They're that crappy.
 
^ Wait, why are you so concerned being in Canada? And which ISP do you use? A lot have bandwidth limits in Canada.

And who needs a usage metre when your limit is 250gb... seriously, will anyone who doesn't run some kind of service go over that? I mean an hour of HD video is only 1gb, any of your average current games (e.g. Crysis) are about 6gb each. Unless you're planning on getting the complete series of every show ever made then I think you'll be fine.
 
Shawn said:
^ Wait, why are you so concerned being in Canada? And which ISP do you use? A lot have bandwidth limits in Canada.

And who needs a usage metre when your limit is 250gb... seriously, will anyone who doesn't run some kind of service go over that? I mean an hour of HD video is only 1gb, any of your average current games (e.g. Crysis) are about 6gb each. Unless you're planning on getting the complete series of every show ever made then I think you'll be fine.
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I also doubt that someone downloading 250gb worth isn't going to be aware of limits
 
watto said:
Holy crap, you guys are complaining about a 250GB limit??? I'd love a 250GB limit!

Welcome to Australia!
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Yeah.. yeah.. 40GB limit, or you get capped to what seems slower than dialup.

I wish I could complain about being limited to 250GB/month!
 
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