Comcast Dropping 250GB Data Cap In Favor of "Improved Data Usage Management"

[rlhamil]

It looks like the "all you can eat" days are officially over. Data is now being treated as a utility, like water or electricity. The more you use, the more you pay. What that means is that people with limited financial resources will have limited access compared with wealthier people.

AFAIK, there is a theoretical minimum of energy per bit required to transmit or forward it - not to mention the far more expensive bandwidth, which is even more a limited resource.

So the analogy is perfectly valid...and poor people OUGHT to do without Internet, cable, phone, food, water, shelter, life, ... They _exist_ to be shafted, and unless you or I are nice with our OWN money and not by stealing from other people via taxes, that's exactly how it should be!

But off the rant and back to the subject, with any service there needs to be a balance - tick the customers off too much and they should be able to go elsewhere...but the company has to make a profit to stay in business.

 

[Vizin]

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[Grandpa1947]

Why ?

I'm still trying to understand how more money allows for more bandwidth capability? Without additional money Comcrap doesn't have the bandwidth and must institute caps. With money they can allow more. Something doesn't jive here. Kind of like high gas prices while we export more oil than we use, or not enough refining capacity while we export refined gas.

Do you suppose a lack of competition might have something to do with it? Perhaps Comcrap is too big and needs to be broken up like Ma Bell was.

 

[goodcow]

I'm confused? Why do you think mobile data caps are reasonable but caps on home Internet aren't?

Mobile spectrum is limited because of physics. With home internet you can just lay down more fiber and infrastructure.

 

[boriscolombia]

So Chattanooga area? me too, although Comcast switched me to 20 download, 10 upload for $29.99 so I would switch to EPB.

Nothing but greed from good old Comcast.

where I live our local power utility currently has the fastest fiber optic in the country, up to 1000Mbps. It puts Comcast to shame, and its priced a little cheaper. It's also consistent with matching download/upload speeds.

oh yeah no data caps

glad I switched from one of the greediest companies around.

 

[jayducharme]

I just logged into my Comcast account and noticed that 250gb cap. So far, about a week into my billing cycle, I'm at 14gb. So I assume I rarely come close to hitting that cap. I'm glad they're giving me an extra 50 gb of breathing room, but that seems like a tiny increase overall. I still say they should leave it unlimited. Their different tiers of access speed seems like a better way to manage usage.

 

[robanga]

Mobile spectrum is limited because of physics. With home internet you can just lay down more fiber and infrastructure.

Fiber and infrastucture is expensive (as is utilizing the allocated wireless bandwidth to optimum efficiency). I'm not saying that they couldn't but i wonder what the economic model looks like. Any system that is designed for x amount of users but gets close to 100% use at some point begins to fail. Utilities are built like that, if you have to build out a system that always supports 100% usage, i would guess its expensive. Not simply managing load, but managing that load increased at a healthy curve.

Somewhere on this site there is a network engineer that knows more about this.

 

[Vizin]

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[robanga]

Exactly this. There's a reason dedicated lines cost much more for the same bandwidth as a residential connection. It's assumed a business connection will be used continuously, but that residential connections will only be used in bursts.

You're not paying for a connection you can max out all day long. If you were, it would cost a lot more.

That makes good sense - so the home business user who is consuming bandwidth from 7 am to 6 pm every day and then running netflix at night is not really what the average price plan was designed to service.

 

[Sasoon]

10$ for 50GB? That is like 9.99$ pure profit for ISP
For example, for dedicated server you usually pay additional bandwidth 1-5$ per TB. I can only imagine how much 1TB costs ISP

 

[Yvan256]

Here in Canada, I have a 10GB monthly limit. I would exchange my first born child for a 250GB cap.

I thought my 35GB cap was ridiculous, 10GB is an insult!

 

[Vizin]

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