[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Critics Question Comcast Broadband Caps here

[kelmerp]

My only concern is whether or not this will affect my Hulu/Netflix InstantWatch addition.

[danthalis]

Comcast has capped all home internet users to 250GB per month. Anyone who uses more will be banned for a year. They say it's because of people clogging the lines. So people with game consoles, vonage, netflix will have to keep a close eye, because comcast isn't providing you any way to keep track of your useage. But you can use their service as much as you want without penalty..... This is not only unfair to it's 'unlimited' use customers, but it hurts future advancement of things like high def streaming video, games, VOIP, and any other technolgy out there that relies on high speed internet.

It will hurt EVERYONE if they are allowed to get away with it.

Comcast customer or not, please take a minute to file a complaint, mention the fact that they aren't helping you keep track on their end and that you can't keep track on yours (because the trackers from goggle don't take vonage, or multiple computers, or game consoles into account)
http://esupport. fcc. gov/complaints. htm

[Shasta]

As a major distributor of Pay for View programming isn't it a little disingenuous for Comcast to place download caps so that you will have to PAY to view their offerings. I don't know many people that have Comcast Internet that don't have Comcast cable as well. Good way to limit competition if you ask me.

[mjd420nova]

As a long time Comcast customer, this doesn't really bother me. I have six computers in my home, two wireless laptops, one wireless desktop and three wired desktops, then there is a PS3 and an Xbox 360 that are on wireless but never in use at the same time. I've measured my download usage which usually includes at least two movies, three game downloads for the PS3 or Xbox 360 and a nominal daily usage of four machines for e-mail and bill paying plus online banking. Seldom does it go over 150 GB in a month and then if it does, it's usually by about 5 GB. I'm not worried. I think these throttle controls are mainly aimed to stop or limit the spammers that have proliferated throughout their system. Unlike AOL and Yahoo who will often disable your account is they detect any uploads over a couple days of more that 2 GB, this is not reflected in Comcasts limits to downloads.

[RandomCommentGuy]

"Comcast's terms of service allow the provider to change those terms, and generally focus on acceptable use."
Errr ... until it's challenged. An enforceable contract requires mutually objective manifestation of intent to be bound by the terms of the contract. One cannot assent to terms that are unknown.
Comcast is begging for a juicy class-action lawsuit if they attempt to impose cancellation fees or penalties on customers wishing to take their dollars elsewhere given the new terms of service.
Sometimes its funny to sit back and watch just how short-sighted a company can be.
Hopefully, Verizon, AT&T, and other companies start advertising, "No caps." I think this would yield a competitive advantage for them.

[jinx101]

I have Comcast at home and I'm so annoyed right now. The only other choice I have it AT&T has horrible service. I use my connection for gaming and streaming music that I PAY a subscription for. I was supposed to have an unlimited usage now I have to worry about if I've listened to music too long.

I hate Comcast... why don't I have any better choices? Oh wait, it's because the telecom industry isn't really a free market... they're protected by the government. Comeon FCC, Comcast just threw the gauntlet down, it's your turn to answer.

[danthalis]

Just out of curiosity, how did you measure you usage? There is no bandwidth meter out there that can track your xbox live, or ps3's home accounts. I guess I should just call comcast's customer service 800 number every hour or so I'm on the internet and ask for a supervisor to see what my usage is.



I mean the is the equivenet of putting up a 15mph speed zone then rippinng out the speedometer in your car, and having to ask the police officer (who may or may not be short on his qouta this month) to let you know if you went past the limit.



Defend Comcast all you want, the truth is that they sold me an 'unlimited' service account, the now will in fact enforced limited. There is no mention anywhere of a limit cap in the contract. 200 users using the internet at peak hours will cause congrestion, no matter how much they are downloading. And finally to offer their loyal and paying customers no other options, no way to check their usage and no means of appeal is pure and utter nonsense.



And again I ask one simple question, why is Comcast's VIOP not taken from your 250GB limit but Vonage's service is?

[6c1452]

jinx...

Streaming music at 128 kbps 24/7 for a month will use 43 GB. If you're already pushing 200 you can probably cut down on some other area.

[mjd420nova]

Danthalis: I keep track of how many movies the kids down load, approx 5 to 6 GB each, and the PS3 game down load sizes, plus the Xbox 360 Downloads. The PS3 downloads are between 6 to 7 GB each and the Xbox is usually a little smaller than a movie, near 4 GB. The rest of our usage is pretty small stuff and the music, surfing and bill paying is pretty much negligble, well below 1 GB. I do some music streaming from VH1 and some local radio stations but it's never more than an hours worth each month, which is around 10 MB per minute or close to 600 to 700 MB. When the game machines were new, they downloaded a new game a week, but now that's tapered off to one a month. It's not really too hard to determine your usage, but I keep track because they all run through a router and I do notice when the router gets busy and I check out who's doing what and when.

[scottg2]

This is news Scumcast booted me off their system 4 years ago for bandwidth overages. At least now they'll tell you what the limit is couldn't get that out of them back then. 1st a bandwidth ticket, then they cut u off till u call them then they give u the boot.

[ogman]

This is an anti-trust lawsuit just waiting to be filed. Comcast owns and offers high-bandwidth services, both movies and VoIP. I'm willing to bet that they will not count consumption of those branded services against the cap. They do not clarify which services will be counted against the cap. They also limit usage without providing any legitimate monitoring tools for the consumer to track usage. Finally, it is very possible that they are breaching contracts with consumers by capping the service in the first place. Comcast can only get away with this because they hold monopoly or near monopoly status in many areas in which they operate.
All Comcast customers should immediately write to Congress and the FCC, or look into hiring an attorney to begin legal proceedings against Comcast. If you wish to contact Congress, the website Congress.org is an excellent resource.

[dcolley]

Comcast users should switch to another ISP. They do not have a bandwidth problem. They simply want to figure out more ways to get their greedy hands on their customers money.

[egodraconis]

dcolley, switching is easier said than done. Many consumers do not have options when it comes to choosing another high speed internet provider. Also, many of these other choices lie about the bandwidth they provide. My family tested Qwest's DSL, and it only reached 1/4 of the promised download speed so we canceled service with them. We need truth in advertising from broadband providers. If I sold a car promising that it could reach speeds of 150MPH but in fact it only traveled at 50MPH, then I would be in jail. Why do we allow these broadband providers to break obvious laws regarding advertising without consequences? Lastly, state and federal regulatory agencies will not permit Comcast to move forward with this plan without presenting customer with a clear and accurate meter on Comcast's website indicating how much bandwidth is being used. It would be like your cell phone provider not allowing you to see how many minutes you've used each month, then cut your service off when you've used up your allotted plan minutes.

[saumaun]

egodraconis is RIGHT ON THE MONEY with the phone usage remark. We aren't armed with the tools to check our bandwith.

[deacon44]

I saw where Time Warner Cable is doing the same thing in Texas, I believe! Pretty soon your going to have to pay for a certain amount of hours for cable itself! Oops, I should not have said that! It might give the cable companies an idea! This reminds me of gas prices going up! The companies know that consumers use a product very frequently, so why not jack up the prices for extra cash! Lord knows the cable companies need the money! How else do we pay these CEO's so much money! Then again, there's always wifi!

[mjd420nova]

I'm not going to defend Comcast's actions but I do have one wish and that would be that they would begin to police their network. They have the power and it seems they are reluctant to use it properly. Spam, Adware, spyware and all manner of viruses would be easily stopped at the ISP servers. Wouldn't that be a selling point and a big one too. But I think that they are in bed with many of the purveyors of the nastiest pieces of software on the web. They like all the rest of us are paying customers and therefore look the other way when it comes to what is being sent over their networks. Instead they throttle other sites that they see as violators of copyrights, so why don't they apply their oversight to something useful. I use Comcast because it has provided me with continous connection for the last year, 24/7. With six computers on my home network, four are almost in continous usage, without the speeds provided by their cable I'd be looking at a serious bottleneck. ATT can only provide one sixth the speed and that would cause a lot of delays in reaching even my homepage let alone doing serious downloads of white papers and research material. To me, speed is the biggest selling point. I do not download videos as I have no desire to watch movies or television shows on a small screen, that's what the fifty inch flat panel is for. I do not subscribe to any other services aside from the digital TV and VOIP, which were a free offering. This October the one year agreement runs out and I will not hesitate to switch to ATT unless they agree to continue service at the present level for the same price. I will use that as a bargaining chip when the time comes but for now I am satisfied and unafraid of a 250 GB monthly limit on my downloads. I can't imagine ever getting close tothat limit. Now if I was downloading 500 movies a month or upgrading my game console on a daily basis I might get worried. Who would ever reach those limits and what would they possibly be downloading that would reach those limits?

[EricTheO]

Once again a US Corporation tries to set a precedent for a new revenue stream. Once this cap is instituted it will in the future become the start of a rational for fully metered per-MB or GB monthly charges. This is the actual dream and desire of many ISP's. In much the same way that "Cloud Computing" is being touted, these companies want to have a constantly increasing revenue stream. What better way to achieve this than to start with a Cap and then morph into a tiered access model, knowing that in the near future there will be a large and widespread increase in consumer internet usage. Another aspect of this is that many companies went cheap with their fiber capacity when they installed it and don't want to invest to upgrade. Luckily there has been some technological improvements in the way that data is transmitted over fiber which increases bandwidth without the need to install new fiber. Any cap will stifle the desire for Net Neutrality. The internet should be thought of like your local telephone service with a global reach. Would you want a cap or per/call service model applied to your local phone calls? As the internet is supposed to be a decentralized network. there is no such thing as long distance.

[AuroraDizon]

Uploading videos to youtube and tranphering files, not to mention streaming videos or people who run servers or stream even sound off their computer. God help me if my wow and other large games need to be downloaded from scratch or large amounts of podcasts downloaded. I was going to get comcast when I moved (here in a month or so), but I am looking into an alternative now because of this. God help anyone who shoots video away from their home wireless network and transphers it back home for editing, or anyone who doesn't know how to lock their wifi connection and gets booted because someone's siphoning off it.

[Geminate]

One terabyte a month would be reasonable, for now, per account. They seen to disregard that there may be multiple users per household - 250 gigabytes per user of an account would be reasonable, or again, one terabyte a month per account. As far as a over-usage penalty, only allow each account to go over 10 gigabytes, with several warnings before service is suspended. There will a be an extra $10.00 charge for over use, but the user will not be suspended services for an entire year, that's insane, especially if Comcast is the only area provider. Comcast should not be able to provide 'limited' service where there are no other broadband choices for internet access. If Comcast is the only provider to an area, users aren't given any options and that isn't acceptable. If Comcast is the only broadband provider for a specific area, then that area cannot be limited in data usage.