Comcast to limit customers' broadband usage

It may not... unless you publish a lot of large videos as part of an online business... then it may effect you if your clients are Comcast users and if they become overly bandwidth conscious due to the new constraints. Most people do not know a GB from a MB even though as comcast says very few users will ever need to worry about the limit.

Comcast is the largest cable company in the..... USA.

For those of you who say it is to "help the users" its not...

It is to help the cable company who is selling more service than they had bandwidth to provide users.

One more reason to look for a provider that has the resources to provide what you need if you do no like traffic jams and bandwidth limits.

If I were living in a part of the world that limited me to 3gb or even 10gb a month I would have to become an expat and go where there is bandwidth to be had.

Here in Idaho I am limited in my options... but I still get 1.5 down and 856 up on my dsl connection which beats the snot out of the 256 up that cable offers here which you only get if its not peak use time.

yes you have a dedicated line to the switching station...

It is at that point the line is shared with everyone who is served by that station.

They wanted to charge my Dad, $120 to fix his satelite problem. In my opinion the dish is the Satelite companies equipment even though you paid for it. They shouldn't charge to fix it.

Cable doesn't do this. They only charge if you miss an appointment or the issue is your fault like a dog chewed through your line or something along those lines.

Hey guys,

I have a couple things to say about this issue.

First of all, 250GB/mo is a shitload of bandwidth that most users (even power users) will never exceed. That said, I don't agree with caps or at least the way they go about placing them upon their users. However, if any of you get out your contract from your ISP, you will likely find that you already have caps placed on your account and always have.

There's usually some sort of limitations in the fine print that simply aren't enforced as yet. At least, I noticed there was when I was with Verizon DSL.

Hosting accounts always have had limits on bandwidth of some sort. Even the so-called "unmetered" bandwidth almost always has some sort of cap attached to it. Read the fine print in the TOS and all the links within the TOS and you will almost ALWAYS find a cap on "unmetered" bandwidth.

These caps are placed on hosts by server providers and placed on server providers from their upline providers and so on. So it's really not as big of a deal as it seems. It's just being made public now.

[vent]
As for customer service, I left verizon specifically because their customer service sucks. Well, that and because they kept to adding services to my already expensive package. I had to call them at least every other month, sometimes every month to have them remove shit I never asked for. Their blanket response was to tell me I signed up for these "extras" online. Bullshit!

I dreaded getting my phone bill EVERY month. I came to expect having to call customer service. Usually several times (to get a rep that will actually help) and spending several hours per month just getting my bill back to the original package I signed up for.

In fact, before I left them completely, I simply separated my DSL service from my regular phone bill. You see, Verizon was sending me bogus bills and cutting off my DSL if I didn't pay the FULL amount supposedly owed. I could still use my phone and the unlimited long distance, but no internet even though the DSL portion was not in dispute and would be paid. I was only disputing the bogus add-on charges that kept appearing on my bill. So I paid everything except those extra charges.

Why they would disconnect the DSL was beyond me. But I finally talked to a rep that admitted getting angry customers calling because of the same problems I was having ALL the time. ALL day EVERY day and suggested that I separate my DSL bill from my phone bill to avoid this problem.

That worked quite well for awhile. But the ensuing monthly headaches had to come to an end. I stayed offline for almost 2 years since Verizon was the only high speed provider in my area and I refused to use them.

Now that I've moved, I have another option. So now I'm currently using SuddenLink which I'm not very impressed with either.

The first day they installed their service I had problems. I was constantly losing my internet connection so I called customer service. Their customer service might as well be non-existent. When you finally do get someone on the phone, they always blame your equipment right away. First they say it's your ethernet adapter and/or router. If you can convince them that that is NOT your problem, they say it's your PC configuration (even though they are the ones that configure and install their service on your PC).

I was pretty sure that the problem I was having was the result of a faulty modem and/or faulty cable and I told them this. But I went out and bought a new ethernet card because they were convinced that was my problem (I was 99% sure that wasn't the problem but since you can pick them up so cheap nowadays, I got a new one).

I installed the new card, had the same problem and called them back. They still tried to convince me it was the ethernet card or router again. I told them it had to be the modem they provided me, as everything worked fine before (on Verizon DSL) and I wasn't using the router at this point. Since I was using a brand new eithernet card, it was highly unlikely to be the problem. Not to mention the fact that the home network was still working fine when the router was hooked up (even with the old ethernet card). They still refused to accept that it could be their equipment and basically said there was nothing they could do.

I noticed that one of the LEDs on the modem was blinking rapidly and told the customer service rep
about this. She proceeded to tell me that what I was telling her was impossible cuz she could see me
online on her end and if my modem was REALLY doing that, she wouldn't be able to see me. She said
the LED should be on constantly and only blink during setup.

Well, I happened to remember having this same problem a few years before and had purchased my own cable modem. So after arguing with these clowns until I was blue in the face and getting no results, I simply hooked up my own modem and called them back. Now, I was online and wasn't constantly getting dropped.

However, they "couldn't" guarantee service unless we lease one of theirs (forget the fact, that the one I have was purchased from them when they went under the name of Charter Communications). So I agreed to lease another one of theirs. Good thing I had one of my own while I waited, it took them 3 or 4 days to bring me a new one.

The first guy that showed up merely replaced the cable splitter and installed their old, junky modem, which of course did NOT help.

So I called back and got all the same scripted bullshit answers.

So we hung up and called back (I've found that sometimes you just have to get the right person on the other end of the line). We went through the same story with the same replies. It MUST be scripted. However, after explaining to this guy the whole story he mentioned that we might want to sign up for their "wire maintainance" plan as we would get better, no wait..."preferred customer service".

So we sign up for the "wire maintainance" plan for an extra $5/mo. Now, he adds this to our account and we hang up and call back again right away. All of the sudden, they accept that it could either be the cable itself or their new modem! Wow, $5/mo extra and now it just might be the modem and/or the cable. Hmmm....why didn't I think of that?

When they sent a second guy out, he did replace the old modem with a new one of the same junky design. Once they installed the new one, I started having problems again within few hours.

I will admit, after paying the extra $5/mo their customer service level seemed to step up a bit and they scheduled an appt. within 48 hours to come out and check the old cable. However, who wants to wait 48 hours when you are 99% sure it must be the cable and you happen to have some extra digital cable lying around?

So obviously, I ended up running the new cable myself.

The part that really ticked me off about this entire situation is that we specifically asked them how much the installation would be if they were to run brand new cable from the box into the house and to the computers to begin with. In other words, we paid the install price for all new cable to begin with. But the original installer refused to run the new cable.

I wasn't personally home to oversee this guy when he showed up or it probably would have gone differently, very differently. But then, I'm a bit more demanding than my better half. Especially when we paid extra to begin with.
[/vent]

Ok, Ok. Sorry for the venting, but reading these posts just brought up these memories and I couldn't hold back. LOL

All the best!

Peace & Prosperity,
Matt Fulger

If you can get cable in a rural area... that is the best. DSL in the city because of the location of the hubs and the number of hubs.

I had cable in the south end of Louisville. Everything south of me was spread out businesses and a few residences. Not enough to really compete with bandwidth on. I live in the country further south of where I was living... and I am using DSL. Service is comparable between the two, but if I had my choice I would still prefer cable.

@kimw

I was saying as a replacement. If they charge for both speed and bandwidth I would be extremely pissed. But at least that way for people like my Dad who rarely use the internet... he wouldn't have to deal with a crappy connection.

I was saying so there is minimal change in pricing for most people. The only people affected would be people running P2P servers, Email Servers, File Servers, etc. from their house.

@jstover77

I wish FIOS was available in my area. 30 MB service would be sooooo nice. Not to mention have 2 MB upload speeds.

I'm pretty good at most technical terms, but what is an FIO?

This is terrible for the precedent it is setting.

But I'm not surprised.

And actually, I'm kinda glad they're doing it. I personally don't download 10gb's per day. Nor do I upload that. And I am definitely a power user on the internet.

This is clearly targeting the extreme users that are running home servers and torrent services from the comfort of their home. And I don't think it's right for them to pay the same amount that I do. Nor should my service suffer.

Do I agree? No. But I also don't agree with the people running major servers from home and utilizing the bulk of the bandwidth in my neighborhood.

This will not impact me. I'll never get a call.

And you know what? I've had comcast for over 8 years in diverse locations across South Florida. It beats Bellsouth DSL hands down. More bandwidth, faster speeds and no need to pay an extra $20 for a phone line I never use. And when Comcast goes down 3 times a year or so...it's never for more than 2-4 hours tops. I can't reference Verizon because they haven't penetrated this market yet.