Comcast set to begin bandwidth capping come October 1st

You hear so much tough-talk and blustery grand-standing these days over data capping that it's hard to take any of it too seriously. A recent announcement by Comcast, however, is sending chills down the collective spine of Engadget (and seriously threatening to put a crunch on Thomas Ricker's... er, "movie" downloads). The company recently confirmed that it will begin capping its residential broadband service at 250GB per month (or roughly 124 SD movies) come October 1st, and could simply terminate customers who violate the cap more than twice. Of course, 250GB is a pretty large chunk of bandwidth, so you'll have to be entertaining some pretty hefty habits to break that bank. Then again, who likes the Man breathing down their pipeline?

[gabe @ Aug 29th 2008 9:30PM]

"Then again, who likes the Man breathing down their pipeline?"

Not me!

[oki @ Aug 29th 2008 9:34PM]

ditto!

[Ellianth @ Aug 29th 2008 10:18PM]

I dunno.. it would depend on how pretty he was :p.

[v3xx @ Aug 29th 2008 10:24PM]

sorry to cut but i have a question that nobody has answered yet. does this cap include streaming video from say hulu or youtube? if it does i hope charter communications doesn't adopt this.

[erhan @ Aug 29th 2008 10:25PM]

THATS BULLSHIT.
I used 150GB down this month and 25GB UP
and i know that i did not download many things just P2P tv programs. thats stupid

[brandon @ Aug 29th 2008 11:12PM]

What the fuck!?!?!?! At least this won't happen for a while for Cox users who are always around a year behind Comcast!!!

[Techie @ Aug 29th 2008 11:14PM]

I'm laughing so hard because I know Comcast will lose a lot of customers. AT&T is going to get a crap load =D

[dark star @ Aug 29th 2008 11:46PM]

@v3xx
it is applicable to everything u get from the net. say goodbye to downloading those movies to your ipod n xbox.
there is no way videos on demand is the future if they start capping bandwidth like this. i cant imagine how much 1080p movies would take up..

[john @ Aug 30th 2008 12:03AM]

Jeeze, comcast already limit throttling dl speed so, now they even limit bandwidth, this sux. Booo comcast, I might just switch back to Earthlink or sumthing.

[TheNewGuy @ Aug 30th 2008 12:26AM]

Ahhh 250GB!!!!
Us Canadians are capped at 90GB on our highest speeds - $100 a month, 8 Mbps.

Rogers sucks!!!

[wickedpheonix @ Aug 30th 2008 1:33AM]

@erhan

you do realize that 150 + 25 = 175 and that 175 < 250, right? So you would be doing OK under the cap.

[Craig B. @ Aug 30th 2008 2:53AM]

Oh goodie, right in time for Docsis 3.0!

[Tony Rayo @ Aug 30th 2008 5:08AM]

You know, when Comcast makes these announcements, my area doesn't seem affected (which is kind of odd because I live in the suburbs of DC, which is almost Comcast's backyard). I've never experienced capping of any kind during the last few years. If anything it's annoying that they have increased there prices about 4 - 5 times for internet and digital TV. The cool part is we get HDTV DVRs for free for every TV and the internet speeds are much faster than as when we started (currently, 10mbit/1mbit, but the internet2 at college is a beast though [full gigabit ports/speed, w00t], sadly I don't live close enough to campus).

When Oct. comes around I'll do a mass loot of linux isos and see if I get capped/a phone call/etc.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Aug 30th 2008 1:10PM]

darkstar,

You don't have to *imagine* how fast 1080p content would use up 250gb, all you have to do is break out a basic calculator.

[OneLove @ Aug 30th 2008 4:52PM]

Do not fear. I am sure comcast will let you buy more bandwidth. :) (how this is legal, I don't know) lets hope the throttling ends now and we see docsis 3.0 in october.

[D! @ Aug 30th 2008 6:19PM]

@brandon Too bad they already do. And have been for a while now.
http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp
...yeah...it makes Comcast's new policy look like a godsend. However I don't think they've actually enforced it..since I use them too and haven't had any letters about it etc.

[Stuart @ Aug 29th 2008 9:32PM]

That's massive compared to what we get in Australia. $70/mo for 50GB, and we're slowed to 56k speeds if we go over. Bandwidth limits are usually split into peak/off-peak too (ie. 20GB between 0700 and 0100 (peak) and 30GB to use during the 'off-peak' time).

[thef1re @ Aug 29th 2008 10:10PM]

Your kidding!

I'm paying $50 for 7GB a month.

[Will H. @ Aug 29th 2008 10:18PM]

I'm paying $60 for 25GB. I don't want to see Comcast ruin broadband for America - tell Comcast it's NOT okay! Get a new provider! Get FIOS if you can, and if you can't ring em up and tell em you want it where you are :D

[Kamokazi @ Aug 29th 2008 10:54PM]

Wow. I used to feel like the US had the shaft with our comparatively inferior download speeds. But what good are download speeds with horrible monthly caps like that (and prices...even if they are AUD, are horrible). I truely pity you folks in Austrailia. I hope your telcoms get some sense knocked into them soon :-(

[koala72 @ Aug 29th 2008 11:21PM]

It reminds me of that ad being run by whatever phone company in Australia at the moment who claim that 3gig a month is "generous" and "huge".

I could go over that in an hour.

[SinclairWasOnVacation @ Aug 30th 2008 12:42AM]

Sooo... greetings from Korea, land of someones unsecure router every block or so.

[Cuchanu @ Aug 30th 2008 2:20AM]

Fios is from Verizon, who are corporate shitheads just like comcast

[Ankan Bhowmick @ Aug 30th 2008 2:22AM]

250 GB is HUGE!
Here in India, I am paying equivalent to USD 23 for 8mbps link with a 6 GB cap. ugh! At 8mbps imagine how quickly I run out of my quota.

[heffeque @ Aug 30th 2008 8:29AM]

18/1 Mbps for 50 euros in Spain. No bandwidth cap.

[blarvh @ Aug 30th 2008 8:50AM]

Wow, I've used around 1GB today watching legal streams today. And that's just 3x25 mins...

I'm glad I have an ISP that charges for 2mbit but seems to cap it at 6mbit. Without any GB restrictions.

[joshhunt @ Aug 30th 2008 10:32PM]

Excatly!

I would love to have 250GB a month! Right now i am stuck with 14GB on peek and off peek (so 28GB in total), and that is with 512kbs or something at $60 a month.

But really, it cant totally be blamed on the telcos. The main reason for sucky internet here is that there are hardly any underwater cables to get our internet. If there were more, i am sure the strain would be taken down, and our plans would get faster and cheeper

[anasqtiesh @ Aug 31st 2008 11:25AM]

heh, you guys have it real easy!
i'm paying 30$ for 1 (yes ONE) GB per month for my wireless Broadband (3.5 G) HSDPA.
that's absurd, if i wanted 3GB per month it's 60$ and it goes on..
I do my heavy download at work :P

[Leindurstit @ Aug 29th 2008 9:33PM]

I was about to get really pissy about this, but then I read about other broadband providers considering limits in the 5-50GB range. So I'll just be only slightly pissy.

[jshy @ Aug 30th 2008 12:22AM]

While I agree with you that the cap is certainly generous, it's not the size of the cap that bothers me. I feel like my habits fall well within the 250GB a month range.

Now they've said, "Here's the cap for everyone, it exists". I think that it will be much easier for them to start decreasing those caps slowly and most customers won't say anything, and when it starts to become the norm, who is stopping Verizon FiOS from adding caps to their service or any other ISP?

[Slick @ Aug 30th 2008 9:45AM]

Good point - but adding regulations to my bandwidth in general just seems like blasphemy. And it would be nice if they countered that bandwidth regulation with some added features - like letting me freakin stream espn360!!!!

[Nacho PATA @ Sep 10th 2008 4:56PM]

640K of memory, er um, 250 GB of bandwidth should be enough for anybody

[chiwax @ Aug 29th 2008 9:34PM]

I like how they still brag about the fast download speed in their ads. So it's great we have fast downloads and then they say you better watch what you're downloading. Q.

[DBinSD @ Aug 29th 2008 9:36PM]

They actually have two speeds - "Fast" and "Banned for Life." What a delightful deal.

[Fanfoot @ Aug 29th 2008 11:02PM]

I have 8Mbps service from Comcast. If they give me an actual 8Mbps all the time (which of course they don't but they pretend to--even higher in bursts they say), then in less than 3 days I'll use up their 250GB cap. What am I supposed to do the rest of the month?

[Wwhat @ Aug 30th 2008 11:16AM]

Simple, just sign up for 10 accounts :P

[Mike @ Aug 29th 2008 9:34PM]

And what are people going to do when Comcast is the only provider available in their area? I'm glad I live in an area where I have alternatives.

[JMMGoalster @ Aug 29th 2008 10:27PM]

....Comcast is the only one in my area. Verizon sold the Fios lines in New England so i have no hope of it coming here :-(

[Mike @ Aug 29th 2008 11:38PM]

Massachusetts and New York are lousy with FIOS. So it's not all New England, and even then, Fairpoint is a good alternative to Comcast. But what about the people who live too far from the central office?

Data capping like this sets a dangerous precedent, especially when we're only going to be using more and more internet services as time goes on. This restriction by Comcast seems more like an admission that they can't keep up.

[nick @ Aug 30th 2008 1:09AM]

@mike: comcast just sold their lines in my area to fairpoint. we're fairpoint now :-) thank god.

[Echo1 @ Aug 30th 2008 1:57AM]

@ JMM
not all the fiber was sold in New England. I was able to get FoIS here in Coventry (RI). Oddly enough we were able to get it because we live in an older section of a manufactured home park where ultily poles are still used (funny how the newer homes can't get FoIS yet due the underground cabling)

I hope though this doesn't become an industry standard

[Ben @ Aug 29th 2008 9:36PM]

At least they are being honest about it.

[Dale @ Sep 2nd 2008 8:15AM]

Agreed.

They are being honest, and they've set the bar high.
If you're using that much, then you should be paying more (and they should provide a way for you to pay more) to do what you're doing.

This isn't just youtubing and email, here...you'd be doing a LOT of downloading to hit this limit.

[Platinum_Skeet @ Sep 2nd 2008 6:31PM]

You can hit the limit in legit ways too. Netflix is coming out next month for Xbox Live so streaming/downloading HD movies on a nightly basis will hit the cap too.

Plus think about all the services that are going to be going across the internet next year. Comcast is shooting themselves in the foot with this one.

If you don't have the infrastructure upgrade it if not lower speeds. Don't put a cap because you can't keep up...

[chiwax @ Aug 29th 2008 9:38PM]

So Microsoft sells me a unit and a subscription to it's XBOX Live. They also charge me for the content I choose to watch. Now Comcast is saying pay the "piper" for choosing to do those things. Trapped? I think so...Q

[baltwade @ Aug 29th 2008 9:47PM]

That's what is really bothering me about the cap. To be honest to exceed 250GB in a single month doing normal internet stuff, including torrents, seems unlikely. However, Microsoft and others are trying pretty hard to establish IPTV as a real alternative to cable television. So if you're using your internet for all the stuff your doing now plus all your TV and movie watching any kind of cap is going to be a problem. I think Comcast knows this too.

[Ian @ Aug 29th 2008 10:19PM]

speaking of xbox live how much bandwidth does it actually take? never actually looked into it. i wonder if you play a few hours a day how much you'll use in a month

[Fanfoot @ Aug 30th 2008 12:35AM]

Games probably don't take that much. Downloading a video on the other hand...

[wickedpheonix @ Aug 30th 2008 1:38AM]

Gaming is more about latency than bandwidth, i.e. how fast the water is going to flow versus how much fits in the pipe. Normal internet i.e. email and browsing adds up to so little it's inconsequential. The real big ones are the downloading of music (to a very small degree), videos, and programs.

[thedesolate1 @ Aug 29th 2008 9:38PM]

Better start stacking up on those torrents people...doomsday draws near.