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?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 31st 2008 4:25AM]

BTW Cumfustic, STOP calling my ass 3 times a day for me rejoin your F'ed up service.
And all you whiny biotches out there... grow some huts and drop them, your talk is so CHEAP.

[Ethan Posted Aug 31st 2008 5:34PM]

I have 20GB, fairly standard in the UK. You have it good.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 31st 2008 10:02PM]

As long as the cap will go up over time I will have no problem with it.

[jjjmac Posted Sep 1st 2008 12:44PM]

Those in other countries, my heart goes out to you for your pitiful caps, but that's simply not the point here. The main reason people here are so upset is because many of us have been comcast customers for a long time and have consistently been subjected to poor service and increasing costs - along with a lack of other options. The point here is Comcast pushing its way into our lives in ways that a company is not supposed to - not in the U.S. The government, maybe, but comcast is not a government. It's also a seemingly progressive infringement on our rights - and excuse us, if we don't want to end up like you. Telling us to be grateful we get that 250GB because you only get 50GB is like us punching you in the face and saying - Be glad I only punched you once and not twice.

I work in a library where nothing is censored because we abide by individual freedoms. Yeah, we have a lot of people coming in every day just to use their free (taxpayer paid) hour of internet to look at porn (or to use our free wifi for unlimited looking at porn or downloading whatever they wish and however much they wish). Many people have problems with the policy - personally I don't like knowing there are a bunch of middle-aged men sitting in there watching porn every day - but this is about individual rights, not personal opinion.

Comcast is a business, and as such, it does have a right to cap services... but what happens when you have no other way to get service? How is this monopoly allowed? I would be surprised if they don't offer a "high user" plan ....but many of us here are already feeling the pain of higher prices in other areas... if it comes down to that, I'd rather cancel my cable and phone service and use internet only - which may be the future they are anticipating.

I never get anywhere near the 250GB cap, but I live in a house with 4 roommates so there are 5 of us using the connection (and we do pay extra for additional IP addresses) - and so for the 5 of us, all adults, all computer and internet-savy - to surpass the 250GB limit is not out-of-the-question - even with only LEGAL use.

The problem is also Comcast threatening to forever disconnect you after a warning or two... who does that?! I think that's what a lot of people are upset about. Imagine if your cell phone company completely disconnected your phone service if you went over the number of minutes allowed in your plan and the company vowed to never have you as a customer again? And what if they were the ONLY provider in your area, besides like Cricket phones? lol wtf?! So charge people for overuse if needed, but this comcast policy - or the way they go about announcing it because I do believe it's been in place for a while and just wasn't advertised - is complete B.S.

It is the infringement on our rights that makes us angry - and fearful because of what it bodes for the future - not that we "only" get 250GB.

[whoster69 Posted Sep 1st 2008 1:20PM]

There is no way in hell I would put up with this. So glad I didn't switch to Comcrap. I hope their users rebel.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 8th 2008 7:37PM]

I contacted Comcast today and confirmed the following:

- The 250 GB limit applies even if you've paid for premium tiers

- Comcast does not offer customers any way of knowing how close they are to that limit

Although I don't use any of the classic p2p clients, I've got to believe that between my VoIP for my business phone and mobile phone via Sprint Airave (a femtocell that reroutes cellular calls over my Internet connection), corporate VPN, and regular use of Netflix streaming there's a decent chance this limit could affect me in the future. As it stands, I spend over $200 a month with Comcast services and I will not hesitate to take all of it away if their new limit affects me. If I were a product manager at Comcast, I would think long and hard about the customers I'm chasing away by not letting customers see their actual usage. Qwest is about to install 20 Mbit FTTH in my area and they may well get me back as a customer at this rate.

It's already bad enough that Comcast trashes my performance every time I download a legitimate and fully legal BitTorrent (and lied about it for months until they were caught), but if they're going to set limits without providing customers visibility on those limits (or encourage upselling to premium tiers by raising the limits for premium customers), then I get the message loud and clear: Power users not welcome here. Be careful what you with for, Comcast....

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 29th 2008 6:27PM]

as you know that deaf people have VP-200 from www.sorensonvrs.com as i am deaf too


let me exp. to you 512kbps download and 512kbps upload that will total 1024kbps so....
that mean 1mbps so 1mbps X 60 secs = 60mb per min

60mb per min X 60 mins = 3.6gb per hour

that i use 4 hours or more on VP

4 hours per day 14.4gb for 30 days that will be 432gb per 30 days for just 4 hours use VP-200



VP-200 is Video Phone for deaf people who need use for talk on TV tell comcast that DO NOT CAP DEAF PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they should cap 1TB not 250GB if they don't listen to me then they will in bigger trouble because the Sorensonvrs is under the FCC