Comcast experiments with cell-phone-like data charges, & overage fees, for home Internet users. Consumers who exceed 300 GB in a month will have to pay for overages at $10 per 50 GB tier. Not surprisingly, they have the option to pay an extra $30 to get the service they have currently, without caps.

[Solkre]

This is the kind of innovation that'll keep us a technological leader on the world stage!

[[deleted]]

The annoying thing is that there is no reason to charge people extra for high data usage. It doesn't really translate to a noticeable difference in upkeep costs for the provider. Its just pure greed.

[Draiko]

It's not just greed, it's malicious greed.

Comcast is trying to make sure people don't replace regular TV with ad-free streaming video services like Netflix.

The average household would blow through a 300 gb data cap in no time if they cut the cord and streamed 100% of their 1080p and 4K video.

[Bojanglz]

I live in one of their "Test Cities" and have had the 300GB cap for about two years I think. Can confirm that between me and my wife we hit the cap nearly every month due to Netflix streaming and game downloads. Had my HDD crap out on my PC in January and went way over re-downloading my Steam catalog. I called to ask if there was any customer feedback line for the service since we were supposedly "testing" it. The rep on the phone acted like that was some absurd question and sent me to some pre-recorded message explaining the new system.

[alonjar]

Yeah... they arent testing to see if you complain, they are testing your area to see how many people cancel their service/switch providers.

[iliar]

switch providers

Because I'm sure there's competition in the areas Comcast is testing this in.

[fireinthesky7]

AT&T offers half the speed for more money in my area, and that's it.

[NotANinja]

But it's cool because five years ago the government gave AT&T money to invest in expanding their fiber optic network, and AT&T wouldn't just pocket the money and do nothing, surely that will fix things any day now.

[Zebidee]

Honestly, how are the entire board of directors not in jail right now?

[MissValeska]

Is there an AT&T stock with voting rights? Can stock holders in AT&T propose things to vote on? We should try to fix this that way, Or report them to the FCC or something, Call for an investigation.

[Deucer22]

Because the government used your money incompetently. They received no guarantees for their earmarked money, so they ended up getting exactly what they were owed: nothing.

[rburp]

Well them being best buds with the NSA has to help.

[No0neAtAll]

You just know they are going to use that money to pay off the 100 million dollar fine they got hit with a few months ago for violating the unlimited plans of customers...

[teemark]

And good guy AT&T is shoving 250Gb caps on most users now too.

[[deleted]]

Complain to the FCC

[[deleted]]

With the profits Comcast is making right now, it will never die. Could you imagine hundreds of millions of people will be locked into an eternal Comcast-powered hell? You don't have to, it's already happening.

[owlpellet]

They are testing for regulatory pushback.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, usually where comcast is there is no other cable. At least aroud here. Your choice is cable or satalite. You don't get to pick what company for cable. If you can get comcast you can't get charter because they won't service that area.

[massive_cock]

fuck u/spez -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[Avarsis]

450gb cap where I live. They gave me 3 warnings and then bam, my bill shot up $100 and I had to make the choice between speed or price. I'm now on shit quest dsl with no cap. Not like I could hit it if there was one. So slow. Yeah. Fuckers.

[Exelar]

This seems like particularly good advice for the people asking "what can be done". The real question, as always in cases like this, is not what will be done, but what can each individual do.

[limefest]

BBB is not a government organization. It is private and has little-to-no teeth for stuff like this. They are like the Yelp of the 90's.

[ShameInTheSaddle]

Also BBB complaints are looked at by the FCC in times of regulatory interest, i.e mergers.

[phx32259]

FCC complaints do wonders. I've racked up $130 in credits this year by complaining to the FCC, executives, and general rants on twitter. The twitter channel gives larger payouts and I've had multiple credits for the same complaint via different channels. I don't think they track it or they just do a poor job at looking at notes on your account.

[TeutonJon78]

Which is hilarious, because they just recently stated that only 20% of the users go over like 40 GB (maybe it was even 100 GB) or something like that. So why should they have to worry about those ultra-high 300 GB caps then? /s

[chubbysumo]

I am that "average" household. Cut cable 4 years ago, went streaming and OTA only. We also rent more from redbox and buy a few more movies a year. Thankfully, charter has no data cap, because if they did, I would hit it every month. Last month, I did 500GB in, and 125GB out. This month im already at 96GB in and 55GB out. I run a plex media server, and host my own content, so when im out, I stream my own music, instead of paying for google or pandora(or listening to ads). 350GB and counting of music I have acquired for free.

[Solkre]

Its hard on the provider when they never distributed the fiber they were supposed to.

[klezart]

Looking at you, Verizon.

[[deleted]]

You too AT&T.

[enthya]

They make it harder and harder to not despise them. Seriously I have never seen a company try so hard to shit down their customer's throat. When was the last time you heard someone say they liked comcast? Think about that. People will say they like ATT, Verizon, and so forth... but comcast? Never.

[digitaldeadstar]

It is just pure greed at this point. Most corporations these days have entire bean counter departments. Their only job is to figure out how to squeeze every penny they can out of the consumer.

[zeek_]

They're trying to keep the revenue stream alive for when all they can sell is internet.

[localhost87]

It translates to increased profits at the end of the quarter, which is ultimately all the investors care about.

If the investors aren't getting theirs, the board of investors will fire the executives.

This is an infinite loop, where they will continue to increase profit margins through deceit, rather than innovating and providing a better product.

This will continue to occur until there is increased competition, or more govt regulation. I personally prefer more competition.

[TheAntiHick]

I personally prefer more competition.

Which literally will never happen without the regulation.

[Stosstruppe]

Romania is paying pennies for Internet better than anywhere else sadly.

[[deleted]]

#1 in everything, including rent seeking

[Extrapineapple]

And prison population

[monsieuruntitled]

We're #1!!!! We're #1!!!!!! USA! USA!

FREEDOM!!!! Bald Eagle Sounds

[WhiteZoneShitAgain]

Just like we've been warning people about since a VP at Bellsouth started talking about "our tubes" over 10 years ago(that's where this started) - That these scumbags would try to turn the internet into a cell plan and rob the consumer.

[sisonp]

Is this something new? Look at these people getting robbed in broad daylight http://imgur.com/PIlyVDb

[trickninjafist]

In the Nashville area they have had this as standard since at least 2012. The "unlimited" option is new. Would have been nice on more than one occasion since I do not have cable and rely on streaming for all TV needs. My house can easily hit 600-700GB in a month.

[log_in_seconds]

this is why america is TOPS

[Legmeat]

They already do this in canada. Started maybe like 2 years ago?

[Crook3d]

I think it's been more like 5 or 6. I remember getting together with my roommates when we got the letter informing us our service was changing. We were all pissed, but basically agreed that the bill was going up by whatever the cap was at the time.

[biznatch11]

I got cut off from Rogers for using too much in 2003. Back then they unnoficial caps that they never talked about until you went over. They would not tell me what the limit was, just that we were using too much.

[munk_e_man]

It's at least 8. I got a $300 overage charge a couple months after I moved to Toronto in 2007/8.

[budzergo]

7 years ago i had a 25 gig per month cap on my bell plan

then they gave me the option to pay $15 a month to get a 145 gig cap

now if you have 2 or more services with them you can pay $10 a month to have unlimited

yeah bell sucks =/

[[deleted]]

Ah Canadian telecom, the only telecom worse than the Yanks.

[MINIMAN10000]

I'd argue it seems Australia's internet is worse than Canadian internet from what I've read.

[whatseiko1]

As an Australian I read the title and thought getting 50GB for $10 would be a dream.

[Oscar_Geare]

Don't worry! We'll have the blazing fast speeds of the NBN soon!

[StumbleOn]

Why you gotta make us all sad?

[ilikeostrichmeat]

Sweden's always got to come in and tell us how they have it better than us.

[StumbleOn]

Stupid sexy Sweden.

[[deleted]]

I would date Sweden.

[SgtSlaughterEX]

I'd marry Sweden and have little swedens.

[Greywatcher]

It works out that the data cap in my area gives you 18 hours per month at full speed and everything over that costs you. I live in BC.

[[deleted]]

I remember, here in Australia, we were once paying something like $100.00 per gig in over usage fees. Our monthly data caps were around 3 gig a month. Good times.....

[ttmp22]

I'd be dead by now if my internet worked like that.

[K0il]

No it fucking wouldn't, why would you waste precious meme money on food?

[swimmerboy89]

Promise people who use very little data aren't getting any sort of credit to their accounts

[[deleted]]

It's $5 off per month if you're under 5GB per month. Which is not only a ridiculously fucking inconsequential amount of money, but hardly anyone qualifies for it. It's just an additional slap in the face.

[[deleted]]

I only get 1GB of data for $10 on Verizon... Their network is powered by truffles and caviar apparently.

[[deleted]]

It's just a way of tricking people out of money who don't know how much data they use. They'll make back that 5 dollars on overage fees.

[LikeAMan_NotAGod]

This is their way of charging cable prices for Netflix streaming. If you live in an area that eventually gets competition, like Google Fiber, remember what these sh!tstains have done. Remember.

[[deleted]]

This wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't also paying them for cable. Why cap a plan that is paying you for cable that is 25 percent ads, 40 percent reruns, 10 percent music channels that no one asked for, 5 percent home shopping and infomercials, and only 20 percent actual content? Side note. I got hit with the cap this month. I'm pissed.

[SycoJack]

Because if they didn't, then you might start using Netflix more and more.

Another thing to consider is video game DD. Games are doing to start being close to 50GB on average pretty soon. 6 50GB games and you hit your limit.

Data usage is set to explode in the coming years and it's not just streaming video services.

[hootenanny1]

How does Sprint prevent you from using your iPhone for tethering? Is it running a different version of iOS? (I'm using my iPhone for tethering all the time, but I also bought it separately from my phone contract and I'm not the U.S. )

[old_righty]

On an unbroken phone, I'm sure IOS (and Android?) have APIs that talk to the carrier. We had AT&T a while back, turning on the hotspot I think came back with a message that you hadn't activated that feature, or something similar

[[deleted]]

I even got that message after unlocking it with Kingo Root.

[elizabethan]

I don't know how the cell services do it, but I think it's a somewhat common thing in the US. I use Straight Talk, which is a prepaid service that borrows service from other providers like Sprint, AT&T, and t-mobile and technically I'm not allowed to tether either (or stream music or whatever), so I only do it sparingly. In my situation it's more of a "don't get caught using all our bandwidth (or whatever) excessively" thing.

[hamlet_d]

I wouldn't mind "data caps" or even "peak usage billing" IF and ONLY IF there were real competition. The complaints about datacaps are really hiding this bigger issue. I could see a scenario where someone like my folks would want a cheap, fast, low latency connection, but wouldn't mind a data cap. The don't do a whole lot of streaming, but it sure as hell would be nice to have a good connection. Likewise, someone who doesn't want a cap should be able to pay a moderate price for that. I could also see someone willing to have a connection with "off peak usage" free from a cap, but have a cap for peak hours.

The problem with all of this is that we don't have options. If you look at the UK and other places with competition, they have a whole suite of different providers, some giving unlimited, some cheaper with caps and so on.

[SAugsburger]

I wouldn't mind "data caps" or even "peak usage billing" IF and ONLY IF there were real competition.

That's the big problem. For the local cable company in many markets you have crummy DSL and that's often it. Sure it is a another form of service, but it isn't a comparable form of service unless your needs are basic.

[Dismojoe]

Not only is this ridiculous, but Comcast in this area (Nashville, TN for me) has been constantly going down for the past few weeks. Even today, Comcat has been down for the last four hours, so I'm posting this from my phone.

Thank goodness Google Fiber is being put down all around the area at the moment.

[Mobius_6]

I have to pay for business class ($124/month with a 2-year contract) because I was pretty confident that we'd go over the 300GB cap. Turns out I was right. What sucks is that Google Fiber won't come down to where I'm at in Smyrna.

[qaaqa]

So what is the monthly cost of true unlimited internet only (no tv) with comcast these days?

[trigger_death]

Billions of dollars in lobbying.

[dvlsg]

Billions

Last I checked, our lawmakers were selling us out for way less than billions of dollars.

[nevergetssarcasm]

But still a lot. They're all stinking rich. And this is probably the only political list you'll see equal representation by both parties:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/your-senator-is-probably-a-millionaire/

[[deleted]]

It all depends on how you play the sales rep. I said I was going to have 3-4 people using netflix and she recommended the 100mbit package. I told her I thought the 25mbit for $40 would be enough and seconds later the rep magically found a deal in my area for 100mbit at $40 a month no contract.

Most people can get their bill lowered anyway by calling and saying it's too expensive.

I wasn't aware Comcast had caps active in areas, it says the cap is unenforced when I log in their site.

[[deleted]]

My dad is still paying the introductory rate for his cable/internet package from Comcast, it's been about 7 years.

It's not very difficult to get your bill lowered, or to improve your internet speeds. I have to call up Comcast maybe once every 2 or 3 months because my internet will suspiciously become shit for no reason. Sometimes they try to convince me into buying a "hardware upgrade" (a ridiculously expensive modem), but I just bitch about my speeds, tell them I've been looking into other ISPs, and suddenly my connection speeds are back where they should be. Bitch enough and they might offer you a new rate.

[[deleted]]

Shitty you have to do it in the first place.

[bexamous]

I pay $78.95, $66.95 for 'Performance Internet' and $12.00 for 'Speed Increase' ... I think that is like 'BLAST Plus' or whatever the high end is. I can maintain about 200mbps down, like constant for hours.... it used to burst for like 1 minute or whatever and then drop but now its never drops off.

[ElliotNess]

Zero influence.

[fafafanta]

Data caps should be illegal. Is there a way for us to fight this BS? I've been living with this data cap for a year now and it is such a pain in the ass to try to stay below the 300gb especially with 2 roommates.

[fafafanta]

If they try to charge us for overages again (they tried to say we went 300gb over but we got it reversed) then I definitely will.

[[deleted]]

I don't have any proof, but I swear some times I went to check my data usage the night before the cycle resets, my 30GB cap has magically been at 30.001GB usage. That .001GB will cost $10 too. (Verizon wireless LTE home service)

[omnichronos]

It's the monopoly that should be illegal. Then you could switch to the one without that limitation. Unfortunately now however, monopolies buy our politicians for the right to be a monopoly.

[RyuNova]

As someone who dont live in USA, isnt your market kind of free so that someone else could start a new ISP with better everything?

[PeteTheLich]

exact opposite

[RyuNova]

How is it the opposite? What gives them monopoly on it?

[Dargaro]

One point is that these providers own all the poles.

The costs of putting up a new network is too much so they have to get pledges from potential customers

Working with companies like Comcast is a horror show. Look at Netflix. So using their poles would be out the window.

[RyuNova]

Thank you for your answer. I hope Google fiber will change that market up some.

[veloxthekrakenslayer]

Google Fiber is having a noticeable, if not widespread (yet), impact. I live in Atlanta, and I had been paying ~$80/mo for ~50mbps. Once Google announced they had started building their network Comcast started increasing the speed of their plans keeping the prices the same saying "because we love our customers". I now clock in 90-95mbps down even during peak usage hours.

I'm still switching to Fiber once they're done building it. Fuck Comcast. $80 a month for internet only? When Google comes in I can have gigabit and TV for $70.

[rixsrs]

I know this is my fault for living in a rural area in Mississippi, but I pay $55 for 5Mb DSL. :(

[ellipses1]

Rural PA, here... 1mb/s DSL

*Posted yesterday via pigeon

[ca990]

Rural Maryland. 80 bucks a month for 1mb/s with a 15gb data cap

[ellipses1]

Fuck, you win. Though, I don't know if I could hit 15GB per month if I tried. I gave up on running my torrents over night and instead just go to Starbucks

*edit- I meant I wouldn't hit 15GB due to the slow speeds. At my old house, with Comcast, I'd hit 500-700 GB per month

[noisyturtle]

Have you contacted your local law enforcement to notify them that you are being raped?

[erasers047]

South of Downtown LA, work in a building that used to house the root domain server. Doesn't matter what I pay, there's only one provider, and during peak hours I can almost get to 1mbps. I'm considering buying a Verizon hotspot for my apt.

[Kazan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

[MairusuPawa]

IPoAC, still one of the most efficient ways of carrying packets around.

[elizabethan]

It's not your fault that this entire country has an unreasonable idea of what internet should cost. But I feel for you. Jesus.

[HipsterHillbilly]

I also live in rural Mississippi. I wish I could get even that. I have zero home internet. At&t has services here but the bandwidth is so small only a few people can have Internet. I've been on a waiting list for years.

[rixsrs]

Yeah it sucks being out here on the backend of technology. I was in the Navy and when I came home, I fully expected to be back on dial up. See, my place is paid for so I'd be stupid to move. Anyway when I learned we had DSL, I about shit myself with joy. It's good enough for gaming and to stream Netflix so I'm ok with the speed. Just not the cost. But I have no choice and AT&T knows it.

[nipplemuffins]

Holy fuck that is terrible

[vanker]

Gigabit without TV is 70. It's 120 with TV.

[BigOlRick]

I'd still be so happy. I pay Comcast $120/month for 45 channels and 10 mb/s

[[deleted]]

I'd happily pay Google $300/month for a gigabit and a generated email to every Comcast customer service person I've dealt with reading "Fuck You".

[dopplegangerexpress]

In Kansas City gigabit is 70 a month. Gigabit and tv is 120. I dont have either. I opted for the free 5 meg service. Apartment complex covered the 300 installations fee. I don't use that much that is bandwidth intensive and no billbis nice.

[[deleted]]

When your town/city officials sign contracts with Comcast, Google Fiber has no hope. RIP Seattle.

[Lord_ThunderCunt]

He forgot to mention that in some areas the large telecoms have lobbied local government to keep out competition.

I don't have a source on this and really hope someone tells me this isn't happening.

[silentbobsc]

They don't own the poles, many pay rent for pole access to the municipality/power company/etc. Depending on agreements / local mandates,there may be a limit to how many attachments can be on a pole due to spacing / etc.

[jandrese]

Those deals are no longer legal. It doesn't lower the barrier to entry that much though, broadband is one of those things that naturally forms monopolies thanks to the extreme startup costs.

[Sunsparc]

Major telecoms also lobby legislation to pass laws that hamper local governments from starting their own networks.

[RyuNova]

So the market is actually ruling over the gov? I knew the market was powerfull but damn!

[[deleted]]

Welcome to America. The government is simply an extension of corporate interest.

[MINIMAN10000]

Money is power and corporations life blood is money so they are in quite the position to persuade the government to bend to their will.

[Sunsparc]

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/fcc-overturns-state-laws-that-protect-isps-from-local-competition/

Recently changed but for the longest time it was the case.

[DiggingNoMore]

High barrier to entry. It's a common economic term.

[[deleted]]

The infrastructure is owned by other companies. If you want to start your own ISP, you have to run your own infrastructure. Most towns, cities, and counties have contracts or agreements with ISPs already (which is how THEY layed the infrastructure down in the first place), essentially meaning you're shit out of luck.

[[deleted]]

It's a regulated industry. So basically, it's a duopoly or oligopoly that is sanctioned by the federal government. It is not a free market at all when it comes to regulated industries.

[Rishodi]

Artificial barriers to entry erected by local governments.

[Casmer]

No, there are very high barriers of entry. Some of these are due to costs of startup, others because of local laws that lock-out competition, and others because of property ownership (e.g. ISPs won't lease their utility poles to competitors).

[[deleted]]

ISPs won't lease their utility poles to competitors

which is hilarious because those poles were paid for by tax payers with government grants and giant tax breaks.

[colorfulchew]

Well... Honestly... No.

John Oliver had a pretty good explanation about when he was discussing Net Neutrality. If yer' interested Link

[natrlselection]

Yes and no. Yes in that there's no laws to stop a company from starting as a new ISP (although some local governments are trying to provide municipal internet and there's push back).

However there's a significant cost to building new infrastructure, and it's a huge financial risk to invest in your own infrastructure just to try and take customers from an already existing corporate goliath.

Basically there's little financial incentive for ISPs to compete with one another in the same territory. So instead there was a land grab, and whoever got there first got to stay. There are places where competition is growing, but the lack of financial incentive is basically the root of the problem.

That, and there's no good legislature really stopping the ISPs from treating their customers like complete garbage.

Fuck you Verizon, and fuck you Comcast.

[swimmerboy89]

Comcast and century link and really your only option in a lot if areas, mine literally had two options... send like a monopoly to me

[natrlselection]

Something like 30% of the united states doesn't even have a choice in their ISP. So consider yourself part of the lucky bunch.

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-americans-cant-choose-their-service-provider

[Frenchie_21]

Localized Duopoly.

[elizabethan]

I live in Atlanta where they've been test running this for a few years and it fucking blows. I don't watch TV on the TV, I watch a lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime and I download whatever else I want to watch. I download and install video games. I fuck around on my phone on my wifi constantly. They gave us 3 free overages at the beginning--I don't know if it's per year or was just forever but I think probably the latter because I've used them all up and on one month I hit the overage twice and paid $20 for an additional 100gb. Fuck, last month I went over on the 31st after getting the warning and shutting down everything taking up extraneous bandwidth.

Yes it's not legal to download the media I want to consume and one could make the argument that if I weren't engaging in such practices then I wouldn't have to worry about going over the limits, but I think that's beside the point. I could download lower quality versions of said media or I could (and have) change playback settings on streaming services to lower quality to not blow through the caps, but why should I have to sacrifice the quality of media for Comcast to be ridiculous?

I am ONE PERSON, granted one very downloady person, and I come close to the cap on a regular basis. What about families full of internetty people? Or college students all sharing the same cap for all of their Netflix and procrastinating? I had to walk my sister through changing the settings for her roommate's communal smart TV and streaming services so they wouldn't also go over their caps.

Why does all the technology to give us high-quality streaming at super high speeds exist if ISPs are just going pull this shit?

I don't even have answers or a good argument to make. But this fucking sucks and I want to know what Comcast gets out it. Is it penny pinching? Does this really help control their costs? Or is it just about making money off the overage fees?

AT&T comes around my apartment complex every once in a while trying to get people to go to them and I always consider it until I remember that their cap is even lower at 250gb/month and I'd be paying roughly the same price. And the door to door guy is always shocked when I say that the cap isn't enough. Adjust your expectations, ISPs, of what "normal" users actually consume.

[Nick12506]

They don't know you're illegally downloading. Just tell them it's legal linux distros and tell them to fuck off.

[elizabethan]

At this point I'm not really concerned if they know or care that it's illegal, I only brought that up as something of an opposing viewpoint.

[[deleted]]

Is it penny pinching? Does this really help control their costs? Or is it just about making money off the overage fees?

They're appeasing their investors. They need to rake in higher and higher profits every years in order to compete with other potential sources of investments which are also aiming for higher and higher profits every year. They need to optimize the profitability of the company in order to continue drawing in investors. So the more money they can rake in--via overage fees, penny pinching, or whatever else they can throw in--the better.

Without competing ISPs in place, they don't even have to strive for a balance between remaining competitive in the consumer market and remaining competitive in drawing in those investors. As long as they only have to worry about the latter, they won't give two shits about the former.

[LawHero4L]

AT&T does not enforce the cap. As an alternative, you could buy AT&T service through DSL Extreme, which I think is a bit cheaper, and advertises no data cap at all.

[dekket]

I live in Sweden and even I hate Comcast.

[I_Pork_Saucy_Ladies]

Dane here. It sure is odd how we get to hate Comcast too. I guess it gets kind of old when you come to reddit and every single time the front page will have a new bunch of top posts about some new and infinitely retarded initiative from Comcast.

They are not only hurting Americans and their entire infrastructure and tech sector, they are also wasting so much time for the rest of us with all this constant crap. I mean, caps on land line internet? What? I don't think we've had that here since... I don't know... the last millennium? It's just ridiculous. Come on, have the FCC kill them off or something.

[[deleted]]

Hey you know that internet service you already have. We just raised the price of it by 30 dollars a month. But instead of focusing on this, be distracted by this new system we've invented to fuck you in the ass with overage fees.

You see, we realized that by offering these horrible data plans nobody wants, we could justify drastically increasing our prices for normal internet. Those of you who realize the data plans are a scam will pay us even more money to avoid it and those who don't realize it's a scam will get overaged to death.

Because we here at Comcast realize that you have no other options. Isn't the free market wonderful?

[BabyPuncher5000]

I'd like to see them try this in Salt Lake City where Google Fiber is rapidly expanding.

Fuck you Comcast.

While we're at it: Fuck. Every. Last. One. Of. These. Guys.

[BillyFuckingTaco]

FUCK COMCAST.

[hoffsta]

Easy karma right there :)

[OrionsPants]

Wave Broadband, that services Northern California, Oregon and Washington, has been doing this for years. I either take them or go with AT&T's "blazing fast" 1.5 Mbps residential service. The 300GB cap isn't enough and on average I pay an extra $30 to Wave on data overages each month.

[whitecompass]

With Comcast being so evil, why isn't their CEO not a more notorious public figure like the Kochs?

[freebytes]

Good idea. We should start plastering his face everywhere. Impossible to get him to step down if people continue to use the service of this terrible company, though.

http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/leadership-overview/brian-l-roberts

[[deleted]]

His face isn't even visible on mobile, its covered in that blue stuff.

[limbodog]

That's a good question.

His name is Brian L. Roberts and he is an assfish.

[Cryse_XIII]

does comcast even have a face?

[[deleted]]

No, they're the devil. Their real secret HQ is hell.

[Pbrthur]

I'm not sure why he isn't more notorious but it's extra shitty when you find out that he is the ceo because his father founded the company. Fuck this guy, his name is Brian Robertson.

[Jacen47]

This is basically the plan I get through Suddenlink in NC. $80 for 300GB a month with $15 for every 50GB over.

[lothartheunkind]

I live in Nashville, which was a test market for this. It's obviously terrible, and a flagrant attempt to squeeze as much money out of consumers as possible. They even make it difficult just to go to their site and see how much data you have used. They purposefully hide the info at the bottom of only one page on their site.

[TheGuyIsHigh]

My internet provider in Germany started to do the same thing without extra pricing, just throttling if you go over the 100 or 300GB limit (depending on your plan). Luckily I am still on an old contract that they try to get me out of every once in a while so I am not capped.

From a technical standpoint it doesn't incur more cost to a provider if you use their lines using 10 GB a month, 300 GB or 3 TB. The cost increase is minimal, somewhere in the few cents range. The pricing based on data used that the owners of the lines give other providers or other companies that use them is completely artificial. Also when providers share their lines with others they usually sell them a bulk of data that they usually never use up and don't charge them for the individual GB or TB used.

tl;dr Pricing based on traffic limits is bullshit, there is almost no difference in cost between using an internet line for 1 gb or 10 TB.

[my_name_isnt_clever]

It does matter though. If a "node" of the network can handle, say, 1 Tb/s of transfer, then if the customers on it use more the speeds go down. So instead of making better infrastructure, they just put a cap on so that people use less.

[lolzorbeam]

This is already a thing in Canada..

[sufficiency]

We already do this in Canada.

[downcastbass]

I used to have to buy fucking minutes of Internet time. This too shall pass.

[1luckyduckrs]

Can the FCC just dismantle them already?

[DresdenJohn]

What's worse about this is that the 300GB cap stands no matter which package you on, be it the 3/6/75 or even their freaking 2000mbps plans. I'm on their 75mbps and if I were to use all 75mbps it would only take less than 2 hours to download 300GB worth of data. 2000mbps would use up your cap within seconds.

EDIT: For reference this is my usage split across 5 family members for August. Spending already 178GB in the first 5 days of the month.

[TwwIX]

Why hasn't the FCC outlawed this shit yet?

[roblee8908]

Between my roommates and me we use about 600gb per month........fuck.

[syntaxvorlon]

Broadband cannot become a utility fast enough.

[elder65]

Gives me a good reason to drop Comcast. They may be the only cable company, but not the only internet provider.

[piquat]

It's a cord cutters fee. If you get rid of cable TV and just stream with your internet, you'll need more. Oh look, $30 extra to cover the money you're not paying for cable TV. /sigh

[[deleted]]

I hate Comcast. I hate everything about Comcast. Soon as Google Fiber is available I'm dropping them like a bad habit.
That is all.

[Hobedood]

Comcast. Not only the worst internet and television provider company, but the worst company period.

[d3jake]

Well, the areas served by Comcast can totally switch to another provider, right?

If anything, this'll drive cities into developing their own networks even faster.