Comcast's change of plans

[Schecters]

So I was checking my comcast email account the other day (never use it) and found this little gem.

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.

On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.

In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.

In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit Comcast Help & Support.

Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.

They are finally acknowledging a bandwidth cap. Haha bout time. I don't really like where this could lead though, especially with the amount of stuff that is so bandwidth-heavy nowadays. Slippery slope anyone?

 

[NightSurge]

I think the 250GB cap is reasonable. If they had released a 5GB cap, then I'd be worried and outraged.

Also, I do still disagree with caps all together because it hinders innovation. You cannot offer an "Unlimited" service, then change to make it not unlimited. You should advance your technology so that it keeps up with demand, not try to cap demand. That is like taking our mobile phone plans and going in reverse. They started out all crazy expensive and then went to the "Unlimited" plans now.

The chances of going over the limit of 250GB is unlikely, but soon I am sure they will make it tiered and then we may see plans for 5GB, 50GB, 100GB, 250GB, and the 250GB plan will be very much expensive. It presents a major problem, also, that they cannot tell us our usage yet. Even if you call in, they cannot give you that information, until the point that you have breached the cap amount.

 

[norcrawler]

were do you live scheters?
i didnt get that email
but that sounds resonable.who knows wat it could turn into...
i was talkin to a member from here on msn thats in australia, and he says his is 12gigs..
thats just pathetic and he said most are like around 4 or 5 or sumthin liek that

 

[KSoD]

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

Seriously look at that. Who really downloads that much or sends that many emails? Well maybe spammers send that many emails. But come on 50,000,000 emails a month. That is a high cap. I wouldnt be that upset. 250GB is a good amount for a month. The most i have ever used has been 150GB in a month.

 

[mikesgroovin]

Seriously look at that. Who really downloads that much or sends that many emails? Well maybe spammers send that many emails. But come on 50,000,000 emails a month. That is a high cap. I wouldnt be that upset. 250GB is a good amount for a month. The most i have ever used has been 150GB in a month.

Depending on the area and their research in demographics, it just sounds like they are doing this to limit and shift people running small businesses from their home to their Small Business packages that they offer for broadband. I haven't reviewed their plans for my area yet, but that would be my bet.

 

[KSoD]

I still dont see a small business sending out 50 million emails a month. Even a million is a stretch to see. But of course i dont run a business from my house so i wouldnt be able to accurately tell how many a small business could send out.

 

[mikesgroovin]

I still dont see a small business sending out 50 million emails a month. Even a million is a stretch to see. But of course i dont run a business from my house so i wouldnt be able to accurately tell how many a small business could send out.

No No, of course not. The emails is a stretch (to say the least), but running a home business with plenty of multimedia on a website coupled with an exchange server over a WAN, I could see. Just seems fishy that they would set a cap at 250GB. Thats so much bandwidth, it's unbelievable. Most BASIC plans for hosting offer around 500GB to a TB a month for bandwidth, and dont even come remotely close. I think that they could've gotten away with not telling 99% of their customers a thing. I really do think that they are just laying roots down to eventually weed most small businesses out of the home packages. Gotta start large though, I suppose.

First they lay cables, then they buy out the smaller companies that ran the cables before them (to lower costs in small towns for cable usage), then they start buying out larger businesses that ran ISPs in certain areas (Aldelphia for one) ...

then once they have their pieces placed in the "get f*cked formation" on the chessboard, they start with the customers. Cause, well... they can Where else are the customers gonna go if they don't agree with the cap? LOL

 

[alehkcis]

250gb a month is a good deal,try living in the country im now in and you will cry 8gb treshold for residential packages which cost around 55$.and the 24gb treshold is expensive around 170$. internet in bahrain is not a commodity its a privelege given to those who can afford it.

 

[mikesgroovin]

250gb a month is a good deal,try living in the country im now in and you will cry 8gb treshold for residential packages which cost around 55$.and the 24gb treshold is expensive around 170$. internet in bahrain is not a commodity its a privelege given to those who can afford it.

Yea, it's still worth it. No question
It is relative too though. I believe that the observation was to simply try to understand the motives behind the ISP.

barrain, eh? I'd love to visit there. There, the UAE, and Qatar.... some day Any cool pictures?

 

[Schecters]

were do you live scheters?
i didnt get that email
but that sounds resonable.who knows wat it could turn into...
i was talkin to a member from here on msn thats in australia, and he says his is 12gigs..
thats just pathetic and he said most are like around 4 or 5 or sumthin liek that

I live in Oregon.

I am not debating that 250 gigs isn't a lot of bandwidth. It is, and there's no way I even come close to using that much. But I could totally see that number dropping many a time to a much smaller amount. It just sounds like something comcast would do.