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Here's a reason NOT to switch to Comcast:

Aug 29, 7:10 AM EDT

Comcast to make monthly Internet use cap official

250 GB is a lot more than the other providers are adopting. Hopefully all of this will help FiOS get fiber to houses faster.

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That's a ton for personal use - I think they're more targeting small businesses in some attempt to make them have business instead of residential service. For comparison, me and a dozen or so friends have a website with forum, file share, and I run two different websites (baby pics and videos for family and friends, not anything with commercial traffic) on of it, and we didn't hit half that for usage last month.

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That's a ton for personal use - I think they're more targeting small businesses in some attempt to make them have business instead of residential service. For comparison, me and a dozen or so friends have a website with forum, file share, and I run two different websites (baby pics and videos for family and friends, not anything with commercial traffic) on of it, and we didn't hit half that for usage last month.

I think they're targeting bittorrent users. A small number of users are maxing out Comcast's capacity sharing pirated movies and games.

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I think they're targeting bittorrent users. A small number of users are maxing out Comcast's capacity sharing pirated movies and games.

That makes more sense, I am sure people running small home businesses are less in number. Either way I don't think I'll be getting charged extra for all my HAIFing.

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I have done Tech support two separate times once for @Home and it included comcast and once for comcast exclusively

if they tell you your modem is out 99.99% of the time they have their head in their ass.....modems RARELY go bad

did she even ask you what the lights were doing on your modem?

what were the lights doing on your old modem....what do they do on your new modem......if all the lights are on and solid except for what ever light signals internet traffic is passing then if is probably 100% that nothing is wrong with your modem

any fuzziness on your lower TV channels

if the phone worked it is VERY doubtful your modem was bad......what type of modem is it......can they even provision your new modem?

sounds like you are talking to retards which is 99% what comcast hires for Tech support.....they really don't care about tech support it is an after thought

as for switching......I have had DSL with 3 separate providers including AT&T and it has always been rock solid......they VERY few times it went out I dealt with people with a brain and it came on before they even finished their trouble shooting

when I had cable with Cox I dealt with the same retards that comcast has and I would have to sit through their BS for a while (including needing a new modem or new coax run) before I busted out that I had done their job at a "higher tier" than they were and I had to tell them what to do.....of course even when I had them convinced the problem was their over crowded network they could not and would not admit it

just a bit of advice....unless you have and pay for a business class service telling the tech support person about all the business you need to get done will only confuse the issue and give them an excuse to want to get you off of the phone

not what you want to hear I am sure, but I am 100% positive there is nothing wrong with the modem and yes you should switch.....cable companies will always treat the internet like it is cable TV (IE something only a cry baby can not live without for hours or days) while phone companies will always treat it like phone service....something people will call and delicate flower about if it is out for 5 minutes

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I recently switched from Comcast to AT&T Uverse and so far so good. The Uverse installers were prompt, courteous and knowledgeable.

During the call to cancel Comcast services, I was given dire warnings about Uverse and informed that there are hoards of unsatisfied Uverse users returning to Comcast every day. I said that's funny - I have several neighbors who have it and highly recommend it. She asked why didn't I call them and ask for promo rate. I asked why should I have to resort to that. I thought it was very thoughtful of them to roll a truck all the way to my house just to cap-off the cable feed so I wouldn't inadvertently receive any of stray cable signals...

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I recently switched from Comcast to AT&T Uverse and so far so good. The Uverse installers were prompt, courteous and knowledgeable.

During the call to cancel Comcast services, I was given dire warnings about Uverse and informed that there are hoards of unsatisfied Uverse users returning to Comcast every day. I said that's funny - I have several neighbors who have it and highly recommend it. She asked why didn't I call them and ask for promo rate. I asked why should I have to resort to that. I thought it was very thoughtful of them to roll a truck all the way to my house just to cap-off the cable feed so I wouldn't inadvertently receive any of stray cable signals...

I have had ATT and U-verse since I moved to my house in November. I had some technical problems early on, but lately it has been a breeze and works as advertised. Each time I did have tech issues, I was able to speak to someone on the phone and they would walk me through re-setting my master control unit or send someone out if that didn't seem to work. Service was/is always prompt.

I was and still am able to quickly reach someone on the phone and the technical issues have decreased (I think U-verse was rolled out initially, before it was ready). I am really pleased with the service and prices that I get and certainly recommend it.

I have never had the pleasure of Comcast and from all the problems I hear about with them I hope I never do.

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I think they're targeting bittorrent users. A small number of users are maxing out Comcast's capacity sharing pirated movies and games.

Plain and simple: They're targeting people who are using the internet to watch movies and TV on demand. It is a threat to their biggest revenue stream and they're trying to put the stop to it before it gets beyond their control.

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Plain and simple: They're targeting people who are using the internet to watch movies and TV on demand. It is a threat to their biggest revenue stream and they're trying to put the stop to it before it gets beyond their control.

How do you figure that? A VOD from Amazon is about 1-2GB. A 250GB/month cap limits you to 4 of those a day, or about 6 hours of viewing. I don't think that's who they're after. I think they're after the bittorrent users who can download a terabyte per month at cable modem speeds. They're saturating the shared parts of the network, which forces cable companies to upgrade just to keep the average users from bogging down.

If they wanted to stop VOD they'd set the cap much lower.

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How do you figure that? A VOD from Amazon is about 1-2GB. A 250GB/month cap limits you to 4 of those a day, or about 6 hours of viewing. I don't think that's who they're after. I think they're after the bittorrent users who can download a terabyte per month at cable modem speeds. They're saturating the shared parts of the network, which forces cable companies to upgrade just to keep the average users from bogging down.

If they wanted to stop VOD they'd set the cap much lower.

An hour of HD video is ~13 GB. 19 hours and you've blown right through your cap.

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Huh? That would require a 36Mb cable connection for VOD. What are you talking about? Who has that?

I come up with 29.6 Mb/sec, but anywho. H.264 encoded Blu-Ray rips can be had all over the place. Just because it isn't quite mainstream yet doesn't mean it should be ignored, and it damn sure doesn't mean that we should idly sit by while the cable company stifles innovation, progress, and competition in the name of profits.

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Plain and simple: They're targeting people who are using the internet to watch movies and TV on demand. It is a threat to their biggest revenue stream and they're trying to put the stop to it before it gets beyond their control.

And those people should switch to other ISPs; that way it WILL go way out of hand.

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And those people should switch to other ISPs; that way it WILL go way out of hand.

Sometimes you just don't have a choice if you want decent prices and speeds...it is either cable or satellite with horrendously low upload speeds, not much higher download speeds, crazy bad latency, and super high costs.

I, personally, believe that in this day and age internet infrastructure should be treated as a basic utility requirement just like gas, water, and electricity.

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Sometimes you just don't have a choice if you want decent prices and speeds...it is either cable or satellite with horrendously low upload speeds, not much higher download speeds, crazy bad latency, and super high costs.

I, personally, believe that in this day and age internet infrastructure should be treated as a basic utility requirement just like gas, water, and electricity.

Yeap. DSL and similar services are not necessarily comparable or competitive. Remember that Comcast is granted a license by the City of Houston, as is typical for internet/cable providers. In exchange for its monopoly, the City should have right of approval over any rate or service changes such as this.

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Sometimes you just don't have a choice if you want decent prices and speeds...it is either cable or satellite with horrendously low upload speeds, not much higher download speeds, crazy bad latency, and super high costs.

I, personally, believe that in this day and age internet infrastructure should be treated as a basic utility requirement just like gas, water, and electricity.

give me a break it is a luxury hardly a necessity......a huge number of people still do not even use computers much less have high speed internet....and for those that don't have it and desire it they can always go to the library or some other public place with free internet

if you want to pay to subsidize it for other people be my guest, but leave the rest of us out of it.......we taught the people that got us to the moon and back without computers, yet we can't even do the same for kids today......and we certainly don't need their deadbeat parents sitting on their fat welfare ass surfing porn all day.....hell they should not even have AC much less computers or the internet

when are we going to stop pretending that their should be no consequence for being a worthless deadbeat and stop pretending that some people will do nothing to better themselves no matter how much you hand them....I am surprised you did not throw cable TV in there as one of your basic necessities....you can get weather reports on it :rolleyes:

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Sometimes you just don't have a choice if you want decent prices and speeds...it is either cable or satellite with horrendously low upload speeds, not much higher download speeds, crazy bad latency, and super high costs.

I, personally, believe that in this day and age internet infrastructure should be treated as a basic utility requirement just like gas, water, and electricity.

Basic utility requirement for downloading bootleg videos? :huh:

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I come up with 29.6 Mb/sec, but anywho.

But you can't get 29.6Mb/sec from cable. If you're really luck you get 8Mb/sec. Current internet VOD uses much lower volume than the numbers you're throwing out, which is why a 250GB monthly cap won't impact VOD users.

My math:

13,000,000,000 bytes per hour

216,666,666.67 bytes per minute

3,611,111 bytes per second

36,111,110 bits per second

H.264 encoded Blu-Ray rips can be had all over the place.

Again, where are you seeing any VOD like that? Or are you talking about torrents now?

Just because it isn't quite mainstream yet doesn't mean it should be ignored, and it damn sure doesn't mean that we should idly sit by while the cable company stifles innovation, progress, and competition in the name of profits.

Huh? Volume caps may provide an opportunity for fiber build out, but everyone's free to innovate. If one person on the block is chewing up all of his neighbors' bandwidth, what's so evil about making him pay extra?

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give me a break it is a luxury hardly a necessity

Duh. Of course it is a luxury and not a necessity. The same can be said for electricity, gas, and running water.

we taught the people that got us to the moon and back without computers, yet we can't even do the same for kids today

Of course when it came down to actually going to the moon it required MASSIVE amounts of computing power. If computing technology back then was equivalent to what we have nowadays the Apollo program could've been accomplished in a shorter timeframe using fewer resources.

when are we going to stop pretending that their should be no consequence for being a worthless deadbeat and stop pretending that some people will do nothing to better themselves no matter how much you hand them....

WTF? :huh:

I am surprised you did not throw cable TV in there as one of your basic necessities....you can get weather reports on it

Cable TV is going a bit far since you can get numerous stations for free with an antenna.

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But you can't get 29.6Mb/sec from cable. If you're really luck you get 8Mb/sec. Current internet VOD uses much lower volume than the numbers you're throwing out, which is why a 250GB monthly cap won't impact VOD users.

It won't impact streaming video users since I'm not aware of any services that are streaming HD video. But people who want to download an HD movie over the course of a few hours and then watch it will be impacted.

My math:

13,000,000,000 bytes per hour

216,666,666.67 bytes per minute

3,611,111 bytes per second

36,111,110 bits per second

13 GB is not 13,000,000,000 bytes. It is 13,958,643,712 bytes. Moreover there are 8 bits in a byte, not 10 as you have shown above.

Again, where are you seeing any VOD like that? Or are you talking about torrents now?

Amazon has confirmed that they will be rolling out HD content to their Unbox offerings. I suspect Netflix is right on their heels with its Watch Now service.

Huh? Volume caps may provide an opportunity for fiber build out, but everyone's free to innovate.

Providers of high bandwidth content can't innovate if nobody can download the content because of caps.

If one person on the block is chewing up all of his neighbors' bandwidth, what's so evil about making him pay extra?

It is evil because the service has always been sold as unlimited in order to attract more customers. Now that they're actually being taken up on their offer of unlimited they're rewriting the rules.

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It won't impact streaming video users since I'm not aware of any services that are streaming HD video. But people who want to download an HD movie over the course of a few hours and then watch it will be impacted.

That's not VOD. That's torrents, which is what I said in the first place. Why are you arguing with me?

13 GB is not 13,000,000,000 bytes. It is 13,958,643,712 bytes.

Technically, that's going to be called a "gibibyte" now. And it's bigger than the value I used, which doesn't get closer to your smaller number.

Moreover there are 8 bits in a byte, not 10 as you have shown above.

On the contrary, 10 bits is the standard used for data communications to compensate for parity bits, frame overhead, etc.

Amazon has confirmed that they will be rolling out HD content to their Unbox offerings. I suspect Netflix is right on their heels with its Watch Now service.

And all of it will be limited by the cable bandwidth, so a 250GB cap won't stop people from using those services.

Providers of high bandwidth content can't innovate if nobody can download the content because of caps.

The caps don't stop people from downloading. You'll be able to pay for more volume. And those extra charges will help pay for competing technologies, like fiber to your house.

It is evil because the service has always been sold as unlimited in order to attract more customers. Now that they're actually being taken up on their offer of unlimited they're rewriting the rules.

It wasn't always sold that way. I remember when it was sold by the hour. They are changing the terms, but I'm sure you can see why if you think about it.

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An hour of HD video is ~13 GB. 19 hours and you've blown right through your cap.

It depends on the service. Many will either use compression or the lower quality 720p standard. I've downloaded HD movies using a PS3, and an entire HD movie was about 7GB each. I don't remember if it was 720p or 1080p.

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So, we can't even get the u-verse nonsense here yet. Is that years away, only up in new MPC and burbs? I would love to switch away from Comcast, but there isn't anything better out there. They all have promotional intro rates, but after that it's all the same cost, basically.

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So, we can't even get the u-verse nonsense here yet. Is that years away, only up in new MPC and burbs? I would love to switch away from Comcast, but there isn't anything better out there. They all have promotional intro rates, but after that it's all the same cost, basically.

I'm just waiting for FiOS. Hopefully the cable & phone companies will price themselves high enough to make fiber to my house viable.

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That's not VOD. That's torrents, which is what I said in the first place.

Bittorrent is a protocol not a service. Call Amazon's Unbox, and Netflix's Watch Now service whatever you like, but they are essentially VOD services.

On the contrary, 10 bits is the standard used for data communications to compensate for parity bits, frame overhead, etc.

Now you're just making crap up. Cite a credible source for that pearl of wisdom. Of course what really matters is how many bits COMCAST thinks there is in a byte, and how they define a gigabyte.

And all of it will be limited by the cable bandwidth, so a 250GB cap won't stop people from using those services.

That's like saying $10/gallon gas won't stop people from driving. It will stop the majority of users from using high bandwidth offerings.

The caps don't stop people from downloading. You'll be able to pay for more volume. And those extra charges will help pay for competing technologies, like fiber to your house.

Everything I've read indicates that ComCrap is going to warn folks on the first overage and then ban them for a year after the second overage. Where did you get this info about paying more for extra volume? ComCrap isn't going to invest the money collected in fees in more infrastructure until they just absolutely have wrung every last drop of performance out of the current infrastructure and have NO other choice.

It wasn't always sold that way. I remember when it was sold by the hour. They are changing the terms, but I'm sure you can see why if you think about it.

When was consumer level broadband sold by the hour? I can remember dialup services such as AOL and Compuserv being sold by the hour, but never consumer level broadband.

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Bittorrent is a protocol not a service. Call Amazon's Unbox, and Netflix's Watch Now service whatever you like, but they are essentially VOD services.

Huh? Unbox and Netflix are VOD. That's what I've been calling them. They aren't HD downloads (mostly via bittorrent these days), which is what you've been describing. Remember?

Now you're just making crap up. Cite a credible source for that pearl of wisdom. Of course what really matters is how many bits COMCAST thinks there is in a byte, and how they define a gigabyte.

I am a credible source. I've been calculating bandwidth as part of my job for over 20 years.

I'll give you a 2nd credible source, but only because I'm a super nice guy. From Brian Cryer's Glossary of IT Terms:

As a rule of thumb, when estimating network/modem throughput, a figure of 1kbps=100 bytes per second is probably closer to the real throughput after other networking overheads are taken into consideration.
That's like saying $10/gallon gas won't stop people from driving. It will stop the majority of users from using high bandwidth offerings.

No, it's saying that people watching VOD 3 or 4 movies every night for a month won't hit the 250GB cap. It will stop people from downloading 20 HD movies a month, unless they pay for more volume.

Everything I've read indicates that ComCrap is going to warn folks on the first overage and then ban them for a year after the second overage. Where did you get this info about paying more for extra volume? ComCrap isn't going to invest the money collected in fees in more infrastructure until they just absolutely have wrung every last drop of performance out of the current infrastructure and have NO other choice.

From all of the news articles about the cap. Google "Comcast 25GB cap overage fee"

When was consumer level broadband sold by the hour? I can remember dialup services such as AOL and Compuserv being sold by the hour, but never consumer level broadband.

True, but you just said "the service", not "broadband". My point is that people used to pay by the hour, so paying by the gigabyte isn't some crazy new idea.

Why are you so bent out of shape about this? Are you downloading more than 250GB/month over Comcast right now?

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So, we can't even get the u-verse nonsense here yet. Is that years away, only up in new MPC and burbs? I would love to switch away from Comcast, but there isn't anything better out there. They all have promotional intro rates, but after that it's all the same cost, basically.

How long since you checked?

I had U-Verse when I lived at the apartments on Oxford and I-10 last year.....

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True, but you just said "the service", not "broadband". My point is that people used to pay by the hour, so paying by the gigabyte isn't some crazy new idea.

Why are you so bent out of shape about this? Are you downloading more than 250GB/month over Comcast right now?

Memebag, I want to be able to download as much streaming TV as I want. We have plenty of high speed ISPs.

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