
What Xfinity Internet Data Usage Plans will Comcast be Launching? - dsl
https://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-what-are-the-different-plans-launching
======
kstrauser
Go to hell, Comcast. I have a 100Mbps cable Internet connection from them, so
I can download about 10MB per second. At that advertised speed, I could burn
through a 300GB cap in about 8 hours.

I used to work for an ISP and I totally get the concept of oversubscription.
But they're saying I can only use my paid account for about one-seventieth of
the month without paying extra, all while advertising all the great streaming
services I can use through my account.

I could not possibly be more wholeheartedly supportive of reclassifying
Comcast as a common carrier. Using fines to maintain a 70:1 minimum
oversubscription model is all the proof I need that this is sorely needed.

~~~
ghaff
I'm no fan of Comcast but you do realize that usage-based pricing is totally
consistent with common carrier status? AT&T charged based on usage for years
while they were a regulated monopoly. Others may disagree but I'd argue that,
to the degree that there's wide disparity in usage, there probably needs to be
some way of segmenting that usage whether it's fees paid by the upstream (e.g.
Netflix) or by the downstream consumer.

~~~
sliverstorm
There's always a vitriolic reaction in geek communities to usage-based
billing. I'm used to it by now. My personal conclusion (as much as people
shout at me otherwise) is that geek communities quietly realize they are
top-1% users and their usage patterns are subsidized by everybody else, so a
switch to usage-based billing represents a greater costs to themselves. You
see that kind of thing in politics all the time.

~~~
devcpp
Explain to me why this is wrong: the last mile is what costs a ton to ISPs
(much less than what Comcast charges though) to build and maintain. So why
would you make it more expensive for people to use their personal pipe, which
just stands there anyway?

You know what, let's do that usage-based billing, the difference between 5GB
and 300GB would be about 1%, because of the small cost of the shared pipe.
This is just more bullshit from Comcast, unheard of anywhere else on this
planet.

Maybe I'm biased, but I can't see where I went wrong.

~~~
al_bundling
> So why would you make it more expensive for people to use their personal
> pipe, which just stands there anyway?

It's not your personal pipe. The bandwidth on the segment connected to you is
shared with your neighbours. Upgrading the bandwidth on your segment costs
money, ergo we do not want you to use "too much" bandwidth. Pre-emptively
curbing bandwidth usage with threats of and/or actual overage fees, ensures
higher operating margins and puts off upgrade expenses, thus increasing
profits.

Not perhaps the answer you were hoping for, but hey, corporations gotta make
money, right?

------
sehrope
> In this trial, XFINITY Internet Economy Plus customers can choose to enroll
> in the Flexible-Data Option to receive a $5.00 credit on their monthly bill
> and reduce their data usage plan from 300 GB to 5 GB. If customers choose
> this option and use more than 5 GB of data in any given month, they will not
> receive the $5.00 credit and will be charged an additional $1.00 for each
> gigabyte of data used over the 5 GB included in the Flexible-Data Option.

What informed consumer would agree to this?!

Streaming Netflix uses about 1GB/hour for "good" quality streams and 2+GB/hour
for HD streams. That would make watching an hour a night come out to
$30-60/month of bandwidth charges. Multiply accordingly if you watch more or
have multiple people streaming simultaneously. Oh and the way it's worded it
sounds like you lose the $5 discount if you go over 5GB.

I can see this leading to some serious bill shock for anybody that signs up.

~~~
sliverstorm
_What informed consumer would agree to this?!_

Informed consumers that know they don't use that much data? Not everyone
streams movies or what have you.

If I cancel my Netflix subscription and switch back to physical media, as I
have contemplated doing, I will be < 5GB.

~~~
stevep98
> Informed consumers that know they don't use that much data?

This is part of the problem. It's very difficult for normal customers to
understand how much data they're going to use. When choosing a phone data
plan, my dad asked me what plan to go for. How much does google maps use? No
idea..

Also, extremely difficult for the customer to dispute the particular data
usage, because they don't have access to the audit data that comcast has, and
they don't have the technical skill to determine that they really accessed
"turnerhd-f.akamaihd.net" when visiting cnn.com anyway. Contrast this with the
relative ease of checking phone numbers you don't recognize on your itemized
phone bill.

Lastly, most objectionable is this idea of charging penalties for overages. In
most industries, if you get more, you pay incrementally less. If I buy a
hamburger, soda and fries, I get a discount on the price. If I buy 1000
widgets I get a better price than 10 of them. Comcast and the telcos turn this
on its head by charging penalties for overages.

Regulators could force carriers to pro-rate based on the price you paid for
your service. For example:

ISP offers 3 packages: 100 GB for $10/mo (overages charged at $0.10/gb) 300 GB
for $20/mo (overages charged at $0.06/gb) 750 GB for $30/mo (overages charged
at $0.04/gb) 2000 GB for $40/mo (overages charged at $0.02/gb)

EVEN better, offer automatic price brackets... Why make people worry about
choosing the right plan. People don't want to make this decision.

First 10GB: $0.10/gb Next 20GB: $0.07/gb Next 50GB: $0.05/gb each GB after
that: $0.02/gb

(for illustrative purposes only.. I haven't done the math to see how it
compares with current comcast offers)

I don't understand why the telcos think massively penalizing people for going
over is a useful pricing model.

~~~
sliverstorm
Have you ever read your electricity bill? They do just that. Your first
1000kWh cost 0.07$ apiece, your second 1000kWh cost 0.12$, your third 0.14$
(for example)

~~~
ars
Where do you live? I've never seen a bill like that.

If anything, if you agree to use a lot of power you will have a larger fixed
price, but a lower per kWh price.

~~~
tzs
It works that way in California for households using PG&E, Southern California
Edison, or San Diego Gas and Electric Company [1].

Same up here in Washington for service to a single family residence through a
single meter for customers of PSE [2].

[1]
[http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6AF20251-011C-4EF2-B99D-...](http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6AF20251-011C-4EF2-B99D-74CA315A4C40/0/RatesFAQ0710_3.pdf)

[2]
[https://pse.com/aboutpse/Rates/Documents/elec_sch_007.pdf](https://pse.com/aboutpse/Rates/Documents/elec_sch_007.pdf)

~~~
yusyusyus
quite a few of the providers in Texas are exactly the opposite strangely..
they bill a surcharge for using less than some fixed KWh. i.e. I get charged
$5 if i use less than ~500KWh in a month.

------
josefresco
I live for 2 months out of the year on a completely metered Verizon data plan
(mifi). Managing it with our home business (small biz web design) and 2
connected kids is ... a royal pain to say the least.

When we arrive the routine goes like this:

Airplane mode for all phones/tablets unless in use Turn off Dropbox syncing
(all devices) Turn off Backblaze (cost us about $100 in data last time we
forgot to completely disable) iOS updates for our 4 smartphones? Wait until we
return home Disable app updates (some are several hundred MB) No
Pandora/Sirius streaming or audio streaming of any kind Limited Netflix/Video
streaming (only for must watch shows) No large FTP transfers (common for our
industry) No Facetime (our kids use) Schedule Dropcam power to turn off at
night Block podcast downloads within iTunes The list goes on....

So basically every day you check, and recheck your data use to "catch" any
device or service that may be using too much data. When family visits and the
number inside the house reaches 6-10 the monthly data cap is blown in just a
few days.

And our data cap is not a measly 5GB or even 10GB a month, it can easily reach
40-50GB which costs a relative fortune.

If you look at the list of accommodations above, you'll see a nice collection
of US businesses (Apple, Dropbox, Pandora etc.) for whom I can't do business
with in a "metered" world.

I can deal with this for 2 months out of my year, but if my home residential
Internet was also metered like this our involvement online would be
dramatically changed.

~~~
gtCameron
I have the same issue with a vacation home. I have Little Snitch installed on
my Mac which allows me to disable Dropbox and stuff like that automatically
when connected to that network. It would be great if there were a feature in
iOS to treat certain wifi networks as a 4g connection and disable the app
updates and other things it typically only does over wifi.

~~~
josefresco
If Internet providers move to metered access the only _bright_ spot in the
industry will be the need for software, and hardware to limit, throttle and
manage your personal data use (what a future!)

Specifically with smartphones- the built in controls to keep you from blowing
through your cellular data plan don't apply when your wifi...is connected to a
meted plan. So your device thinks "I'm on wi-fi, update all the things" yet
the connection still "cellular".

It would be a sad day in tech when your device OS has to implement an
"airplane-esq" mode for metered connections that drops all data-intensive
usage and maybe only allows certain notifications through.

~~~
ClashTheBunny
This exists. Every reletively new Android product (>=4.1) has "Mobile
hotspots" under "Data usage".

> Network bandwidth management: New API provides ability to detect metered
> networks, including tethering to a mobile hotspot.

Mark the WiFi access points you want to be low data usage and you are good to
go. Software that plays nice will use the "isActiveNetworkMetered()" to check
if they should download or not.

------
revelation
$1/GB, or that 1080p YouTube video costs you more than showers for a week or
the electricity to run AC for a day on the _insanely hot_ scale. Meanwhile,
traffic has basically no variable costs.

Let's hope they don't regulate ISPs, we don't want to slow the pace of
innovation and incredible value generation here.

~~~
baddox
I agree that the pricing is high, but your comparison to showers or
electricity isn't really apt, unless you're going so far as to invoke the
paradox of value.

~~~
barsonme
Is the internet diamonds and the other utilities water...?

If you compare the standard usage of water for bathing and electricity for
whatever to the standard usage of the internet, the internet will (according
to revelation) be more expensive.

I'd say that, to some degree, you couldn't even claim the paradox of value
because the internet is becoming such an integral part of our lives. We use it
to pay taxes, work our 9-5 jobs, medical advice, etc.

Kind of like how technically we don't _need_ natural gas or electricity -- we
could just use wood-burning fireplaces. But at what point does that become so
excessive that we view it like water as opposed to diamonds?

Anyway, I'm getting off track here, but I think revelation's example is pretty
decent depending on which angle you take.

------
bigfunlx
How do you people in US even allow that to happen? In Poland we pay less than
$10 for 10Mbit/s. We pay $30 for 250 Mbit/s DL 20 Mbit/s UL , and last time we
had limited data plans was like 8 years. If we were to pay what you pay, for
the quality you have, we would basically go for nationwide strike.

~~~
belandrew
Comparing prices in different countries isn't that simple. You have to take
into account what that price means compared to wages. Someone in Poland on
average
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage))
has about 28% the disposable income as someone in the US. So you paying $10 a
month feels about the same as someone in the US paying $35.

~~~
al_bundling
Equipment, cables and materials still cost the same, so the comparison is
relevant. Even adjusting for PPP, the difference is striking. And to explain
the differences, you have to look at external factors, such as competition and
regulation.

~~~
markkanof
But deploying and managing that equipment does not cost the same. There is
another comment in this thread that says only about 3% of operating costs for
Sonic.net come from bandwidth. U.S. based ISPs employ U.S. based workers which
on average are paid more than employees in say Poland, so it's hard to do a
direct comparison. Not saying that we in the U.S. don't pay too much for
internet, just that a direct comparison to other countries is tricky.

------
Osiris
I have Comcast in Colorado. I signed up for Backblaze last month and it
uploaded 1.3 TB of data in about 2 weeks. My "normal" bandwidth usage is
around 600-800 GB per month, plus the extra terabyte on top of that.

The problem with bandwidth caps is that they effective take away the ability
for people to use online services like online backup and streaming sites. My
kids that stay at home probably watch a few hours of streaming media every
day, which would use up most if not all of the 300GB just with that, let alone
everything else.

~~~
josefresco
Also a Backblaze customer and after my first "sync" I for the first time was
concerned about hitting my Comcast residential cap. I uploaded about 750GB
over a two month period and never got a letter or notice. Thankfully the sync
now uses significantly less data per day, however these business models are
threatened by data caps.

Does anyone here on HN have a startup that relies heavily on data and is
worried about these new "plans" and caps?

Also, don't believe that Comcast line that only 2% of customer use more than
300GB. Medium to large families (with teenagers) and many connected devices
can easily reach this cap.

------
crymer11
Meanwhile in Chattanooga (~2 hours from Nashville, TN, Knoxville, TN, and
Atlanta GA - all test markets mentioned in the post), I downloaded 300.8GB and
uploaded 28.5GB (which is on the low end for me) on a symmetrical 1Gbps
connection last month for $69.99 and no contract. Thanks, EPB!

------
HelloMcFly
An extra 50GB for only $10? What a steal! That is sarcasm, by the way.

I wonder how my day-to-day activities would change if I knew I was constantly
eating away at my monthly limit. I'd hate to have to do it, especially because
I don't really see the connection between my consumption and "waste" like I do
with my energy bill. It would feel like going backwards in time, in a way.

~~~
gojomo
That's about the same price per GB as Amazon AWS originally launched with, and
they had the choice, scale, and concentration of data centers. So this doesn't
seem totally-out-of-whack for consumer retail, to me.

And if there are other paths to get the bits there cheaper – wireless
(including mesh, free space optical, or new bandwidths) or new wires – these
prices motivate the new entrants who can do it.

Comcast maximizing their profits is not the last step, but one move in an
iterated, endless game. Comcast's move – if people choose to pay and Comcast
makes money – incents the next round of competition.

~~~
Retric
You understand they launched in 2006 and subsides their hardware costs with
extremely high bandwidth costs and that was the highest possible price they
charged right?

PS: And a little idea that might blow your mind, Comcast effectively pays
nothing for bandwidth to the internet. Like SMS it's so cheap they would have
trouble actually finding out how much it costs them and would need to add up
the cost of patch cables in the data-center as a significant 'cost'.

~~~
gojomo
Of course. But also, such data-center hosting is essentially "wholesale", for
customers who are indifferent about location and buying enough to care about
slight changes in rates.

Retail, to a particular fixed location, and for households where bandwidth is
a tiny part of their overall budget, is naturally going to be 2-10X more
expensive.

AWS wholesale transfer _out_ (not subsidized/forgiven to make their service
'sticky') is still $0.12/GB. Comcast's retail price is less than 2X that. No
biggie.

~~~
Retric
Your using AWS's highest prices. AWS also lists is $0.05 per GB to the
internet and it get's cheaper if your a large scale customer. Comcast on on
the other hand charges an "additional $1.00 for each gigabyte of data used
over the 5 GB included in the Flexible-Data Option."

~~~
gojomo
I don't see AWS's $0.05/GB. I see $0.12/GB outbound, for the first 10TB.
Google has the same per-GB pricing.

But again, that's bulk wholesale which is often 2-10X cheaper in any industry.
Compare like to like.

~~~
revelation
I think you don't realize that nobody buys GB of traffic wholesale. They buy
bandwidth.

~~~
al_bundling
You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. Nobody buys GB
of traffic wholesale, they buy TB of traffic because a GB is literally a
rounding error.

What you probably meant to say was that wholesale bandwith is usually puchased
by the Mbps on a 95th percentile billing, although you can alternatively buy
by the TB from some providers.

------
sillysaurus3
I hope the mods allow this story to stay on the frontpage, because even though
it's not intellectually interesting, it's important to respond to threats like
this. Future hackers might be impacted by this nonsense if, say, their parents
burn through their internet quota using Netflix and then tell their children
not to use the internet the rest of the month.

~~~
dang
It set off the flamewar detector for a while but we overrode that.

------
steverb
I am currently in one of the test markets for this (Knoxville, TN) and am
actively looking for another provider since we hit the bandwidth cap for the
third time this month (2 adults, 4 teenagers).

Fortunately, I have three providers in my neighborhood. Of course, it will
take me an hour on hold to cancel Comcast, but at least I won't have to deal
with them any more.

~~~
calinet6
You're lucky. In many places, there are no alternatives to Comcast.

I've asked this out in the open before and always got blank stares and crazy
looks, but how hard/expensive would it be to start your own neighborhood ISP
and peer directly with a backbone? What's the up-front investment required and
how many users at what price point would be needed to make it reasonable or
profitable?

I guess the main problem is still transport to the premises...

~~~
al_bundling
>I've asked this out in the open before and always got blank stares and crazy
looks, but how hard/expensive would it be to start your own neighborhood ISP
and peer directly with a backbone?

The technical parts are fairly straightforward, what gets hard/expensive is
the legal, permiting, construction part.

> What's the up-front investment required and how many users at what price
> point would be needed to make it reasonable or profitable?

As the old adage goes, if you have to ask then you can't afford it...

> I guess the main problem is still transport to the premises...

Exactly. Rule of thumb is that 90% of network costs are in the last mile and
most of those costs are in the last few yards.

------
deanclatworthy
Sitting here in Finland on my open, unmetered, 350mbit home internet
connection, not worrying about how many HD YouTube videos I can stream,
vagrant images I can clone or RAW images I can sync to the cloud - I wonder
how a country which has so many smart, gifted people hasn't yet realised that
the Internet should be a human right, without caps, slow lanes or censorship.

~~~
existencebox
The same country that did not have all states ratify its anti-slavery
amendment until the last year or two. The same country with a history of
maintaining overseas secret prisons, abuse of surveillance powers, and a
barely functional justice system. (I say all this as an american.)

If we haven't even realized that human rights are human rights, why would
anyone expect us to realize that internet is; especially when there is profit
to be made from it?

------
dclusin
Is there any adjective that carries more weight than the word brazen? I'm at a
loss for words.

~~~
x0x0
Complain less, call your congressional representatives more. Email doesn't
mean shit. Pick up the phone.

Then complain here =P

~~~
ars
This doesn't seem like a congress thing.

What could they even do except give comcast bad PR?

Unless you are proposing that we return to the days of telecom regulation.

~~~
pconner
That is a popular idea right now. More specifically, the president and others
have tossed around the idea of regulating broadband internet under Title II of
the Communications Act of 1934

~~~
ams6110
Without defending Comcast et. al. I have ZERO confidence that this president
and congress would come up with anything remotely beneficial to the
retail/residential internet consumer.

~~~
snsr
Well then you're in luck - the FCC determines the classification of
telecommunications services in the US.

------
Omniusaspirer
As someone who used over 4 terabytes of bandwidth last month...just lol. How
sad is it that in the modern world I can be forced to physically move to
another city/state just to avoid monopolistic ISP's?

------
micah_chatt
Very interestingly, they did NOT add the Chattanooga market.

Chattanooga has its own public utility that provides power and Gigabit fiber.
See
[http://www.salon.com/2014/07/18/comcasts_worst_nightmare_how...](http://www.salon.com/2014/07/18/comcasts_worst_nightmare_how_tennessee_could_save_americas_internet_partner/)

------
eurleif
>Each of these options requires that those who choose to use more of the
service pay more than others. The Flexible-Data Option adds an alternative,
permitting those who choose to use less to pay less.

It's so nice to have alternatives! I'm glad we live in a world where consumers
have so much choice.

------
johnward
I work from home a lot, stream spotify, but don't really stream video. I
average less than 100GB per month. However i could easily see how streaming
netflix or other services could cause someone to go over the 300GB data usage.
My largest month of usage was 4TB due to some search engine work I was doing.

I don't like the precedent this is setting and I just hope Google keeps
putting pressure on with their Fiber offering to make these other companies
compete. In some cases I wish municipalities would step in and stop allowing
companies like comcast to be the sole provider in their area.

I foresee comcast marketing their "increasing speeds" in the future. In which
you could never actually take full advantage of because of these limits.

------
callahad
Can anyone explain to me what the marginal costs are for additional traffic,
within Comcast's network?

I presume that once you're powering the routers, they consume pretty
equivalent power at peak and off-peak times, but maybe that's a faulty
assumption?

~~~
sliverstorm
As I understand it the marginal cost of the first N gigabytes is approximately
zilch, but N+1 gigabytes is $$$$- because they now have to upgrade the
infrastructure.

The price tags they put on more data are almost certainly an attempt at
"market allocation" rather than the actual cost of the data. In other words,
the increased price on bandwidth lowers demand, hopefully to the level Comcast
is targeting. Think of electricity companies, and off-peak rates. They charge
more during peak load to drive the market to shift more load to off-peak
times.

~~~
al_bundling
> As I understand it the marginal cost of the first N gigabytes is
> approximately zilch, but N+1 gigabytes is $$$$- because they now have to
> upgrade the infrastructure.

Missed out a step there. It's not zero then suddenly $$$$. It's more a
question of gradual, usually low cost, equipment upgrades. All backhaul is via
fiber optics, so by switching optics you go from 1G/10G/100G to multiple
1G/10G/100G waves. You might need a new router blade or a bigger chassis at
some point.

Only if you really messed up do you need infrastructure upgrades. This might
mean splitting nodes, i.e. pulling a bit more fiber to hotspots, but that is
why you have spare empty conduits and excess fiber strands in your cables. If
you don't then you truly deserve all the misery you brought upon yourself.

------
jaytaylor
Pure unrestricted, unregulated capitalism. Pure monopoly. Pure evil.

Is the next question "how long will googlers in the Bay Area put up with such
a thing before [finally] rolling out FiOS here or nation-wide?"

~~~
guroot
It's not even close to unregulated capitalism. in many areas Comcast has a
legislated monopoly.

Google is not some magic unicorn that's going to save us from old bloated mega
corps like comcast. the only reason google rolls fiber to the places it does
is cause the local governments are willing to play ball. and the bay area
isn't known for it's streamlined government. in fact, you folks are at the
bottom of a very long list. ([http://pando.com/2014/02/25/having-being-burned-
once-before-...](http://pando.com/2014/02/25/having-being-burned-once-before-
google-wont-bring-fiber-to-san-francisco/))

The only thing that will save the US internet market is competition, google's
efforts are great, I'm not convinced it will be enough. I think innovations in
Wireless tech, that will allow more reliable and widespread WISP's will help.
The old guard of the wireline providers have built the walls quite high and it
will take time for even big players like google to wear them down.

------
malchow
I just want to point out how genius this is. Comcast, I suspect, spends 99% of
its time thinking about psychology and pricing.

They know that they want to continue to get about $150/mo from every American
family. All they are doing is back-plotting how to get there.

First, they start squeezing corporate network participants. But that won't get
them all the way there, and there's a regulatory risk there too. They've
already signed ad hoc net-neut agreements that limit this approach.

So they will definitely have to squeeze consumers. But they've been selling
"Internet at y Mbps" for decades now. They can't just flip to "10 GB / 50 GB /
100 GB / 500 GB Internet." Consumers (i.e. voters) would be outraged, and they
would lose the TWC deal, which is key to their 'Don't Be a Dumb Pipe Company'
strategy.

But they need to sew the seeds. So what do they do first? A discount for less
usage, rather than a surcharge for more usage. Same thing, different words. If
it's well tolerated, they'll steepen the gradient.

CMCSA is at a delicate liminal point. They are threading the needle
brilliantly.

Who would have thought that the American consumer would shift his media
consumption habits with whiplash rapidity away from cable and broadcast TV,
but that Comcast would survive in basically the exact same position?

------
pXMzR2A
Interesting pattern. All the top first responses are critical of Comcast while
responses to them are Comcast apologists. I suspect there is a strong Comcast-
paid presence in HN?

~~~
Aloha
I'd disagree with you - I'd bet there are a ton of general telecom folks
floating around - I've done work for the yellow carrier, as well as magenta,
red and orange, plus a regional RBOC. I get the technology, and strongly think
internet service should be a common carrier.

------
ddispaltro
Thank god for alternative internet providers like Monkeybrainz in SF.

This is like payday loans for internet service, taking advantage of the low
income population.

------
coldcode
I'd be for more leeway on pricing if in most places in the US the ISP wasn't a
monopoly. Competition is supposed to exist in a market economy. Comcast and
its ilk like to act as if competition exists but only on a national scale. On
my local city scale there is virtually no competition. That's the only scale
that matters.

------
batiudrami
Why in the US is ADSL not more prevalent? The Australian broadband sector is
very competitive and generally (unless you are very rural), there are hundreds
of companies competing for your business. As a result, prices have
consistently come down over time (when I first got ADSL in 2004 I got 1GB of
data at 256kbps for $50 (1)), now the same buys unlimited data at the fastest
my phone line will allow (14MBit)*. There are also no slowdowns during peak
periods - providers ensure sufficiant bandwidth is available. It seems strange
to me that the US is apparently locked into cable internet where only one or
two providers service entire cities.

(1) This is still fairly expensive but it is primarily because the majority of
traffic is international and must come through fairly limited bandwidth
undersea pipes. I would imagine the majority of traffic in the US is local and
therefore cheaper.

~~~
sliverstorm
There are all sorts of market reasons but I think a very important reason is
the death of the landline (POTS).

That is, many people have cut the POTS service, which means ADSL costs extra
(have to reactivate unneeded landline service)

~~~
Aloha
Most of the carriers now sell unbundled ADSL now (AT&T, CenturyLink and I
believe Verizon in non-fios markets.) it has more to do with distance
limitations having too much of a downward effect on speeds. More than less
subscribers are around the 5.5kf+ (kilotfoot) range, which usually means sub
15 megabit speeds - and a limited upload (inherent to all ADSL types).

------
been_fired
I live in one of the areas with the caps and this is how it plays out:

1\. I tell my wife to stop playing so many movies on netflix. 2\. I stopped
watching youtube or other video services unless I really, really want to see
something. 3\. I watch my internet usage and choose when to use it. 4\. I
cancelled Hulu. 5\. I grow suspicious of my neighbors when my usage seems high
as there is no breakdown of where usage comes from. 6\. I suspect comcast's
own services are not counted towards the meter, but can't prove anything. 7\.
I stopped playing so many games. 8\. I now strategize my downloads.

There is no real other choice in my area -- the closest competitor to Comcast
offers less than half the speed and only advertises for 1/4 the speed.

In my opinion, as someone affected by this, it's just a way to squeeze the
customer more and maintain a monopoly on content.

------
krob
I have Time Warner Cable which is pretty decent service.

300mbit/20mbit. I could burn though 300gb in probably 2.26 to 2.5 hours.

125kb/1mbit _300mbit /1sec = 125_300 = 37,500kb/sec 300gb = 300gb _1024mb /1gb
= 307,200mb 307.2gb / 37.5mb/sec = 307,200mb _ 1sec/37.5mb = 8192sec 8921sec /
1min/60sec / 1hr/60min = 2.27hrs

So my whole months worth of bandwidth gone on 10 large video games.

~~~
EStudley
If I purchase one steam humble bundle, I'd blow through a quarter of my data
cap just downloading the games.

------
mrbill
Switched to Comcast Business Class service four years ago. 50/10, 5 static
IPs, clueful LOCAL techs who don't rely on a script and speak English as a
first language. No caps whatsoever. I run my own web/mail servers.

I never thought I would say "I'm happy with my Comcast service", but then I do
pay $150/month for _just_ Internet.

------
thaumaturgy
Most of the comments here have already been posted to the Reddit thread that's
been at the top of the front page all day:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2mw2sw/comcast_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2mw2sw/comcast_to_begin_charging_for_data_usage_on_home/)

~~~
markcerqueira
I always saw HackerNews as a subset of Reddit, without all the silly puns and
jokes for the most part.

~~~
josefresco
True, but there are still many smart and informative comments on Reddit that
(if you wade through the noise) can add to the conversation. Reddit's reach is
extensive and attracts people who may not frequent HN.

------
mcmatterson
We went through this usage based billing (UBB, aka capacity based billing
(CBB)) thing here in Canada a couple of years back, where the incumbent
carriers (DSL and cable) somewhat successfully lobbied the CRTC to set
wholesale tariffs based on a mix of generally lower access fees (paid per
subscriber, specifying a certain connection speed but no actual traffic), and
interconnect fees (covering a certain interconnect speed between the
incumbent's network and the third party ISP's backhaul). The net effect of the
model is that a third party ISP's variable costs are essentially the cost of
their interconnect with the incumbent, and are dominated by their burst needs
during peak usage times. As a consequence, there are a number of business
models which this lends itself to (in terms of incentivizing users to shift
usage to off-peak times) in addition to straight download cap vs. unlimited
offerings. For example, some ISPs (like Teksavvy, for example) offer unlimited
plans with a reduction in speed during peak hours.

There was a LOT of debate on the subject on places like dslreports when this
was in front of the CRTC. The general consensus seemed to be that UBB in
principle is a good thing (it allows for more flexibility in third party ISP
business models, and roughly aligns costs with income for the incumbent)
although the particular tariff prices put forth by the incumbents were
inflated and suspect.

As a real-world benchmark, my third party provider (start.ca) offers a 30/5
cable plan with 200GB of usage for $45 CAD (roughly $40 USD) per month. Going
to an unlimited plan adds an extra $15 CAD to that, with the risk for overages
being borne by the ISP.

Of course, the incumbents' retail offerings are universally terrible (their
caps are laughably small, and their prices higher than any third party
provider). Because of the lack of separation between their retail and
wholesale operations, they're able to offer (presumably loss leader)
promotions that third party providers simply can't, and have the benefit of
being able to structure their tariff offerings to screw third party providers
wherever possible. So that part of the regulatory environment sucks.

Overall though it feels like a decent model (although the actual tariff prices
are quite out of line, particularly for interconnect fees). $60 CAD a month
for unlimited 30/5 is a fair price in my mind, and if my needs ever change
there are enough third party provider with enough diverse business models that
I'd likely find something that works for me.

------
chrisBob
Everyone complains about Comcast, but how many people here have an option in
their area and still use Comcast?

I have RCN service at my house, but most people I know here and in DC still
use Comcast. Some of that may be because the smaller providers don't advertise
as well, but there must be some people actively choosing Comcast service.

~~~
ncallaway
I despise Comcast. I hate themm.

I currently have Comcast as my ISP. They provide 50Mbps service to my
residence. The next closest provider maxes out at 7Mbps.

20Mbps is, realistically, my floor for bandwidth. If any other provider
offered service at >= 20Mbps I would leave Comcast in a heartbeat.

------
c0ur7n3y
Rent seeking at it's most obvious.

------
al_bundling
For reference: wholesale bandwidth cost is about 0.1 cents per GB.

------
hawleyal
This is going to get major pushback from all content providers like Netflix,
Pandora, et al.

~~~
al_bundling
It's not like there's much they can do as they aren't Comcast's customers.

~~~
hawleyal
They can directly point to Comcast as the problem. They can lobby lawmakers
just as Comcast can. In my opinion, this is going to be a problem for them,
and any of these content providers have way stronger voices than a single
customer.

------
hw
Not complaining too much as long as there's fair warning when hitting certain
thresholds of the cap. Worst thing I want is not unknowingly exceeding the
threshold and getting billed an extra 100$

~~~
al_bundling
I'm sure there's going to be a fair bit of complaining as time goes by and
normal usage grows but caps stay the same.

------
Aloha
This is old news.

Comcast, TWC, and AT&T are all doing bit bucket tiered service now.

10 bucks for 50 gigs seems quite reasonable to me, honestly.

~~~
simoncion
In San Francisco, Comcast residential service has no data transfer caps.

------
Vanayad
Hahaha... Americans.

