
The Dark Lord of Broadband Tries to Fix Comcast's Image - makimaki
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-02/mf_brianroberts?currentPage=all
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quoderat
This is a naked money grab by Comcast, but geared more to the future than now.

Now, most people won’t use 250GB a month.

In the future — say 10 or 12 years — most people will use ten times that. This
gambit is just to get people used to metered, limited internet so they can
charge much more in the future when bandwidth usage is far higher. As a
cynical, Machiavellian profit strategy, it is a good one. Most will say, “Oh,
250GB! I’ll never use that!”

And then in three or four or six years, they will. And then they’ll get the
$500 internet bill in the mail. Comcast's bandwidth costs have done nothing
but go down over the years. I can get 250GB+ transfer from a hosting company
for $10 a month these days.

I will never use Comcast, and I urge everyone else to do the same. You will
get screwed over if you let them continue this backwards-looking strategy of
un-commoditization.

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Xichekolas
Somehow, this nearly made me feel warm and fuzzy about Comcast.

The part about the focus group turning on the guy who was downloading anime
movies was rather startling. Has the anti-piracy PR regime won so completely
that neighbors accuse each other of 'stealing bandwidth'?

My problem with cap-and-overage schemes is that it places the burden of
regulation on the user, who may not have the tools/knowledge to avoid paying
outrageous overage fees. I'd honestly prefer lower speed caps to total usage
caps. Advertising 20mbps internet that you can only use to capacity for 28
hours per month (250gb cap) is rather misleading IMHO.

If, on the other hand, my cable modem had a usage meter on the front of it
like my electric meter does, I'd be more accepting of usage caps.

