[digitalwanderer]

Got a message this morning from Comcast CSA (consumer security agency) that if I didn't call them back promptly I could have my internet service cut, so I called 'em back. Seems they have caps at Comcast that I exceeded last month; their cap is 250GB and we used 850+GB. They wanted to let me know that if I exceeded the cap this month they were going to disconnect my service and not allow us to reconnect for 1 year.

So of course I panicked a bit.

The dude told me that I could check my current monthly usage online at their site, so I went there and looked..and looked, and looked to no avail for any usage meter. Tried their silly online chat thing to find it only to be told that it was "rolled out in Virginia last month" and it might not be available in my area yet. So I check my router and since I was a bright puppy who put DD-WRT on it has some decent monitoring features. I check and sure enough last month it was 866677MB, and this month we're currently at 213924MB.





After a bit of panicking I poke around further in DD-WRT and see my last 8 months or so of usage, I note something odd...can you see what it is?

Aug 09 - 427487
Sep 09 - 574691
Oct 09 - 750379
Nov 09 - 583838
Dec 09 - 496725
Jan 10 - 471111
Feb 10 - 661132
Mar 10 - 866677
Apr 9 so far - 213924

Last month was a bit on the large size for us, but nothing out of the ordinary. We've been using well over their cap for quite a while, why they hassling us now?

So I go back to my buddy on the phone, well a new buddy. He informs me that since they don't have working usage meters in my area that he doesn't think they'd suspend us, but when I mention they already said they would he explained that either our account went past some invisible threshold to be noticed or else traffic in our area increased so they'd lowered the invisible threshold...but either way the only way he could guarantee that we kept our service was if we stayed under 250GB/mos.

Thanked him, hung up, went hunting up AT&T Uverse stuff. Turns out they have 24/3 in my area now for about the same price, but no caps....

...and that's where I is now.

[John Reynolds]

Good grief, almost 1TB in a single month?! That's a lot of porn, Diggie.

[digitalwanderer]

Hey, it's not all porn....and there are four of us here.

I'm planning on Comcast killing us off at the end of the month, but I'm giving my wife the rest of this month to change her e-dress...she still uses her Comcast one. I've been on her for months/years now to change to a gmail one so it's always there, but she's ignored me. Now she can't.

That's the only thing holding me back right now, as soon as she gets that done I think we'll be moving on. I'm just now trying to figure if I want to move internet/phone/tv or just internet/phone, but I figure I got the rest of this month to work that out.

[V3]

That's impressive. There was a time when my ISP was pastering me for using over 1 GB in a month in their no cap plan and yet claimed excessive usage. Gotta read those fine print.

Good thing they don't charge you for going over your cap. I knew of plans that would charge you $1 per MB over your cap. I guess when the ISP network is overloaded they just have to be strict.

[Grall]

I'll have to echo JR's remark of good grief, Digi... How can you burn so much data, is it all hentai torrents or what?

And good grief on your ISP banning you FOR A YEAR, what the hell? They must not want customers it seems! The US really is bass-ackwards when it comes to ISPs, pretty much all service plans I see mentioned in forums are (often much) slower and/or more expensive and/or capped compared to what you can get around here.

I feel sorry for what you're missing out on, being the world leaders and all as you are.

[RobertR1]

I need to dump comcast for cable + net, I'm not playing $200 a month. Unfortunately for me, I don't have options for FIOS or U-verse in the area. Just high speed DSL from ATT which has proven to be crap in the past.

I could keep the net connection but then price jumps.

[digitalwanderer]

That's where I thought I was too when I talked to Comcast, you can't imagine how glad I was when I found out U-verse was available in my area now. It wasn't the last time I checked.

[Dr Evil]

Originally Posted by John Reynolds

Good grief, almost 1TB in a single month?! That's a lot of porn, Diggie.

28GB per day. Lol I don't even wan't to know more

edit: About 325 KB/s 24/7 for the month. I quess there would be room for more! Do you have 24Mb connection Digi?

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

After a bit of panicking I poke around further in DD-WRT and see my last 8 months or so of usage, I note something odd...can you see what it is?

Are you sure there's no one hacking your wi-fi?

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

Last month was a bit on the large size for us, but nothing out of the ordinary. We've been using well over their cap for quite a while, why they hassling us now?

They used secret caps, and couldn't really do much because they wouldn't tell anyone what the caps were or how provide a way to monitor usage. A few months back I read they'd started rolling out a monitor, and had publicly stated the 250 gb a month cap. Personally, I don't think that's enough for a tech savvy family. At more reasonable speeds (say 20 mbit), that's only about an hour's usage a day.

I can imagine with your kids being into Steam and downloading the same game multiple times to different PCs, watching/listening to streaming, etc you can burn up the bandwidth.

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

Thanked him, hung up, went hunting up AT&T Uverse stuff. Turns out they have 24/3 in my area now for about the same price, but no caps....

...and that's where I is now.

I'd say screw Comcast. They obviously want to put their energies into preventing people using the service, instead of providing the service that people want. You can only vote with your money and move elsewhere.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

28GB per day. Lol I don't even wan't to know more

edit: About 325 KB/s 24/7 for the month. I quess there would be room for more! Do you have 24Mb connection Digi?

Uhm, a bit better actually:

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

Are you sure there's no one hacking your wi-fi?

Insanely so, I was very paranoid about it at one time and locked it down hard as well as monitoring it.

I'd say screw Comcast. They obviously want to put their energies into preventing people using the service, instead of providing the service that they people want. You can only vote with your money and move elsewhere.

Yup, I couldn't agree more. I'm getting ready for the switch but not making it until they cut us, I really do like my current connection.

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, I was thinking of switching to Comcast a couple months ago until I found out.

1. There's a soft-cap in place of 250 GB/month.
2. There's a moving hard cap in place. The hard cap is based on being over 250 GB in one month, being the largest "abuser" of bandwidth that month, and total aggregate bandwidth useage by everyone on your trunk for that month being relatively high (IE - approaching or at the limits of the trunk).

So, basically what that means is... Digi must have been one of the top bandwidth users on his trunk for that month and total bandwidth useage for all users on that trunk was pretty high. Thus triggering the system and requiring a call to the customer. I don't think the system is triggered unless the bandwidth for the trunk a person is on is basically saturated, so if you're lucky enough to be the only one that ever uses a lot of bandwidth on your trunk, then you'll probably never get a call even if you use over a TB/month.

So, I ended up sticking with 7/1 ADSL due to no caps. Only Qwest and Comcast here in my part of the woods. Unfortunately, I've noticed with my ADSL, that while there are no caps, if total aggregate bandwidth by all users of a DSLAM (I think that's the proper term) is saturated, then it'll start to actively average out available bandwidth to all users. So on certain nights I'll have slower than max transfers.

OH, and Comcast has had those caps in place since around Janurary of 2009 in all areas. It was tested in select areas starting in 2008 I think. Digi just happened to finally trigger it by being the head honcho of bandwidth hogging for the month.

Regards,
SB

[Malo]

Coming from Australia originally, I don't think I could ever call a company F#CKS$ for complaining that I downloaded almost a terabyte in a month.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

There's a moving hard cap in place. The hard cap is based on being over 250 GB in one month, being the largest "abuser" of bandwidth that month, and total aggregate bandwidth useage by everyone on your trunk for that month being relatively high (IE - approaching or at the limits of the trunk).

So, basically what that means is... Digi must have been one of the top bandwidth users on his trunk for that month and total bandwidth useage for all users on that trunk was pretty high. Thus triggering the system and requiring a call to the customer. I don't think the system is triggered unless the bandwidth for the trunk a person is on is basically saturated, so if you're lucky enough to be the only one that ever uses a lot of bandwidth on your trunk, then you'll probably never get a call even if you use over a TB/month.

So, I ended up sticking with 7/1 ADSL due to no caps. Only Qwest and Comcast here in my part of the woods. Unfortunately, I've noticed with my ADSL, that while there are no caps, if total aggregate bandwidth by all users of a DSLAM (I think that's the proper term) is saturated, then it'll start to actively average out available bandwidth to all users. So on certain nights I'll have slower than max transfers.

OH, and Comcast has had those caps in place since around Janurary of 2009 in all areas. It was tested in select areas starting in 2008 I think. Digi just happened to finally trigger it by being the head honcho of bandwidth hogging for the month.

Hey thanks, that explains it all rather nicely and makes sense.

Originally Posted by Malo

Coming from Australia originally, I don't think I could ever call a company F#CKS$ for complaining that I downloaded almost a terabyte in a month.

Yeah, I heard about the limits there. A buddy of mine has a 10GB/mos cap, (HEY PJ! ), which I just can't wrap my head around!

Blame it on me being a spoiled american and all.

[Rolf N]

Holy effing shit sir! I just checked and I apparently used 19GB in March. And I always considered my internet use excessive!

[Malo]

And in related news:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/FCC-lo...90100.html?x=0

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "network neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

[zed]

Yeah, I heard about the limits there. A buddy of mine has a 10GB/mos cap

Ive just upgraded to a 10gb month (which means im one of the better ones in nz), previously I had 3gb. IIRC the most common plan in nz is 200mb/month i.e. 0.2GB!!!!
and to think here used to be one of the world leaders in internet usage (last century)

[Bludd]

Originally Posted by zed

Ive just upgraded to a 10gb month (which means im one of the better ones in nz), previously I had 3gb. IIRC the most common plan in nz is 200mb/month i.e. 0.2GB!!!!
and to think here used to be one of the world leaders in internet usage (last century)

Data traffic to Oz and NZ is so expensive because the way they get the data into and out of the country is by homing pigeon. Each pigeon has a small SSD strapped on.

[Frank]

I only have 8 Mb/s (really no cap), while their recent advertising guarantees a minimum of 16 Mb/s (up to 40 Mb/s, if you're lucky).

The irritating thing is, they don't auto-increase the current subscribers, you have to call them and tell them you want to quit every year. Then they'll tell you that they have this great deal for you: the best service for half the price in the next year.

It stinks, but as long as you call them every year, you have the best for cheap. I'm almost due for "renewal".

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Malo

And in related news:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/FCC-lo...90100.html?x=0

Yup its a travisty that these companys get away with this shit.

I'm waiting for a class action law suit against unlimited adds when they aren't really unlimited.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by eastmen

Yup its a travisty that these companys get away with this shit.

I'm waiting for a class action law suit against unlimited adds when they aren't really unlimited.

That's probably why they really are unlimited over here: false advertising is illegal and that's strictly enforced.

That's not to say that they don't try to limit the bandwidth versus expenses in different ways and there is still a lot of fine print, as I posted above.

I was a customer of @home before, and they did auto-increase the bandwidth every year, but their customer service was really the pits.

Then again, the customer service of my current provider turned out to be very friendly and polite, but much worse in the technical department. I have had to have them on the phone for almost 30 hours(!!!) last year when upgrading my subscription.

There's only bad and worse in that respect.

[itsmydamnation]

Originally Posted by Bludd

Data traffic to Oz and NZ is so expensive because the way they get the data into and out of the country is by homing pigeon. Each pigeon has a small SSD strapped on.

while one would think its international transit that costs, it isn't really. two things that really kill internet in OZ:

1. peering agreements, ISP have to peer with each other, if two ISP have an equal amount of data that each others customers want then they normally peer to each other for free. There is no data that anyone wants in OZ so our ISP's have to pay higher amounts to peer to tier 1 providers.

2. no access mile or DSLAM to POP compitition, for the majority of NZ and OZ there is only 1 provider of local access (generally POTS) and only 1 or two more doing backhaul from exchanges to POP's.

yeah we get raped internet cost wise. im on a "premium" ISP $60 a month for 60gigs but i do get free usenet access via giganews and astraweb.

most people in OZ get sucked into marketing from the big telco's and end up on 24month contracts @ $100 a month for 10gig. "but we save 10% off our total bill they say "

[MfA]

Originally Posted by itsmydamnation

There is no data that anyone wants in OZ

Pshaw, everyone wants warez (50% of internet traffic is P2P). Maybe Aussies are all just leeches

[itsmydamnation]

the big telco's include both uploading and downlaoding in there tiny quotas. so yes OZ is full of leechers. but it also has to do with scale and OZ ISP's are tiny in the grand scheme of things.

[digitalwanderer]

Well we just passed 250GB today sometime a few hours ago, my Rubicon is crossed.

[MrGaribaldi]

So are you going to see if you can get to 1TB before they cut you off?