From reading the link fluiddruid provided (thank you!), Comcast’s cap isn’t even a hard one. Its not like you suddenly get shut down if you hit 250 gigs. You get a phone call from them advising you that you are an excessive user and you need to tone it down or risk a 12 month suspension of service. And their internet service tiers are solely based on speed, not usage, so the 250GB limit applies to everyone.
I really don’t see how anyone could watch over 100 hours of streaming HD content on Netflix in a month’s time, especially since the majority of their online content is not in HD, meaning even more hours of viewing time would be available without pressing the limit.
DETESTED Comcast when we had it. 10 min drop outs in internet service for no apparent reason, heaven forbid it should rain, then we’d lose all service for hours. Tell the tech on the other end of the help-line that you’ve lost service again because it’s raining, it always happens, and they insist that it’s on our end. We use VOIP too, so no service there + lousy cell reception at the house was a serious pain in the ass. My husband runs servers at home for the business, and he was always crabbing about bandwidth and their random changing of limits and isp’s.
Thank gods for EPB (Electric Power Board, our local utility co) that got their fiber optic service up and running and into our area ahead of schedule. Unbelievably fast, very stable, and much better sound quality for the phone. Comcast has taken a huge hit locally, and EPB has hired an insane number of contractors to get all the installations done.
:pPbthbthbthbthbthbthbth to you, Comcast!
I live in Chicago and when I had Comcast I hated them with a passion. They were an unbelievably terrible company to do business with. RCN (the other cable provider I can use) is a bit better but not much.
I now have DirectTV and they are light years better to deal with. I actually get a human on the phone in less than a minute when calling them, they resolve everything to my satisfaction so far and a typical call rarely lasts more than three minutes. Frankly problems are so rare with them I think I have only called three times in five years.
For data I use DSL…cable would get me a faster connection but my DSL is fine for me and I just hate Comcast so much I do not want to give them a dime.
I was with Comcast for years, in the Chicago suburbs, and their service was a pain in the ass. The Internet connection would drop for no good reason at least once each evening, which really sucks when you’re a WoW player who likes to raid with your guild and play an important role like healer or tank. At random times the picture would get heavily pixellated and even lag out. Plus it was expensive as hell - without any movie channels, Internet plus cable was over $150/month. You’d call about problems and they would deny anything was wrong and insist it was probably on our end, and that we’d probably be charged for whatever fix was needed. Nothing they did out here fixed anything.
They were shocked as hell when I called to cancel. The customer service guy on the other end weakly protested that he’d heard our replacement (AT&T UVerse) had a lot of pixellation problems (nope) and other issues. Instead, we’re getting four simultaneous DVR channels rather than two, and better service for about $100/month, and have been with them for a couple years now.
Any of you guys remember back a few months ago, when Dick Armey announced that the Tea Party was totally excited about the whole net neutrality thing, and fiercely protective of the rights of Comcast and Verizon? It was in the news about one day and poof! gone.
Gotta admit, I was a bit skeptical. Somebody loves Comcast?
What people who go over the cap aren’t telling you is that they secretly share the internet connection, often with family members or significant others.
If you’ve got 5 people using a connection, watching Netflix, watching Youtube, watching Hulu, downloading games from Steam, on multiple computers, then that eats up bandwidth real fast.
250 GB is a pretty high cap though in comparison to other ISPs I know, so I can’t fault Comcast for the number.
Well, since I’m sitting here at work waiting for a bunch of system updates to fire off at 10PM (and hoping I’ll be out of here by 11PM) I decided to look at my home router and see what I’ve got.
Assuming DD-WRT is reporting correctly:
June 2011 - Incoming - 1457892MB, Outgoing 1707708MB
May 2011 - Incoming - 1145409MB, Outgoing 1333998MB
April 2011 - Incoming - 595785MB, Outgoing 781358MB
Hmm. Good thing Comcast’s meter is busted in my area, I guess.
Comcast isn’t in my neighborhood, nor anywhere closer than a few hundred miles from me; Charter is the monopoly service provider. But I have noticed that the concept of a data cap often results in higher fees, and here’s how.
The cable TV company doesn’t charge more if you watch CNN TV 24 hours a day (I know people who do), but if you watch a similar show using the Internet, you will be charged more if you use more, or be forced to pay for a higher tiered account.
Since the overall trend is towards greater data usage (HD, Roku, more use of Internet streaming), it seems like a not so subtle way of increasing prices.
I have been a Comcast user for years and have been extremely satisfied with their service. I can probably count on one hand the number of outages I have experienced and I’ve been a customer for like 10 years.
Incidentally, I called and canceled our cable TV today because the introductory period lapsed and they were charging us something like $90/mo for TV. Thanks but no thanks. (Are there people who willingly pay that much or more for TV?!?!?)
I cut the Comcast cord around 2006, right around when Nextlix Instant became a viable alternative. I was on DSL after that until I moved last year and dumped my landline.
Now I have RCN cable ISP (Chicago) and I love it. I can get a human on the phone at 4am, and there is no data cap, no slowdown, no dropout. My speed test on YouTube shows me way above average for my area. It is $40 a month, so I don’t consider it cheap, but it’s worth it to me. What little TV I watch is terrestrial only. I haven’t missed cable TV at all.