Comcast to Make Monthly Internet Use Cap Official

Friday 29 August 2008

Comcast to Make Monthly Internet Use Cap Official
Internet service provider Comcast announces limits to amount of data customers can upload and download. (Photo: iStockPhoto / Comcast)

New York - Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, Thursday said it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month.

On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site.

Comcast has already reserved the right to cut off subscribers who use too much bandwidth each month, without specifying exactly what constitutes excessive use.

"We've listened to feedback from our customers who asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive," the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Customers who go over the limit are contacted by the company and asked to curb their usage.

"We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily," the company said.

Comcast floated the idea of a 250 gigabyte cap in May and mentioned then that it might charge users $15 for every 10 gigabytes they go over, but the overage fee was missing in Thursday's announcement.

Curbing the top users is necessary to keep the network fast and responsive for other users, Comcast has said.

Comcast stressed that the bandwidth cap is far above the median monthly usage of its customers, which 2 to 3 gigabytes.

Very few subscribers use more than 250 gigabytes, it said. A user could download 125 standard-definition movies, about four per day, before hitting the limit.

The cap is also above those of some other ISPs. Cox Communications' monthly caps vary from 5 gigabytes to 75 gigabytes depending the subscriber's plan. Time Warner Cable Inc. is testing caps between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes in one market. Frontier Communications Co., a phone company, plans to start charging extra for use of more than 5 gigabytes per month.

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Comments

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this what's known as baby

Fri, 08/29/2008 - 17:44 — Anonymous (not verified)

this what's known as baby steps. more and more control they will take. same as govt. stay aware.

Guess I'll be going back to

Fri, 08/29/2008 - 20:23 — Anonymous (not verified)

Guess I'll be going back to Qwest soon. Comcast doesnt own the internet and to think they have the right to limit internet usage is lame. Perhaps a better move would have been to up their speed and lower their price.

This industry needs

Sun, 08/31/2008 - 11:46 — Anonymous (not verified)

This industry needs regulation in the public interest, as long as consumer choice is limited to whomever owns the "last mile" from the backbone to the home or office. Here is an example of regulation that hasn't worked in the public interest. I live in New York State, in a place where there are *no* choices at all, other than dialup, using 50-year-old telco pairs. Have you tried to use dialup lately? Websites aren't oriented to dialup bandwidth any more. Why are there no choices for me? Where have my dialup surcharges been going -- the ones that were supposed to pay for the buildout of universal internet service? This situation makes me angry.

yup... time to change

Mon, 09/01/2008 - 22:58 — Bearzerker (not verified)

yup... time to change carriers me thinks, the nerve of this provider to try and force an exploitation on us the consumers! We need to pass a law recognizing the internet in the same way that we recognize public libraries, and give privately and publicly as much as we can to ensure its peaceful delivery and operation... the Internet is best described as a public library source which has been hijacked by and being regulated by "outsiders" corportists who are trying to control our consumption habits through this medium... Is it only me that see's this as not only wrong but as actually the same highly questionable and dubious model that was put forth by the now long defunct ERON Corp... by building chargeable consumer markets out of currently free and open domains... its not only wrong its criminal! hammer a final nail in this model by boycotting this provider and any provider using this business model... leave in protest... but let the shareholders know why! usage charges are just wrong here... and is a principle that should never have been crossed. Thank God it's in the light now and is plain for all to see! First they control web traffic flow through their access [choke] points and filter and spy content as they see fit ...all the while stealing the bandwidth from their paying subscribers! for their privilege of spying on you... for $$$ ...and now they want you to pay for all this again to ensure we all get their regulated spamvertizements as well? frak that! talk with your wallet and avoid these cretins as the vermin they are! jdfu

Look, I have no love for

Fri, 09/05/2008 - 14:44 — Greg (not verified)

Look, I have no love for Comcast, I already advise people not to sign on with them because of some of their political maneuvers that I've heard about but I don't really see this as being all that sinister. I mean, we want the internet to be free from censorship, but we all understand that we have to pay for a certain level of service, right? I'll admit this probably sucks if you are one of the heavy users they are talking about. If you have an existing contract you might even argue that you should be grandfathered in, or that they should give people who don't want to switch to the new deal a price break. In the long-run this is probably all moot anyway. I expect that the trend is towards more data being uploaded and downloaded from every home, not less. I doubt that even the isps and network carriers have any interest in pushing less data- though they may prefer to push different data from what the customers want. But I don't see a download cap of 250 gigabytes a month as a freedom issue. It looks more like an economic issue to me.

I had the same situation

Sun, 09/07/2008 - 00:47 — Anonymous (not verified)

I had the same situation with dial up. Meaning sites just not for dial up anymore. The price for it was too much and going up. Sadly, Qwest isn't available in my area and Comcast has a monopoly. I can't even get Verizon DSL or something similar to that. It's dial up or Comcast. I agree that we are being spied on. In every way they can. It's infuriating.