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3 edits | [Caps] The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed my Internet Hello -
My name is Andre, and today Comcast cut me off from using their broadband internet service at my home for one year due to their data cap policy. I have detailed my experience on my blog, and as promised in it, wanted to send you a copy of this letter.
The blog post can be found here: »www.ozymandias.com/the-day-comca···r-1-year
And I'll include the full text of the post below as well.
I am available for interviews or policy discussions if you feel I can help.
Thank you for your time!
Sincerely,
Andre Vrignaud
email: andre at ozymandias.com
blog: »ozymandias.com
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The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed my Internet for 1 Year
What Happened:
Today I came home to find my 15 MB down/3 MB up Comcast broadband service had been shut off due to exceeding their 250 GB/month data cap policy.
This had happened the month before, and I called and had a polite but irritated conversation with Comcast’s “Customer Security” department (since the regular customer service folks could not help.) According to them I had exceeded their 250 GB monthly cap, and they asked how that might have happened. I told them the simple truth – no idea, other than regular people were probably using it a lot for reasonable things. I have roommates, we stream Netflix HD movies and Pandora music incessantly to multiple devices in the home, and I also have an open access point (in addition to a secured AP that I use to access internal network resources) for guests. I asked if they could share what was using the majority of the data so I could go address it directly, but Comcast refused to share any information there (which is probably appropriate).
I made very clear to the gentleman I spoke with that I thought Comcast’s data cap policy was arbitrary, unfair, and extremely irritating… and that if I had any decent competitive options in the neighborhood I’d dump Comcast in a heartbeat. Since I don’t, I listened to him read his canned warning that if I exceeded their cap again I’d be cut off again. I do not recall details on how long the cut off would be, likely because I spent the next few minutes working with the service agent to add notes to my record about my detailed displeasure with Comcast’s policy here. I specifically noted (and asked that it be recorded) that if this happened again I would contact the FCC, various news organizations, and otherwise make a stink. The CS agent was polite and reactivated my broadband. After hanging up I chatted with my roommates, asked them to keep an eye on bandwidth use, and also deactivated the open AP I had maintained for visitors (with regret, but this was the only area I could think of that I couldn’t completely account for bandwidth use.) Then I forgot about the whole thing until today when I found I’d been cut off again.
I called up Comcast and went through customer service hell – a Comcast special, I might note. First their regular customer service agent couldn’t help me, and sent me to their “Customer Security” group again. The Customer Security agent was polite, and after the standard identification questions notified me I was cut off for a year due to exceeding Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy limits on their bandwidth cap. I asked for details on what had been using bandwidth, and again, Comcast would not share. In a sudden brainstorm, I then asked whether the 250 GB bandwidth cap applied to just downloads (which I had assumed, as the majority of most bandwidth used in households is downstream bandwidth), or download and upload bandwidth. Surprise, surprise! Comcast measures both upstream and downstream bandwidth – and it suddenly clicked for me.
I’m a photographer and audiophile. I shoot all of my pictures in RAW format, and I store the many hundreds and hundreds of CDs I’ve purchased over the last 20 years or so in a variety of lossless and lossy music formats. In the case of music I rip my CDs to WMA Lossless (for ease of streaming to Windows), FLAC (another lossless format, so I can stream losslessly to my Sonos system), and M4A (also known as Apple’s iTunes AAC format, so I can import my music from the media server to iTunes). I’m a big believer in storing the original, lossless digital content so that I can access it in full fidelity in the future no matter how technology evolves. In some ways that makes me a bit archaic as I still buy (used) CDs from Amazon for all of my music so I can rip it losslessly – I’m not a fan of the compressed music formats you buy and download. But the ramification is that I have terabytes of storage in my basement RAID server – each music track is duplicated three times, I have all of my original RAW photos, plus processed JPEG versions of those RAW photos, as well as a variety of other miscellaneous content – documents, spreadsheets, that sort of thing.
This stuff is valuable to me, and I recently purchased a three-year subscription to Carbonite so I could back all of this content up to the cloud. I also recently saw Amazon’s announcement of being able to upload unlimited M4A/AAC tracks to their Cloud Drive service, and decided to upload my library there so I could access it when on the road. And it turns out uploading all of this content to the cloud triggered Comcast’s bandwidth cap and caused me to be cut off from the internet – again. It was never clear to me that Comcast measures both upload and download bandwidth, and I suspect many people are going to be surprised by this in the coming years, especially as the cloud continues to become more and more a part of our lives.
Anyway, to close out the Comcast call, I asked to be reinstated and he said it was final – no appeal. I asked to escalate to a manager so I could explain my situation, and he stated there was no escalation, and repeated there was no appeal. I then asked for customer service email or other contact information so I could CC the company on a blog post (which you are reading now) and letter I would be sending to the FCC, Public Knowledge organization, New Media Foundation, the city of Seattle’s Mayor’s Office, and my Seattle City Council representative. He said he could connect me to the customer escalation line, but also stated it would not help – they wouldn’t consider removing the cap. At that point I said I wouldn’t bother wasting my time with the customer escalation line, and that I’d like to cancel my broadband. He politely said he understood, and that he’d transfer me to the appropriate department.
Time to return to Comcast customer service hell! After a few minutes I spoke with another gentlemen in the Technical Support and Billing division I’d been transferred to who, surprise, couldn’t help me since I was cancelling my (now defunct) service. He then transferred me to (wait for it!) the Retention department, since they’re apparently the only ones who can cancel a Comcast cable account. Yes, after Comcast applied their ridiculous policy and told me they didn’t want me as a customer, I was transferred to the Retention department where they insisted on driving through their spiel until I could finally interrupt, say it wasn’t going to work, and explain my situation. At which point the agent said: “Oh. I’ll take care of it, thank you for calling Comcast .” As of this moment I have no idea if I’ve been cancelled or not.
My Opinion:
My opinion on all this is simple. The ability to access broadband internet is a right, and should be defined as an essential utility. Just as you’re surprised when you flick a light switch and the light doesn’t come on so are you surprised when the internet goes away in your house. The internet is used for communication, entertainment, business — an entire panopoly of humor endevours. Just as there are protections to keep water and electricity flowing to your house, so should the internet be protected.
Now the broadband companies would strongly disagree with me here. They’re terrified of being turned into dumb pipes that only deliver data. This is why you see such vicious fights over the definition of internet neutrality, and cable companies fighting to be able to restrict services that flow over their pipes, inspect packets, or have the right to charge more for differing levels of service. They try to spin this as protecting the integrity of the network for other customers, and not having to charge more to offer service that some small percentage of their users overuse. However, these same companies are also strangely quiet when you ask them why (as in Comcast’s case) they’re able to keep boosting my broadband speed tier year after year for no additional charge. Or why their quarterly filings show their cost of providing broadband service continues to drop year after year, while rates keep going up. It doesn’t add up.
Ramifications:
Here’s what’s frightening about all this: today Comcast blocked me from using a potentially competitive music service from Amazon. Even worse, today Comcast disconnected me from the ever-evolving cloud services I use each and every day for life and work.
Amazon deserves a lot of credit for pushing the bounds on what we can do on the internet. Their recent announcement of storing unlimited music in their Cloud Drive service is a compelling alternative to Apple’s iCloud solution, and one that many might choose to use – if Comcast allows it. Are you listening Amazon?
And it gets worse – I work as a entertainment industry consultant, and depend on cloud services such as Dropbox, Simplenote, Google Apps, and Google Docs for day to day work. I use streaming online services such as Netflix, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Pandora every day for both work and play. I send and receive data all the time and have never had a problem with my $60/month broadband plan until A) Comcast added their data caps, and B) I really started engaging in using new cloud-based services (meaning uploading data to those services so I could get value from them).
Comcast will try to spin this, and say 250 GB is plenty for anyone – and in fact, a large percentage of their network users today probably really don’t hit this cap right now. What they don’t want to say is that streaming services such as Netflix now consume a quarter of network traffic monthly, and is projected to rise – all of which impacts the cable TV services they sell.
The last report in October suggested it made up around twenty percent of internet traffic during prime time, but this time around the stats say it accounts for 30% of traffic during prime time, and 22.2% of daily internet traffic. Sandvine gets the data from ISPs using its broadband technology and now foresees “Real-Time Entertainment” (which includes Netflix) shooting up over 55% of peak internet traffic by the end of this year.
- Engadget: Study finds Netflix is the largest source of internet traffic in North America
And in the Netflix case, 99% of that data is downstream data. Comcast doesn’t broadly advertise the fact that their cap also counts upload data – and I strongly believe as more and more people begin to “get” the cloud they’re going to want to upload their valued data to services where they can engage with it in new and interesting ways. And until broadband is deemed an essential utility, and broadband providers like Comcast can’t set an arbitrary limit and cut people off, our shared cloud-enabled future is at risk. To this end, I will be contacting various political entities in Seattle in the hope of trying to encourage either greater competition and choice in the broadband market (break Comcast’s cable monopoly, and allow fiber to the home!), as well as greater investment in a citywide, city-run broadband network.
What am I Doing:
Well, first off, I’m writing this post to lay out the facts, as well as my opinion, as to the ramifications of broadband companies like Comcast being allowed to enforce data caps and cut people off from the internet. As I mentioned earlier, I will be sending a copy of this blog post to the following people and agencies:
FCC: Sharon Gillett, Chief, Wireline Competition Bureau
FCC: Chairman Julius Genachowski; Commissioner Michael Copps; Commissioner Robert McDowell; Commissioner Mignon Clyburn; Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker
Public Knowledge Interest Group (Their letter to the FCC is here, and good reading.)
Harold Feld, Legal Director Public Knowledge
Sascha Meinrath, Director New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative
City of Seattle Mayor’s Office
Tom Rassmussen, Seattle City Council Representative
Stop the Cap!
I’ve also tweeted out a summary of what happened, will tweet a link to this blog post, and will also reach out to a few media folks I know in case they’re interested in writing this up. I’ll also be exploring what other broadband options I might have in Seattle – but thanks to Comcast’s monopoly, my choices aren’t great.
That said, if Qwest/CenturyLink (or any other broadband provider) wants to run fiber to my house on the top of the hill in Montlake, Seattle, and put up a broadcast antenna to serve the neighborhood – I’m in. Contact me at the links on this blog, or at andre at ozymandias.com. Seriously.
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 sortofageekNot TroublePremium,Mod
join:2001-08-19
There & Then
kudos:13 | reply to Ozymandias
Re: [BW Meter] The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed my Inter Andre, please see your instant messages.
»Site FAQ »IMs and Privacy | |
 JohnInSJPremium
join:2003-09-22
San Jose, CA
 ·PHONE POWER
 ·Comcast
1 edit | reply to Ozymandias
Re: [BW Meter] The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed my Inter said by Ozymandias:My name is Andre, and today Comcast cut me off from using their broadband internet service at my home for one year due to their data cap policy. So, you agreed to the TOS, and then violated the TOS, and then when Comcast did what the TOS say they would do when you violated the TOS, you're suprised?
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My place : »www.schettino.us | | |
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 baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI
·Comcast
·magicjack.com
1 edit | reply to Ozymandias
Kudos on being thorough, but the Comcast TOS is clear. Since you did it once, were warned, and did it again, they shut off your services.
No company is going to run a line up to your home, and install an open broadcast antennea. As a broadband company, they would end up losing possible subscriptions, not to mention the initial cost of doing it.
You may want to contact Comcast and see if they will open a business account for you. Its a little more expensive, but capless. | |
| reply to Ozymandias
Re: [Caps] The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed my Internet I agree with the above posters... You agreed to their TOS and violated it, twice. Nothing you can do about it now except try to get them to allow you a business account.
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»www.TheExoticFish.com | |
| said by ExoticFish:I agree with the above posters... You agreed to their TOS and violated it, twice. Nothing you can do about it now except try to get them to allow you a business account.
+1
did you ever monitor your usage?
copied from..»[Caps] Went 5GB over limit, got warning call from comcast
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 LoPhatPhuudPremium,VIP,MVM
join:2002-01-06
Albuquerque, NM
kudos:23 | reply to Ozymandias
I suspect the OP went over the cap far more times than the one or two he is admitting to.
But TOS is TOS and he violated it. | |
 MOWAA
join:2010-03-25
Fort Lauderdale, FL | reply to Ozymandias
I think we need to look outside of the box and find out why our socitey allows TOS/ELUA's in the first place.
Far too long businesses have been protected, its time now for the consumers to run the show. If this leads to the downfall of business as we know it then so be it.
I have two cows and a goat to trade for 50 Xbox 360 games, 20 DVD's, 200CD's and 1/10th of Amazons Book collection.. any takers? | |
| reply to Ozymandias
What I don't understand is why since you knew the vast amount of data you were using (obviously based on the number of services you used alone, not counting all your roommates and friends) and admit that a great bit of use was not personal but also business, didnt you sign up for business tier?
Sorry, I have little sympathy. | |
 chambercPremium
join:2008-08-05
Irving, TX | reply to Ozymandias
I just checked the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Broadband access isn't a right. | |
 tshirtPremium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:3
·Comcast
| reply to Ozymandias
Since the OP by his own description is quite technically competent and was well aware of the cap and had been warned at least twice, and then set up a backup program which he SHOULD have known would put his account over the limit, I can't feel any sympathy for his loss of service.
Given his technical background I am quite sure that he was either previously aware of switching to a business accout to avoid the cap, or became aware of it when notified of exceeding it.
There are plenty of alternetetives available in most of the seattle area (though some may be substanially more expensive).
I find his whining over how ComCast is restricting his rights to be pathetic attempt to protest the cap. | |
| reply to Ozymandias
While I'm not a fan of the cap, this is ridiculous. You knew it was there. You were given a warning. | |
 gar187erI do this for a living
join:2006-06-24
Dover, DE
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to Ozymandias
Re: [Caps] The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed my Internet you agreed to a TOS, and REPEATEDLY violated this TOS...no sympathy....
even after they told you about exceeding the cap the first time, you then went and got an online storage account...really dude?!?!?!
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I'm better than you! | |
| some will feel for him. Mainly the editor of the site since he hates Comcast and any cap. hell after it all this blog post/story made news and nicely leaves out the fact that the OP violated the cap and KNEW he did before! | |
 CJPCPremium
join:2001-02-20
Charlestown, MA | reply to chamberc
said by chamberc:I just checked the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Broadband access isn't a right.
Not in a 200+ year old document, but the UN recently said that internet access is a human right. The problem becomes when Comcast (or any ISP) is the only game in town.
As much as I hate the cap, still better than the caps that are faced by our friends to the north, 100GB is a luxury!
At the very least, a Rollover cap would have been something, use unused bandwidth the next month! | |
gar187erI do this for a living
join:2006-06-24
Dover, DE
kudos:1 | he had the right to get it, and voilated those rights...reasonable use....and dont even say his was reasonable use (backing up TBs of RAW files, and AAC)
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I'm better than you! | |
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| said by gar187er:he had the right to get it, and voilated those rights...reasonable use....and dont even say his was reasonable use (backing up TBs of RAW files, and AAC)
It's not a right, it's a privilege. Totally different. | |
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