 whfsdudePremium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC
 ·T-Mobile US
| reply to osravens
Re: Reasonable said by osravens:If this is the approach Comcast will take going forward, 500GB is reasonable for Blast, and I wouldn't consider that punitive.
Not really. You're restricting the activities that a household will do based on the cap. Onlive + Netflix + Backblaze + Bitcasa can eat up over a terabyte a month. |
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| Sure, any cap will be a restriction, but Blast is not one of the higher tiers. I'll withhold some judgment on the overall picture, not knowing what happens to Extreme, but very few people are ever coming close to using a terabyte per month currently. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect those people to pay for higher tiers for more usage. I do, however, think it's double dipping to charge those people for the higher speeds and then for the higher bandwidth. It should be common sense that the higher speed connection is going to use more bandwidth.
Comcast is at least showing they understand bandwidth usage is increasing, and that they're moving with the times. We have to give them credit for that. |
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whfsdudePremium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC Reviews:
·T-Mobile US
| said by osravens:I do, however, think it's double dipping to charge those people for the higher speeds and then for the higher bandwidth. It should be common sense that the higher speed connection is going to use more bandwidth.
(This is kind of on a tangent. and I'm not opposing your comment.)
If Comcast is trying to extend the life of their copper network and the caps were about limiting congestion, we should actually see an opposite of the what the plans reflect.
The most expensive plans would be slower speeds but would be unlimited.
Likewise, the high speed plans should be cheaper but capped. |
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 tshirtPremium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:3
 ·Comcast
1 edit | reply to whfsdude
So you might need to skip one or more of those activities, or buy more capacity to fill that "need". I'm guessing the "$10 per 50GB " or similar will still be available.
for those that have higher bandwidth desires Fios (in those few areas they go head to head) might be a better deal, for most ComCast will offer equal speeds and adquite capacity at a lower price point which seem to be a primary market driver right now. |
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| If I lived in a Comcast/FiOS market, I would still go FiOS because I feel they have a superior TV product. Also, still largely, higher upload. Of course, Verizon would rather offer me 3 Mbps DSL for all eternity, so I'm stuck.
But it's clear Comcast is lapping all the other cable companies in innovating with broadband. |
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whfsdudePremium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC Reviews:
·T-Mobile US
| said by osravens:If I lived in a Comcast/FiOS market, I would still go FiOS because I feel they have a superior TV product. Also, still largely, higher upload. Of course, Verizon would rather offer me 3 Mbps DSL for all eternity, so I'm stuck.
Not to get too local here but this applies to the DC Metro area, PHL, NJ/NYC, and Boston which are pretty big Comcast markets in the NE.
I know some users who are not switching to FiOS in DC even though it's available to them. This has actually been brought up a bunch of times on the local listservs and the subreddit.
1. The big reason to stay with Comcast here is they recently have been rolling out hundreds of hotspots in DC.
2. Price. Double play (TV + Internet) is about $20/mo cheaper.
3. Installation pains/effort.
With that said, Verizon is still finishing many neighborhoods and will have a complete rollout in the next year for all of DC proper. Conduit was just recently put up in my alley for FiOS and the tech doing it said by December at the latest for my whole neighborhood. If Comcast implements the cap in my neighborhood they will lose at least 50% of their customer base come next year. |
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| Don't forget Pittsburgh and Harrisburg in that.
Most of Allegheny County has FiOS now. I'm not sure of the deployment in Harrisburg, but I know it's in both Dauphin and Cumberland counties. |
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tshirtPremium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to whfsdude
said by whfsdude: If Comcast implements the cap in my neighborhood they will lose at least 50% of their customer base come next year.
You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?
how did they survive the 250GB cap?
BTW boston itself seems to be shunning Fios so that market can't really be on the list, and many of the others aren't fully rolled out.
Probably each service will have it's diehards, and a certain number will wander back and forth for a few promo discounts.
getting people to actually switch is very difficult, Fios had a big speed advantage (which most people wouldn't notice in a blind test) but now CC is close, CC is cheaper and can sit on that price for a while and even offer some promos, fios is still under priced for the debt load. (their wireline division is at a pathetic 2.8% margin, largely due to fios) investors expect the higher single digits or more for a regulated utility, so more price increases are almost inevitable.
And we've seen a number of people here that tried fios and then returned to a previous/different carrier.
It is apparently not nirvana for everyone. |
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whfsdudePremium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC Reviews:
·T-Mobile US
| said by tshirt: You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?
I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much.
how did they survive the 250GB cap?
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 NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI
·Comcast
 ·Callcentric
 ·Site5.com
| reply to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:said by osravens:If this is the approach Comcast will take going forward, 500GB is reasonable for Blast, and I wouldn't consider that punitive.
Not really. You're restricting the activities that a household will do based on the cap. Onlive + Netflix + Backblaze + Bitcasa can eat up over a terabyte a month. Of those services, only Netflix is one that a common household will use.
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My domain - Nightfall.net |
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tshirtPremium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to whfsdude
So you believe people will go through the hassle, learning curve and expense of changing over to a more expensive service, out of fear of a cap they never exceeded and was never enforced anyway?
I don't think most users are motivated enough to do that, and few would even care/notice a cap policy change unless they were warned at least once. |
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NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI Reviews:
·Comcast
·Callcentric
·Site5.com
| reply to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:said by tshirt: You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?
I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much. how did they survive the 250GB cap?
Was never enforced in DC. I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. It isn't like people are going over like crazy and the cap was never enforced. The bandwidth cap is not like the amount of minutes on a cell phone plan.
Now that you mention it though, maybe Comcast can increase profits by telling people they should get higher tiers of service in order to get more bandwidth that they will never use.
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My domain - Nightfall.net |
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whfsdudePremium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC Reviews:
·T-Mobile US
| said by Nightfall:I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. It isn't like people are going over like crazy and the cap was never enforced. The bandwidth cap is not like the amount of minutes on a cell phone plan.
But you have to understand that most users don't know or keep track of their bandwidth usage. Power users, sure. So they don't really know how much they are using or will use.
When there is viable competition (FiOS) that states Comcast charges overages if you use more than your allotted data, which provider do you think people will generally choose?
Wireless is probably a bad example to use because so much of it depends on the phone selection over the actual service. |
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NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI Reviews:
·Comcast
·Callcentric
·Site5.com
| said by whfsdude:said by Nightfall:I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. It isn't like people are going over like crazy and the cap was never enforced. The bandwidth cap is not like the amount of minutes on a cell phone plan.
But you have to understand that most users don't know or keep track of their bandwidth usage. Power users, sure. So they don't really know how much they are using or will use. When there is viable competition (FiOS) that states Comcast charges overages if you use more than your allotted data, which provider do you think people will generally choose? Wireless is probably a bad example to use because so much of it depends on the phone selection over the actual service. Very true, but consumers aren't going over the limit like crazy. The limit is set to high that nearly all consumers can use Netflix, email, and browse like crazy and never hit it. Now, when consumers start hitting that limit, Comcast will either need to educate them on the limit or increase the limit.
As for competition in every Comcast market, wake me up when that happens.
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My domain - Nightfall.net |
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 The LimitPremium
join:2007-09-25
Greensboro, NC
kudos:2 | reply to Nightfall
If only 1%, then why the caps? That sure is a small amount, shouldn't affect a mammoth like Comcast. |
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| reply to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:With that said, Verizon is still finishing many neighborhoods and will have a complete rollout in the next year for all of DC proper.
Believe it when I see it. |
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| reply to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:said by tshirt: You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?
I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much. how did they survive the 250GB cap?
Was never enforced in DC. I'll take it a step further. Some HD Netflix streaming (which Netflix defaults to when in Fullscreen Mode at 1366x768 and above), whether it be on PC, and Xbox 360 or other console, or Roku box will use Gigs upon Gigs of data before anything else is accounted for.
As for how they survived the 250GB cap, it was a soft cap that was rarely, if ever, enforced. I know I broke it on roughly a monthly basis. You should see my data transfer logs from my pfSense box. |
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| reply to Nightfall
said by Nightfall:said by whfsdude:said by tshirt: You really think 50% ACTUALLY use more than 500GB?
I don't think 50% actually use more than 500GB, but when you start talking about charged overages, people don't want to worry about it even if they don't use that much. how did they survive the 250GB cap?
Was never enforced in DC. I really think you need to come back to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that less than 1% of residential customers use over 250gb of bandwidth in a month. I'd like to see nominal proof of that 1% declarator - especially in light of more and more people using online video such as HBO GO, Netflix, and even YouTube (where more and more videos are going HD). |
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tshirtPremium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to The Limit
It would depend how far over that 1% went, suppose that 1% all had 105-305 accounts a thus staturated the channels in their areas causing ComCast to do 100-1000's of physical node splits, with costs far exceeding what they'll recieve during the 2-3 year contracts of that 1%.
There are a number of scenrios that would make network management difficult, or cause comcast to spend more on those customers than they return in overage fees, but the hope is the costs will average out AND the cost will make it undesireable for any users to regularly use comcast HSI as an UNLIMITED service.
see it doesn't matter where the actual breakeven point is, it is a private network, they are current selecting an included bandwidth level for each tier that
1}they believe the network can support
2}that they believe covers typical useage of their customers
3}that charge people who exceed that level a small portion of the cost of additional expansion
4}that serves the majority of their customers at a reasonable price point
5}That allows them to continue as a sucessful for profit business
all out in the open, no need to read the fine print
service level x includes XXXGB, if you need more it's $10 for each 50gb more.
if you don't like it you are free to find something else that fits your needs.
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tshirtPremium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Comcast
1 edit | reply to PapaMidnight
said by PapaMidnight:I'd like to see nominal proof of that 1% declarator - especially in light of more and more people using online video such as HBO GO, Netflix, and even YouTube (where more and more videos are going HD).
so you are now paying all those for content directly to avoid the CATV middleman? but you still need to pay for transport, and you have choosen a far more costly method.
rather than 1 cable channel(which may use less than a full physical channel) sending the show to millions at once, you now want millions to have that show custom transmitted just to them.
It is the differnce between a truckload of toilet paper being delivered from the factory to a nearby store, or the factory sending out rolls to each house by cab on demand.
Not only is the cab method expensive, at certain points the road capacity is not large enough for all the cabs needed at once (say on half-price spicy burrito night/a very popular show) and so some delieverys will not be on time  so someone has to pay to widen the road/build more cabs, and as always that cost eventually gets paid by the consumer. |
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