Comcast Data-Caps Coming to Washington (how much, moving to, deal)

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by MJ5150

My wife and I work from home, and use a Roku with Hulu and an Apple TV. No video gaming.
We're averaging about 300GB per month, so the 1TB cap is no big deal.
I suspect that cap will creep lower and lower over the months until it affects me, then I'll get my pitchfork and be mad.

-MIke

More likely to be an issue for families, with multiple devices and teens who're data-sponges, gamers, etc.

[evilcart]

Comcast continue to be scumbags.

When I got rid of them they tried to tack on a bunch of charges, I was lucky in that I knew they were liars and scumbags, so I had a thick paper trail. Turns out I needed all of it. they tried every BS trick to claim my return was "invalid" and undocumented.

What I hated most is that even after I had "proved it" alerted my bank to block any attempts to take cash, they continued to bother me for the next month or so.

They made the whole thing so ugly I have no reason to deal with them ever again.

I really don't understand why a company would be so negative in how it deals with customers, all they do is drive people away .

5G may bring them to heel.

[MJ5150]

Weird. We've been Comcast customers since they came to our neighborhood a long time ago. I don't remember now who they bought out.
We've never had a major problem with them, even when we moved to NH and had to transfer our services. The move back, and service transfer was painless too.
The one issue I remember having was around 2005. I went to work in IT and learned I didn't have to rent their modem, I could buy my own. We bought one and returned the Comcast modem. They kept charging us for their modem rental for a couple months until we noticed it. Once we brought it to their attention, they removed the charge and credited us back to the day we stopped using it.

-Mike

[MJ5150]

Originally Posted by CrazyDonkey

More likely to be an issue for families, with multiple devices and teens who're data-sponges, gamers, etc.

Yeah, I think you're right.
That's fine though. I don't mind the philosophy that if you use more, you pay more.

-Mike

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by MJ5150

Yeah, I think you're right.
That's fine though. I don't mind the philosophy that if you use more, you pay more.

-Mike

As long as they're not paying MORE. Comcast is selling it as preventing people from hogging a finite resource, bandwidth, but some are suspicious that it is all about profit and selling people who don't need it on buying "unlimited data", as a kind of insurance.

Where there are data-caps now, there are lots of complaints from customers that they are being charged for data they're not using, and that Comcast's data meter is inaccurate and opaque. If you think you're being overcharged, good luck proving it.

It could also require active monitoring devices/applications that might be sucking data without your knowing it.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by CrazyDonkey

As long as they're not paying MORE. Comcast is selling it as preventing people from hogging a finite resource, bandwidth, but some are suspicious that it is all about profit and selling people who don't need it on buying "unlimited data", as a kind of insurance.

Where there are data-caps now, there are lots of complaints from customers that they are being charged for data they're not using, and that Comcast's data meter is inaccurate and opaque. If you think you're being overcharged, good luck proving it.

It could also require active monitoring devices/applications that might be sucking data without your knowing it.

Exactly. If it's like the power company where you pay more for using more, that's fine. But the pricing is not transparently available and you pay more for internet only than you do for the "packages". Why not just say on the website "here is the pricing" and let people shop for their services? Why sudden price increases only to be told you had been on some previously unknown "contract" that expired? Why be told your pricing is now set only to be told 90 days later that was a temporary fix and now they will fix it again? If this were metered, if they charged only for what was used, if the pricing was the same for everyone and everyone could see the pricing, that would be different.

[VirtualErik]

When living in Oregon, me and my roommates, who are both big time gamers, downloading new games all the time, online gamers and streaming video and such basically everyday, we managed to usually stay within our 500 GB data cap with the company we used, now that it's just me, 1TB should be plenty of of room for a cap without me having to buy unlimited.

[CrazyDonkey]

It is dowloading and uploading. Besides middle class families, this will hit people using peer-to-peer networks to trade videos, music, games, etc.

[josie13]

How could they make this change in the price of service without notifying their customers beforehand?

I'm about halfway through a 2-year contract for Internet service with Comcast. $49/month for Internet service only. I have heard absolutely nothing from Comcast about any data caps.

[MJ5150]

I work in IT, and manage customer networks. Bandwidth monitoring/management is a big deal all around right now.
It used to be you had to be someone like me to figure out how much data you're using. Not anymore.
There are some easy to use tools out there to track your data use.

-Mike