Comcast will soon charge extra for exceeding 1.2 TB of Internet use

[NamMedevac 70]

According to many users and experts 1.2 TB of internet data is not much for Zoom  conferences from  home for personal and business users and also large households with many family members streaming data at same time most of the time.  Comcast has over 30 million customers.  I am not a Comcast customer but Spectrum may be next and we are small household

More information here :        Comcast adding data caps for home Internet | Fox Business    .    Happy Trails and camping

Edited December 25, 2020 by NamMedevac 70

[NamMedevac 70]

Comcast also owns live TV streaming service Xfinity and NBC Universal.

[NamMedevac 70]

Consumer Reports has online petition for people to sign urging Comcast to drop their data cap and excess usage fees.  Happy Trails

Really Comcast? Data caps during COVID-19? (consumerreports.org)

[Barbaraok]

Verizon lifted data caps last May.   But they haven't recently.

You assume that all of us have access to huge amounts of data.   We don't.

[Chad Heiser]

The Comcast data caps made the local news here in Northern California (Bay Area) today.  They reported Comcast claimed the data caps would only affect about 5% of their current users (as in 95% don’t use enough data to go over the set limit).  I’m not a Comcast user, so no dog in this fight.  The news did make mention that competing residential internet providers did not have data caps though.

[NamMedevac 70]

Barbarok I assume nothing and just reporting the news for benefit of others who may or may not be affected.  I am not even a Comcast user or consumer of large amounts of data and not adversely affected.  No Zoom for me as is not needed.  Re read the post and there you go again jumping on someone for whatever reason.  Pity. I don't believe there is a connection between Comcast and Verizon?????.  Happy Camping everyone else.

Some RVers on this forum have stated they use large amount of data conducting business from the RV.

Edited December 25, 2020 by NamMedevac 70

[packnrat]

in this day and age there should be O date caps, and places like comcast should be forced to cut there rates in at lest 1/2 if not more, and the $$$ hurts the "poor" the rich have found ways to charge it off to others. or as a tax deduction.

i am not a computer nerd. but even i use up band width (how much ??). but a data cap is like saying you have made to many phone calls this month. so we are doubling your per phone call rate.

[NamMedevac 70]

If few people exceed the 1.2 TB data cap then I wonder why Comcast is charging extra fee and selected 1.2 as the data cap.  Maybe they are anticipating the future.  Just curious.

[Big5er]

3 hours ago, packnrat said:

in this day and age there should be O date caps, and places like comcast should be forced to cut there rates in at lest 1/2 if not more, and the $$$ hurts the "poor" the rich have found ways to charge it off to others. or as a tax deduction.

I'm not sure I understand your post. There is only so much bandwidth available. You open your post with "In this day and age"..well, in this day and age more people are working from home, schooling from home and are plain stuck at home so they are streaming more and more. That uses up the bandwidth and slows down everyone. You also mention that "places like comcast" should be forced to cut their prices. Forced by whom? Under what communist/socialist law is that legal? It certainly isn't legal here. Are cars too expensive? Should car dealers should be forced to cut their prices too?  And what does a data cap "for home users" (as the article discusses) have to do with the rich passing costs along to others or as a tax deduction?? Did you read the article? 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Big5er

[NamMedevac 70]

Barbarok        This quote from 6door74  RV

 

"I checked our usage when this was announced


Household of 4(sometimes 5)

Subscribe to digital TV provider (AT&T TV) and have Netflix, amazon prime

Multiple cell phones, laptops

Ring security and cameras connected to wifi

Son is a "gamer" but works full time so doesn't live on the game

Parents work FT jobs, stream TV when home. I work evenings and she works days so 1 TV does stream pretty much all day. That will have to change.

Teenage daughter doesn't watch a lot of TV but is often on Facetime and streaming music

When this announcement was made i checked our usage and we've gone over the 1.2gb the last 3 months I looked at. Our usage is the same as it's pretty much always been. We're both essential workers so Covid hasn't changed too much"  Big Cheers to youa

[NamMedevac 70]

For RV and on the road trips I have grandfathered true unlimited AT&T Mobley hotspot with good reception most everywhere and I do heavy movie streaming and web surfing for $22.00 per month with vet discount. Also use Mobley for internet backup at home with AC adapter. Very rare slowdowns or throttling but does happen sometimes. Can use up to 5 devices.

For phone call I use grandfathered AT&T prepaid plan that only charges a dollar a day only for the actual days I use it. Charge per minute or call is almost nothing.

I have Spectrum at home with no data caps and I do very heavy movie streaming, web surfing, heavy uploading and downloading of photos, emailing, etc. etc. with very rare slowdowns and no throttling. Speeds average between 116 to 134 mbs. Sometimes over 7 devices in use. Cost is $59.00 per month. Been lucky with AT&T and Spectrum

[NamMedevac 70]

Many People Are Now Very Angry with Comcast

Comcast will cap home internet data starting next week – and people are angry – BGR

[packnrat]

i can only base my thoughts on MY life. not others.

sure if some are so ingrained in "high tech" that if the power went out they could do nothing. but my life does not revolve around this computer. when i go to work my house is all but unpluged. (from the ac power that is).

as to there costs, the puc regulates "other" common things, like the phone cost (or at least used to under "ma bell"), power cost, etc. yes i do believe in the "free" market. but some items the government needs to just control price increases for some things.

but like i voted with my wallet. did not pay comcast for a year, only re-upped so i can try to sell off things (hard to off my phone). i got so much stuff. and if i retired today, where would i put it all? storage co$t$.

and i sleep during the day work over night (weekends) so just for me most of my band width usage  is during the week when most are asleep. it is now 1:pm Saturday, and time for my breakfast and get out to go to work.

but with the forced job losses, and illegal required stay at home "orders" just more reason for comcast to cut there pricing.

[NamMedevac 70]

I hear you packrat and agree completely.  If I lost all internet I could easily survive as I did before because I spend a great deal of time in outdoor hiking, camping, fishing and kayaking as before with no internet or remote phone service.  I have well over a hundred of my favorite DVD movies and read lots of paper back books I still have so can do without my kindle reader.  Let th.  I am 74 and had none of this  until around  2003. We two are survivors.  

Edited December 26, 2020 by NamMedevac 70

[packnrat]

i am being dragged by my ankles, kicking and screaming into this computer required world.

[Barbaraok]

We got our first computer in May 1984 when the first wave of Macs were available on college campuses and have never looked back.   It isn't easy anymore to keep up with the latest developments, but both my daughter and son-in-law grew up with computers always available so when I can't understand something, I give them a call.  I remember my parents full timed in the '80s and mom had a bag of quarters with her at all times for making long distance  phone calls and doing laundry.   We even had a personal 800 number put in so she could call us without worrying about the costs.  Until she died in 2019, she would always worry about talking to long to us on the phone. 🥰

[Kirk W]

9 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

We got our first computer in May 1984 when the first wave of Macs were available on college campuses and have never looked back.

That would be about when I got my first one also, but mine was an IBM since I was a certified service tech for IBM when my employer (3M) contracted to support the personal desktop models for them in more rural areas that IBM had no techs in. The company even let us buy through their contract and financed them for 3 years with no interest. My first one had 256k of ram, 2 floppy drives, a color monitor and a 9 pin dot matrix printer. I got all of that for only about $3k! I also did service for Compaq on their early portable computers. They only weighed 34#!

[Tahoe Shark]

1.2 TB = 1,200 GB = 1,200,000 MB of data. Why the outrage? Seriously if everyone used this amount of data your bills would sky rocket. Why do you think companies should be forced to provide this unlimited data to everyone. Most folks are thrilled with 50-100 GB on there Mobley’s 

[mrschwarz]

12 hours ago, Tahoe Shark said:

1.2 TB = 1,200 GB = 1,200,000 MB of data. Why the outrage? Seriously if everyone used this amount of data your bills would sky rocket. Why do you think companies should be forced to provide this unlimited data to everyone. Most folks are thrilled with 50-100 GB on there Mobley’s 

If everyone used this amount of data, why would their bills skyrocket? Companies weren't forced to provide unlimited data, they voluntarily provided it. They built their networks with an assumption of what the average user would consume. When that average consumption increased due to more graphics, ads, video streaming, etc, their backend infrastructure needed to be upgraded.

How are those upgrades going to be paid for? In the past, the fees they charged customers for their monthly service was used. Then someone got the bright idea they could charge for high usage. That's what they are trying. Naturally, customers are resisting. The problem is that many internet users cannot vote with their wallets. Many areas of the country only have one internet provider. When that's the case, users only have two choices when it comes to increased prices and fees. They can either take it or leave it. Imagine what would happen to prices or services if there was real competition?

You may not remember it, but in the ancient past, networking gear wasn't capable of allowing you to use that much bandwidth in a month. Networking improved, the World Wide Web was invented and the use of the internet skyrocketed. While use has skyrocketed, the cost to transmit that data has plummeted. As we all get a more interconnected and use a more data, will the data caps increase or will it just be prices and fees increasing?

In my opinion, they are not introducing data caps because they have a financial need. The most likely reason is that they don't have enough competition. Shareholders love it when they have little to no competition.

[ms60ocb]

I going with Comcast as the Verizon HotSpot just don't do it by its self. When I go over 25 GB it is $15 /GB. Comcast has mentioned the 1.2 TB over fee to maybe $10 for 50 GB.

I suppose Kirk as well I wonder how long how our early computers would have to communicate using dial-up with a down load up to 56K. 

Clay   First home computer was 1980, Radio Shack Tandy Model III  16K