Comcast is full of it.

[computoman]

We are planning to have a mass "cancel our Comcast service" day on September 30 2008. Comcast brags about how you can do so much with their service but now wants to impose a service limit. Please join us in using a provider that has fiber and will not be so two faced. We believe Sony and the ohter media producers are behind it.


Comcast get ready for a limit on your income....... Boycott Sony!!!

[tokenuser]

Good luck with that.

Who else are your choices as ISP? Oh, thats right. Unless you want a crappy DSL conneciton you are stuck with the local monopoly.

[burkhartmj]

Good luck with that.

Who else are your choices as ISP? Oh, thats right. Unless you want a crappy DSL conneciton you are stuck with the local monopoly.

For suburban areas you're right, but at least in Richmond we can either use comcast cable or go fiber with verizon, so some places have choice [using FiOS ftw]

[jdhore]

Good luck with that.

Who else are your choices as ISP? Oh, thats right. Unless you want a crappy DSL conneciton you are stuck with the local monopoly.

I don't have Comcast in this are (OptOnline in Brooklyn is almost as bad though)...but i'm quite happy with my DSL... 3mbps down/768kbps up, i always get advertised speeds, excellent uptime, decent technicians, they don't throttle or block ports...When i lived in Maryland, i had Comcast for a week and i fscking HATED it....Speeds were crap compared to my DSL and this was when they first started shaping torrents.

[masherscf]

I don't have Comcast in this are (OptOnline in Brooklyn is almost as bad though)...but i'm quite happy with my DSL... 3mbps down/768kbps up, i always get advertised speeds, excellent uptime, decent technicians, they don't throttle or block ports...When i lived in Maryland, i had Comcast for a week and i fscking HATED it....Speeds were crap compared to my DSL and this was when they first started shaping torrents.

Optonlin blows huge chunks. $140/month and I donlt get all the HD correctly all the time and the modem is always dropping off. They're sucking the sweet teet of this rural neighborhood but putting nothing into infrastructure.

[jdhore]

Optonlin blows huge chunks. $140/month and I donlt get all the HD correctly all the time and the modem is always dropping off. They're sucking the sweet teet of this rural neighborhood but putting nothing into infrastructure.

I only have OptOnline for SD Cable TV, but all the people i know who have their "triple play" locally get crap internet speeds...Although, supposedly up in Syosset they have 50mbps cable for like $70 a month or something of the like

[davmoo]

I do have Comcast internet service, but as far as canceling goes...sorry...no can do. As much as I dislike Comcast's attitude, I won't do DSL or dial-up or satellite. Contrary to what several of you seem to think, fiber is only a choice in a very limited number of locations.

If any of you can tell me a method that won't cost over $60 a month, will at least match the 10 down/1 up plan I have now, and does not have the lag time or bandwidth limits of satellite, I'll be happy to reconsider. Otherwise, nope, its not even on the table for discussion.

My only real objections to Comcast's announcement are 1) they should have done that from the beginning and not sold it as "unlimited" and massively oversold their network. And 2) they should be required to provide a tool for checking your monthly usage (and I look for them to be forced to do this).

I'd also be willing to bet that out of the number of people complaining about the new policy, only 1 or 2 percent will actually be affected by it. Unless you have streaming audio or video going semi-constantly, 250GB is a hell of a lot of data.

[jdhore]

I do have Comcast internet service, but as far as canceling goes...sorry...no can do. As much as I dislike Comcast's attitude, I won't do DSL or dial-up or satellite. Contrary to what several of you seem to think, fiber is only a choice in a very limited number of locations.

If any of you can tell me a method that won't cost over $60 a month, will at least match the 10 down/1 up plan I have now, and does not have the lag time or bandwidth limits of satellite, I'll be happy to reconsider. Otherwise, nope, its not even on the table for discussion.

My only real objections to Comcast's announcement are 1) they should have done that from the beginning and not sold it as "unlimited" and massively oversold their network. And 2) they should be required to provide a tool for checking your monthly usage (and I look for them to be forced to do this).

I'd also be willing to bet that out of the number of people complaining about the new policy, only 1 or 2 percent will actually be affected by it. Unless you have streaming audio or video going semi-constantly, 250GB is a hell of a lot of data.

The 3rd objection should be that...If you go over 250GB twice, they shut your internet off...FOR A YEAR...

Also, i'm looking at my bandwidth usage for the past 30 days.. ~242GB ...Which would put me just under the 250GB cap...and i don't do a lot of legal HD downloads, illegal HD downloads or torrenting (i do a fair bit, but i know plenty of people who do more than me)

[davmoo]

I'm just waiting to hear when (not if) the FCC is going to start examining Comcast's new policy. Considering that Comcast is a provider of internet audio and video programming, and this new policy is going to affect other providers of such programming, I have a feeling anti-trust and anti-competition issues are about to be brought up by the Googles, Yahoos, and Amazons of the world...especially when word gets out about how Comcast's bundled phone service will not count against the quota (Comcast's own statement), but Vonage and such probably will.

[ryudo]

I live in a basement apt and stuck with comcast no matter what.

However comcast has upped my speeds and I have to say I am pretty happy with what I get.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/313746297.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[dark_shroud]

I switched from Comcast last week. I now use AT&T DSL and it isn't bad.

I would suggest people at least take a look at AT&T plans (http://localization.att.com/loc/controller?cdvn=landinglocalization&pid=1080&ltype=res&prod-snip=res_internet_services) offered in your area. I have 6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up for $40 and it's less almost $20 than what I was paying Comcast for 8/1 Mbps.

Do I sometimes miss those extra 2Mb (250KB), only when downloading HD Rev3 podcasts.

Comcast has had thse usage caps for sometime, they were just kept quit and they were a moving target as well. Comcast will dump you if you repeadedly hit the cap.

[burkhartmj]

I know FiOS is limited to where the infrastructure is in place, but wherever it is it should be used over comcast is all I'm saying. Just recently renewed it at 20/5 for 57 bucks a month and got this:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/315811207.png

So happy.

[davmoo]

but wherever it is it should be used over comcast is all I'm saying.

I figure that would be a given, even if Comcast were popular. If fiber were available here, and at those speeds, I'd be all over that like rabid snakes on a kitten!

[westudi]

I switched from Comcast last week. I now use AT&T DSL and it isn't bad.

I would suggest people at least take a look at AT&T plans (http://localization.att.com/loc/controller?cdvn=landinglocalization&pid=1080&ltype=res&prod-snip=res_internet_services) offered in your area. I have 6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up for $40 and it's less almost $20 than what I was paying Comcast for 8/1 Mbps.

Do I sometimes miss those extra 2Mb (250KB), only when downloading HD Rev3 podcasts.

Comcast has had thse usage caps for sometime, they were just kept quit and they were a moving target as well. Comcast will dump you if you repeadedly hit the cap.

Yeah, we use AT@T DSL too, and have been quite, quite happy with it. We just want AT@T to roll out their TV service in our town too (it's in the neighboring communities) as we hate Charter cable.

[dark_shroud]

Yeah, we use AT&T DSL too, and have been quite, quite happy with it. We just want AT&T to roll out their TV service in our town too (it's in the neighboring communities) as we hate Charter cable.

If you're talking about their Uverse it's pretty good. I hated their Dish Network. But the Uverse is all digital and looks great even on old TVs. The only downside is since Comcast started the OnDemand service their Library is huge. AT&T's is ok, but it doesn't even have Anime network. My nephew (14) was up set since he stays over after school.

[burkhartmj]

Right, the nephew....he's the one who wants anime ;)

[valindar]

I'm just here to give the obligatory "Wow I wish I had a 250gb cap".

AU$0.02

(15gb peak 30gb off-peak btw for like $70 a month I think)

[Bret]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/316222279.png
I am on comcast as well and have good speeds. But if they cap it, its like saying I can drive to the brick wall the fastest. So I hope they dont cap my ass!

[callen]

I don't think I will have any issues with the 250gb cap they are talking about. I use the internet quite a bit, and have had comcast for years without issue. I have had the occasional outage, but nothing crazy. This is not to say that I like the idea of having a cap, but hopefully it will not become an issue for me. And really the service is the fastest available in my area and I have no problem paying the premium for the level of service I have been getting. I would consider FIOS if and when it makes it into my area, as the additional speed would not be a bad thing.

[computoman]

I have two concerns. When tv goes digital next year, will that be part of the cap limitation? If someone tries to ddos to your router, will that count against you? I still think Sony and or the media mafia allegedly is a major player behind all this because the bittorent deal loss. After the backdoor software they installed on peoples machines, I would not trust sony with the back of my hand. As much as I would like to have a ps3, they will not get my business.

Too many unanswered questions.......

When I called comcast about it they said it was a government requirement. I told the tech they were full of it. then they asked where I got the info from I said from their own site, the tech stated that they had no plans to implement a cap in my area. I asked about some other non-internet issues. then after a while the tech started talking about how the limit was not that bit a deal. More comcast rhetoric. We need a "Ralph Nader" type to combat this (expletive deleted).

[tokenuser]

1. You have no idea how RF broadband works. TV and IP and digital Telephones (note: NOT VoIP) run over different frequencies in the cable. That is why it is possible for the internet to be down while you are still seeing TV. There will be no "cap" on TV signals ... that is their bread and butter.
2. When was the last time you or anyone you know got DDoSd?? The "caps" you keep referring to are for their residential services, not their business class services. If you do get DDoSd it would be pretty quick to argue that if was a malicious attack. That "packet shaping" that gets talked about identifies the sort of traffic people are getting. Coninuous ACK, NAK, and SYN packets throw up red flags all over the place.

I really think you need to new Comcast Aluminum package. It comes with a special cap just for people like you ...

[davmoo]

Although I would probably try to be a bit more polite about it, yeah, the previous reply is correct...the changeover in 2009 to "digital TV" has absolutely nothing to do with the capping issue. Its like asking about the effects of John Edward's affair on wheat production in the US.

[cacogen]

Good luck with that.

Who else are your choices as ISP? Oh, thats right. Unless you want a crappy DSL conneciton you are stuck with the local monopoly.

There is FIOS availability in almost all of the Portland, OR metro area, but not in Portland proper. Comcast is Comcast and Qwest, of course, has no plans to ever provide fiber to the residence. Argh...fills me with loathing.

[yssman]

Here in West Michigan you're pretty much left with two options:

1) AT&T/Yahoo/SBC --> Cheap, steady service that at the very least is acceptable by almost all measurements and so far, has gone without a cap. Yes, I have AT&T...

http://www.speedtest.net/result/317562144.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

2) Comcast --> They lure you in with cheap rates and then stick you with fines later. Inconsistent speeds, known throttling, and now the cap.

Which am I going to choose?

====

What it comes down to here is that we've gotta let the market determine what is right and what is wrong, but the big problem here is that while the market may in fact be able to control and issue like this... A lot of places don't have a market whatsoever.

I'm interested to see what other options come along (specifically Sprint's WiMax), but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm likely to say "Well, I don't have Comcast, so it doesn't effect me..." but in actuality, it does. If Comcast can prove that it is an effective way to control bandwidth (and possibly get more money by doing it), you can bet your ass that AT&T, Verizon, and *insert ISP* will do it too.

[bayareaking510]

I know FiOS is limited to where the infrastructure is in place, but wherever it is it should be used over comcast is all I'm saying. Just recently renewed it at 20/5 for 57 bucks a month and got this:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/315811207.png

So happy.
So jealous..Comcast $60/month for this? :(

http://www.speedtest.net/result/317582772.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[davmoo]

1) AT&T/Yahoo/SBC --> Cheap, steady service that at the very least is acceptable by almost all measurements and so far, has gone without a cap. Yes, I have AT&T...

And I'll bet money right now that if Comcast does enforce their cap and they have no government issues and don't go bankrupt from customers leaving in droves, every other major carrier in the US will adopt caps by the end of 2009.

[dark_shroud]

AT&T is a decent DSL service. I'm satisfied with it though I'll up grading to the 10/1.5Mbps plan in a few months. The 6/1Mbps is just barely doing it for me.