I have two Comcast accounts, both are the same where they are Blast Plus or whatever. I only needed the Internet, but they gave me TV boxes for them.

Anyways, there is a limit of how much traffic they allow. I think it's 200Gb per billing cycle. Well one of my accounts goes well over that amount, heck even over 300 at times.

232GB has been used so far this cycle. July had a 630GB was used in that cycle.

This is what I see when I sign into Comcast, with a 630GB used, I am glad that I see it.
[b]Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.[/b]

So question is, what happens when it is enforced? Will they just throttle my speed from the typical 100Mbps I get? Charge an overage fee? Or worse, shut it off till the billing cycle is over?

You gotta think, with all these "cord cutters" the ISPs are going to start doing something to ease the load.

What do ya'll think?

KOT

This has been in place for a while now. As to what they will do...your guesses are as good as any ive seen. Im guessing that the government will get involved at some point to make it so they aren't charging people $1000 a month because their kid games online or because they have netflix.

Unrelated to what you posted about but equally annoying...I just moved. I haven't had cable or satellite TV in years. My brother moved in with us while dealing with liver disease and he wanted TV. I start looking at packages and realize that if i want the top internet speed available i have to have a phone line with it. What? I haven't had a land line phone in 10 years. I handed the installer my test set to use as the land line phone so he could check the done box.

I think for the moment the cap is suspended due to the FCC taking a look at data caps by telecoms, which the cable guys are also covered by, since most also offer phone service.

Down the road it may be a different deal. Depends on who gets paid off I suppose.

It will get ridiculous because this is America. I just had to move up to the next tier on my ISP because we used more than our cap for 3 months in a row. I have to pay for a higher speed to get a higher cap. Why? I do not need faster. Just more. But they will not sell me more. Only faster.....which so happens to include more. I am sure I am not the only one. I about jumped ship for DSL which would be cheaper during the first year or 2, but their cap is less than my original cap with cable.

We watch a LOT of Netflix. My wife and kids mostly. And we were ~325GB over the past 3 months. The provides will position themselves to profit the most. FCCwill hopefully do something to regulate what the caps should be and impose some ground rules for dealing with people who go over.

Here a few years ago with cable, if you went over, they charged $10/GB! Talk about getting shafted.

Hmm, I guess Comcast isn't so bad after all.

Like I said in my first post, there's a cap that isn't enforced. I've had these two internet accounts for over 2 years each. With the one always going over the 250GB "cap". The other one below it mostly, but probably has gone over it.

I wonder... does the streaming that is offered on the cable's set top box, example the Comcast X1, does whatever is streamed on there count towards internet usage?

An old co worker of mine had AT&T DSL, and he was almost hitting his cap. At first they were charging him X amount per the overage. But then he asked if they could just either slow it down or shut it off until the next month. So he was able to teach his grand kids to be easy on the Netflix.

KOT

I'm not a big fan of the cable companies or the ISP's, but collectively we are painting ourselves into a corner. On the one hand we have the "all you can eat" plans for a fixed price. On the other hand we are "eating" orders of magnitude more than ever -- and the pace is accelerating. There is virtually no incentive for users to conserve bandwidth.

At this point Video is the major contributor. With broadcast TV one transmitter can service a whole region. A single viewer or millions of viewers can simultaneously use the same transmitter. Streaming video, on the other hand, requires resources for each additional viewer -- fatter "pipes" if you like. There is even a growing use of video associated with what used to be simple web page viewing. Web pages are not so simple any more. In addition to the text, we have artwork, videos, and a blizzard of trackers associated with a web page. Each of these elements requires a connection setup and take down. Finally, while these are not as much of a bandwidth hog as video, we have the Trojans spewing scams and spam, however, these parasites require a different type of resource than simple routing and data flow. The scams and spams must be scanned. stored, and delivered one by one. Actually, each of these messages must be handled multiple times. (Sent by the originator, received, scanned, stored, then resent to phones, pads, and computers)

In the ISP's defense, the cost of server capacity has been falling by orders of magnitude, but the ISP's must be continually replacing and expanding. And, there is a certain amount of "dark" fiber that was laid during the dotcom boom, that has yet to be utilized. But, the business model of amortizing equipment purchases over a 10-20 year useful life is gone.

Bottom line: There is a train wreck headed our way. Everyone must change their positions as we approach gridlock.

The CRTC in Canada has regulated how much providers (cell data usage and ISP's) are able to charge on usage overages (I think its $50-$100 per billing cycle).

Similar to Audiophiliac, at least with Rogers (cable ISP) if you want more gbs/month you need to increase speed, at which point increases monthly bill.

I would be ok if it was a pay per usage scenario like any other utility. $0.12/GB sounds good to me. :)

But at least you pay for what you use, no more, no less. Seems fair, no?