“Comcast Corp., the nation’s second-largest Internet service provider, Thursday said it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month,” The Associated Press reports.
“On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site,” AP reports.
AP reports, “Customers who go over the limit are contacted by the company and asked to curb their usage. ‘We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily,’ the company said.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Patrick” for the heads up.]
Well, at least now it’s official. Before it was “Unlimited” but then they’d shake you down if you used too much.
I’m sure glad I don’t use comcast.
Ah crud.
I can’t die until I learn to type without mstakes.
WTF? If I had an account this Comcast I would close that account immediately!
Word is, they won’t tell you how much you are using. That’s up to you to figure out via 3rd party apps or something.
It’s Craptastic!
Me too, but I am sure Time Warner will follow.
Greed, greed, greed.
Unlimited my ars, just like the freedoms we have in US.
cumcast
This is disturbing news. Goodbye Comcast.
“WTF? If I had an account this Comcast I would close that account immediately!”
It sounds bad, but it’s about 50 times more than companies like Cox and 6 times more than Time-Warner.
It would be tough to go over.
Wow! To think our local online paper was cited as the source of this story. Time Warner of CNY and Verizon are the two big ISP’s around here. (Verizon FIOS really is nice and recommended for those in the FIOS service area. I connect wirelessly from another floor in our house to our router with my PowerMac G5 (guess no Snow Leopard for me) and get around 17 Mbs from our 20Mbs/5Mbs service.) In fact I get a message from the Comcast Authorized Dealer’s web page, “Sorry, but Comcast does not service the Syracuse New York area at this time.” which again makes it odd that this is reported in our local online paper.
Peace. Have a good weekend.
I’m trying to get an idea of how fast you can use up 250GB. How much bandwidth does an PS3 or XBOX360 take? Regular use of the internet?
Rather than Craptastic of Cumcast, I suggest:
Comcrap
(just seems easier to get out and more universally understood)
Do you need more than 250 gigs per month?
@OnlyMacs
Little to none. The ONLY way to get up to 250GB (which, really, is quite a ton in this day in age) is to be torrenting 24/7 or dling other large media files.
Sorry, don’t mean to hijack this story, but I’m being told the oh-so-wonderful MobileMe is down again. Anyone else getting this error message:
“Your MobileMe Mail is currently unavailable.
We apologize for this service interruption and are working hard to resolve the problem.”
It’s affecting both webmail and my iPhone.
Damn, I’m growing to hate this ‘service’…
Kinda fraks up their whole marketing message doesn’t it?
Comcast: “We never stop making fast faster.”
It’s COMCASTIC!! …as in Go Comcast yourself you Comcasting @sshole!
Oh and I will actually tip my hat to the first person who brings a class action lawsuit against these jerks!
Thank you Comcast. You have made me look forward to the very sort of legal battle I despise the most. You’ve made a monster of me!!! (though I’m not sure what kind because a Google search might put me over my download limit)
Pray for Verizon FiOS do deliver us.
Rob, you have the freedom to be just as big of an idiot as you want.
What else could ask for?
Re: Victor Meldrew said, “Rob, you have the freedom to be just as big of an idiot as you want.”
Victor certainly is proof of that. Excuse me, pot. The kettle called.
(Comment from: Victor Meldrew – Aug 29, 08 – 11:58 am
“I pray to God Almighty Barack Obama does not get president. “If he does, the blacks will riot, if he doesn’t, they will riot even more. They will cry that the election was stolen like in ’00 and ’04.”)
So am I going to get a discount when before I was paying for unlimited, and now Im paying for 250GB?
Didn’t think so…..so much for any real purpose for this..
Unless I get better consistent download speeds, or some other benefit, there is no purpose for this.
I should be able to save money since im getting a lower set of service.
ultra lame.
I suppose ‘unlimited’ didn’t make sense to the minds of corporate bureaucrats who like everything in neat little compartmentalized boxes or forms.
Be grateful we don’t require licenses to breathe the air, yet…
Sarah Palin = giant bodacious cans, beautiful face, well-spoken, smart, and feisty. She’s a top shelf MILF.
She’s got my vote!
As for Comcast: I’m switching to FiOS as you read this.
Takes one to know one!
And they will! Wait and you’ll see.
OK, so does anyone who is bitching and moaning about this new limit actually know how much they use each month? Without looking it up now that I assked the question?
If you’re not hosting a free porn site, this really shouldn’t affect you. Was Comcast advertising or otherwise promising unlimited access? If not, you don’t have a class action lawsuit.
The Deal, Palin is a real MILF for sure.
She’s got my vote too!
Who moves 250 GB of data per month??? No one I know…
Does anyone know how many iTunes HD movies = 250GB?
Wow. Sarah Palin is quite impressive:
typical choice. Govenor of a STATE of less than the number of dissplaced citizens in Iraq. Yeah that’s the ticket. Mcsame is just a loser trying to so anything to win. Might as well have Cindy Crawford as VP
250GB is equivalent of a constant average of about 5.8 MB per minute (24/7, for 30 days).
That blows.
Since they are the largest ISP- they should be able to deal with infrastructure- so the little guys are sure to follow suit. The internet gets crippled by such non-sesnse. It’s a money grab is all.
That being said- I DL movies regularly (not 24/7), but don’t hit 250GB- with out worry. And there’s no way I am going back to DSL. I mean- c’mon- hmmm 784K (you never get the 1.5) or you get bonded and still get under 6MB top on that. I’ll stick to my 10MB speeds I’m getting now.
They should just increase the fucking infrastructure. It’s not like people aren’t getting more sophisticated about their internet usage thus vastly increasing the amount of bandwidth they need.
doesn’t seem like much of a problem. I’ve got a 6 mbit/sec connection, I actually get 750 kbyte/sec download rates max. If I ran this 24/7 for a month, I think I could download 200 GB.
now their rate is combined up/down, but still, I don’t see how many people are going to run up against this.
I would buy “unlimited” if that amounts to full time full rate usage.
– gws
“Wow. Sarah Palin is quite impressive.”
Yes, especially facing an ethics investigation and the complete lack of foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. But she will be handy for changing McCain’s adult diapers in between cabinet meetings.
I wonder if Apple’s contract with these carriers specified unlimited data plans? If so, I then wonder if Apple could cite breach of contract and then remove the exclusive carrier restriction?
TRD,
So, you’d rather have your complete lack of experience at the top of the ticket?
Obama questioning Palin’s experience is political suicide. But, so was picking Joe “Serial Plagiarist” Biden.
BTW, Sarah Palin is the only one in the race with Executive experience.
The last I checked, the President and Vice President head the Executive branch.
Face it, Libs. It’s over.
In a 31 day month that comes out to a constant transfer rate of 23.7Mbit. Isn’t that more than the actual speed of their current service? Perhaps they’re getting ready to roll out the 100Mbit service they talked about last year.
zaxxon4:
Your math is bad.
250GB per month =
8.33GB per day =
347.2MB per hour =
5.8MB per minute =
96kB per second (as in kilobytes), which is around 1Mbit per second.
An average ADSL speed.
Sigh. I thought this thread was about Comcast. Please take the ill-informed political screeds somewhere else. Anywhere else.
All of this is a result of the Federal Communications Act of 1993 that deregulated the cable industry to “foster competition”. 99.7% of all cable companies still have NO competitors. So much for the free market place! Instead we have a monopoly and is what happens with monopolies.
Crappy DSL is the only alternative.
who’s number one if comcast is second
According to my calculations, if you do NOTHING else by download movies from iTunes and play them on your Apple TV (like I do), you will only be able to rent about 70 movies in 30 days before you are OVER the Comcast limit. I have noticed that most HD movies average about 3.5 GB from iTunes at 720p.
Now if you want to surf and download on top of that ?????
Not many (if any) people would rent this many films, but adding/transferring files and photos (8MP) to iWeb and your gallery, I suppose one could eat up 250GB without trying too hard.
Anyone who has ever experienced torrent speeds greater than 100kBps (as in kilobytes, not kb, kilobits) should be so lucky. For all other torrent downloaders, this limit should be business as usual.
Now, on the other hand, if you are downloading legal files from legitimate sources, such as iTunes, and your HD movie of 2GB saturates your 5Mbps line, this could get you over the limit. You’d still be able to download over 100 movies in one month before hitting that limit (and spend $400 in the process).
As much as I believe this is foolish, realistically, we aren’t going to be bumping against this limit. If it does for Comcast what they would like it to do, then fine, as long as it doesn’t affect anyone.
Mystic33:
I guess I got my movie size wrong, but the point is there; the only way to bump against the limit would be by legally downloading movies from a very fat (Akamai) pipe; not from LimeWire or Torrent.
Predrag:
No, I may have estimated a little high as well. I have noticed that iTunes HD movies that last more than 2 hrs will bump the 3GB mark or a little more.
I think you are correct that most people will have plenty of leeway before they get to the limit.
To iphone:
“who’s number one if comcast is second”
1. SBC (AT&T)
http://www.isp-planet.com/research/rankings/usa.html
I am so outta there with Comcast, You can book it!!!
This isn’t about torrents, it’s about Compost nipping their future competition IPTV in the bud.
Time for a class action lawsuit. If they place limits they should provide a way to monitor usage.
I wish there was a hi-speed alternative to Comcast in Salt Lake City. 🙁
250 gig a month is a lot
A LOT
Be one serious, 24/7, download junkie to bump into that each month – I’ve only done it 4 times in past 2 years w/giganews
And then have to put it all somewhere
“Honey, get me some more dvd blanks while you at Wal-Mart, or a couple new hard-drives”
AND – as I knew to expect, and you’ll discover same in time, since most of what we download are Movies/TV anyway … well, have you seen what’s on TV or at the Movies ?
Good luck finding 250 gig worth of something TO download each month
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
BC
(how that ol’ Springsteen song go – 567 channels and nothing’s on – or 3,486,239,192 web sites and most of ’em suck, present company excluded)
how the hell do you download/upload 250g per month? all of the time? i think it’s pretty reasonable.
rick.
I would kill my first-born for a limit like that!!! I have a 4GB download limit right now with Excel.Net here in wisconsin. Its terrible! I can’t watch more that 4 youtube videos every month plus regular downloading… its BS!!!
PS, I wouldn’t really kill my first born, cuz I don’t have any kids yet…
I don’t know why so many people are upset about this…
250 GB? Unless you’re running a Hotline server or something, that’s going to be plenty for pretty much anyone.
I think that the FTC should force Comcast to advertise their service as a 100 KB/sec (or 800 Kbits per second) service. After all that is all that you can achieve with it. A little bit of “truth in advertising” might make some of the service providers a bit more considerate of their customers.
And just for the record, you could consume 30 percent of this bandwidth by merely listening to one of the 256 Kbit per second Internet radio stations 7×24.
250GB equals how many porn downloads? I need to know.
I wonder how many hours I get to play WoW before I run up against that limit! Me. And my son-in-law. And his two sons. My wife could be added to that list, except she just surfs, rather that plays what is fully admitted to being a “game”.
Palen is a babe, that’s for sure. I didn’t realize that babe-ness counted that much in a political race. Of course, she IS the only one of the four with any executive experience. And she IS the only one currently being investigated for corruption.
Let’s go at this a different way. Sure, 250 gb is a “lot”, but what is Comcast stuffing down the pipe for all those TV signals?
Let’s assume it’s all HD (it isn’t, but will be soon), and let’s assume there are 100 channels. There really aren’t 100, but will be soon, and there are more SD channels than 100, so this will probably give a close estimate.
A compressed HD TV channel takes about 15 mbit/sec, so 100 channels like that is 1.5 gbit/sec.
The 250 giga Byte limit (2×10^12 bits) is a continuous (30*24*3600 seconds in t month) 770 kbits, so Comcast is “capping” internet speed to 770k bits/sec, while continuously sending 1.5 GIGABITS of TV programming down the wires.
Put another way, the “heavy users” that Comcast is so worried about are using 0.05% of the bandwidth used by the TV channels.
So much for being bandwidth hogs.
Put another way, your full speed 15 mbit/sec internet for which you pay $40-$50 month, takes the bandwidth of ONE TV channel. Of course, you typically get a package of 100+ TV channels for $50, so Comcast (and, to be fair, all the others) charge for internet bandwidth at a rate that is 50 times higher than they charge you for the TV bandwidth.
Plus, the “content” on the internet is FREE, while Comcast pays content providers for the TV programming.
You are being vastly overcharged by Comcast for your internet bandwidth. It is not physically possible, even with the fastest internet connection that Comcast sells to move as much data as leaving your TV on 24/7. Not even close.
I left Comcast as soon as FIOS came to our area, and I’ve never looked back.
I agree with those who’ve been arguing that we need more competition in the ISP sector. Besides Comcast, the only other ISP in my area is Qwest.
Unfortunately, Qwest is extremely disorganized and/or sloppily dishonest. I’ve been lied to by more than one Qwest representative regarding pricing, hidden fees, etc. And the speeds of Qwest’s DSL services are much slower than advertised. Furthermore, I have a friend who has been even more swindled by Qwest. My friend was overcharged for her DSL modem, and then Qwest tried to raise her supposedly “price for life” rates without her knowledge!
Like many, I’ve been encouraging Comcast to either set an official cap for its internet customers or forget about the cap idea entirely. Now that Comcast has set an official number for the cap, I’m going to seriously consider switching from Qwest to Comcast.
250 GB cap is pretty good from where I sit: Videotron in Quebec gives us different packages with caps:I’m capped at 20 GB d/l and 10 GB u/l while the largest capped package offers 100 GB for $64.90
Wow, I wish I had 250GB a month allowance!
We have 40GB in our house which is seen as HUGE down here in Australia. Our internet is so far behind it’s not funny.
OK, I’ve always called them Comspastic! My down times are ALWAYS line issues and they ALWAYS insist to send a no brain tech first, second, and even third,.. weeks later the line guy fixes the issue. Spastic way to do business.
250Gb are you serious
I pay 40 Aus for 5gb
250GB sounds good now, but…Apple’s iTunes movies will not always by 1 mere 1.5-to-3GB files. Gradually (as broadband speeds improve) Apple will increase the HD bit rate to improve their movie download quality. At some point, that 250GB cap will be insufficient. The only question is when…
everyone here is ignoring Video Conferencing, nanny cams, etc,,,
And yes, I beleive this is all about getting out in front of Internet Based TV offerings. That includes any online iTunes like movie rentals or the like. Multi-person households with teenagers are going to be hit hard with this. Maybe not this year but stuff is in the pipe that has them doing this to cover there ass. The consumer gets shafted again.
Upside: I guess all those Windows users will start to learn how bad (inefficient) networking is on their boxes.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> As well as curtail those virus laden zombies out there plastering the internet with spam.
It’s better than Rogers. I pay $45/mo + tax and my bandwith limit is 60GB. It’s $2/GB and I’ve crossed it many, many times.
I’ve always believed that two wrongs don’t make a right. So just because other ISPs have imposed fascist-like caps on their customers, it doesn’t automatically follow that Comcast’s 250 GB cap is generous.
Indeed, as many have observed about the future, connections will only get faster and downloads larger. So does Comcast plan to raise its cap on a regular schedule, or will this cap be in place for the next 10 years? Also, why not provide users who go above the cap an opportunity to buy more GB?
I have the following two words.
DROP COMCAST!!!!!!!!
FSCK COMCAST!!!
A vote for Obama is a vote for terrorism!
Frankly, 250 gigs per month, to me, is fine. I’m unlikely to need quite so much. I would love to meet people who need more than that, just to see why.
Perhaps CC could offer a bit more flexibility – like “rollover” minutes, so unused DL capacity is not lost. Offer that, plus a higher monthly limited, for a bit more per month, for the benefit of really high-bandwidth users.
MD, were getting spammed here by the (Palin) fundies.
no birth control, no condoms, not even for married couples, and she smokes pot. the G-man is proud today (except for the pot, but all alaskans USED TO smoke pot… pre-Reagan).
Sarah Palin supports teaching creationism in public schools. “You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both,” she said in a debate.
<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/1RN5xbWtNSU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1″></param></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/1RN5xbWtNSU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>
Why is it, that such crap has been on the rise of late… I didn’t think that “bushism’ has such a following and was so influential?
Who ever said that fascism wasn’t on the rise in America?
Fascist are all about control of someone or something!
I think I stay with troubling AT&T;, at least I understand SBC’s bad habits!
Here in Australia the best we’ve got is 55gig per month ADSL2(24mbs) 90 bucks a month. Internode are Gods over here. It might sound crap compared to what’s available in the U.S. but it’s all we got. I’d kill for a 250gig limit.
iDont…
Assuming a porno is 700meg avi about 357movies a month. I don’t think they make that much porn a month.
So am I reading this right. Is Comcast the Telstra of America?
To “The Deal”
It was “over” the second BUSH stole the first election, followed by the second.
It is over all right! Thanks to you and your room temp IQ ilk!
Now the country is in the worse condition in history and you cluless morons are voting based on how big Palin’s tits are?
No wonder the US is a laughing stock of the civilized world, when we have SO MANY clueless idiots like yourself voting against their own best interests, and doing it all with a big arrogant smile on your face.
Pathetic.
“Thanks to you and your room temp IQ ilk!”
Does that mean desert dwellers are above average to genius level?
“As much as I believe this is foolish, realistically, we aren’t going to be bumping against this limit. http://www.audiocdripper.net If it does for Comcast what they would like it to do, then fine, as long as it doesn’t affect anyone.”