SubscribeComcast is introducing its 300GB usage cap in Atlanta on Dec. 1:
The cable company is currently sending e-mail notifications to affected customers. Comcast has tested usage caps in several markets, mostly in the southern United States, to measure customer response.
Notice the e-mail suggests Comcast is “increasing the amount of data” included in the customer’s allowance. In fact, Comcast rescinded usage limits for most customers across the country in May 2012.
Last week, Neil Smit, president and CEO of Comcast Cable Communications told Wall Street analysts customers are not pushing back hard against capped Internet.
“We have a number of trials in place in markets,” Smit said. “We’re testing different types of usage-based pricing offerings. Thus far the consumer response has been neutral to slightly positive. We’ll continue to monitor it.”
If customers do not want their Internet usage capped, they must vocalize complaints with Comcast and consider taking other steps such as organizing protests in front of local Comcast offices, inviting the media to attend.
In 2009, a similar effort to introduce usage caps and consumption billing by Time Warner Cable failed after customer backlash forced the company to shelve the idea.
The wording here may be grounds for a false claim lawsuit.
“…which will increase the amount of data included in your XFINITY Internet Service to 300 GB…”
That’s not an increase.
No it’s not, they clearly had someone in marketing draft that version to make it sound like customers were getting a benefit, hoping that customers wouldn’t recognize they’re getting ripped off going from unlimited to a metered service with expensive overages.
Customer acceptance just means nobody has hit the limit *YET* or got their massive bill for overages yet. Most people are just going to take a notice like that, if they understand it, get pissed, but most likely throw it away until they get an overage bill and then call the company or switch to another provider.
It is very misleading. This is how this company can get a result that suggests people are neutral to slightly positive about having their Internet usage limited and subject to overlimit fees. If it was 250 before, 300 sounds better. But it really should be unlimited, especially with the amount of cash Comcast rakes in from broadband. There is no reason people in Atlanta shouldn’t be able to get two dozen college students and locals together and picket Comcast’s local office. Tell the TV/media 24 hours in advance and give them something to video and it will make the local… Read more »
Philip, the reason I consider this false-claim is because it wasn’t 250GB when my service was connected. It was not limited to any number, and thus, a 300GB limit does not “increase the amount of data included” in my plan. Positive infinity (or a saturated pipe all month) to 300GB is a decrease, by any mathematics.
The biggest smoking gun this month about these caps come as the next generation consoles are released. The game companies no longer want to be in business of moving physical disks around: From The Verge: “Moonlightswami has found that the Xbox One takes 17 seconds to boot up before requiring a 500MB day-one patch. Microsoft confirmed the patch is a requirement to play games, and once it’s installed you’re then free to download a variety of games and apps. Game sizes vary greatly in download size. NBA 2K14 appears to be one of the largest at 43GB, with Call of… Read more »
I’ll be pulling out my bag of popcorn to watch and listen to the cries of all the users on metered broadband once they start using their new consoles and downloading all these titles while they hit their caps with overages. It just goes to show how absurd the 300GB and under caps are today for users. It costs the providers pennies yet they bill it for tens and hundred times their cost. Our local cable co. finally rolled out 50Mbit/5Mbit service this month offering 500GB metered service and get this.. they’re charging $200/mo for it and its not even… Read more »
“The biggest smoking gun this month about these caps come as the next generation consoles are released. The game companies no longer want to be in business of moving physical disks around:”
So they want to place that cost onto the internet provider? Its a cost, and at the end of the day someone has to bear it. It would seem fair that the customer bears that cost one way or another.
“So they want to place that cost onto the internet provider?” Either you’re a shill for an ISP, or just ignorant of reality. I’ll assume the latter, that you simply aren’t informed enough to understand, and provide some background. The cost of moving physical media around is on the order of thousands of times more expensive (depending on what’s being transferred) than transmitting the bits over Internet pipes. This is no joke. I worked at a “Tier 2” for almost a decade and watched the Mbit/sec contract costs fall like anvils heading towards Wylie Coyote. More importantly, I know that… Read more »
Customers already cover those costs through a ridiculously high monthly charge for Internet access. Comcast and other cable operators don’t seem to complain about the costs of transporting their video-on-demand services provided over broadband, and as we learned today online video is now the biggest source of online traffic.
It is unfortunate video game providers have gone the route of Apple delivering insanely large updates. It would be better for all concerned if they could find a way to just send the patches instead of some of these multi-gigabyte updates.
I just got my notice a couple of days ago. I have been streaming tv for about four months and was well over the 300GB. I have been in the 650GB range each month since cutting cable. So that would mean that I would be charged an additional $70 a month. Then I have my netflix account to pay for on top of that. I figured for that fee I might as will bundle cable and internet for less. Well Comcast may have thought that I was calling them to add cable but I was actually calling them to cancel… Read more »
This is exactly what the Cable Companies don’t understand as they try to protect their TV business and squeeze broadband for as much extra profit as possible with artificial limits and very real overage fees. They’re hoping with overage penalties people will drop ‘over the top’ internet streaming and pay for their TV packages, and if they don’t.. well that’s just a huge profit for them. Internet is a real utility and necessity, having hundreds of channels of mostly advertising and junk TV isn’t. Still, they’re not going to change unless they absolutely have to due to competition continuing to… Read more »
Well AT&T also has a cap and theirs is even less at 250gb. But since i have the cable now i know i will not be going over. We were always under 50gb before we started streaming tv. So when I got the email from Comcast I compared prices with AT&T and I realized I would get more channels for my package at a cheaper price than Comcast. My internet alone with Comcast was $76 a month because I need the speed. Realize that at times we may have 4 tvs streaming Netflix or Hulu at once. Now it would… Read more »
“However for my gas service I have about 5 providers to choose from.” Ah, the illusion of competition. You got that slightly wrong: You actually have 1 provider to choose from, but 5 billing companies to choose from. They are all buying gas from the physical, single provider (no, there are not 5 separate methane pipes running under your street), and re-selling it back to you at a markup. The billing companies, usually called “marketers”, are all making a profit simply by having printers — sometimes not even that! — and payment processing systems. None of them physically touch your… Read more »
Yes, I understand that there is only one company providing the gas and several sellers but still not one of them can afford to come can afford to come up with stupid rules and regulations since they have more competition. When it comes to internet your options are very slim.
“Yes, I understand that there is only one company providing the gas and several sellers but still not one of them can afford to come can afford to come up with stupid rules and regulations since they have more competition.” This doesn’t make sense. What kinds of rules or regulations? In the Atlanta, Georgia market area, the delivery of natural gas is a wholly regulated operation (Atlanta Gas Light Co, and its counterparts in other areas, which are not paid directly by the consumer). The marketers all buy therms at the same wholesale, regulated price, and then turn around and… Read more »
I’m not Stella so I can not speak for her, but from the context of what Stella is saying I would interpret her statement about “stupid rules and regulations” to be a reference to the fact that the middle man in the natural gas example can not just arbitrarily choose a number to limit the amount of gas you can use per month because there are more competitors in that marketplace, where when it comes to broadband, since there are so few ISP’s available they can pretty much make up any “stupid rules and regulations” (like usage caps) whenever they… Read more »
Aaron, that is exactly the point that I am trying to make. The more competition the more we are able to put up a fight. I only have two options for internet and that is At&t and Comcast. Unless I choose to use a cellular company for home internet which gives you even less of a cap. While searching on line, I say there were people with even less options; only having one internet company in their area. These caps must go as technology keeps advancing. People can now control their house appliances, alarm, air conditioner over the internet. One… Read more »
I submitted a complaint to Comcast through the Better Business Bureau in response to the letter. They weren’t much help since I just received a call from a Comcast employee who explained the policy to me (which I already understood). I also wrote our state and local legislators about the issue. I actually received a call from one of the Senator’s assistants. He explained that this issue is receiving a lot of attention on the hill and he would brief the Senator. Maybe more people should write their legislators and they’ll attempt to do something. I’m just hoping that we… Read more »
Comcast states that the average data usage of people who use Comcast internet use 20gb to 25gb monthly. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-average-network-usage) They sent an email to their customers, concerning the new data cap limit, also stating that most of their customers use far less than 300gb monthly. Is this true? No, not at all. This is probably one of the biggest lies that they have been telling everyone. It doesn’t even make reasonable sense, unless if the majority of Comcast users are living alone in a house and aren’t watching any TV shows or movies through HD video streaming services, such as… Read more »