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Speed upgrades won’t help Comcast customers if they exceed a market-tested 300GB usage cap that could extend nationwide in 2015. (Image courtesy: “Funch”)
The new speeds are planned to begin on Dec. 16 and a modem reset may be required. Comcast indicates the speed increase excludes parts of New Mexico, Tucson, Ariz., and Fort Collins, Col.
These markets are not part of Comcast’s ongoing usage cap market trials testing a 300GB monthly usage cap with a $10 penalty for each 50GB customers exceed their allowance.
Although some customers are pleased about the speed increases, with usage caps potentially looming the benefits may prove fleeting.
One customer who has cut cable television and now streams all of his video entertainment online found Comcast would empty his bank account if the overlimit fee was in place in his area.
“I figured I’d go and see how much data I actually used in those months and found that I used 996GB in September, 706GB in October and 553GB in November,” wrote Funch. For the month of September, he would have owed Comcast an extra $140 in penalties on top of his usual Internet bill thanks to viewing Hulu and Netflix.
Customers in Comcast usage capped markets are turning down the video quality of Netflix to conserve their usage allowance, resulting in degraded video performance.
“They boost their speeds but then charge you more if you actually use them,” said Nashville customer Paul Frankel. “It’s the Comcast way.”
The Data Usage represented is usually the norm for most people by themselves. In a family of 5 and our usage is usually around 6TBs normally and is ~9-10tbs once in awhile. Granted we have a Gigabit Connection but this is where modern usage should fall. Crapcast is just trying to make sure everyone goes over the cap so you still pay for the speed increase. Maybe keep an eye on the bill and you’ll see price hikes disguised as a fee.
They doubled the download speed but not the upload. So now my speed is 100-120 down but only 10 up.
They also doubled the download speed here, but left the upload the same. 50 down 5 up.
not for Fort Collins,
is this just a short delay or no increase at all?
I am in Fort Collins and have been waiting for this upgrade. arggg.
I believe it is a short delay based on facility upgrades not yet completed. I’m not aware of the history of Ft Collins and Comcast. Did Comcast buy the system from another provider within the last few years? That usually explains why some systems are less capable than others.
I was told the upgrade was going to come to Albuquerque, NM also it never did. Also part of the Rockies also mile high. Still on extreme 105/20 even though the speedtest and utorrent 2.2.1 show it’s more like 125/26. If the usage cap comes back I have no where to run to but will go to century link and 40/20 because what’s the point at 250gb cap? Or 600gb or whatever the bone they are throwing to extreme customers is.
If data usage were really an issue, Comcast would likely have abandoned internet services entirely before now. You can’t stay in business while losing money. They’d either need data caps everywhere or pull out of the states where they currently haven’t implemented them.
Coincidentally, CenturyLink seems to be rolling out gigabit fiber in Seattle this month around the time Comcast doubled download speeds. Coincidence?
Both are terrified of the potential arrive of Google Fiber, which explains the speed increases. Amazing what real competition does.