Comcast: Usage Meter Launch

[SuzzyQ]

We got this Email from Comcast:

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We are pleased to announce the pilot launch of the Comcast Usage Meter in your area. This new feature is available to Comcast High-Speed Internet customers and provides an easy way to check total monthly household high-speed Internet data usage at any time. Monthly data usage is the amount of data, such as images, movies, photos, videos, and other files that customers send, receive, download or upload each month. Comcast measures total data usage and does not monitor specific customer activities to determine data usage.

The current data usage allowance for the Comcast High-Speed Internet service is 250GB per month. This means that the vast majority of our customers ? around 99% currently ? will not come close to using 250GB of data in a month, and do not need to check the usage meter. For more information on the data usage policy, please visit http://help.comcast.net/aup.

So what happens to people who watch sports, TV programs, movies, ect online?. That 250gigs is going to go pretty fast.

[Barefootsies]

So what happens to people who watch sports, TV programs, movies, ect online?. That 250gigs is going to go pretty fast.

You are going to pay for premium access. Or buy a beer and cry in it.

[Vendzilla]

this is going to kill the tube sites, LOL

[TidalWave]

250GB will NOT go that fast. That is a lot of transfer for any single house hold.
The only people who are affected are SEVERE abusers of house hold internet and most likely for heavily illegal usage like warez (of all types, music, movies, etc).

[BIGTYMER]

Just use your neighbors WiFi when you get close to your limit.

[96ukssob]

this is going to kill the tube sites, LOL

not even a dent

your not downloading your streaming, which doesn't eat up nearly as much bandwidth.

its just a matter of time before they start charging for use then pay for unlimited

[candyflip]

250 gig is quite a bit more 250 hours of HD movie and tv downloads.

[Juicy D. Links]

Suzzy doesnt Cablevision cover parts of CT or no? Any other options besides Comcast available by u?

that cap sucks :-(

[SuzzyQ]

Suzzy doesnt Cablevision cover parts of CT or no? Any other options besides Comcast available by u?

that cap sucks :-(

Juicy,
We have Cablevision in CT and Comcast in Vermont. (We have 2 homes). I can almost see whats next. They are going to create some bullshit tiering system where you have to pay for bandwidth.. If Comcast does something like that, you can bet your ass that other cable companies will do the same.
No more unlimited bandwidth,,

Comcast has to pay for NBC somehow.

[Sly]

I download quite a bit of porn content to work with... I don't think I even do 250 GB. That's a lot of transfer. You would need to download about 8 GB a day to do that... just downloading 8 gigabytes a day would take a good portion of the day for most connection speeds.

[Babaganoosh]

Most people have no idea how much bandwidth they burn. I am online all day, every day and I am usually less than 50 gigs per month.

[candyflip]

I download quite a bit of porn content to work with... I don't think I even do 250 GB. That's a lot of transfer. You would need to download about 8 GB a day to do that... just downloading 8 gigabytes a day would take a good portion of the day for most connection speeds.

I don't even have great speeds - 2mbps download if I'm lucky. I've gotten 8 gig files in about 60 minutes.

[LiveDose]

This is how it starts...

[SuzzyQ]

I don't even have great speeds - 2mbps download if I'm lucky. I've gotten 8 gig files in about 60 minutes.

Here is an example of how fast you could burn through that 250gigs.

Take your average sports junkie, (who has no life)-
He subscribes to some NFL package where he can watch all of the games on any given Sunday. He watches 2 games - in HD. Then during the week, he watches a game or 2, again, in HD.Add a few TV shows he missed -in HD.
He will burn up a lot of bandwidth real fast.

[SuzzyQ]

This is how it starts...

Exactly... They have something in the works.

[Babaganoosh]

Here is an example of how fast you could burn through that 250gigs.

Take your average sports junkie, (who has no life)-
He subscribes to some NFL package where he can watch all of the games on any given Sunday. He watches 2 games - in HD. Then during the week, he watches a game or 2, again, in HD.Add a few TV shows he missed -in HD.
He will burn up a lot of bandwidth real fast.

How much bw will he burn? Do you have any idea at all?

[meatboss]

You get about 50 gigs a month in Canada, tend to burn 300+ no sweat eh.

[woj]

250GB is about 1mbit 24/7... (a little less, but close enough)

that's 24/7 of watching SD youtube clips...

[Marcus Aurelius]

250Gb is about 10 BlueRay movie rips from torrents

[KillerK]

Exactly... They have something in the works.

Sorta like how gays want to be "married", this is how it starts right?

[cess]

250 gig is quite a bit more 250 hours of HD movie and tv downloads.

Eh?

A movie around 2 hours in HD (1080p) that's encoded good will take up about 10GB using H264. So 250GB is about 50 hours of good quality 1080p content. I'm sure ISPs want to stop heavy users but IMO it's more about stopping hulu, netflix, googletv, etc from taking off and providing a HD-TV alternative to cable. Timewarner has been trying to cap their bandwidth too, but even less (40GB).

[LoveSandra]

shit roll over

[ottopottomouse]

I'd love a 250GB allowance AND enough speed to be able to eat it all

50GB a month here

[DamianJ]

So you can download HD versions of BBC programmes in the UK. About 2 gig for a 30 minute show.

2 hours of tv a day = your bandwidth gone.

Let alone streaming netflix, nightly *nix builds, etc etc

[georgeyw]

250gig is a huge amount.

I use ~5gig a month at home and 40 or so at my office.

[Adraco]

Last 30 days I have used up 25GB in total up/downloads.

[seeandsee]

illegal tubes dont mind, really