Customer Service

[Elginr]

There is no way you were using Netlifx for an hour or 2 aday and only used 1gb or 11gb. You average about 1 or 2 gb of streaming from Netflix alone. At 2 hours a day, that puts you 2 to 4gb a day, per month, thats close to your 117gb usage.

[sabretooth]

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Elginr wrote:

There is no way you were using Netlifx for an hour or 2 aday and only used 1gb or 11gb. You average about 1 or 2 gb of streaming from Netflix alone. At 2 hours a day, that puts you 2 to 4gb a day, per month, thats close to your 117gb usage.

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Well that's not correct.  What if he has his Netflix set at 0.3GB per hour which is the default, that's only 0.6GB per day.   At 2 hours per day for 30 days is only 18GB for the month just for movies.

[wayninja]

I have no problem with the logic behind a cap.  However, what comcast has failed to do is provide any sort of justification for sitting on their infrastructure as more and more users start to hit the wall.

When will the cap be increased?  Are you 'rushing' to improve your infrastructure to handle increasing demands of consumers and digital content?

Where's the roadmap?

Are we just expected to pay increasing rates for services that don't ever actually improve?

250GB was fine in 2008.  It was acceptable in 2009.  It was irritating in 2010.  It was concerning in 2011.  In 2012, it's starting to get ridiculous.

[i-am-nerdburg]

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sabretooth wrote:

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Elginr wrote:

There is no way you were using Netlifx for an hour or 2 aday and only used 1gb or 11gb. You average about 1 or 2 gb of streaming from Netflix alone. At 2 hours a day, that puts you 2 to 4gb a day, per month, thats close to your 117gb usage.

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Well that's not correct.  What if he has his Netflix set at 0.3GB per hour which is the default, that's only 0.6GB per day.   At 2 hours per day for 30 days is only 18GB for the month just for movies.

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I guess "correct" is in the eye of the beholder. If you are OK with low/standard quality TV, then you'll use less bandwidth. If you haven't noticed tho, that new fangled "HD" TV thing is all the rage these days. Crazy kids!

[sabretooth]

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i-am-nerdburg wrote:

I guess "correct" is in the eye of the beholder. If you are OK with low/standard quality TV, then you'll use less bandwidth. If you haven't noticed tho, that new fangled "HD" TV thing is all the rage these days. Crazy kids!

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Yeah but of 60% of the counrty still doesn't have HD yet.

[letzgostate]

My bandwidth usage has been steadily increasing over the last several months. My last month I used 621 GBs with no notice from them so far of there being any issue. No shut off, no email to tell me to reduce my usage, not even a "we are worried somebody may be using your connection, please secure your network" message.

[Anon772695]

I am so angry about this!!! I was not told about this either. This limit needs to be an asterisk at a minimum on every service bullet item list!! This is complete BS, I use my broadband to browse the net, watch netflix, play on xbox live, and download a program once in a while.

Day 18 into the month and I am at 125GB!!! This is a a family of 2 people, with my son here 1/2 the week. So I guess according to comcast my profile is that of a business class user? At this rate I will be getting darn close to the limit every month. The fact they tell you that this limit will only affect 2% of their base is laughable, maybe they will only go after 2%, but that is just playing words and setting people up to be charged overages. I have the triple play with blast btw. 

I will tell you what this is about. Services like Netflix are getting so popular comcast is panicking. They are WAY behind the curve cost wise for similar type of service. The next best thing? Put limits in place that will keep people from simply using comcast as a pipe, and getting their content elsewhere.

My usage page also does not work, I have a case open, and was told "a few customers" are having this issue. Kind of like only 2% of their customers will ever get close to 250GB. Apparently not if they watch netflix and play games every day!!! No, those are business class users. Pathetic, I hope this issue is included in the class action suit that blogger group is doing.

[Anon772695]

I agree, what can be done about this? Especially when you are limited like I am with providers.

[Anon772695]

The complaint have every basis. Comcast is not being forthcoming about this information, and I believe that is where most of us take issue. On top of that, they are simply LYING to people when they say most users will never get close, I was even told 1%. That is simply ridiculous as I would bet money more than 1% of their users are streaming netflix and gaming on a daily basis. 

I would not be nearly as upset about this if when I signed up for their service there was a big astrisk next to the feature list directing me to a sentence outlining the limit. Why would they be upfront about that though, when hiding it in fine print is SO much more par for the course for a telcom co. 

They are all a bunch of crooks.

[Anon772695]

Very well said, what do we do?

[Alphabetus]

http://www.comcast.com/ARBITRATIONOPTOUT/ <- You must opt out of arbitration agreement with Comcast the first month of your service in order to be able to actually sue them in a real court of law. This is important to share with anyone who uses Comcast.

[mario024]

if you watch an old series that you liked, and have  never gotten the chance to see the full episodes, the 250gb is very easy to get passed by just watching lots of episodes  per season, since it counts as 1gb whenever you watching something on netflix.  

[wayninja]

What do you mean by 'counts as 1gb whenever you watching something on netflix'? 

That doesn't sound right at all.

[sabretooth]

^^  It's not.

[mario024]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403066,00.asp

after you finish watchign on netflix, your data cap does indeed go up, if I was you check your cap after you watch something on netflix, ofcourse it will not go up right away, it will take several hours for the cap to update.....

[mario024]

so keep watching stuff on netflix like your favorite show  lots of episodes, if you watch 5,  when you check for the update, it will count as 5gb on your cap, since you watched 5 episodes

[wayninja]

Quote:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403066,00.asp

after you finish watchign on netflix, your data cap does indeed go up, if I was you check your cap after you watch something on netflix, ofcourse it will not go up right away, it will take several hours for the cap to update.....

End Quote

I'm not saying that netflix doesn't count against your cap, I'm taking issue with your proclimation that each 'episode' counts as 1 GB.  1 GB counts as 1 GB.  There is no direct correlation between 'episodes' and Gigabytes as it entirely depends on your quality settings, the length of the content and how much of the content you actually watched.

What you are implying is that if you watch 5 minutes of a tv show on netflix and then decide to stop watching it 'counts as 1GB'.  This is simply not right at all.

The ethics of Comcast limiting netflix while allowing xfinity unresricted is another matter entirely.

[wayninja]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403066,00.asp

after you finish watchign on netflix, your data cap does indeed go up, if I was you check your cap after you watch something on netflix, ofcourse it will not go up right away, it will take several hours for the cap to update.....

End Quote

I'm not saying that netflix doesn't count against your cap, I'm taking issue with your proclimation that each 'episode' counts as 1 GB.  1 GB counts as 1 GB.  There is no direct correlation between 'episodes' and Gigabytes as it entirely depends on your quality settings, the length of the content and how much of the content you actually watched.

What you are implying is that if you watch 5 minutes of a tv show on netflix and then decide to stop watching it 'counts as 1GB'.  This is simply not right at all.

The ethics of Comcast limiting netflix while allowing xfinity unresricted is another matter entirely.

[mario024]

sorry forgot to make it clear, Im saying if you watch 5 full length episodes, not in minutes..

[wayninja]

This makes no difference.  What if I stop watching before the end of the credits?

Does that still count as 1GB?

What if I watch a 1 hour tv show and then a 30 minute tv show?

Does that count as 2 GB?

What if I watch the same episode twice, the first time with the lowest quality settings and the second time in full HD?

Does that count as 2GB?

I'm not sure how to make it any clearer to you.  There is no direct correlation between 'episodes' and GB.

The cap counts bytes, not episodes.

[Alphabetus]

The cap simply _bytes_

[Elginr]

I would go with that they clicked on a Netflix episode, watched for a minute or two and later checked the Comcast usage meter. Since the meter only shows in GB, it may have rounded to the nearest GB causing them to believe it uitlizes 1GB regardles, which isnt true. Get a bandwidth monitor tool and you see how much data you really use for Netflix or any data use for that matter.

[mario024]

Good quality (up to 0.3 GB per hour)

Better quality (up to 0.7 GB per hour)

Best quality (up to 1 GB per hour, or up to 2.3 GB per hour for HD)

as it states on netflix, 

[FlawlessImage]

im pretty sure the XFINITY app on xbox is using bandwidth also even though it says it isnt,i dont think its a coincidence my usage shot up to 299 gb's last month and i was mainly using xfinity.

[PhilWA]

Comcast has changed it's policy, to benefit customers http://blog.comcast.com/2012/05/comcast-to-replace-usage-cap-with-improved-data-usage-management-app...

l

[i-am-nerdburg]

You can find the official thread here: http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Connectivity-and-Modem-Help/Comcast-to-Replace-Usage-Cap/m-p/1286423/me...

The thread is now closed.