Comcast to begin charging for data usage on home internet the same way cell phone companies are charging for data

[Zeus 7997]

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

https://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-what-are-the-different-plans-launching?ref=1

[...]the data amount included with Economy Plus through Performance XFINITY Internet tiers would increase from 250 GB to 300 GB. Those customers subscribed to the Blast! Internet tier, have received an increase in their data usage plan to 350 GB; Extreme 50 customers have received an increase to 450 GB; Extreme 105 customers have received an increase to 600 GB. As in our other trial market areas, we offer additional gigabytes in increments/blocks of 50 GB for $10.00 each in the event the customer exceeds their included data amount.

In this trial, XFINITY Internet Economy Plus customers can choose to enroll in the Flexible-Data Option to receive a $5.00 credit on their monthly bill and reduce their data usage plan from 300 GB to 5 GB. If customers choose this option and use more than 5 GB of data in any given month, they will not receive the $5.00 credit and will be charged an additional $1.00 for each gigabyte of data used over the 5 GB included in the Flexible-Data Option.

Each of these options requires that those who choose to use more of the service pay more than others. The Flexible-Data Option adds an alternative, permitting those who choose to use less to pay less.

What is this fucking bullshit?

[Ito 2438]

Someone needs to take Comcast out back and shoot them.

I probably use around 5gb a day, I can't imagine ever being limited to that.

[Original Saku 1593]

this shit has been going on for a while where I live... I get 300 GB a month and for every time I go over the cap I have to pay an extra 10 dollars for 50GB increments. For one 300 is defnintely not enough for me, I regularly use anywhere from 500-700 GB a month... It's total bullshit and I would drop comcast in a heartbeat except for the fact that they monopolize the internet market over here, the only other choice is to go to At&t and honestly they are no better with their data caps and have much slower Internet speeds.

 

If you ask me it should be a crime for a company to monopolize the market like comcast has done here in my state... but alas these companies have started to get so big and powerful that they have influence over the government.

[Licio123 181]

That's pretty common here in Brazil. However, it's been a while that any reduction was made to my Internet (the connection would be reduced to 128 kbps till the end of the month, if you surpassed the limit). And I still download a bunch of stuff, so I guess the traffic limit is bigger and more "flexible" nowadays. But 3 or 4 years ago, I was getting used to download stuff at 10 kbps XD

[Kawaii_Minpha 194]

Edit: Message deleted

[eiheartx 1310]

Are we talking about the data for our home or for mobile phone? I'm confused, but still sounds insane. I'm confused because we don't have that in France for our home (of course for our mobile phones we have unlimited data like 500MB (8DD), 2, 3 or 20 GO /month according to your forfait). 

In France you know, we love to complain about everything (sadly...it's a bad image that we deliver u_u;. But it seems that we're lucky after all for internet and we just don't know what it's like elsewhere. What are you paying ? Personally, I'm paying 70€ for unlimited phone call-internet 20 mega-TV-mobile (3GO).

[Owl 347]

Wow, sounds like lack of market competition, so the monopolist can impose conditions to users. It's almost 2015. Limited data? Orly?

 

I pay less than 10€ for 30 Mbit/s. Unlimited of course. There's a lot of providers here, so they compete and suggest better conditions.

[beni 2149]

That bolded part is truly crazy. My family have to pay quite a lot of money for the internet because we also have the phone line (which we don't even use) and TV (which is only used for consoles) paid for with it (xD). But the internet, it's unlimited. I still remember the time and it actually wasn't that long ago we were stuck with having to use a mega slow cable plug in internet. You couldn't do anything on the computer with such speed. Couldn't even play mini/flash games. D: It was worse than the school computers, and that's bad aha. But I fully agree with what Owl said. I didn't even know so many deals aren't unlimited now. What are they thinking?

[doombox 4421]

I hope Comcast never comes to my area. And please don't let this give Verizon and ideas. Internet is already expensive here. That's ridiculous.

[Nyasagi 259]

The limits were here a long time ago, when someone downloaded more than the limit, the internet was turning very slow... (sometimes they forgot to do that and we had fast net for the whole month, all the joy 8D) Nowadays, only the phone companies have limits, but they've been trying to improve their offers lately. (I think you can buy an extra option for your net to not have limits... but that's more expensive than the cable net) Still, cable net has no limits. They would lose customers if they did that, probably,and monopoly isn't legal here.