Comcast Finally Makes 250GB Cap Official

29 Aug 2008

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Slashdot is reporting something we suspected all along, but now is going to be the stated law of the land in Comcast country. Comcast is amending it’s Terms of Service on October 1st, establishing a specific monthly data usage threshold of 250 GB/month per account for all residential customers.

The claim from Comcast is that less than 1% of current customers exceed that limit, the vast majority don’t get anywhere near it. I suspect that’s true now, but won’t be in, say, 2-3 years time.

This is a “may” clause, meaning if you go over this amount a month, you may be contacted by Comcast to reduce your usage, depending on whether or not your usage is one of the “top users.” I think Comcast needs to be more specific about what a “top user” is, i.e. is the usage is past the 99% percentile, or something else?

Also, the one thing they won’t do is tell you how much bandwidth you’re using now. The only time they’ll tell is when you do *exceed the limit and are among the top users. Their suggestion? Install a “bandwidth meter” on each computer. Right. I have some things that aren’t traditional PCs called *mobile phones and Internet tablets that don’t have a way to install that software on it.

The PhoneBoy Blog

Comcast Finally Makes 250GB Cap Official

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