Comcast: Comcast's 250GB data caps now official, starting in October

Let's not forget that many, many homes are multiple computer/user homes. So a 4 person household (a small family or, more unluckily, 4 roommates sharing rent) will have only 62.5 GB per person.

Add on instant messenging by the kids, some spyware that constantly utilizes your bandwidth (Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Alert: Spyware manufactured by the feds to steal your bandwidth and thus your internet!), and perhaps some online gaming and this could quickly become an excuse to shut down internet in the majority of households.

As ayahuasca noted, an informed public is hard to manipulate. It appears the Trojan horses of "Child pornography" and "Copyright infringement" weren't stealing away one of our few remaining opportunities to inform ourselves quite as quickly as they'd hoped....

Besides, I have exactly 0% faith that this number won't steadily decrease in the future as people grow to accept it.

I'm curious if this will affect online gaming... A lot of people out there play World of Warcraft, Guildwars, Conan, Team Fortress, Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, etc. Will these people be going over the cap easily?

This is an underhanded thing to do to people. They claim it's to keep people from using torrents and stop illegal downloads but we all know that's a load of shit.

They are doing this to systematically tear down the internet and stop the flow of information. An informed public is hard to manipulate... Especially when we can see through online sources that the news is nothing but lies and propaganda. This is just the first step of many.

Fuck you Comcast! I will never use your service again and I will not support any other companies that try the same.

Once again... Fuck you Comcast!!!

Looks like I better get all my downloading done by October 1st.

this is your BOSS, your fired!!!!!!!

i wouldn't even care if they did. this job sucks

I hope you don't lose your job over this

i actually work for comcast as a customer account executive (low peon) and i think that this move by comcast is a load of shit. ha ha i'm actually sitting in my office right now. i think everyone should stand up for their internet freedoms and not let this company bully us. in fact, i'm going to voice my opinion to my district vice-president today.

I contacted the Board of Public Utilities about this and was told there was nothing they could do, that I should contact the FCC. Directly from them,

"On a state and/or local level, there is no regulation of Internet service over cable television lines and very little regulation on the federal level as well. In March 2002, the Federal Communication Commission’s (“FCC”) issued a Declaratory Ruling providing that cable modem service was an "interstate informational service" exempt from state regulation. On June 27, 2005, the US Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s decision that broadband cable modem service is an informational service but not a telecommunications service, and therefore not subject to Title II common carrier regulation under the Telecommunications Act of 1996."

Imagine if Comcast threatened to disconnect a user for watching too much television and that user had no recourse, no other provider to switch to - this is the same thing, but with Internet service.

ouch

Wow, and they don't even have a pitiful excuse like 'you will have better service because of this'...

jjeziorski,

I disagree with some of what you said there. Unfortunately, that's not how most of the news networks work here. If Comcast advertises on your local paper or local station, then you might get little to no coverage on something like that.

So do I switch to dsl now or wait for the promised fiber-optics??? choices.. sigh

If you liked your unbridled access, you should have paid more attention to the news... There was plenty of coverage of all of the events leading up to these things...

De-regulation of broadcast media - you could have voted against it... or at least the politicians that were for it. Now, ClearChannel & Rupert Murdoch own every radio & tv station in your town & nearly every local dj is out of a job (unless they like the prospect of being a minimum-wage button-pusher til retirement)

Meetings & legislation on behalf of the RIAA, BMI, ASCAP, & the MPAA - could've attended the meetings or at least made a phone call... Bandwidth limits are imposed to squash P2P file-sharing or torrents.

Aaaand, the axe that sliced the camel's back - Net Neutrality.

If you think the government & corporate interests want the internet & media to be accessible to you - you're dead wrong.

250GB is nothing. Especially since everything is being streamed nowadays, including phone calls.

And yea, they have no competition. ATT and Comcast divided up regions so there is no competition.

This is ridiculous comcast needs some real competition. As of right now they know they can pretty much do anything they like, because we don't really have other options.
What does surprise me is that Hulu, youtube, or netflix haven't made any comments on this cap. Seems that it might hurt their business.

Gee cutting back to only 50 million E-mails a month. What ever will I do. I guess that in October I'll only be able to make 49,999,999 posts here. Oh wait a minute. I dont have Comcast! Hey I can still go over the 50 million E-mails a month mark with no problem.

I believe they tested this idea out on some small town in Virginia first.

But yea... I knew this was coming because there were caps on cable internet in various parts of the country from other providers. Cable pipe is shared by your whole neighborhood and at peak hours, it's rediculously slow. That's one of the reasons they are capping it. I remember back in 1999 a lot of Canadian cable providers capped their users too. It isn't dedicated like DSL. Cable does have a faster up and download speeds, but many people don't know DSL can be upgraded to cable speeds nowadays -- it just costs more. Plus, it's more secure to have a dynamic IP anyway.

Time to e-mail my friends and family who have comcast!

Let's just limit breathing.

GO GREEN...if you breathe out more carbon dioxide then alloted you will be ruining the Environment and we (the Green Mob if you will) will hunt you don't and puncture your lungs.

Have a happy Earth Day. *grin*

To all those yelling about switching ISPs; it's not that easy in some places. If I want broadband, I have Comcast cable or Verizon DSL. That's it, they're the only two choices. Comcast is faster.

250G/month is a lot, and no normal user will go over it, but that's not the point. *Any* limit sets a dangerous precedent for consumers.

stantheman is on the right track! Read his post folks and begin the grassroots movement at a local level- There are options available to communities and municipalities who would want them- check out wireless mesh systems- if you ask me, not being tied to a cable, and a community owned isp would be better in all respects.

Screw the tether, screw the corporate big brother crap, and screw the sob's who don't understand what responsible profits are. (read screw comcast!)

Hmm... my thoughts are that for most people (and even those who download torrents and such) 250GBs is going to always be plenty.

However, I am staunchly against any internet regulations that cap or block or in some way restrict you from having access to our last free (meaning unhindered from politics, corporations, and religion) media.

This news will surely give AT&T a huge opportunity to compete with COMCAST.
Actually, this is a possitive news for us subscribers, competition means lower cable bundle bill.

SWITCH ISP'S!! DO NOT TOLERATE THIS FASCIST CRAP!!

Sounds like a good time to switch from Comcast to another ISP

I have Comcast. This shit sucks.

I think it's the people that need to rise up with a middle finger right back at the greedy bastards at comcast. The simple answer would be to switch to another provider, but people don't often have that choice - sometimes cable is the only game in town. People need to understand that the cable company is a public utility and falls under the governance of the board of public utilities (in my state it's http://www.bpu.state.nj.us/). Also, each municipality grants the cable company a municipal consent (a franchise, really a monopoly) to provide service to the town. Usually these consents last for 10 years at a time. I suggest that since these caps were not in place when the consent was granted, either they suspend the caps per municipality until the end of the consent, or they hold a new public hearing where they can ammend the consent, otherwise, throw them out of the town and let a competing cable or FiOS provider in. I'd start by contacting your town's legal department and see what they have to say. If their consent period is up for renewal, there will be public hearings held. Print flyers and post them around the neighborhood. Most people may not be affected by the cap (yet) but they should object on principle alone. Maybe the EFF ( http://eff.org ) can chime in on this? Postal rates used to be metered by distance - the gov't hired Charles Babbage (before his Difference Engine) to study the problem and he advised that it cost more money to calculate the metering than it did to deliver the letter, and the flat rate stamp was born. The same will hold true for Comcast, it'll cost more to do the metering, and that cost will be passed on to us, along with a hefty profit back for Comcast. It's Craptastic!

I loathe Comcast! Everything they touch turns to crap.

Don't be fooled, this is just a first step.

250 may be a shit of a lot, but it's going to get tighter and tighter very soon.

What the hell happened to capitalism? Why is comcast giving in to the government, enforcing their sh*t laws. Comcast needs to raise the middle finger and continue on with providing whatever service someone pays for.

Aw man. Talk about unfair.
I burn through 250 GB's before I finish my first cup of coffee.

250GBs I couldn't believe this......

WiFi hacking is gonna get crazy!

Ride on!

And now we see the death of internet access as we know it.