This is why when Comcast announced its bandwidth limit policy, I actually cheered rather than jeered. By solving the problem correctly, they eliminated their need to solve it incorrectly. I only sort of wish you could pay for more bandwidth, though that's an abstract concern as my worst month ever barely cracked 1/3 usage. (But I know others can have issues.)
I have it on good authority that converting your residential account to a business account (~25% more expensive) will 'remove' Comcast's bandwidth limits (or have them turn a blind eye, etc).
If you don't want to pay the extra, often downgrading the line to the business equivalent of the speed tier below what you are currently using on your residential package will net out a similar monthly fee.
They have better contention ratios on Business accounts and so you may even see faster speeds at that lower tier.
Interesting. Will that improve latency, as well? I have a 50mpbs connection, but I'd be happy with a 10mbps if it didn't take 45 seconds to load reddit.
It might in general, but Reddit's bottleneck might be their own servers.
We downgraded a 50Mbps Comcast line to a 25Mbps line and I honestly couldn't see much difference in terms of actual page load time, file download speeds etc but we saved some $
I don't even think the monthly bandwidth policy is enforced that strictly. I built a new gaming computer a couple months ago, and needed to redownload my steam library and a few other things. Long story short, I grabbed 1.5 TiB over the course of a week, and comcast has yet to complain.
It's certainly better than throttling BitTorrent, but it's very easy to go over if you get 2 or 3 techies living together. Personally, I think the whole thing is somewhat anti-competitive. It discourages people from using services like Hulu or Netflix and encourages them to buy TV service from their cable provider.
And plus, I don't buy the "Our networks can't handle the strain!" argument companies like Comcast keep bringing up. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, 250 GB of data isn't that much for a company the size of Comcast.
> By solving the problem correctly, they eliminated their need to solve it incorrectly.
A correct solution would include a guaranteed increase in the cap yearly (at least) based on the rate of bandwidth usage inflation. I've used massively more bandwidth every year as things like streaming, HD video, etc. become commonplace.
cap with no ability to pay for more is not "solving the problem correctly". I use a multiple of the cap every month and I have a roommate who often uses at least the cap himself. Imagine a family of 5 where everyone actually uses the internet. The cap would not work.
If you break the cap twice there are no overage charges, they just disconnect you for a year, no matter what you're willing to pay. When they called me and said "use less or use nothing" and refused to suggest any way to let me pay for more of their product, that was extremely consumer hostile.
The only solution is the small business plans which are not capped, which they do not tell you about, but fortunately I found out about them in HN comments.
