Bandwidth limits.

[NeutralGold]

I need some help. Comcast recently started a bandwidth limit trial in my area. They allow you to go over your bandwidth limit 3 times in a year and of course the first month the limit is in place I went over by 65 gigabytes. That's 20 extra bucks on my bill already if it weren't for the allowance.

Since I use merlins firmware on my RT-N66U I figured I would start here.
I'm looking for some kind of unmanned solution. Maybe an ent/optware solution, I don't really know if there's anything available. I did a little searching but I'm not exactly sure what I should be searching for I guess since I can't seem to find anything.

I've seen talk about it before maybe here or on the linksys forums I'm not sure but I can't find anything now. My comcast bill is shared and even more so it's used heavily with things like movie streaming. I've already changed settings in netflix to standard definition but I'm not so sure that's going to cut it.

I'm just looking for some options that don't require me to completely cut off the internet once I get close to the limit because that's going to be insanely annoying for me and everyone else around here.

Any helps greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[bobyang]

I don't know the solution.. but in the average, 2GB a day is not a lot! less than a DVD! No other ISP you can choose there? I just wonder where is it and how much you pay monthly?

 

[sm00thpapa]

I would find another ISP in your area.

 

[bail_w]

I would find another ISP in your area.

I doubt that would be an option, unless he wants to go with AT&T UVerse (trash, /endofdiscussion).

 

[Quiptix]

I doubt that would be an option, unless he wants to go with AT&T UVerse (trash, /endofdiscussion).

Move to Europe?
How would that be related to Spotify / Netflix and so on... Watching one episode of an average serie would bring you beyond the daily average...

 

[jim769]

AT&T uverse has a data cap to and it's less then comcast 250 gb a month but I'm not sure they are actively enforcing it. Comcast sure is I guess they need some more money. Any data cap on a home internet service in this day and age is nothing more then a crock of s@@t to make more money.

 

[NeutralGold]

Yeah I seen the 250 gig data cap for a couple years. This is different.

This started last month. Here is part of the email I received.

Dear XFINITY Internet Customer:

At Comcast, we recognize that our customers use the Internet for different reasons and have unique data needs. Starting December 1, 2013, Comcast will trial a new monthly data plan in this area, which will increase the amount of data included in your XFINITY Internet Service to 300 GB and provide more choice and flexibility.

What this means for You

The vast majority of XFINITY customers use far less than 300 GB of data in a month. If you are not sure about your monthly data usage, please refer to the Track and Manage Your Usage section below.

We want our customers to use the Internet for everything they want and your service will not be limited to 300 GB. While we believe that 300 GB is more than enough to meet the Internet usage needs of most customers, Comcast will automatically add blocks of 50 GB to your account for an additional $10, should you exceed the 300 GB included in your plan in a month.

In order for our customers to get accustomed to this new data plan, we are implementing a three-month courtesy program. That means you will not be billed for the first three times you exceed 300 GB included in the data plan during a 12 month period. Should your usage exceed 300 GB a fourth time during any 12-month period, an additional 50 GB will automatically be allocated to your account and you will be billed $10 for that data and each additional 50 GB of data in excess of 300 GB during that month and any subsequent months your usage exceeds 300 GB.

Please note that this is a consumer trial. Comcast may modify or discontinue this trial at any time. However, we will notify you in advance of any such change.

Needless to say. The only choices I have are Comcast and AT&T and I would go with out internet before I went back to AT&T. The price and instability along with there data cap as well.

It's either comcast or nothing at all. I didn't really think there was much of anything I could do about this but I wanted to ask anyways. There are quite a few other countries that have had monthly data caps on their broadband internet services over the last 10 years. They do make quite a bit of money on overage charges and people don't have any choice because that's all they have to chose from.

It's just going to take a good bit of adjusting to get use to around here. As you can see, we go over 300GB quite a bit each month.

To the guy that ask; The price varies in different area's. I'm on the performance plan. I get around 3MB/sec down and around 700KB/sec upload.

Well if anyone hears of anything please leave a post. I would rather my bandwidth be throttled at some point so that I can't go over rather than it being cut off completely.

 

[jim769]

I have comcast as well right now in my market here in Michigan the data cap is suspended but that won't last for long they are rolling it back out state by state. Looks like your on there economy speed tier I have there Blast speed tier getting about 57 down and 11.7 up and the coming cap makes me angry. I pay good money for internet and I don't like being told I have to pay more for a already expensive service.

 

[CooCooCaChoo]

Better than having your speed throttled or worse yet being kicked off the net.

 

[NeutralGold]

Better than having your speed throttled or worse yet being kicked off the net.

I didn't see it when I went over the limit last month, but a lot of people are complaining on the comcast forums about their browsers being hijacked by comcast letting them know their getting close to the limit and again once you reach the limit. Apparently no one can use web browsers until who ever owns the account and logs in saying they received the messages.

That's bad news for anyone in households that don't have access to the account. There is a way around that for those people but most people aren't going to know to change the dns from comcast to something else such as googles. The internet isn't exactly cut off, they just hijack browser queries to point to the bandwidth page. A simple change in dns fixes that since the internet is still working.

It could be because those people have already went past the 3 free overages considering I've only been limited for the last month and this one so they didn't hijack my browser.

 

[NeutralGold]

I have comcast as well right now in my market here in Michigan the data cap is suspended but that won't last for long they are rolling it back out state by state. Looks like your on there economy speed tier I have there Blast speed tier getting about 57 down and 11.7 up and the coming cap makes me angry. I pay good money for internet and I don't like being told I have to pay more for a already expensive service.

Speeds are different based on location. That's why you have to put in your area code before you can even see what speeds you're getting. They just advertise the plan names. I'm actually on performance. I'm located about 50 miles from Atlanta Georgia. My area didn't actually get access to 1 teir higher than mine not to long ago. When that happened they cranked up all the plan speeds by a good bit. I went from 2MB down to 3MB down 4 or so months ago.

Everything in my location is based on anything that happens in ATL. If I were just a little further away from the big city I probably wouldn't have to deal with the data cap until much later.

 

[jim769]

Yes I'm aware of that issue from the comcast forums.Like I mentioned the cap for me as of now is suspended and has been for at least the last year or so. But I do a lot of streaming media and music mixed with the wife and two teenage kids and you get the idea I'm sure we will max the cap every month and to have to pay an extra $10.00 bucks for each 50 gb block is insane. But with no other options here I'm stuck internet is a must and comcast knows it.

 

[admiral2145]

higher caps

Yes I'm aware of that issue from the comcast forums.Like I mentioned the cap for me as of now is suspended and has been for at least the last year or so. But I do a lot of streaming media and music mixed with the wife and two teenage kids and you get the idea I'm sure we will max the cap every month and to have to pay an extra $10.00 bucks for each 50 gb block is insane. But with no other options here I'm stuck internet is a must and comcast knows it.

I think if you get the xtreme 105 service you get 600 gigs a month then 10 bux for 50 gigs over that....

 

[NeutralGold]

I think if you get the xtreme 105 service you get 600 gigs a month then 10 bux for 50 gigs over that....

Economy 300 GB

Economy Plus 300 GB

Internet Essentials 300 GB

Performance Starter 300 GB

Performance 300 GB

Blast! 350 GB

Extreme 50 450 GB

Extreme 105 600 GB

That's just the case in my house. No cable tv but we use netflix. I'm talking about streaming whole series at a time. If you read that sentence. You'll see that it might in their eyes justify the bandwidth limit to keep people from doing just that. It's probably a way to get people to purchase cable tv..

Like I said in a previous post though, I've logged into netflix and turned off hd streaming and hopefully that'll knock down a good bit of bandwidth usage.