Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
To be fair, a terabyte is a ton of data. If you're burning through a terabyte, you need to rethink your life because you're spending too much time in front of the TV streaming and on the net.
First of all, 1 terabyte is not free, as you are paying a monthly service fee regardless of unlimited usage.
Don't make excuses for them, because they are moving slowly as to not create a revolt. Going from unlimited "free data" to having to pay would freak people out and cause a mass exodus of customers. So they will start with a certain amount "free", and slowly work that number down. Then once others follow suit, then they will start making more significant reductions in the amount you can get for the monthly fees you are already paying for.
Lastly, while i terabyte is a lot for one person or small family, if your family is large and you have extended family over (all with their own devices), you can use a lot more data than you might imagine.
When you have to make such absurd comparisons, that's when it's obvious you've lost the argument. The differences between modern televisions and modern resolution vs a 13" B&W TV are obvious at any distance to anyone who isn't literally blind. The differences between 1080p and 4K are not as obvious. We are reaching diminishing returns on increased resolution because of the limitations of the human eye. Here's a handy chart to illustrate those diminishing returns: http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/20...tion_chart.jpg.
I'm glad you understand there is a difference between 1080p and 4k. Do I need to ask, or is it obvious which one people would prefer?? Its not absurd when the only difference is this cap, that's the point of this discussion. I have 20/15 vision, and I can notice the difference. Even some of the over-the-air tv programs are 4k, and its easy to tell which ones are. They are even starting to come out with 8k tvs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bitey
Even the vast, vast majority of households with multiple devices and multiple people, which describes my household by the way, aren't using 1TB a month. Extremely few households are. Those that are SHOULD be paying more for their extremely unusual usage amount. If this was a money grab like so many are claiming, Comcast could have expanded their previous enforcement of their previous 300GB cap from some markets to all markets instead of raising the cap to a number that 98+% of their customers aren't exceeding.
You still want to assume not only what people are using, but fail to look into the future of how more and more households are going to exceed this cap by not only technology becoming a better value (cheaper computers, 4k tvs can now be had for only a few hundred bucks), but also how programs, apps, tv shows, websites, streaming services, video games, etc have programs that are far advanced than they were a few years ago, and are being designed to use more and more data. We are long past 8 bit video games, analog tv, and apps that only required a few megabytes.
If they just made that cap to all markets all of a sudden they would lose far too many customers to the competition, (that should be obvious). I alone have come close to 300gb in a month, and that's not even factoring in other people or multiple streaming devices, (where did you even get 98% from)??
What they have done is set an arbitrary number that they think they can get away with. Please explain to me or show me ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL, of how much it costs the ISP ANY EXTRA AT ALL to allow 100TB over 100GB. Any information at all, that it costs them even one cent more.
What Comcast needs now more than anything, is for the competition to realize there is another way to charge another BS fee, and follow along.
This is about consumers voluntarily cutting the cord to Cable TV, and replacing it with streaming. The consumer who does this has a lower bill. Comcast doesn't want a lower bill.
Imagine instead Comcast sent a letter saying "we're going to cap you at 30 hours per month of TV, and we're going to charge you a penalty if you watch more TV than that."
I'm one of those cord-cutters who hasn't had cable in 13 years, and my family fits a high-consumption profile according to the standards set forth in this thread. We don't even use half that 1TB cap.
A more accurate analogy would be "you're currently watching 100 hours a month of television and we're going to cap you at 400 hours a month."
To be fair, a terabyte is a ton of data. If you're burning through a terabyte, you need to rethink your life because you're spending too much time in front of the TV streaming and on the net.
I just got my notice, saying that I averaged 24 GB per month. However, I'm planning on getting a camera soon that produces 4K video. After that, I'll be shooting 10 times as much and it will use 4 times as much encoding per time unit. I'll also be uploading a lot more of it and my usage rate may go up close to the 1TB limit. So, I'll have to learn a kind of limitation, I haven't had before. However, most people will find that the data-flow limits on hosting websites will be the most stingy and far below what CC allows.
The caps have absolutely nothing to do with congestion or over use of their network. Some leaked documents from customer service say that the caps are about "Fairness and providing a more flexible policy to our customers". The document tells reps not to say "The program is about congestion management (it is not)." It's basically just a way for them to make some extra money without really doing anything.
Category Activity per day Approximate usage per month
Video ---- Streaming six hours of high definition video --- 540.0 GB Streaming six hours of standard definition video --- 126.0 GB Downloading one movie --- 60.0 GB
Gaming --- Five hours of video gaming --- 9.0 GB
Music --- Streaming six hours of audio --- 5.0 GB Downloading 50 MP3 files --- 5.3 GB
These numbers are what your data usage would be for the month if you used these amounts every day. So this can be a lot to do, and clearly high def video streaming is what is really going to reach the cap. If you have several people doing this at once, (such as on the weekend, or guests over), you could easily exceed the daily average when using multiple devices.
These numbers are what your data usage would be for the month if you used these amounts every day. So this can be a lot to do, and clearly high def video streaming is what is really going to reach the cap. If you have several people doing this at once, (such as on the weekend, or guests over), you could easily exceed the daily average when using multiple devices.
Not only that, but as mentioned, UHD/4K eats up even more data than that.
Quote:
According to Netflix here is the amount of data you will use per hour:
0.7 GB per hour for SD (Standard Definition)
3 GB per hour for HD (High Definition)
7 GB per hour for UHD (Ultra High Definition also known as 4K)
Meaning that if one were to stream about 143 hours of UHD video, they would consume just over 1000 GB (1 TB) of data. That works out to about 4 hours and 36 minutes of streaming a day, easily achievable if you have multiple people streaming. And that doesn't factor in the additional data used from gaming, downloading, or any other internet use.
They're likely doing this because people are starting to (wisely) abandon cable, so they need to figure out some way to make their stockholders fat and rich.
And this is a way they can do it and get away with it, since they are a virtual monopoly in the market.
To be fair, a terabyte is a ton of data. If you're burning through a terabyte, you need to rethink your life because you're spending too much time in front of the TV streaming and on the net.
Glad I don't have Comcast.
I used them once when I lived in California. They were awful and expensive so I switched to Verizon.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Its not absurd when the only difference is this cap, that's the point of this discussion. I have 20/15 vision, and I can notice the difference. Even some of the over-the-air tv programs are 4k, and its easy to tell which ones are. They are even starting to come out with 8k tvs. 
