> Customers with 60Mbps Internet download speeds are being upped to 150Mbps; 150Mbps subscribers are going to 250Mbps; and 250Mbps subscribers are getting a raise to 400Mbps or 1Gbps.
I'd be surprised that any regular household would notice being upgraded from 60 to 150Mbps.
Unless they're uploading videos to YouTube on a regular basis (Or some other type of large file somewhere), no they won't. They already have enough bandwidth to stream to Twitch, so I really don't think the average user (or even a gamer) will notice.
I would always bet on crappy upload. Residential internet is so garbage, it's tough for it to even sustain low latency 3Mbps upload in most areas, especially during evening hours when everyone is trying to upload. Facetiming someone with fiber vs not is like night and day versus someone sharing a tiny cable pipe with 2,000 other people.
Unless it's fiber to the home, I doubt there's any difference. I assume they just make up numbers or relax some constraints so you can get "up to" some arbitrary bandwidth, but your latency will still be garbage, you still won't have upload, and you're still sharing the same pipe with your neighborhood.
On Rogers cable in Canada, I noticed the jump from DSL to cable, and from 25 Mbps cable to 150 Mbps, but that was accompanied by a modem change from plain old DOCSIS to DOCSIS 2. I didn’t notice the jump from 150 to 250 as much (at all) but the jump to gigabit was significant in that it increased upload speeds to 50 Mbps. The next jump was from gigabit over coax to gigabit over plastic optic from Bell Canada, with 100 Mbps up — asymmetric still, but it easily handled multiple requests at the same time with very low latencies to Bell-peered servers. I mention that because gigabit symmetric was again a jump I noticed, in that posting photos and videos became instaneous, but Bell not peering with TorIX the way Rogers does means most of my traffic to Toronto routes through New York or Chicago first as both Bell and TorIX have US peering arrangements. So not everything is perfect even with symmetric gigabit finally. I suspect my next speed increase will arrive when a third-party is finally able to use Bell’s fibre optic network at which point they might peer locally. I’ve contemplated running both Bell and Rogers for the pings, but I’d need somebody to give me BGP for the routing which is likely expensive...
IANAL but my understanding is that bundling is only an antitrust violation when you have a monopoly. They were already offering cable/internet bundles in these areas with cost savings, so I don't see how this changes anything from the antitrust standpoint.
Very unlikely that Netflix will have any problems whatsoever at any of the speeds being discussed. Netflix only needs around 10Mbps to run very, very well.
Alternatively, they should be acknowledging that they're becoming more of an ISP and less of a TV provider, consumers are less interested in traditional TV service, and that they need to adapt in some way.
I already have to subscribe to Comcast's "basic" cable (which is what used to be called lifeline; it has nothing my antenna doesn't, not even the History Channel/Discovery Channel type stuff that used to be on 'basic).
The reason is that they charge me less when I'm also willing to be a TV 'subscriber'. TV+Internet is cheaper than Internet alone. The cable box just sits in its cardboard box in the attic, I still use my antenna because the quality is better.
Not true. Check your bill. TV+Internet might be cheaper when only counting the base rate of TV, but when you get TV you also get tons of fees piled on. FCC fees, Local Cable Access fees, Franchise fees, Cable Box fees, Taxes, etc. It will be different depending on where you live, but when I added up all the fees it added almost $15 extra per month just for basic cable.
It's still cheaper to just pay extra for internet without cable TV and get an OTA antenna.
It really depends on the market. Comcast's prices and service can very significantly based on your zip code. That's why they require you to put in a house number before they'll even let you look at plans or prices. Also, if you put in an address without Comcast service in your neighborhood you'll get very different offerings than if you use your own address.
Used to be 90$ ish a month for years. Then they forced us into a promotional thing that ran out. And now the bill is 150$ a month for tv+internet+landline.
The option to just outright buy internet doesn't exist in their plans. Didn't give me any other options.
Theifs. Liers. Con artists.
I'm so fucking done with Comcast I'm building up a blueprint to help my town get community owned fiber access.
Everything I keep running into says don't. It doesn't work. It costs to much.
I hope it costs to much. I want Comcast to burn in hell for eternity.
I hate that they want to bundle SIP telephony. I arranged my own and pay about $5/month.
Google fiber is in town so prices are ok for data. I set out to get 10 mbits/sec service, the least I could buy was 50 mbits for $35. Apparently I'm getting 75 mbits now.
Every year when my contract is about to expire they tell me my rates will be increasing from $60 to $90/mo., I call in and say I want to cancel and go to CenturyLink unless there is a comparable retention offer, and they continuously offer me a similar rate if I sign a new contract. It takes about 5 minutes, though I wish I didn't have to jump through hoops.
In a competitive market, they will do this for me within 2 calls usually with no escalations.
My friends in places where there is no other option go all the way up the chain with no results, since their threat to leave has no teeth.
It was crazy observing the difference in customer service when I moved to a major metro.
What I'm trying to say is that I agree that they suck, but they do subsidize the cities with higher fees in the country, and also that haggling is important.
> [comcast] do subsidize the cities with higher fees in the country
That may be true, but cities also cost less to serve than rural areas. Less density means that equipment serves fewer customers, each customer requires more cable to serve, technicians need to travel further between calls (or you need more of them), etc.
I've gotten around that recently by just cancelling my account and then having my girflfirend subscribe. We have Charter and their policy is that if you haven't been a customer for a certain amount of time (6-9 months) you count as a new subscriber.
It can be. I had Internet-only service with Comcast for $65-ish/month. One day they called me up and offered TV+Internet for $55-ish/month, plus 12 months at a rate lower than that. I thought it was a scam at first, but I tried it. It was in fact a legit offer.
Just to warn people who might have a different situation, sometimes cable companies say something along the lines of "$19.99 bundle!" And in the small print it says each, so it's actually $60 for phone, internet, and TV.
Same for me. When I said I don't need the TV box, can you just not ship it to me, they were really confused. Said its automated so they can't not ship it.
Frontier did that to me with their router. I run all ubiquiti gear and don't want their junk (or any fees they may charge me for "renting" it). They forced me to take it even after I refused to be paying. Year later haven't been billed for it yet. Such a waste. I have a feeling one day they'll try to use it as an excuse to bill me a lot.
I've returned my Comcast cable boxes in the past, but then they just ship you a new one because they notice you don't have any equipment on your account. It doesn't cost me anything, but when I lose it and later cancel service, you can bet i'll be charged for it.
We canceled service and returned our Comcast box to the local office once a local WISP became available. A week later, a bill arrived in the mail charging us for the box. Apparently, the billing system doesn't first check the equipment return system and it took 45 minutes with Customer Service for the barely trained CS agent to figure out how to go off script and recognize the equipment was indeed already in their possession. After years of being over charged for under performing service, I can only hope for more WISPs to spring up and eat Comcast's lunch.
I started this way, but I've actually upgraded the line to HD. And I got HBO for an extra $1 a month. I rarely use the actual cable box, but watch everything on the Xfinity TV website.
It doesn't cost much more than subscribing to an online TV service and has a pretty good selection at the basic channel tier.
Not just high speed, I think I originally got the 40 Mbps plan and they made me get TV cable service when I just wanted Internet. I really don't understand why. They said they couldn't offer Internet by itself. The box isn't even plugged in and hasn't been for years.
Everything is handled by a different department by them. I upgraded to the 1 Gbps cable plan and it wasn't just a different plan, it was a different department. They had to take the old modem back and get a new one even though it was already compatible with the newer speeds.
Honestly I don't think this is that big a deal even though it is a crappy thing for Comcast to do.
Most services that cord-cutters use heavily (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc.) are built to operate normally on LTE connections, where average bandwidth is something like 30Mbps. So 60Mbps is actually fine.
"We've increased speeds 17 times in the last 17 years."
My experience is that they increase the speed, and then a few months later they raise the price. Then I have to switch to a lower speed to get a price similar to what I was paying before. It's dishonest and sleazy.
In my area, with Cox, they raise the speeds on the upper tiers, but the prices on everything. 10mbps for $43, 30 for $64, 100 for $85, and 300 for $105.
10 is slow enough that I'd have to watch my downloads if my wife or kid were streaming something, and saves just $21/month from the 30 package. When I started using them about 8 years ago, I was single, and my tier was about 15mbps for about $30. I think the lower tier was about 5 for $20. If there were a viable competitor in the area, I'd switch to them for a couple years, then come back to Cox as a new customer and get the discounted rates. No such luck.
My very first Comcast cablemodem gave 10 mbits/sec due to living in the ghetto (no other data subscribers around) and @Home not having figured out how to set a rate limit in the docsis config. They never changed my service as long as I was on the system. When I moved to another system, a different company was managing their data service and I had a 3 mbits limit.
They increased my speed only once in the last 10 years... but they try to increase the price yearly (I usually cancel my service if they don't agree to keep the price the same, and sign up again at a later time to get the new subscriber discount (could be the same day))
I am so, so excited that I will be able to leave Comcast for good in November. Sonic, a local ISP, has been blitz building out fiber in the East Bay Area. Comcast is abusive of their monopoly status in areas and their demise cannot come quickly enough.
Gigabit is gigabit; they have had copper ADSL for a while and that caps at around 30mbps, but they're building gigabit all over the east bay right now.
I also have Sonic in the East Bay, and it has been pricy and disappointing. It is rebranded AT&T FTTN, I'm subscribed to 50mbps but am lucky to get 24mbps @90/mo after associated fees.
Still, its that or non-rebranded AT&T or Comcast with data caps.
This is what I'm doing. Sonic's service should be starting to be installed in May in my area. The price for Sonic's gigabit service is going to be the same for me as what I'm paying for Comcast right now. It's great to finally see some competition in this field and have the opportunity to ditch Comcast.
Why don’t cable companies charge by megabyte used, instead of by speed? That way they would have an incentment to give you the fastest possible connection, since that would potentially mean, that you would be consuming more data. They might even give you a discount on your Netflix subscription.
Is the current pricing structure simply because consumers have become so accostumed to playing a flat rate, or is there something else, that I am missing?
You're assuming they are trying to make the service the best they can. They've obviously done the math and it's cheaper to charge people a flat fee. They don't really care how good their service is, or how fair it could be, just that they maximize profit.
The rate would likely be relatively proportional: On average, with usage based pricing, people would pay about the same. But heavy Internet users would pay more and lighter users would pay less.
If you payed by the megabyte there wouldn’t be any reason to put a cap on consumption. Just sayin’.
... But that being said, I certainly can relate to what you mean. Charging by the megabyte would require a very, very low price per megabyte for this to be acceptable.
> Why don’t cable companies charge by megabyte used, instead of by speed?
Because "speed" sells, and the customers Comcast wants don't use much bandwidth.
The #1 source of revenue for Comcast is the customer who has cable, has high speed Internet, doesn't really use the Internet for much, and just pays their cable bill every month without really thinking about it.
The family with 3 teenagers all watching Fortnite live streams or whatever the kids are doing these days is Comcast's second worst customer, only superseded by the guy streaming those videos.They're taking up a significant chunk of their area's local bandwidth, and that costs real money to upgrade. Comcast has no incentive to allow for this use case unless they can find a price tier that makes you a good customer again (notice that for $50/month, Comcast will remove the bandwidth caps).
It's effectively the same reason that Comcast doesn't let you sign up for individual cable channels.
I've long been a proponent of usage-based pricing because it aligns the incentives of the business with the consumer: They want you to use more data, so they have the best interest to get you as fast of service in as many geographic areas as humanly possible.
But wireline carriers have seen how poorly tiered data was received in the wireless industry by consumers, and I think it'd take an act of Congress to divorce them of being able to use the word "unlimited" in marketing materials, no matter how fraudulent the claim might be.
I would fully support usage based pricing as well if the rates were reasonable. By reasonable I mean at the very least an order of magnitude lower than they charge right now. I'd be on board with billing more akin to electricity. Even better, regulate them like a utility.
Indeed. It would also be key that, like electricity, gas, and water, the rates are relatively flat and very granular. You shouldn't fall over 2 GB of usage and end up paying for 3 GB, it should be by the MB, so you don't get rounded up to a much higher bill, for instance.
I have a Comcast cable box sitting in my cupboard in the original packaging. I had to get it as part of a deal to get 300mbps internet for $95/mo (1 year contract). It's going to sit there in the original packaging until I cancel my service and return it, I guess.
What I'm wonder is if Netflix has explored entering the ISP game. Google experimented with this a bit but has apparently bowed out, but I could see it maybe being a valid direction for someone like Netflix. ISPs are going to keep squeezing customers, and companies alike until something gives, because it's their one leverage point. They've all but lost the battle on cable television, especially as all the major sports leagues have begun their own streaming services. Netflix probably has the market cap to afford the upfront costs of rolling their own fiber, and I'd imagine they'd save millions just from not having to pay the cable companies fees for Fast Lanes.
Confirmed my suspicions. FWIW in SW Florida after severing Xfinity TV service ties, the replacement with ROKU boxes, et al, DID result in significant throttling of internet connections even after the speed increases were announced by Xfinity. The home 'Blaster' package saw a reduction in large .mp4/.zip file download speeds from 12MB/s to 5. That was coupled with frequent connection drops while viewing ROKU content. And you could forget about 4K content. Miraculously, when an Xfinity app was installed on ROKU which required a supplemental CATV account, which conveniently Xfinity marketed at a 2 yr. super discount to undercut the DirectTV app package, the internet speeds increased from a throttled 5 to a consistent 15MB/s on non-VPN downloads (using IDM on Win7, similar results in Linux Mint). And 4K viewing was practical. Amazing! /s
From here, a VPN with servers in Toronto yielded speeds of about 8 MB/s max for IDM, uGET, and qBittorrent, which is about 1/2 what non-VPN connections delivered. VPN servers in Netherlands delivered a little less than that.
I know this might be wishful thinking but I'm really hoping that 5G Wireless Technology or Elon's Satellite Internet Technology will be an alternative for people who currently don't have many alternatives and have to use some of these able companies for providers.
I almost switched to comcast this month since Frontier is charging me ~150 for 150/150 fiber. Asked comcast what their upload speed was in my area and they didn't want to initially tell me, but eventually they said its only ~10mbps. I get faster on my phone so that ended that discussion real fast. They also seemed really confused why I thought 10mbps was too low.
Edit: I'm in the area that would be getting this "new upgrade"
I would keep your symmetrical plan. Comcast upload speeds are anemic. I have their "Gigabit" service and while I do get a solid 900+ down, they cap my upstream at 50.
Yeah, that's what Im doing until there's a better option. It's sad frontier doesn't want to actually offer symmetrical gig. They've got gig here, but it's only at most 200 up for 300+ a month. Not a very good deal
If you live in Palo Alto you can get a decent deal on gigabit internet service from Comcast, but it's really hard to actually get (or at least it was when I got it). It took multiple attempts since the phone sales people didn't know what it was.
If you can get it, go with AT&T. It's at least 500mbit up and down for only $80. It rarely ever hits over 800mbit but it's not like you can really know if it's AT&T or the other side (even when doing speedtests).
I've lived in three different places around Palo Alto and I've never lived in an area that has non-DSL AT&T - I'm not sure where this actual is available.
They have 2gigabit pro fiber to the house available for around that price plus some installation fee. I ended up just sticking with the regular gigabit (over coax with modem) since I already had a fancy modem and it was only $99 (though I only get 35mbps up). The gigabit pro speed requires special fiber hardware plus an installation.
I’ve noticed the “increased” data speeds are basically just to speedtest.net.
We’re paying $75/month for >60MBit (can’t remember....) down, but we frequently get less than 6 to amazon and netflix.
I tried to downgrade my service, and they said the lower speed data options (without “blast” in their name) are only for low income customers, despite the fact that they are clearly advertised if I’m logged out.
Also, it is not just us. The average measured speed of comcast connections to netflix is 4mbps in the US. I don’t care that they’re ranked #1; it is well over an order of magnitude lower than what they advertise: https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/country/us/
I wish we had a decent WISP in Silicon Valley (sonic is through at&t here, so you have to use a crappy at&t router that somehow breaks two-level NAT...)
Doesn't this violate standard vertical tying laws?
"The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want (the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The company doing this bundling may have a significantly large market share so that it may impose the tie on consumers, despite the forces of market competition."
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 178 ms ] threadI'd be surprised that any regular household would notice being upgraded from 60 to 150Mbps.
Its all about consistency, ping and packet loss.
Here's hoping someone takes this to the FTC and gets this stopped. I wish I were a little more hopeful.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(antitrust_law)
so, in these specific cases, it probably doesn't apply.
I don't think this is true. Netflix and co have an incentive to run well on the lowest common denominator connection.
Sure you might not get 4K, but you can watch pretty much anything in their streaming library uninterrupted on 10Mbps of bandwidth.
I think you overestimate the bandwidth requirements of Netflix.
I only have a 30 mbps internet connection, and even that's more than enough for Netflix's highest bitrates.
Source: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
Remember, net neutrality is no longer a thing.
"Am I out of touch? No, it's the cord-cutters who are wrong!"
Stupid tactics like this are only prolonging the inevitable (and signal incredibly poor, visionless management).
The reason is that they charge me less when I'm also willing to be a TV 'subscriber'. TV+Internet is cheaper than Internet alone. The cable box just sits in its cardboard box in the attic, I still use my antenna because the quality is better.
Not true. Check your bill. TV+Internet might be cheaper when only counting the base rate of TV, but when you get TV you also get tons of fees piled on. FCC fees, Local Cable Access fees, Franchise fees, Cable Box fees, Taxes, etc. It will be different depending on where you live, but when I added up all the fees it added almost $15 extra per month just for basic cable.
It's still cheaper to just pay extra for internet without cable TV and get an OTA antenna.
The option to just outright buy internet doesn't exist in their plans. Didn't give me any other options.
Theifs. Liers. Con artists.
I'm so fucking done with Comcast I'm building up a blueprint to help my town get community owned fiber access.
Everything I keep running into says don't. It doesn't work. It costs to much.
I hope it costs to much. I want Comcast to burn in hell for eternity.
Google fiber is in town so prices are ok for data. I set out to get 10 mbits/sec service, the least I could buy was 50 mbits for $35. Apparently I'm getting 75 mbits now.
Only until 2017 did I actually start receiving the advertised speed.
Every year when my contract is about to expire they tell me my rates will be increasing from $60 to $90/mo., I call in and say I want to cancel and go to CenturyLink unless there is a comparable retention offer, and they continuously offer me a similar rate if I sign a new contract. It takes about 5 minutes, though I wish I didn't have to jump through hoops.
In a competitive market, they will do this for me within 2 calls usually with no escalations.
My friends in places where there is no other option go all the way up the chain with no results, since their threat to leave has no teeth.
It was crazy observing the difference in customer service when I moved to a major metro.
What I'm trying to say is that I agree that they suck, but they do subsidize the cities with higher fees in the country, and also that haggling is important.
That may be true, but cities also cost less to serve than rural areas. Less density means that equipment serves fewer customers, each customer requires more cable to serve, technicians need to travel further between calls (or you need more of them), etc.
However, in Redwood City, CA, here is what my bill shows for additional fees:
Broadcast TV Fee: $7.00
FCC Regulatory Fee: $0.08
Franchise Fee: $2.03
PEG Access Support: $0.55
Local Utility User Tax: $1.49
State Sales Tax: $0.23
So, $13.10 in fees vs ?? in fees and ?? in additional costs to have Internet without Cable TV.
> Not true.
It can be. I had Internet-only service with Comcast for $65-ish/month. One day they called me up and offered TV+Internet for $55-ish/month, plus 12 months at a rate lower than that. I thought it was a scam at first, but I tried it. It was in fact a legit offer.
Its now in my closet still in the box.
It doesn't cost much more than subscribing to an online TV service and has a pretty good selection at the basic channel tier.
Everything is handled by a different department by them. I upgraded to the 1 Gbps cable plan and it wasn't just a different plan, it was a different department. They had to take the old modem back and get a new one even though it was already compatible with the newer speeds.
Most services that cord-cutters use heavily (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc.) are built to operate normally on LTE connections, where average bandwidth is something like 30Mbps. So 60Mbps is actually fine.
My experience is that they increase the speed, and then a few months later they raise the price. Then I have to switch to a lower speed to get a price similar to what I was paying before. It's dishonest and sleazy.
It's comcast™
10 is slow enough that I'd have to watch my downloads if my wife or kid were streaming something, and saves just $21/month from the 30 package. When I started using them about 8 years ago, I was single, and my tier was about 15mbps for about $30. I think the lower tier was about 5 for $20. If there were a viable competitor in the area, I'd switch to them for a couple years, then come back to Cox as a new customer and get the discounted rates. No such luck.
Still, its that or non-rebranded AT&T or Comcast with data caps.
As a lesson for the world, how does a company like Sonic get the money for that kind of investment?
Is the current pricing structure simply because consumers have become so accostumed to playing a flat rate, or is there something else, that I am missing?
Because they can and do charge you for both and laugh all the way to the bank.
... But that being said, I certainly can relate to what you mean. Charging by the megabyte would require a very, very low price per megabyte for this to be acceptable.
(They already do, read your terms of service carefuly)
Because "speed" sells, and the customers Comcast wants don't use much bandwidth.
The #1 source of revenue for Comcast is the customer who has cable, has high speed Internet, doesn't really use the Internet for much, and just pays their cable bill every month without really thinking about it.
The family with 3 teenagers all watching Fortnite live streams or whatever the kids are doing these days is Comcast's second worst customer, only superseded by the guy streaming those videos.They're taking up a significant chunk of their area's local bandwidth, and that costs real money to upgrade. Comcast has no incentive to allow for this use case unless they can find a price tier that makes you a good customer again (notice that for $50/month, Comcast will remove the bandwidth caps).
It's effectively the same reason that Comcast doesn't let you sign up for individual cable channels.
Even with overselling, their network is still bound by that capacity. So they charge for both.
But wireline carriers have seen how poorly tiered data was received in the wireless industry by consumers, and I think it'd take an act of Congress to divorce them of being able to use the word "unlimited" in marketing materials, no matter how fraudulent the claim might be.
When I was visiting someone in Atlanta GA, the speeds weren't good for what they advertised, but once I put on a VPN the speeds almost tripled.
They just have internet through Comcast too, so I was wondering if something was up.
Edit: I'm in the area that would be getting this "new upgrade"
I wrote up detailed instructions here since there was very little information available online at the time: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6xc5e4/bay_area_ge...
We’re paying $75/month for >60MBit (can’t remember....) down, but we frequently get less than 6 to amazon and netflix.
I tried to downgrade my service, and they said the lower speed data options (without “blast” in their name) are only for low income customers, despite the fact that they are clearly advertised if I’m logged out.
Also, it is not just us. The average measured speed of comcast connections to netflix is 4mbps in the US. I don’t care that they’re ranked #1; it is well over an order of magnitude lower than what they advertise: https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/country/us/
I wish we had a decent WISP in Silicon Valley (sonic is through at&t here, so you have to use a crappy at&t router that somehow breaks two-level NAT...)
"The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want (the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The company doing this bundling may have a significantly large market share so that it may impose the tie on consumers, despite the forces of market competition."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)