On September 5, 2008, I wrote an article called — “Comcast Kills the Internets” — and that piece detailed the nefarious scheme for how Comcast planned to
begin to meter our internet bandwidth consumption in the home.  The
horrible day of my meeting my metering has finally arrived with this
“pleased to announce” record of doom recently found in my Comcast.Net
email Inbox:


I clicked through on the link to see how much of my 250GB we were using so far this month and the result was 3GB or 1% of our total allotment.

When I clicked to “View details” — the follow non-detail specific page
was presented where I can see my current usage and past using going back
to January of this year.  I have no idea why we used 24GB in January
and only 12GB in February and 16GB in March and there’s no way to find
out how that data was spent.  The “Learn More” link only takes you to a
help page that explains what happens if you go over your 250GB a month.  Big help.  Not.

If Comcast really wanted to help us manage our metered bandwidth, they would give us a detailed breakout of how that bandwidth was spent:  Internet Browsing, FTP, eMail, Games, Music Streaming, etc.

Right now all you get is a blind consumption number that provides zero context and hardly any meaning other than “this much.”

If you get close to your 250GB limit, Comcast will not alert you, and if you happen to go over that limit, Comcast will not warn you — they will just terminate your account.

The demand for bandwidth will only go up and never down — so by setting a false bar so “high” now, Comcast are only setting us up for a harder fall later as video conferencing and iPads and streaming 3D movies all churn to meet our wanton eye while gulping their precious bandwidth.

3 Comments

  1. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    Gordon Davidescu says:

    Just enough information to avoid losing your account and not enough information to be of actual use. So typical of Comcast.

  2. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Right! It might look like a lot of bandwidth right now, but it won’t be soon. They’re getting ahead of the wave that’s about to hit so they look reasonable and charitable with your current allotment. You can’t even buy more bandwidth if you go over the 250GB. They just cut you off.

  3. Pingback: Three More Reasons I Hate Comcast | Urban Semiotic

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