Comcast 250 GB Cap Coming on October 1st
Directly inline with rumors that made their way around the web a few months ago, Comcast has confirmed that it will employ a residential consumer bandwidth cap beginning October 1st of this year. Now before you start going too crazy, it should be noted that the cap will stand at 250 GB. 250 GB is most definitely more than enough for the typical to highly-active range of internet users. Once you pass over 250 GB per month of bandwidth you would definitely be best served by getting out more. In fact, Comcast states that the median monthly data usage amongst its customers is between 2 and 3 GB. The site puts 250 GB into perspective as such:
* Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
* Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)
50 million 0.05 KB emails. What kind of measurement is that? Anyway, while there is no mention of overage fees in Comcast’s new terms it is rumored that subscribers who surpass the cap a certain number of times may be subject to service suspensions or termination. Hey, at least Comcast customers can be thankful they’re not stuck with one of the other ISPs employing caps as low as 5 GB…
[Via DLSReports]




As long as they don’t lower it, I don’t have a huge complaint against this cap. It’s very reasonable.
I’m going outside now.
Just curious if anyone had any idea on the amount of data usage for VoIP devices like Vonage.
seems reasonable, but i agree, a 5gb cap is waay too low
250gb… It’s 20gb-100gb on Bell’s Sympatico.
If you cry on 250gb cap, you need help.
Idk what most people don’t like about comcast. I have had them for the past 4yrs and I have no problems. I really doubt 250 GB will be too little for somebody but does anyone know if our bill has how much usage we use in a mounth. Im just curious to see how much I actually use.
I am Deaf, I use Comcast high speed for my normal internet use (not heavy) but I use it Video Phone to communicate (sign language), I would say I use 30 minutes to an hour a day on 25 to 30 fps with a max feed up to 256kb..how would this affect me and among thousands of Deaf video phone users?
Will they offer a way to monitor your data usage? Or will you browse the internet blind and eventually get a letter sent to your house letting you know that your account was terminated.
there you americans go complaining again for nothing. rogers’s best and highest speed service gives us 60gb a month which i have to worry about not exceeding all the time.
just like your HIGH gas prices. try crossing the border a few miles north and paying 6 and 7 bucks a gallon and that’s real money not the cheap green stuff.
And all that care about Canada raise your hand…. (chirp, chirp)
Where is this Canada place?
Someone needs to show Comcast planners what an e-mail attachment is, preferably before October 1 please.
@Matheis: *LOL*
This is about 100KB per second, every second, all month long.
Woohoo! So once I’m done blowing the hell out of att I’ll go next door and blow the hell out of Comcast…they put all the asshole companies next door to each other right?
The worst part is not the 250gb cap. Its the fact that if your in the top percent twice in 6 months you get a 1 year suspension.
Ok try saying it… Canada.. oh ok Canida… no no it is CaNAda…. oh CaNOda?… forget it
that sucks.
How does the FTC allow providers to advertize unlimited service and yet allow them to terminate/suspend the top 2%’ers?
At 256 kilobits per second (which is what I believe Deaf VP User references), that works out to … 97 days per month non-stop \(^_^)
At 256 kiloBYTES per second, if that’s the actual bandwidth, that’s 12 days, non-stop.
It’s also roughly 55 DVD5s, or more likely around 40 DVD movie equivalents, or something like 60 hours. Using MPEG4 codecs, typically seen in rips, that’s more like 300-400 hours or two weeks or so of non stop video.
For people who don’t use the internet for heavy P2P file sharing and streaming every second of every day of the month, they will not have a problem with this monthly data cap. But for those who do, well you guys are screwed. I fall in between both so I think I should be ok.
What about ppl that play a lot of online multiplayer games? I have no idea what kind of data transfers that equals to. I play Call of Duty 4 online about 30 hours a week
For people playing a game 30 hours a week on the computer they should get outside for once instead of wasting their life with such. That would make this less of a worry for you.
WOW! 30 hours a week playing a game … OMG
3 hours every weekday ? = 15 hours
10 hours on Saturday = 10 hours
5 hours on Sunday = 5 hours
30 hours locking your self away …
If you expired would anybody miss you? I doubt it!