Comcast (Xfinity) will activate 1 Terabyte data limit plan beginning November 1st

[Larebear]

Comcast at my mom's house is getting 240 Mbps down and about 10 Mbps up and costs $70 a month. Even though I monitor her cameras from my house using BI, there hasn't been any extra charges on the Comcast bill. Previously they had sent me a couple letters stating that I was streaming 2.5 TB's per month and would have to pay the extra $50 a month for unlimited. Haven't done that yet.

 

[bp2008]

I wish ISPs would raise the stupid upload speeds already. It is one thing when technology is the limiting factor, but when you have 200+ Mbps down and 10 Mbps up there is just no excuse.

 

[zero-degrees]

These conversations are only going to start occurring more once symmetrical services become more standard. The industry needs to figure out how to handle it now vs. trying to nickel and dime people.

This announcement came yesterday:
Comcast: Symmetrical Cable Broadband Coming in Next 24 Months


As a side note - how the hell do these threads that have been dead for MONTHS end up on someone's radar to make a random ass comment (jack) and get it back into recent threads... smh

 

[zero-degrees]

I wish ISPs would raise the stupid upload speeds already. It is one thing when technology is the limiting factor, but when you have 200+ Mbps down and 10 Mbps up there is just no excuse.

For cable operators it's all limited due to bandwidth. Not enough upstream presently. the upstream and downstream ride in totally different parts of the spectrum - it's basically like a one lane road (up) and a supper highway (down) but they are separated by a few hundred miles (few hundred MHz) between them.

I'm lucky enough to be in a fiber only telco area and have symmetrical service (1Gb up/down)

 

[bp2008]

I'm sure it is more complicated than this, but it seems like they are just allocating too much of the RF/EM spectrum to download speed and not enough to upload speed.

 

[zero-degrees]

I'm sure it is more complicated than this, but it seems like they are just allocating too much of the RF/EM spectrum to download speed and not enough to upload speed.

You actually pretty close. However, they are dedicating most of the RF to CONTENT and not data. Most operators have dedicated enough spectrum to data/download and will not give any more because that is where hey shove all the video content. The return rolls down low where the least attenuation and problems are 5-45, 5-65, 5-85Mhz. Most operators aren't willing to dump video channels to allow for a larger upstream, because honestly their view is "why do you need it". They don't want people running content services or mini server farms so they cap that upload to start.

 

[bp2008]

The way I see it, there is a point where more internet download speed is just a minor convenience, and doesn't change what you will actually do with the connection. I mean, a guy on 20 Mbps is going to stream the same things, view the same websites, download the same games as he would on a 200 Mbps or 1000 Mbps connection. So the ISP can increase people's download speeds as far as they want without having to improve their internet backbones as much.

But it is a lot riskier increasing upload speeds. Give someone 10 or 100 times faster upload, and they might actually start using it for more than outgoing web requests, emails, Skype calls, and TCP ACK packets. I mean, how many of us would like to store all our security camera video offsite? I have a Blue Iris box continuously recording 77 Mbps of camera streams. If I was uploading all that offsite, as I could do if I had 100+ Mbps upload, it would be 25,000 GB every 30 days. But no, my average is 55 GB uploaded in a month because I don't have that kind of speed available, and it would be an irresponsible/wasteful use of the internet even if I could do it.

 

[looney2ns]

Here locally, I believe the only reason they up the download speeds is so they can raise the prices. They have just about outpriced themselves to the average joe user.