I think they are probably correct that it’s more than a regular user will go through most months, even someone who like me uses bandwidth intensive services like Steam downloads regularly. (Aside from maybe BitTorrent, anyhow.) I still think it’s going to get less reasonable the more stuff moves online and increases definition, which is already happening fast and furious, and it’s absurd that higher speed tiers don’t come with a commensurate increase in cap.
Regular users though now include streamers. There is nothing irregular about Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon streaming but they are certainly competitors to the ISPs.
:O
That is a lot of internet gif’s!
I use a bandwidth monitor for years now, still never used more than 900gb in a month.
When I got gigabit internet I wanted to find some way to use all that bandwidth, particularly the upload. So I got an unlimited space google drive account and moved all my NAS, media, etc, there. I also gave out plex accounts to friends and family, all streaming from GDrive to my apartment then to the internet.
Uploads also count and I left a torrent going that I should not have. But I could also go over my limit by installing around 15-20 games from Steam. Things like GTA V, Doom (2016) and so on.
I know this could be a personal question but how did you hit 1TB? How many devices and what is the speed of the connection?
I had Century Link DSL for years and never had issues with volume, I don’t even know if there was a cap it was 40 down 5 up I think. Comcast came around last fall and my wife convinced me to switch I now have 250 down with 10 Up I think but it turns out we hit that 1 TB pretty consistently. I think our most over was 180 MB. The thing is each month we knew we were close and everyone tried to tone it down and it still didn’t work plus that was always when someone bought a new game they wanted to install.
So for the summer I’ll upgrade to unlimited because my kids are just chewing through the bandwidth. Caps just suck, It’s like hooray Steam Summer Sale but I can’t download anything without getting charged more. At least the speed is awesome. My son had his Steam Library drive crash this month and he’s had to hold back now he’s unleashed and fixated on filling up the new one.
CenturyLink had a 250 GB cap last I heard. They may or may not enforce it. Comcast never enforced the drastically lower cap (200, maybe 250 GB, I forget) they had when I first signed up with them even though I was routinely hitting 700-800 GB in a month. They very definitely do now. I think the difference is that for CenturyLink and Comcast of old, the putative consequence for exceeding your cap was being disconnected. Obviously, you don’t want to do that to a customer unless they are genuinely causing a problem. Now for Comcast it’s a (ludicrous) fee hike so enforcing it means more profit and so they’re all over it.
My boss is always struggling with the 1TB cap. He watches a lot of Netflix at 4k. One hour is about 20GB.
For us it was the shift from cable tv to roku that started eating up the cap. We added an additional 500gb to have 1.5tb, and rarely hit 1tb (usually around 600-800gb), but they charge so much if you go over cap it made sense to add the cushion for $20. If I get on a twitch binge that can eat up cap pretty quick as well if you watch at higher resolutions.
Comcast doesn’t offer a cushion option, but you can spend another $50/mo (!) to just skip the cap entirely. (which is retroactive if you’ve already hit the cap). I do appreciate the existence of the option but if they must cap at all (and I’m pretty sure there is no honest reason for one other than greed), I really feel like it would make far more sense to up the cap along with one’s speed tier. 1 TB would probably be plenty for someone sitting at 50-75 mbps. At 250 mbps, I can shoot past that without even trying if I’m doing things that actually make any use of that kind of speed. And they offer gigabit (though not to my location, I don’t think) with yes, still a 1 TB cap. Fuck that.
Yeah that $50 really sucks. My justification is that adding that in only gets my bill back to what I was paying with Century Link. So I just monitor the usage and add unlimited as needed. It’s still a hell of a lot faster than Century Link, and I have a had so many issues at work with them and their circuits that it adds an extra layer of pleasure to not use them at home ;-)
Comcast gives you two free overage months too. I figure if I game the system I probably only will have 4-6 months a year I need unlimited. The first month they used one of my free overages I was literally over by 1GB. What a bunch of knobs. I should call and see if I can get that one back.
The one month I went over, I decided that since it’s a blanket pass for that month I would just be as bandwidth intensive as possible for the rest of the month and get maximum utility out of it. In 15 days (with the help of Steam and a 6 TB HDD I’d recently installed) I got through another 2 or 3 TB, just installing around a fifth of my Steam library. And, okay, I have an unusually large Steam library and most people aren’t going to install that much at once, but with games getting to be 100+ GBs, you don’t have to install very many to blow right past that cap.
That’s one of the things I thought of when I saw this article the other day.
There’s just no way we’re getting rid of data caps and rolling out high bandwidth infrastructure to the entire country in the next 4 years. And if one of Sony/Microsoft decides to go fully digital, the other will happily pick up all those free physical sales.
One interesting thing I did learn though: Charter is unable to add data caps until 2023 as part of their merger with Time Warner. They’re rolling out what they call “gigabit” (in reality, 940/35) to all their customers this year. So while I completely disagree with those analysts… there is some hope.
Yeah, it is getting out of hand. One of things that eats my cap, is shuffling around games since I am using a 1TB ssd drive. I need to get another and add it as another install location for steam, but haven’t yet.
Pretty much why I upgraded to a 2TB ssd. Got tired of moving/uninstalling games.
As someone stuck with Charter, I am interested in this upgrade. Is there anywhere to reliability check this plan or status of their upgrade status per area?
Nothing that I’ve seen; and being a Charter customer just outside one of the new rollout areas I’ve looked. Best I’ve found is the current list of areas. Assuming if you’re near one of those you’ll be getting an upgrade soon.
Cool.
That’s encouraging at least.
I’m not sure I have a need for more speed, but interesting. I did get an e-mail yesterday from them to add Wi-Fi to my set-up for a bargain price of 5 dollars a month…Charter prices are often such a rip.