Well today is the day.. I start getting limited!

[Tehtsuo]

Oh and as for a legitimate use of hitting 250gb a month, I've hit that before. I design images for many different lines of computers where I work, so pulling down 10-30 gig image on test machines at home to test new software, or new user policies, isn't uncommon. Telecommuting for me wouldn't be possible if the unlimited service I was paying for wasn't unlimited.

Then you are using a residential account for commercial use. That is not a legitimate use. Commercial accounts do not have limits.

As already stated, the limit has ALWAYS been place, its just been made public. You guys are fretting over something thats been there all along. Tin foil hats anyone?

edit: And before someone trys to pull the "why do commercial accounts get it better than us?" routine, use the same principals as someone buying a 1st class ticket for an airplane. You want the perks? You got to pay for them, this isnt something Comcast invented.

Right or wrong, I wouldn't be interested in Comcast after reading your replies. Please peddle your wares elsewhere. I'll keep my unlimited unlimited internet service, thank you very much.

If you don't want disgruntled customers, don't give them reasons to be disgruntled. If you feel necessary to stand up for your company, at least put on your best PR voice. Don't argue with your customer, explain the situation to them and ask that they be reasonable - don't tell them their expectations are out of line.

Are you sure you don't work for a Comcast competitor?

[thinus]

If you don't want disgruntled customers, don't give them reasons to be disgruntled. If you feel necessary to stand up for your company, at least put on your best PR voice. Don't argue with your customer, explain the situation to them and ask that they be reasonable - don't tell them their expectations are out of line.

Expectations out of line = unreasonable
And now the OP is making a stink about it because he can't download 250GB of porn every week that he will never watch anyway.

What about the disgruntled customers on the same pipe as the OP whose traffic are affected by him flooding the line with his mass newsgroup downloads and p2p stealing? Don't you think all the other clients will benefit from better performance if the leeches who abuse the system 24/7 are removed or capped? Personally I think it is a good idea to try and piss the OP off as much as possible so he leaves your service and becomes some other ISPs nightmare.

[Tasty]

Don't offer plans you can't support

[Tehtsuo]

If you don't want disgruntled customers, don't give them reasons to be disgruntled. If you feel necessary to stand up for your company, at least put on your best PR voice. Don't argue with your customer, explain the situation to them and ask that they be reasonable - don't tell them their expectations are out of line.

Expectations out of line = unreasonable
And now the OP is making a stink about it because he can't download 250GB of porn every week that he will never watch anyway.

What about the disgruntled customers on the same pipe as the OP whose traffic are affected by him flooding the line with his mass newsgroup downloads and p2p stealing? Don't you think all the other clients will benefit from better performance if the leeches who abuse the system 24/7 are removed or capped? Personally I think it is a good idea to try and piss the OP off as much as possible so he leaves your service and becomes some other ISPs nightmare.

What's out of line about "Unlimited". If I was selling cars with 100k warranty, and then decided a year later I couldn't afford to support a 100k warranty so changed it to a 20k warranty, there would be words exchanged.

Don't advertise oranges if you're selling apples.

[Blackguarde]

Done with this thread.

Dont bother conveincing these people, they obviously cant see the forrest for the trees.

The ignorance is just to deep to wade through anymore.

[Tasty]

The ignorance is just to deep to wade through anymore.

I'm so deeply hurt. I'm ignorant cause I don't agree with your point of view eh?

[thinus]

What's out of line about "Unlimited". If I was selling cars with 100k warranty, and then decided a year later I couldn't afford to support a 100k warranty so changed it to a 20k warranty, there would be words exchanged.

Don't advertise oranges if you're selling apples.

That's a pretty bad analogy incredibly skewed to suit your point of view. An ISP provides a service. It depends on the exact terminology used but I think most ISPs provide their service packages in such a way that it is only valid for the amount of time you subscribe to the package. If you have a fixed subscription for 1 year then that package should be valid for you for 1 year. If you are on a month to month rolling plan then that service is valid for one month. You do not have a magical lifetime subscription.

If I was running an ISP I would be more than happy to get rid of the top 1%- 2% bandwidth users on the residential plans especially if your residential bandwidth usage during residential peak times exceeds bandwidth usage during your commercial peak times. Cutting the bad apples benefits the majority of your clients.

Here is another analogy for you:
There is a bridge with 8 lanes, 4 one way and 4 the other way. Every piece of information you request is transported by a courier on a motorcycle across the bridge. The bridge supplies information to 10 customers and easily handles the load. Suddenly one of the customers starts sending back to back buses across the bridge 24/7 effectively using 2 lanes all by himself. So what are my options? Build a bigger bridge. That cost needs to be passed on to someone. If I pass it on to the single user that abuses the system I will take criticism for my pricing structures yet I do not have enough high volume users to justify the cost of a bigger bridge and be able to pass it on to those users only. So what if I make a bigger bridge and pass the cost on to all my users? Well, I won't be competitive in the market anymore and it hardly seems fair to pass the cost on to my favorite customers with low usage who I may very likely lose. So what about a limitation on the amount of traffic so I can maybe get those high volume users to leave for another service while not getting much negative publicity in turn? Hmmm, sounds like a plan.

[Tasty]

What's out of line about "Unlimited". If I was selling cars with 100k warranty, and then decided a year later I couldn't afford to support a 100k warranty so changed it to a 20k warranty, there would be words exchanged.

Don't advertise oranges if you're selling apples.

That's a pretty bad analogy incredibly skewed to suit your point of view. An ISP provides a service. It depends on the exact terminology used but I think most ISPs provide their service packages in such a way that it is only valid for the amount of time you subscribe to the package. If you have a fixed subscription for 1 year then that package should be valid for you for 1 year. If you are on a month to month rolling plan then that service is valid for one month. You do not have a magical lifetime subscription.

If I was running an ISP I would be more than happy to get rid of the top 1%- 2% bandwidth users on the residential plans especially if your residential bandwidth usage during residential peak times exceeds bandwidth usage during your commercial peak times. Cutting the bad apples benefits the majority of your clients.

Here is another analogy for you:
There is a bridge with 8 lanes, 4 one way and 4 the other way. Every piece of information you request is transported by a courier on a motorcycle across the bridge. The bridge supplies information to 10 customers and easily handles the load. Suddenly one of the customers starts sending back to back buses across the bridge 24/7 effectively using 2 lanes all by himself. So what are my options? Build a bigger bridge. That cost needs to be passed on to someone. If I pass it on to the single user that abuses the system I will take criticism for my pricing structures yet I do not have enough high volume users to justify the cost of a bigger bridge and be able to pass it on to those users only. So what if I make a bigger bridge and pass the cost on to all my users? Well, I won't be competitive in the market anymore and it hardly seems fair to pass the cost on to my favorite customers with low usage who I may very likely lose. So what about a limitation on the amount of traffic so I can maybe get those high volume users to leave for another service while not getting much negative publicity in turn? Hmmm, sounds like a plan.

How are they abusing the system (in reference to the bridge) The bridge is available for everyone to use isn't it?

[thinus]

How are they abusing the system (in reference to the bridge) The bridge is available for everyone to use isn't it?

Yes, reasonable use. It works like that with any kind of resource. Initially it is offered unlimited with people being asked to be reasonable and to keep in mind that they are sharing the resource with a lot of other people. From a marketing and business policy point of view this is win win. You do not need to police clients and clients are happy with their "unlimited" service. Then you grow to a point where you get more and more people leeching the resource for as much as they can and *all* users are affected by this. Birth of the pay/use plans and you introduce all the tools to police these plans but you still offer an unlimited resource access to retain the people willing to pay for it and to keep that market share. Eventually you have too many leeches and while they are only 1%-2% of your client base they consume 10%-15% of the resource and they don't actually pay 10%-15% of your total income. You end up in a situation where it is better to get rid of these people than to try hanging on to them.

It is not quite as simple as that as your activities are not confined to your ISPs network. As networks around the world grow, exchanges are upgraded and the telecommunications infrastructure is improved data speeds will continue to grow. So where downloading 250GB a week would probably have been impossible on a non-specialized residential connection 10 years ago now it is suddenly a reality and ISPs are faced with network capacity problems.

Your only alternative as an ISP is to place a cap on the the speed of unlimited accounts which introduces its own set of headaches I suppose.

[valkry]

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Internet in Australia is way shitter than most countries, stop complaining. Anyone in the US need not complain about their internet, ours doesn't even compare to yours.

And don't get me started on latency in wow...