Comcast's New Plans Dump the Data Caps (pcmag.com) 45
Comcast is introducing new simplified, contract-free broadband plans that eliminate its unpopular 1.2TB data cap for residential customers. "The company began enforcing a data cap in 2008, when it set that limit at 250GB," notes PCMag. "Four years later, it raised that to 300GB, then lifted it to 1TB in 2016 and inched it up again to 1.25TB in 2020 after suspending it entirely during the early months of the pandemic." The report notes that existing customers will need to switch to these updated plans to benefit from the cap removal. PCMag reports: Steve Croney, Comcast's COO for connectivity and platforms, describes these new "everyday price plans" as "built on simplicity and transparency -- no hidden fees, no confusion." Comcast began showing the new plans on its sign-up pages Thursday morning. The monthly rates largely match those announced when Comcast advertised a rate-lock offer in April:
- 300Mbps downloads for $40 with a one-year lock or $55 with a five-year lock, then $70 a month
- 500Mbps for $55 with a one-year lock or $70 with a five-year lock, then $85
- 1Gbps for $70 with a one-year lock or $85 a month with a five-year lock, then $100
- 2Gbps for $100 with a one-year lock or $115 with a five-year lock, then $130
Upload speeds on those plans will vary by location but should start at 40Mbps. These plans also include one year of Xfinity Mobile wireless service, which combines Verizon's coverage with Comcast's Wi-Fi network.
- 300Mbps downloads for $40 with a one-year lock or $55 with a five-year lock, then $70 a month
- 500Mbps for $55 with a one-year lock or $70 with a five-year lock, then $85
- 1Gbps for $70 with a one-year lock or $85 a month with a five-year lock, then $100
- 2Gbps for $100 with a one-year lock or $115 with a five-year lock, then $130
Upload speeds on those plans will vary by location but should start at 40Mbps. These plans also include one year of Xfinity Mobile wireless service, which combines Verizon's coverage with Comcast's Wi-Fi network.
In case anyone is wondering why (Score:4, Insightful)
It's almost as if competition improves the quality of products and their price...
Also StarLink (Score:2)
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Also StarLink, which is not super-fast but is good enough and doesn't have caps on most plans.
I have Starlink for my RV, which my wife uses for quarterly audit visits to the corporate mothership. She can stream 1080P with some buffering, once the client figures out what it needs, it settles in pretty well. It massively beats RV campground WiFi, and for my purposes... 60ms ping from Texas to the west coast.
I can't complain too much... Except for losing my astro-photography hobby... Been thinking of taking up ham radio again and doing pen-testing. :D
T
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Doesn't StarLink keep raising its rates, a la Comcast?
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But 5g is good enough for most
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The problem with any wireless technology is that the service will degrade as there are more users. The heavy use of fixed wireless in an area also degrades the service of things that actually need to be wireless - eg cellphones, vehicles etc.
Such services are a very poor choice in cities and even small towns, and the only reason they're being used at all is the poor service provided by the incumbent wireline providers.
Re: In case anyone is wondering why (Score:2)
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Same here. Omni Fiber came in two years ago and starting burying fiber. My neighborhood started hooking up last year and I was one of the first to do it. $45 a month for 350 up/down, no contracts, no hidden fees. Plans go all the way up to 2Gb up/down for $105 but 350 is more than enough. Screw cable, AT&T, and all the others. Fiber is the way to go. Even if the other players get fiber laid I would not switch back after all the years of fuckery from them.
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As the kids say, that is some late-stage capitalism, right there.
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Unless you're running services out of your link why would you need symmetric speeds?
LOL Why you do you need 300 mbit? 500 mbit? a gigabit? WHY WHY TELL ME...!! If you can't you don't really need it!11!!!
For your information the Internet is not a network of spectators.
If you need symmetric speeds get a business plan.
LOL I have a business plan and crappy upload speeds remain. This is a feature of Comcast's shitty outdated dead end RF technology while everyone else has moved on to FTTP.
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LOL I have a business plan and crappy upload speeds remain. This is a feature of Comcast's shitty outdated dead end RF technology while everyone else has moved on to FTTP.
"Barely adequate" is the enemy of progress.
If you had an area with no service and a sizable customer base then deploying new fibre is viable as you can quickly get a lot of customers.
For an area which is already served by some legacy technology it's much less profitable to deploy something new, depending on just how bad the legacy technology is.
The existing comcast cabling provides barely adequate service for a lot of people, so only a few enthusiasts and heavy users would switch to the new service.
Heavy us
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Unless you're running services out of your link why would you need symmetric speeds? If you need symmetric speeds get a business plan.
What if I'm a DropBox/OneDrive subscriber storing hundreds of megabits per second to local storage that is also backed up to a cloud provider? I'm not running a service, but I sure as heck "need" ("need" vs. "want" can be subjective here) upload speeds at least as fast as my write-to-disk speeds.
I do agree with your solution though: If I really need high upload speeds, whether I'm running a server or not, I need to find a provider that offers them at a price I'm willing to pay, or learn to do without. If
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Backups can be lazy, for instance when you download cyberpunk there's little chance that the download server is going to be turned off imminently *and* your local drive is going to fail at the same time. Uploading the backup data could take place at night over the next few days even with a poor upload rate.
Of course for something you've downloaded rather than created, there's no point downloading and reuploading again. We need protocols like fxp where you transfer the file directly from one server to anothe
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For working from home I frequently need to upload large files ranging from 300mb to 8gb. Faster upload is extremely helpful for that.
Users frequently do video conferencing these days which needs decent upstream to a degree.
Guides from services such as netflix say you need 20mb for a 4k stream, so the current downstream rates being offered are also much higher than most people have any practical use for beyond "waiting less time for large downloads".
Downloading large files could also be done in a much smarte
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Comcast's project Genesis (aka next-gen, aka mid-split) gets one part way to higher uploads (200mbps today), and their next offering called X-class will be symmetric (at least up to 2gbps). Some people have those options today, and some will need to continue to wait until Comcast completes the plant construction(s) in their location (whenever that might happen).
If I had my choice (at somewhat cheaper pricing), I would go for Comcast's X-10 (10gbps fiber metro-E offering).
Also Fiber (Score:2)
Still lots of small operators trenching fiber eroding Comcast's market share. This pricing is still way too high and you only get the price in the summary with a $10 autopay discount.
Comcast has been relentless in fucking people over - constantly raising prices, playing games with all kinds of bullshit fees that change even while under contract. Wouldn't trust them.
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As someone with fiber from a small local company, they're not able to compete with Comcast. Yes, right now they give me crazy speeds for cheap but it's only for so long, while they gain market share and push into new areas. They're going to have to increase rates substantially to become profitable in the future. Right now they're all losing money.
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi Wi-Fi (Score:2)
The only Comcast link provided talks mostly about wi-fi for some reason... and does NOT mention data caps, one way or the other. I'd really like to see an explicit statement "we are removing our data caps".
I'll also be curious to see if these new plans would actually nerf my current Comcast upload speed, which is officially 150mbps but typically is just shy of 180mbps. That upload speed is more important to me than the 1.2TB cap, which I've only hit once.
Nope, I was wrong (Score:2)
I now see the statement "All plans include Unlimited Data".
Still wondering about those upload speeds, though.
Re: Nope, I was wrong (Score:2)
200 up in mid split areas
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More than 200 up. My Gigabit x2 plan is marketed as 2100 down / 300 Mbps up. They overprovision, however. Speedtest I just did shows 1429 down / 360 up, on wired LAN, of course.
Not sure why the downstream is not higher, gotta try and bypass my pfSense custom PC router to see if it's faster with direct PC modem connection.
Not that I really need the full 2100 down, but if it's less than advertised, maybe I can get Comcast to fix it / provide compensation for not delivering.
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Actually not the router. My Linux NAS just got 2294 down / 352 up. Must be something with my Windows desktop. Likely the Hyper-V NIC driver slowing down the connection, sigh. Weird because my LAN transfers (iperf3) still hit >9 Gb/s.
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It's kind of a complex question. It depends on where you are and what plan you currently have.
If you're in a mid-split area (where Comcast is using a larger range of frequencies for upload traffic) and had a plan to take advantage of it - which it sounds like you are - then the new plans actually regress on upload speeds. The old ~1Gbps and ~2Gbps plans had 300Mbps nominal uploads (closer to 360Mbps due to overprovisioning), while all other plans were 150Mbp
You're still stuck with... (Score:2)
the absolute WORST customer service on the face of the planet.
I wouldn't touch Comcast if they paid me to use one of their backbone connections.
Way too much frustration dealing with such incompetent idiots.
LOL (Score:1)
Cool (Score:2)
Don't know if I can switch as I'm still on a locked in rate, but I'm already a customer paying the extra for unlimited data.
Yes Comcast is notorious for high prices and bad customer service, and I'd love to support my local ISP (which I did for a long time), but the local guys have absolute shitting reliability. I'm paying more for Comcast and I'm locked in for a year or two but honestly the increase in reliability has been more than worth it (with the local guys I was getting disconnects probably a dozen
And they are all crap (Score:1)
Too little too late (Score:1)
Inverse pricing logic (Score:2)
On the other side of the Atlantic... (Score:2)
Wait WTF? (Score:2)
You guys still have (had?) data caps over there?
Still stuck with Windstream 27 MPBS DL..... (Score:2)