Comments on: Comcast’s 250 GB Cap and Some Inside Info on Network Management

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:57:06 +0000

One of their Twitter support guys said it’s still being developed last week.

By: Mari Silbey

Mari Silbey — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:04:14 +0000

Glenn- good point. Time to get an update.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:35:58 +0000

Update: It is now March. Well past the date when Comcast said a bandwidth Meter would be available. And still nothing. I assume they aren’t going to offer one.

By: ardee

ardee — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:04:00 +0000

In response to Comcast’s posting about the limits, I responded as follows:

Comcast MUST provide a way to monitor TOTAL usage, including mobile devices, TiVos, etc. Telling the customer to download, install, and maintain separate tools for each PC, Mac, handheld, etc., is simply not sufficient.

Also, why not charge fees for excess bandwidth usage? Who gains by the one-year suspension? Not the customer, not Comcast. Stiff fees are an effective deterrent that will benefit Comcast and still permit the customer to maintain service. (Electric companies, also monopolies, do not disconnect customers for excessive electric usage.)

By: Glenn

Glenn — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:32:30 +0000

Regarding tracking your usage, since Comcast refuses to offer any online meter of your usage you might find the following thread on the Comcast forums discussing metering software solutions interesting:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21028326-Bandwidth-Monitor-for-ComputersSuggestions

By: Keefer

Keefer — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:01:03 +0000

Hmmm. 250 GB sounds like a lot, but how much bandwidth do I really use? I have a 360 like many of you and I have the Roku Netflix player. I just DL’ed Tiger Woods and Star Wars: Force Unleased this past weekend. Both those demos were 1GB+. I play COD4 online about 3 times a week, and I have no idea how much traffic that uses per min. I bet the bandwidth usage goes up if you are host in a game as well.

Ok, let say that XBox Live uses around 10MB/h down and 6 MB/h up. (http://www.xbox360forum.com/forum/digital-home/69565-bandwidth-needs.html) And if you host in Halo 3 or CoD 4 lets just say it doubles.

If I do around 10-15 hours of gaming / month
10 hours of not hosting * 16MB/h (10 + 6 down/up) = 160 MB
5 hours of hosting * 32MB/h = 160 MB
5 full game demos =~ 5.5 GB
5 arcade demos (500MB each) = 2.5GB
1 HD video rental = 5 GB

Total XBox Live Bandwidth per month: ~13 GB (just under)

As for the Roku, it DL’s different quality content based on you connection speed. I always get the best quality so I am using 2.2 Mb/s for everything I watch on that. I just started watching Heros Season 1 and Airwolf Season 1. Those episodes are around 43 min long. I also watch a ton of movies, probably around 25/month, and say the average movie is 90min. How much bandwidth am I using.

The math:
2.2Mbps / 8 (bits in a byte) = .275MB/s * 60sec = 16.5MB/min * 43min = 709.5 MB/episode
2.2Mbps / 8 (bits in a byte) = .275MB/s * 60sec = 16.5MB/min * 90min =~ 1.5 GB/movie

So, if I watch 30 episodes of TV shows and 25 movies….
709.5 MB * 30 = 21,285 MB =~ 21GB
1.5GB * 25 = 37.5 GB

Total Roku bandwith per month: 58 GB

Lets add in web browsing, ubuntu updates and possible torrents
Web = 500 MB
Updates = 1 GB
Torrents (8 * 700MB) =~ 6 GB down / 1 GB up = 7 GB

Total other bandwidth: 8.5 GB

Summing all bandwidth usage: 8.5 + 58 + 13 = 79.5 GB

Disclaimers: I rounded bandwidth usage up in most places just to be safe. Also, I don’t really know the actual bandwidth requirements of XBox Live. So, all in all, it looks like you really have to abuse your network connection with massive amounts of torrents while you are sleeping and such to go over the 250GB cap. My math may be wrong somewhere in there too. Even if XBox Live traffic is double than I calculated I would still be way under, so I don’t plan on worrying about this cap. I don’t share my connection with anyone but my girlfriend and she is only a web browser. These numbers would obviously go up if you have more people using your connection. If you add in a PS3, Wii or a Slingbox may add to that total, but you would really have to push your connection to burst the bubble.

–Keefer

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:29:27 +0000

“…I was shopping Amazon S3 as a secondary backup solution, but if I’m backing up my modest 200GB machine 4 times a month…”

@Big John

That’s all part of Comcast’s master plan! That cap will kill off anyone using Amazon S3 and also kill off UnBox! Nice huh? We can’t have anyone using reasonably price alternative to Comcastic cable now can we?

By: fornetti

fornetti — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:34:12 +0000

I do not believe this