The Day Comcast's Data Cap Policy Killed My Internet for 1 Year
ozymandias.com
ozymandias.com
Also, for the same price you can (at least here in the netherlands) have a second, mobile internet connection. Which both provides the needed redundancy and can be used on the road.
A vibrant marketplace will emerge on top of the Internet Physical Plant if these basics are enforced, just like public roads, water and sewer plants enabled life as we know it.
I'm all for bandwidth providers coming up with new pricing models if it's what it takes for them to remain profitable and compete with other providers. That's fine. AT&T says I get X GB/mo for $Y/mo, and that's fine. It might be a bad price, but if I don't like it, I can try another wireless carrier (until AT&T buys them all), or I can pay more money for a larger cap, and when I hit the cap, I can pay an absolutely retarded amount of money for more bandwidth. But if I want to use the internet, I can.
Comcast pulled an arbitrary number out of their collective asses, didn't talk to any customers, and have now decided that if your usage (measured in a way they won't disclose, over time periods they won't disclose, and the measurement of which they won't disclose to you) exceeds that arbitrary number, they're free to terminate your access to their service. They offer you no way to compensate them for overages, no way to buy a higher cap, and no way to ensure that you remain below the limit.
If I want to terminate my Comcast service because I feel they have wronged me in some arbitrary way, I must pay fees to terminate my contract, but they're free to do this for any reason they come up with.
Ultimately since every Comcast customer signed 500 pages of inscrutable legalese in order to get internet access (even if there are no other internet providers in their area, they're still free to not sign), Comcast is legally in the right by doing this.
But they're still enormous scumbags and I'll say so to the face of anyone who works there. (I'm sure you're wonderful people, personally.)