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Comment by crs | Hacker News Reader

Actually if you read his post from a day ago, you will see him state he stopped the open access point. He took steps to stop what he thought was the issue. It was not until the cap was broken a second time that he realized it was his backup system uploading to a 3rd party service.

That is not entitlement at all. If anything it was ignorance of the fact that your upload data is also measured against the cap.

I agree with him about going to the FCC. The fact that he has no where to turn to purchase a competing service means that Comcast can dictate peoples internet usage behavior. My question would be is does the 250g data cap apply when they are watching TV/Movies online via Comcast (XFinity) provided services?

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That is not entitlement at all. If anything it was ignorance of the fact that your upload data is also measured against the cap.

This. I would never have guessed upstream was counted. I thought this was only about downstream bandwidth.

I have a hard time accepting this fact. Yes, you might not know upload count, but reading Comcast's AUP, it states:

    >> Common activities that may cause excessive data consumption in violation of this Policy include, but are not limited to, 
    numerous or continuous bulk transfers of files and other high capacity traffic using 
        (i) file transfer protocol (“FTP”), 
        (ii) peer-to-peer applications, and 
        (iii) newsgroups.

This seems to be exactly what the person who wrote the article was complaining about.

And in a world where we no longer have unlimited data plans on our phones; I am suprised people forget about the data used while uploading...

Updated: formatting and clairification.

My question would be is does the 250g data cap apply when they are watching TV/Movies online via Comcast (XFinity) provided services?

Of course not, nor Comcast's VOIP service.

Watching the xfinity tv/news service definitely counts towards the cap, but xfinity voice is a completely separate service - and doesn't count.

But if you used Vonage it would count? Same type of service, different application of rules.

Yes.

Perhaps if he was more civil with the service reps and just explained the mistake he would have been given a reprieve. Regardless, it doesn't sound like he's willing to cut back his data use.

Yeah, maybe if he bought them a cake and rented a hooker, everything would be peachy!

>My question would be is does the 250g data cap apply when they are watching TV/Movies online via Comcast (XFinity) provided services?

Yes it does. But, of course it doesn't apply to the On Demand services on Comcast Cable, which is where they want to push customers at.

This. Combined with the power of local carrier monopolies, it's exactly the reason we need net neutrality.

I appreciate your opinion but I downvoted you because you said "This."

The "This." meme contributes nothing to the post and is the worst kind of contentless bandwagonism.

"This." is lazy and degrades the quality of the site in general.

I'm not going to downvote you, but that's an incredibly stupid reason to downvote someone.

"Oh, I don't like your word choice, so I'm going to downvote you regardless of the content."

I don't know... HN has a history of actively downvoting memes. I don't know if 'This.' qualifies as a meme or not, but it's a valid sentiment.

Then again, if you are replying "This." perhaps the better way to go would be with a simple upvote. But that would really only be expressive if we could see vote counts again.

My point was that "this. <explanation and clarification>" does not deserve a downvote (should get an upvote), because it has actual content.

However, a content-free message of simply "this." does deserve a downvote.

The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style.

Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN.

Explaining yourself and adding an original thought is contributing, but saying "This." is not contributing and degrades the quality of the post and HN in general.

  > The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style.

Forgive me, my vocabulary failed me when I was writing that particular sentence.

  > Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN.

Good point, although leetspeak kills readability, whereas "this." is just a way to say "yes, I agree with you.".

In my opinion, a comment that is simply "this." should get no votes at all, whereas a comment that is entirely in leetspeak should be downvoted into oblivion. Killing readability is a far greater sin than simply failing to realize that the upvote button exists for a reason.

How does "Combined with the power of local carrier monopolies, it's exactly the reason we need net neutrality." not qualify as explanation/original thought?

How is "This." different than "Exactly." and other expressions of agreement in spoken English?

It might not bring new information, but it tells the reader that the rest of the post should be read in a context of agreement with the parent post, so it's useful.

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