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Comment by zain | Hacker News Reader

In addition to the throttling, Comcast still enforces bandwidth caps.

Two months ago, Comcast's fraud department left me a breathless voicemail asking to call them back urgently regarding an "important matter of security."

When I called back, I was told, "We have a bandwidth limit of 250 gigabytes a month. Our records show that in August, you used 710 gigabytes." They told me that if I exceeded 250gb again, they'd cut me off for a year.

Since then, I've started tracking my bandwidth to make sure I don't go over. If Comcast cuts me off, my only alternative is 5Mbps DSL through AT&T, and I wouldn't wish that upon anybody. So, Comcast has successfully used their monopoly position in my area to strong-arm me into lowering my bandwidth usage.

I really hope Verizon FIOS shakes things up soon. It's somewhat depressing that FIOS is available in the boonies of Indiana but not in most of the Silicon Valley.

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So, Comcast has successfully used their monopoly position in my area to strong-arm me into lowering my bandwidth usage.

Look, I hate Comcast as much as the next guy, but they appear to have competition in your area, even if the competitive product isn't as good. You have a choice, but refuse to exercise it.

The reason they can get away with this is because, like most other people, you won't cancel your service over it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging, and I would be paying Comcast too if they would let me, but it really doesn't seem they they are abusing a monopoly in this case.

Dialup is available to just about anyone, so comcast always has competition.

What? You don't think dialup and cable are competing, but dialup and DSL are (despite the huge speed differences in both cases)?

He specifically stated that he has the choice between cable internet and 5mbps DSL, which, while not equal, are certainly comparable.

Dial-up is not considered broadband by even the lame FCC definition, therefore I do not consider it competition.

That's fair. I wasn't saying that they were wrongly abusing their position. I was merely lamenting the fact that there's no viable competitors in my area.

Don't worry at all about getting cut off.

If that happens, just keep basic cable service and get a hacked cable modem with a random MAC address that asks for their top-of-the-line config file. Hell, you might as well do it before they cut you off -- it will pay for itself in a month.

Careful..

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=922834

There is only one method by which they can catch you for service piracy: waste a pile of money sending a crew out to your neighborhood, and go around disconnecting cables in a binary search, causing major grief for their actual customers.

They are never going to do that. The only people who've been convicted have been either paying subscribers that uncapped their authorized modem, or people building businesses around cable modem modification. Both are eminently traceable, and simple service piracy is not in the slightest.

> It's somewhat depressing that FIOS is available in the boonies of Indiana but not in most of the Silicon Valley.

That's because there are government subsidies to bring broadband to rural areas, but none to bring fiber to Silicon Valley. Verizon is just following the money.

Wow, 710 gigs. That's probably more than all my usage since 2007. In Ontario, the highest cap available for less than $100 month is 95 gigs.

I almost want to tell myself to not be so upset by the capping looking at how terrible it is in Ontario compared to you.

But I refuse to be ok with the lesser of two evils.

This madness must stop.

Yes, but they charge at $1.50/gig up to a maximum of $25 above those 95gb. My neighbours upstairs regularly pull >500gb in a month, pay the extra $25/mo, and move on with their lives.

Not a great solution, but better than being cut off :S

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