Comcast's Internet Data Limit is terrible

Today, for the first time, I received notice from Comcast that I was nearing my 1024GB data limit. 10 days after the month began. When they first notified me that they would be enforcing that limit, I wasn't too annoyed. 1024GB is a pretty decent amount of data. Certainly it's much better than the unenforced 250GB they had shown on my account before. Unfortunately, they did not make clear, one key piece of information. Upload data counts against the data limit[1].

I had assumed that they wouldn't count upload limits since their upload speed limit is so pathetically tiny. Turns out I was wrong.

The reason I finally hit my limit so fast this month is that I finally set up a solid, secure, cloud backup system. I've been slowly uploading several terabytes of backups over the past couple weeks.

Needless to say, this makes me unhappy.

Oh, and to top off my bad feelings, they injected a modal popup notification about my limit on a website I was browsing. That is an extremely offensive invasion of my privacy.

Last time I checked, there were no other ISPs in Eugene, OR, that provide real broadband internet. Charter Cable is not available, and CenturyLink only offers 1.5 Mbps, not broadband. Anyone know of any alternatives?

If anyone with any actual decision making power at Comcast reads this, please stop treating me like this. If you are going to limit my data, either give me decent upload speeds, or don't count uploads against my data limit. (Note, the courtesy months help, but the fact you stop giving them after a 3rd "offense" is just wrong. The unlimited[2] plan is not really a good solution either unless a person regularly uses more than 1024GB. Even then, $50/month is excessive.)

So, since I'm stuck with Comcast, I'm going to put some more effort into figuring out what can be done to build effective competition. The current lack of competition is bad for everyone. Even Comcast, since they have no reason to innovate or build better products.

For reference:
[1] https://www.xfinity.com/support/internet/data-usage-what-counts-towards-my-data-plan/
[2]https://www.xfinity.com/support/internet/exp-unlimited-data/
https://www.xfinity.com/support/internet/data-usage-plan/

Submitted by david.reagan on