Charter Communications bringing usage caps to cable modem service this month.

shrike4242

shrike4242

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Found on DSLReports:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Exclusive-Charter-Implementing-New-Caps-100637

Summary:
100GB cap for >15Mbps service
250GB cap for 15Mbps-25Mbps service
Unlimited for 60GB service ($140/month, just launched in St. Louis)

[quote name='From the first article']Exclusive: Charter Implementing New Caps
100GB for 15Mbps or less, 250 for 15Mbps or more; not strictly enforced at first
05:56PM Tuesday Feb 03 2009 by Karl Bode
tags: business · exclusive · bandwidth · cable · networking · caps · Charter Pipeline
Broadband Reports has learned that Charter will be updating their acceptable use policy (AUP) next week, setting the stage for clear usage caps and potential overage fees. A source familiar with the plans tells us Charter will be imposing a 100GB cap upon any Charter connection of 15Mbps or less, and a 250GB usage cap for broadband tiers "over 15 Mbps up to 25 Mbps." Documents shared with Broadband Reports make no mention of Charter's new 60Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 tier, which was launched last week in one market.


According to the insider, the policy will not be strictly enforced initially, but "it's only a matter of time." Like many carriers, Charter's AUP language has always given Charter the right to "adjust, suspend, or terminate" the subscriber's connection without warning. However, an as-yet published FAQ seen by Broadband Reports indicates Charter will now be more seriously enforcing these limitations. The new AUP will be a digital warning shot over the bow of the carrier's heaviest users.


There will not initially be overage fees, but the new AUP reserves the right to charge "additional fees in accordance with Charter's then-current applicable rates." If there's a company who could benefit from overage fees it's Charter -- the carrier holds more than $20 billion in debt, and faces rumors of a looming bankruptcy protection filing.


Charter CTO Marwan Fawaz told attendees of the CableNEXT conference in Santa Clara last year that "eventually, we will go to a usage-based solution." It's an idea being toyed with by several carriers; AT&T and Time Warner Cable are both currently conducting trials that charge users up to $1.00 per gigabyte. The idea appeals to investors who like the additional revenue, but it also allows carriers to monetize and/or control alternative video delivery.

The unreleased FAQ informs customers that these caps are necessary "to ensure that all users of the service are able to obtain optimal service levels." The FAQ promises users that only 1% of customers should be impacted -- with those customers contacted by either e-mail or phone. Our source says support agents don't yet have user bandwidth usage monitoring tools -- suggesting this should still be handled by the abuse department.

Cable carriers are concerned about being transparent in the way they handle congestion on their networks, given that in 2008, the FCC sanctioned Comcast for lying to consumers about their network management policies. With a new (and potentially more network neutrality focused) FCC boss in Julius Genochowski, cable carriers are making sure that whatever they're doing -- they're informing customers about it first.

"Our HSI AUP prohibits excessive bandwidth usage but does not expressly define excessive at this time," Charter spokesman Eric Ketzer told me when I asked for official comment. "I know many of our peers have established caps, and we are evaluating putting more definition around what "excessive" usage means."

update: Charter has officially confirmed the plans, and says their 60Mbps tier will not come with any limitations.[/quote]


Confirmed as coming up this month:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Exclusive-Charter-Implementing-New-Caps-100637

[quote name='From the second article']Charter Confirms New Caps
Says new $140, 60Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 tier will be cap free
06:24PM Wednesday Feb 04 2009 by Karl Bode
tags: business · bandwidth · cable · Charter Pipeline
Yesterday we cited an anonymous insider at Charter who informed us that the company would very soon be implementing new caps. Today, Charter's Eric Ketzer confirmed the plans, and informed us that Charter's new, $140 60Mbps tier will not have any limitations. Speeds of 15Mbps or slower will have a 100GB monthly cap, while 15-25Mbps speeds will have a 250GB monthly cap. "In order to continue providing the best possible experience for our Internet customers, later this month we will be updating our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to establish monthly residential bandwidth consumption thresholds," Ketzer confirms. "More than 99% of our customers will not be affected by our updated policy, as they consume far less bandwidth than the threshold allows," he says.[/quote]
 
Doesn't affect me, as I have AT&T DSL, though they've been rumored of putting in caps on their service.

Comcast is probably going to be working to put in caps for their service shortly across-the-board.
 
So what does this mean for online gamers....

How much info is used during those sessions... I cannot get cable internet where I live so I am running cell internet... its pretty fast but the latency is an issue for online gaming, so I dont do it.
 
Aw nuts. Sounds like we'll have to switch to DSL soon. 100 GB isn't a terrible limit for most people but we'd probably hit that within a week or two here with our constant night time downloading.

And Snake, online games don't use very much speed at all. Depending on the game probably 5 to 50 kilobytes per second. At 50, you would be able to play games over 500 hours per month.
 
Can we stop now talking about Digital distribution for the "next gen".. having ISP do this, really makes the arguement moot.
 
[quote name='Snake2715']So what does this mean for online gamers....

How much info is used during those sessions... I cannot get cable internet where I live so I am running cell internet... its pretty fast but the latency is an issue for online gaming, so I dont do it.[/quote]That's the big question, and I'm sure they don't have clue one about it.
 
[quote name='homeland']Can we stop now talking about Digital distribution for the "next gen".. having ISP do this, really makes the arguement moot.[/QUOTE]

I didn't think of that. This really will bottle neck digital distribution for both movies and games.
 
[quote name='rodeojones903']I didn't think of that. This really will bottle neck digital distribution for both movies and games.[/quote]Expect Microsoft, Sony, Netflix, Apple, Valve and Amazon to all start screaming louder as more ISP's go through with caps on service.
 
Hopefully the bankruptcy rumors are true, and the St. Louis area will get a decent cable provider.
 
[quote name='thack']Hopefully the bankruptcy rumors are true, and the St. Louis area will get a decent cable provider.[/quote]I'd be happy if Paul Allen bought up the rest of the outstanding stock, made it private, fixed Charter and made them a company worth using again.

Right now, they're such a joke it's ridiculous.
 
100 GB per month isn't that much. I just downloaded 2.5 GB in 360 demos...

[quote name='homeland']Can we stop now talking about Digital distribution for the "next gen".. having ISP do this, really makes the arguement moot.[/QUOTE]

An excellent point.
 
My Comcast thankfully doesn't have caps yet.

I probably never hit 100GB a month. But with my two new roommates (just had one who didn't download much before) we may get close as I have no idea what they do online.

Otherwise the only high bandwidth things I grab are the occasional 360 demo and Netflix streaming.

As for how much gaming uses, I'd expect that to be very little. I mean there was dial up online gaming on the dreamcast that worked pretty well on a 56K modem so the gaming doesn't take much and I can't imagine the voice uses a ton either.

But that said, I don't like the idea of caps unless they restructure pricing to make the lower caps cheaper than what we pay now, a mid tier plan cost the same and a higher tier cost more---and we all know they won't do that. The lowest tier will be current price and the higher ones will cost more.
 
This will just turn into a money making tactic like cell phone minutes. It just sucks that it's much harder to gauge internet usage compared to cell phone usage.
 
[quote name='rodeojones903']Wow that sucks. I would cancel my service immediately.[/QUOTE]


Easier said than done. Most cable companies tend to have monopolies in certain municipalities, so even if you wanted to switch to someone else it may not even be an option.

Honestly, this is bad for consumers. What about things like Netflix streaming and Hulu? I imagine most streaming movies run in excess of 2GB. To be honest, I feel this should be illegal considering cable companies often hold a monopoly and will push for their pay video download services in light of the situation.

I already had a pretty low opinion of charter, this certainly doesn't strengthen the matter. I almost wish I had dropped my service this month instead of last so that I could give this new finding as a reason.
 
Yea, I see nothing but bad coming from this.
The software and movie distribution industries are saying that the next wave of distribution is through downloading and they are wanting to get away from "hard copies". So, for example, the virtual console games (Xbox, Wii, PS3, ect..) pricing is no less than the hard copy retail price (don't get me started on the manufacturing cost savings!) and now it is even being held back by the caps being put on by ISPs.
Something has to give. With the pricing alone, some people are more likely to get hard copy over download. Now you add the fear that people are going to go over their "download cap" with their ISP and get charged overage fees. It is definatly slowing down the development of this delivery system.
Seems like everyone wants a piece of the pie, even if it is not their pie.
 
Oh yea, and I was just about to sign up with Netflix.
But, I have Charter and the only high speed competition in the town I am moving to is DSL and from what I understand it is not very good in that town.
Needless to say I changed my mind about signing up with Netflix, because I was going to use it almost exclusively for "streaming rentals".
This is just the first of what has to be evaluated on how much traffic I will be using.
 
Out here in St. Louis, it's either Charter for cable modem service or AT&T for DSL or UVerse. It's a no brainer on which of the two I picked, as my cable gets funny for no reason at all, and my phone service + DSL service have been rock solid for years.

And due to some slight distance problems, I can't get 6MB DSL, and I don't need the IPTV side of UVerse, so I'm waiting 6-8 months (or more, as there's no announcement yet) for their Internet service to be a separate product than UVerse TV + Internet. Once that happens, I'll be happy with 18Mbps / 1Mbps service from AT&T.

Charter putting caps on their service is a bad move, and all they'll do is piss off their customers who will go to AT&T UVerse or Verizon FIOS in a heartbeat.
 
Unfortunately for me, Comcast is my only option for broad band. Only other thing available is Verizon DSL, and we tried that and it was only getting 300-500 kbps during off peak times and would get dial up like speeds in the evenings.

We're just too far from the c/o and the phone wiring in this condo building (built in 1961) is terrible. On top of being terrible it picks up the high wattage radio station a block away which probably doesn't help. We ditched land line long ago since it was hard to hear over the radio.

But I'll be moving in the summer and hoping to go somewhere I can get Fios, or at least DirecTV and decent DSL and not have to deal with the cable company crap.
 
[quote name='Snake2715']So what does this mean for online gamers....

How much info is used during those sessions... I cannot get cable internet where I live so I am running cell internet... its pretty fast but the latency is an issue for online gaming, so I dont do it.[/QUOTE]

Actually online gaming uses very little information.

With Halo 3 for example, the only information that's sent is placement and button usage. The game engine takes over from there and decides if your placement and shooting is in line with someone else's placement.

To all those with Charter... do they have your attention yet? They HATE you.
 
[quote name='shrike4242']I'd be happy if Paul Allen bought up the rest of the outstanding stock, made it private, fixed Charter and made them a company worth using again.

Right now, they're such a joke it's ridiculous.[/quote]


damnit

100GB isn't much, I just grabbed a demo and that was 2GB.

The wife surfs ALL the time.

If they don't give us a meter, someway to judge how much we download, a class action suit should follow.

I agree, Allen should remake Charter... into something more than a pile of crap.

I just read that they will have over 3.6 billion due in debt, very soon.
 
fucking bullshit!

Maybe I'll need to look up DSL service.

Comcast is rumoured to be buying Charter in June anyways.
 
[quote name='bigdaddy']fucking bullshit!

Maybe I'll need to look up DSL service.

Comcast is rumoured to be buying Charter in June anyways.[/quote]

Serious?

man that's like Dog shit buying Cow shit because it smells better....

boo :cry:
 
[quote name='xycury']damnit

100GB isn't much, I just grabbed a demo and that was 2GB.

The wife surfs ALL the time.

If they don't give us a meter, someway to judge how much we download, a class action suit should follow.

I agree, Allen should remake Charter... into something more than a pile of crap.

I just read that they will have over 3.6 billion due in debt, very soon.[/quote]They have $74 million in interest payments due by 02/15. If they don't pay that, and it's almost guaranteed that they won't, they go into default.

News story about it from the local Fox affiliate:
http://www.fox2now.com/ktvi-charter-bankruptcy-020309,0,5775135.story

[quote name='bigdaddy']fucking bullshit!

Maybe I'll need to look up DSL service.

Comcast is rumoured to be buying Charter in June anyways.[/quote]Oh, that's a damned scary thought. Going from bad to worse in one fell swoop.

No Craptastic cable for me, thanks.
 
I remember when comcast first brought up the idea of a cap the FCC told them no way. But then comcast reworded it and was able to get away with it.
I bet if enough people complain/stop subscribing this will go away quick. It's ridiculous how much we pay for internet in the U.S.
 
fucking hell, I have horrible luck with internet. This cap is pure and utter bullshit. Sadly, Verizon doesn't offer FiOS where I live in STL County. fuck.
 
^When will this be declared illegal!

I don't think it's even possible for me to download that much a month, but maybe in a year they lower it to 75GB, and the 5GB and then 10GB! It's the principle of it!

Is it suppose to stop illegal downloading? To me it seems like Charter and the other companies get more money if the users break the law more.
 
They're doing it because they're sick of a small number of users using a large amount of bandwidth. They try to pass it off as "improving the user experience," but that's just marketing speak. They don't want to invest in more equipment to handle the usage, so they just cap people instead.
 
The fact that this is allowed to even happen is, simply put, retarded.

It's amazing that, as technology advances forward at an increased rate, ISP's move our country back a step at a time.
 
*facepalm*

Unless you're downloading a shitload of movies every month, you're not using 100 GB, let alone 250 GB. Online gaming is not going to suck up all that bandwith. I mean, if your gaming takes up 200 kb/s, and you average 2 hours a day, you'd still only use 43.2 GB. I doubt most of us do 2 hours of online gaming a day, and I doubt it really averages 200 kb/s. Shit, I kept track when I had a RS premium account. I maxed it out every fucking day for a month, and did some torrenting on top of that, and I didn't even hit 120 GB.

Chill the fuck out.
 
^It's the principle. In Japan and the UK they get 20-60mbps speeds and pay like what would ammount to $20us a month. We are getting ripped off huge and we are supposed to be "the greatest country on earth."

It starts with throttling, then goes to capping, and this is all on top of the fact that ISPs are all monopilies.

And now with netflix streaming HD movies(can be 9-14gb+ per movie) and downloadable games and videos on PS3 and Amazon. On top of whatever else you do on the internet. It is't unlikely that 150gb wouldn't be enough for some people.

edit: I also pose this question to you, since it's ok to cap internet usage then you must think it's ok if they capped the ammount of time you are allowed to watch cable tv in a month as part of the service you pay for? It's the same thing. And imagine you hit the cap with 2 minutes left in the game or the last half hour of a movie.
 
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I guess I have to be glad I'm in the same boat as Shrike4242? Although I don't really like AT&T as much as you because they are shit here. I guess maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side...

What I'm more concerned about is xohm/4G (internet everywhere) for portable devices. I'd love to have a cheap internet anywhere plan that's unlimited, but I figure it will never happen.
 
[quote name='HowStern']^It's the principle. In Japan and the UK they get 20-60mbps speeds and pay like what would ammount to $20us a month. We are getting ripped off huge and we are supposed to be "the greatest country on earth."

It starts with throttling, then goes to capping, and this is all on top of the fact that ISPs are all monopilies. [/quote]

Then stop whining and cancel your service. If you really don't think the service is worth the money and are unsatisfied, it's your best course of action. If enough people cancel, they will cave. Of course, not enough people will cancel because practically no one will ever fucking notice the cap.

[quote name='HowStern']edit: I also pose this question to you, since it's ok to cap internet usage then you must think it's ok if they capped the ammount of time you are allowed to watch cable tv in a month as part of the service you pay for? It's the same thing. And imagine you hit the cap with 2 minutes left in the game or the last half hour of a movie.[/quote]

No, it isn't the same. You're assuming that every minute you watch cable TV takes up an ever increasing amount of bandwidth and that an individual can suck up dramatically more than anyone else simply by watching more TV. Furthermore, certain channels aren't going to be taking up more bandwidth than others unless they're HD.

If you're going to try to make an argument, at least make it a good one instead of wasting my time on this drivel.
 
[quote name='evanft']Then stop whining and cancel your service. If you really don't think the service is worth the money and are unsatisfied, it's your best course of action. If enough people cancel, they will cave. Of course, not enough people will cancel because practically no one will ever fucking notice the cap.
[/QUOTE]

While I agree with the latter (that the vast majority of internet users won't notice), a lot of people really don't have an option to cancel internet because they work from home a lot, need e-mail access for work etc. etc.

I hate Comcast, but I need broadband as I work from home a ton and I'm constantly e-mailing and FTPing large data files to colleagues in other states etc. And as noted above, Comcast is my only broadband option currently, so I'm stuck with them.
 
Great. I've enjoyed my DSL service for years with ATT because I go the phone/DSL route with no Cable TV. So It's a much cheaper option for me since I hardly watch TV anyways.

Regardless this sucks the big ones. I doubt I'll use my entire bandwidth in the first place but it shouldn't be limited.
 
Yeah, I gotta say, this is fucking terrible! I live in western NC, and Charter is the ONLY option for broadband here. I feel like they already get away with doing whatever they please because there is no competition. Now, they're going to pull this crap.

As somebody else mentioned, I would expect Sony, Microsoft, Netflix, etc. to really raise hell about this. For that matter, somebody else needs to rise up and offer internet services. It wouldn't surprise me if MS did it themselves. I understand that Charter is in debt, but maybe the reason for that is because they've shit on their customers for years and years, and drove them to DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T, Verizon, etc.

Yes, the economy sucks. But you'll notice that most of the companies that are going bankrupt are the ones who kept trying to squeeze a little more out of their customers. Karma's a bitch.
 
[quote name='evanft']Then stop whining and cancel your service. If you really don't think the service is worth the money and are unsatisfied, it's your best course of action. If enough people cancel, they will cave. Of course, not enough people will cancel because practically no one will ever fucking notice the cap.



No, it isn't the same. You're assuming that every minute you watch cable TV takes up an ever increasing amount of bandwidth and that an individual can suck up dramatically more than anyone else simply by watching more TV. Furthermore, certain channels aren't going to be taking up more bandwidth than others unless they're HD.

If you're going to try to make an argument, at least make it a good one instead of wasting my time on this drivel.[/quote]


It ,actually, is the exact same thing. If you knew how cable tv worked you would know this. The HD you get from your cable company isn't true HD, it's been compressed to fit on their bandwidth capacity. So, you are getting "HD Lite." And it comes through the same pipes as cable internet. Because of this, imagine they decide they need to cap the ammount of tv people watch in order to offer HD service to more people once more people start subscribing to HD packages because they can't comress it anymore.
DirectTV tried to compress it more when this happened and they got sued. So, why not a cap like the internet? You must think that would be fine, too.

I subscribe to verizon btw. fios>comcast
 
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About a year ago charters contract for the area I live in was up and they were only able to get it extended for another year or 2. I'm thinking they were able to buy someone high up in office because moste people in this area hate Charter and the Mayor and most other officials were getting nothing but hate mail about them. I really hope they go bankrupt. Charter tends to take the bandwidth you are paying for and lower it to give more to new customers then after 6 months or so even it out. I'm paying for the 5mb servers and have at times only got 3mbs. I only get my full amount that I'm paying for when I call and can get someone on the phone and start bitching. It got to one point where that even didn't work and I was in the area of the office and went in bitching about it. They had people inline talking about getting the internet from them and wanted me to leave. I told them I wanted what i was paying for. They took the information and about 2 hours when I got home it was up to where it should be and stayed like that for a long time. I fraken hate charter and hope they go bankrupt.
 
It wouldnt be so bad if there was a counter or you could log in and see how much time you used, but to have it a mystery is super annoying.

Im stuck with charter as well.
 
[quote name='evanft']*facepalm*

Unless you're downloading a shitload of movies every month, you're not using 100 GB, let alone 250 GB. Online gaming is not going to suck up all that bandwith. I mean, if your gaming takes up 200 kb/s, and you average 2 hours a day, you'd still only use 43.2 GB. I doubt most of us do 2 hours of online gaming a day, and I doubt it really averages 200 kb/s. Shit, I kept track when I had a RS premium account. I maxed it out every fucking day for a month, and did some torrenting on top of that, and I didn't even hit 120 GB.

Chill the fuck out.[/QUOTE]

You don't get it. Restricting bandwidth is restricting ones accessing to information, and that is restricting their freedom.

Not to mention that bandwidth is cheaper than it has ever been before.

These caps and throttling are a direct result of telecom monopolies and the shitty infrastructure we have here in the US.
 
You're making it sound like a constitutional issue rather than, for example, a phone company billing you for overage charges once you exceed the minutes on your cell phone plan.

As I use more than X electricity, the rate goes up. My computer doesnt work without electricity. Restriction of freedom!
It turns out none of our so called freedoms are absolute and have at least some restrictions on them.

With that said, monopolies are certainly bad. It would be great if another company saw that there was a market for cheaper unlimited and could move in and start taking marketshare. If not, thems the breaks, short of government regulation of course (oh noes)
 
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[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']You're making it sound like a constitutional issue rather than, for example, a phone company billing you for overage charges once you exceed the minutes on your cell phone plan.

As I use more than X electricity, the rate goes up. My computer doesnt work without electricity. Restriction of freedom!
It turns out none of our so called freedoms are absolute and have at least some restrictions on them.[/QUOTE]Yeah, you're right. I accidentally mixed this and talk of a possible 3-strikes-and-no-more-internet-for-you rule in Europe that's been tossed around.

Regardless, the only reason why this is happening is because of a lack of competition in the telecom industry because there are very few players and because they are content with limiting bandwidth rather than modernizing infrastructure.
 
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