Comcasts 250GB Limit is a scam, a con (A intelligent argumen

[btax]

Now I will make valid statements, facts, and opinions why Comcasts 250GB limit is a scam (like the Peak Oil Scam that Alex J. or his friends talked about) and why network congestion is not the real reason why they are imposing these limits.

You can send this to the FCC, anti-fruad legal firms, you can send this to comcast yourself without my permission. So this is licensed as public domain because im not into money or glory, I'm into exposing comcasts scam operations and providing valid statements as much as I can on this topic.

Now I will give you 5 reasons:

The first reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; If comcast was wanting people to stop, slow down, or limit their downloading why do they used to offer an unlimited service and in their TOS they will only disconnect you for abuse, being caught by them doing illegal stuff, hacked your cable router for more speeds then what you paid for, but not using the maximum of the speed you paid for. So if you paid for 6MBPS you get 6MBPS, not 1MBPS.

The second reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; If comcast is putting a limit thinking it will stop people from using too much bandwidth and will keep the internet from going slow, then why the hell are they giving out packages of 15/16MBPS, as a security officer against network congestion would think "giving more speeds with a bandwidth cap is suicide because if people don't go over their limits it would further slow the internet then before". Also the reason I think they are giving out more speeds is because so people will even more quickly go through their limits then before therefore making loads of people pay loads more money thus comcast is getting richer and doesn't have to upgrade their network while gaining maximum profits like the oil companies. A valid way of decreasing network congestion is to downgrade the speeds and charge a lower rate or pay a little more to keep your speed, many users would happy to pay a little more to keep their speeds but it's not profitable, if many people could bust through that limit, paying for comcast business is a gold mine for their scam if they are committing a scam.

The third reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; Any network provider knows if their network can't handle more population while making huge profits, part of investing in a company means having to keep upgrading to meet the demands of the stock holders, clients, and to make the company larger and larger that it will boom in profits while creating customer satisfaction, yet comcast is saying the opposite that more bandwidth is bad for their networks and that they need to charge their clients more money then before and jack up prices or force large downloaders to be treated as a business user and forced to pay like a company making media downloading/streaming a luxury for the rich and middle class but not the poor.

The fourth reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; Not every ISP complains about peoples bandwidth usage, but since comcast owns a huge area to mostly them selfs without much, or any competition forcing people to use their ISP so if comcast wants to limit bandwidth their users can't just switch out of the blue to another provider if they maintain big control over certain areas. Also you could try satellite internet but it's way more expensive and they also seem to limit bandwidth severely too, just check hughesnet. So therefore you have to comply with their limits.

The fifth reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; They have so much money, why don't they use that money to build a massive fiber optic network, if they don't have enough money, ask people to fund their project or slow down speeds, not capping it. Comcast is not even doing that. Also if they are gonna lower our speeds because they don't like bandwidth hogs, then why can't they lower their customers bills for the not-as-good service, No comcast is that fair, they rather cap bandwidth even though network congestion isn't a good excuse to doing it, because in this world you can't say excuses like "I had to help other students cheat on their tests because I need to have loads of money paid by them for future mafia operations", so even though it's immoral he states hes doing it for good reasons, or "The dog hates and ates my homework". The bandwidth cap is a pure scam and needs to be investigated if they actually did anything illegal because most credit card scams like 'free ipods' seems to still exist.

So these are my 5 reasons why I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam

[Edit-Sep-01-2008] Added another statement to second reason.

[Edit-Sep-01-2008] Corrected a myth on first reason.

[MrFredPFL]

they stopped advertising the package that they are capping as unlimited service a long time ago. since that "fact" isn't a fact, i won't bother to read the rest of your post.

[napho]

Ah, give 'em a break. The only scam is people pretending unlimited downloading is a fight for freedom and "net neutrality". It's all about pirating copyright material. How about unlimited downloading, but if you get caught, you go to jail for theft and become a butt pirate.

[btax]

they stopped advertising the package that they are capping as unlimited service a long time ago. since that "fact" isn't a fact, i won't bother to read the rest of your post.

I corrected the myth from unlimited service to used to be.

[MrFredPFL]

napho

rationalization is a powerful force, ain't it?

[piXelatedEmpire]

I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam

You use this phrase waaaay too often in your post.

[Reasonable]

I know i will go over this cap because i play online alot and download at the same time ,so is att better or worse? can someone give me a little advice? And does it make a difference if i get att to get me a dial tone then use a different DSL provider to get on the internet, will att be able to spy? thankyou

[enigmax]

Can you give us a short description of how the scam works?

Is this another one of Ben's guides?

[ToM]

Sure, bandwidth capping is a bit of a con and false advertising but...

The fifth reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; They have so much money, why don't they use that money to build a massive fiber optic network, if they don't have enough money, ask people to fund their project

Things like this would never get you taken seriously. Comcast is a business, and it's up to them how they run it. I read the above statement as "If Microsoft have so much money, why don't they release Windows for free?! Fukkerz."

Why don't Comcast use their spare money to fight poverty, cure diseases or fund SlyckTom's online adult escorting addictions? Why don't they buy me breakfast?

Can you give us a short description of how the scam works?

I opened this post hoping to get some factual insight into a 419-esque scam going down at a major business. Disappointed.

[david89]

yeah i agree it wasn't a issue before but now the isp crying about the bandwidth and it wasn't a issue for many years why now? and 250 is not to bad but what happens if next year they want make it 150gb does that make it right and i think people should get very mad now before it's to late.

[MrFredPFL]

thank you, ToM, for that refreshing bit of reality.

[Xeno]

Ok, I think so far most of the people here have been pretty good about bringing this back to reality... but let's go a bit further.

The first reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; If comcast was wanting people to stop, slow down, or limit their downloading why do they used to offer an unlimited service and in their TOS they will only disconnect you for abuse, being caught by them doing illegal stuff, hacked your cable router for more speeds then what you paid for, but not using the maximum of the speed you paid for. So if you paid for 6MBPS you get 6MBPS, not 1MBPS.

The reason they don't disconnect you for going over is simple... IT'S NOT ILLEGAL. Everything else you listed in most cases goes against some kind of local, state, or federal law. Using more bandwidth(while undesirable to them) is not illegal.

The second reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; If comcast is putting a limit thinking it will stop people from using too much bandwidth and will keep the internet from going slow, then why the hell are they giving out packages of 15/16MBPS, as a security officer against network congestion would think "giving more speeds with a bandwidth cap is suicide because if people don't go over their limits it would further slow the internet then before". Also the reason I think they are giving out more speeds is because so people will even more quickly go through their limits then before therefore making loads of people pay loads more money thus comcast is getting richer and doesn't have to upgrade their network while gaining maximum profits like the oil companies. A valid way of decreasing network congestion is to downgrade the speeds and charge a lower rate or pay a little more to keep your speed, many users would happy to pay a little more to keep their speeds but it's not profitable, if many people could bust through that limit, paying for comcast business is a gold mine for their scam if they are committing a scam.

For argument 2... first off, many users are not willing to pay more. That's why even in places with DSL, Cable, and FIOS... there are still people who use dial up. Second, slowing your network down and lowering the speed for cable takes away any advantage they had over DSL. DSL was generally considered slower, but cost less($20 vs $50 here). Doing that would be the equivelent of a theme park that cut rides down to 5 seconds to compete with the local playground slide. Yeah, you can get more people in there and on it, but there won't be a reason to go there. Third... ease up on the use of the word scam...

The third reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; Any network provider knows if their network can't handle more population while making huge profits, part of investing in a company means having to keep upgrading to meet the demands of the stock holders, clients, and to make the company larger and larger that it will boom in profits while creating customer satisfaction, yet comcast is saying the opposite that more bandwidth is bad for their networks and that they need to charge their clients more money then before and jack up prices or force large downloaders to be treated as a business user and forced to pay like a company making media downloading/streaming a luxury for the rich and middle class but not the poor.

So for this one, you're basically saying that a)Comcast is evil because they're trying to realize their return on investment instead of continually attempting to lay out money to expand and b) that a little old lady who checks email twice a week costs them the same amount as a person downloading 250gb a month. For a) If you ever ran a business like that, you would be bankrupt in the first recession. The absolute worst thing for a company is excess supply. It's wasted money and it drives down the value of their product. They shouldn't be constantly expanding their capacity... maybe their coverage, but not their general network. That needs to be based on how long it would take to recover the costs. Which brings us to b) for every massive downloader you could have about 20 average users(12 gb seems a standard amount considering a few will be higher and a few will be email/myspace/facebook only). The company is not trying to serve the massive downloaders, they're bad for business. They're trying to server the general public. If you want to look at this from a business only perspective, it makes a ton of sense, since even normal users are using cable, but only downloaders are hitting it this hard. Unless you'd rather have them cut off service since you're affecting the quality of the product for other users?

The fourth reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; Not every ISP complains about peoples bandwidth usage, but since comcast owns a huge area to mostly them selfs without much, or any competition forcing people to use their ISP so if comcast wants to limit bandwidth their users can't just switch out of the blue to another provider if they maintain big control over certain areas. Also you could try satellite internet but it's way more expensive and they also seem to limit bandwidth severely too, just check hughesnet. So therefore you have to comply with their limits.

So let me get this straight... you're out in the middle of no where, away from all the metropolitan areas. You're angry that you don't have a lot of options, and you're angry with the options you have. Normally, that would be the perfect chance for competition... so why hasn't that happened? For the same reason that big cities can easily lay down a much better network that doesn't require them to focus on bandwidth caps. Everyone is closer together, so it costs less for higher quality. So since a city based ISP only has to lay half the cable a rural ISP would, they can take the same investment and make the network better. Your other option is to have the cable company charge you extra for the cost of having to come all the way out to you. Either way, someone has to pay for the fact that it's less profitable to give you internet than someone in a dense area... and if the ISP has to pay... they just won't come out.

The fifth reason I think comcast is lying about their network congestion for their scam is; They have so much money, why don't they use that money to build a massive fiber optic network, if they don't have enough money, ask people to fund their project or slow down speeds, not capping it. Comcast is not even doing that. Also if they are gonna lower our speeds because they don't like bandwidth hogs, then why can't they lower their customers bills for the not-as-good service, No comcast is that fair, they rather cap bandwidth even though network congestion isn't a good excuse to doing it, because in this world you can't say excuses like "I had to help other students cheat on their tests because I need to have loads of money paid by them for future mafia operations", so even though it's immoral he states hes doing it for good reasons, or "The dog hates and ates my homework". The bandwidth cap is a pure scam and needs to be investigated if they actually did anything illegal because most credit card scams like 'free ipods' seems to still exist.

Most of this argument was covered in my point above. They shouldn't have to charge less, since they had to pay more to get you the internet in the first place. And tell me, how is comcast connected to the mafia? Do you think they're ordering hits on people? Or maybe you think they've got a bootleg video deal going on somewhere....

And while I'm at it, 'free ipod' scams aren't scams. They will give you those, with the purchase of several other products. That's like saying a free hat with every purchase deal at a store is a scam. Or even a buy one get one free coupon is a scam. Just because you don't read the details, doesn't mean it's necessarily a scam.

And by the way... 250gb is a massive amount that I don't think can be reached by a normal person without a)downloading something illegal or b) going out of your way to prove me wrong. And if you are downloading that much stuff on a regular basis... well then perhaps you do fit the qualifications of a business user.

[CHEEZOR]

I was hoping for the "intelligent argument" part of the title to actually be somewhere in the post. Sadly, it was not.