Possible Shenanigans with Comcast Data Cap meter

[Trik'Stari]

I'm surprised no one covered this, as it's important.

 

Remember how Comcast is slowly "testing" data caps in certain areas? (well all know full well that they don't care what the customers think, they want that money so bad they can taste it) Well it seems that some of their customers are having issues in these areas, and the number do not add up. This is a long one, but hold on to your butts and read it anyway.

 

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On March 18, Ars ­­received an exasperated e-mail from the father of one very frustrated Comcast customer.

 

Elliot told us that his son, Brad, had received bills totaling more than $1,500, and Comcast alleged that Brad had been consistently using far more than his 300GB monthly limit. Overage charges of $10 for each additional 50GB were piling up as Comcast's meter claimed usage totaling multiple terabytes a month. In February, there were $350 worth of charges for 1,750GB of usage above the 300GB limit (about 2TB total). In January, there had been $570 in extra charges for 2,850GB above the 300GB limit (about 3TB total).

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No one had any idea why Comcast's data meter was producing such high readings, but the cable company wasn't budging on the amount owed. Brad and his girlfriend, Alison, each 23 and living in Nashville, were working long hours and not using the Internet enough to consume terabytes per month, they say. Making just enough money to cover rent and college loans, they canceled their Comcast Internet to prevent more overage charges, and disputed the amount owed.

 

In his initial contact, Elliot told us:

 

"So far, despite all the calls we have made, no one is willing to even provide us with one shred of proof this data was consumed, by what method or website(s) it was used on. They just keep telling us to trust them, the data was used. We have asked for investigations of the Internet history to prove this usage, and they say they will do so, but they never do."

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We have had many conversations about this case with Brad, his father, and a Comcast spokesperson over the past few months. Though Elliot lives elsewhere, his name was added to the account to help sort out the billing problem. (Brad asked us not to publish his last name.)

 

Shortly after Elliot e-mailed us, Comcast had bill collection agents contact Brad. They were only called off after Ars relayed a message from Brad's father to the Comcast media relations department, which in turn told the company's employees to halt the collections process. Comcast also waived all of Brad's charges, but hasn't admitted any fault in its data usage measuring system.

 

Many other customers of Comcast and other ISPs also haven't been able to get problems addressed properly without alerting the media. Brad is merely one of several Comcast customers who has contacted us after facing similar data cap problems. In all cases, Comcast's first response is to tell customers that its meter is accurate and should not be questioned.

 

"We know that our meter is right... with our meter, we give you a guarantee that it is perfect," one Comcast customer service representative insisted to another subscriber who disputed data charges a few months ago. That subscriber, Chris from Georgia, had been measuring Internet usage on his own router and found big discrepancies between his own measurements and Comcast's. We'll have more on Chris and other customers later in this article. First, let's tell Brad's story

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Brad and Alison signed up for Comcast in August 2015. The high data readings began shortly thereafter, exhausting the three "courtesy" months Comcast provides before charging overage fees. (Comcast recently lowered the number of courtesy months to two.) In June of this year, Comcast began offering Nashville consumers the option to buy unlimited data for an extra $50 a month, but that choice wasn't available when the company accused Brad and Alison of going over their data cap.

 

Brad couldn't figure out why Comcast's meter said they were using so much data, and a few more months of high readings and overage fees followed. Brad is a full-time computer technician who is also going to school, and Alison is a nurse. It's not uncommon for them to watch a few hours of Netflix after work. But they don't work at home, don't run any servers, and don't do much gaming, he said.

 

"I mean, realistically, I'm sure it is in the couple hundreds of gigabytes," Brad said, "but it's not near a terabyte."

 

Netflix high-definition video can consume up to 3GB per hour. At that rate, you'd have to watch for more than 33 hours every day to hit the 3TB Brad and Alison supposedly used in a single month. (Note: there are 24 hours in a standard Earth day.)

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Shortly after Ars first spoke to Brad, we sent some questions to our contacts at Comcast. We were still waiting for answers when, at 5pm on Friday, April 1, Elliot told us that the account had been sent to collections. "The bill collectors have been in touch already" by phone and mail, he said. We then e-mailed the Comcast spokesperson who was handling the case, and the rep had a quick reply: "That should not have happened."

Within an hour, Comcast called Brad and waived all the charges

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Comcast was able to test Brad and Alison's data usage because they re-subscribed to Comcast Internet service. Though neither of them work from home, Brad's employer was able to help him get a discount on Comcast Business Internet, which has no data caps.

 

Comcast said that Brad's data readings were still high on the new business class service, even with a new modem. We asked Comcast to provide data usage readings, but Comcast refused to provide that information. The company doesn't provide usage readings to business class customers because they don't face caps, and a Comcast spokesperson told Ars that Brad should have been on a business account all along. The spokesperson also claimed that Brad's data was "legitimate business use," but provided no evidence to back up this assertion.

 

Comcast decided to conduct extensive troubleshooting with Brad to determine what (if any) device was using abnormally large amounts of data. Troubleshooting involved inventorying and temporarily unplugging every Wi-Fi-connected device in Brad's home, one by one, to determine whether data usage was affected. This took weeks. Comcast said it also tested the node outside Brad's house and replaced equipment serving the house to make sure there wasn't a network infrastructure problem.

Keep in mind that Comcast only did this extensive troubleshooting after Brad started talking to the media. The Comcast technician was "really nice and he helped out, but I just wish they would have done all this work before we got [the billing problem] fixed," Brad told Ars.

 

The troubleshooting revealed more oddities about Comcast's measurements, according to Brad.

 

In one case, a Comcast tech told Brad that he used a lot of data over a couple of hours, "and I was like, 'well that's interesting because I wasn't even home at that time.'" Brad next asked what Comcast's data meter showed for the previous day during a four-hour stretch when he was watching online video. The Comcast tech answered that data usage was low during those hours.

 

Unplugging various devices one at a time didn't initially cause any major drops in usage. Finally, Comcast said that Brad's new Apple TV must be to blame, since the data readings allegedly took a big dive when he turned it off for a day.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/tales-from-comcasts-data-cap-nation-can-the-meter-be-trusted/

 

There is at least another two pages on the ARS site to this story, I can't quote it all here because it would just be too long. But my TL;DR would be "ARS just rekt Comcast. Comcast is being sneaky and charging more than they should, refusing to release any metrics about their metering, and relying on a sole company to say "yeah it's fine". Not to mention errors with Comcast using the wrong MAC addresses, and the ever present spectre of WIFI theft (which honestly, I would get everyone in my building together and say "let's connect EVERYTHING to ALL of our wifi signals, and claim theft. They can have fun sorting that out)

 

Full Disclosure: Yes I am biased about this. In my opinion, it should not be legal, IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER for an internet service provider to have data caps on their customers. Why? Because we already pay them tens of millions of dollars a year, if not a LOT more (I am being VERY generous here) in tax subsidies to upgrade their infrastructure, which they have not done.

 

Just remember what Verizon did in NYC, they contracted with the city government to provide fiber to all residential buildings, then went around demanding that the owners of said buildings sign an exclusivity agreement, so that only Verizon could provide service to their buildings (I believe this was covered on The WAN Show, not to mention The Tek over on Tek Syndicate, I know it was featured there), and when the landlords refused, Verizon tried saying "well people don't want fiber, they don't need it" or something along those lines.

Source for Verizon Shenanigans: https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150621/09382931413/eight-years-later-new-york-city-officials-wake-up-to-verizons-fiber-broadband-bluff.shtml

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

This really needs to stop.

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% agreed.

 

ISP's need to be broken up into ITTY BITTY pieces.

[Misanthrope]

Oh yeah this was a common call for Hughesnet customers: "Where da fuck my data at!? I ain't watch no shit on my laptop!" Fortunately, I was so jaded that I didn't gave a fuck and just gave em their entire fucking month worth of data back to "test" and let that shit drop into someone else's lap later.

[Techicolors]

would like data caps to not be a thing, please 

[SansVarnic]

I have said this before.

Data should not have ever existed. Why?

Because ISP's DO NOT CREATE THE DATA they only provide a means to move it along.

 

You pay a moving company to move your stuff but you do not pay the moving company for your stuff.  

 

[bcredeur97]

This is so stupid. We use over a terabyte per month at our house and we pay a flat rate and we can use as much as we want. Even the flat rate is still high imo for 100mbit but still, thats how things should be. $10 for every 50GB? that's absolutely ridiculous considering that 50GB probably costs the giant Comcast a few cents

[Bensemus]

38 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

You pay a moving company to move your stuff but you do not pay the moving company for your stuff.  

That seems like a pretty bad example. It cost X amount to rent a small truck and much more to rent two semi trucks. Now swap small truck with Mb and semis with Gb. The more you move the more it costs. If everyone moved Tb of data 24/7 the networks would slow to a crawl. 

 

I do think the caps are dumb as the ISPs have been given plenty of money to grade their infrastructure.

[SansVarnic]

1 minute ago, Bensemus said:

That seems like a pretty bad example. It cost X amount to rent a small truck and much more to rent two semi trucks. Now swap small truck with Mb and semis with Gb. The more you move the more it costs. If everyone moved Tb of data 24/7 the networks would slow to a crawl. 

 

I do think the caps are dumb as the ISPs have been given plenty of money to grade their infrastructure.

I think you misunderstood the analogy. I don't have time right now to redo the example. So Ill leave foe somebody else to attempt (work pace picked up).

[zMeul]

wtf is the FCC (not) doing!?

[SansVarnic]

Just now, zMeul said:

wtf is the FCC (not) doing!?

Nothing.

Like I said before, the "net neutrality" was a gimmick from the start.

[QueenDemetria]

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

I think you misunderstood the analogy. I don't have time right now to redo the example. So Ill leave foe somebody else to attempt (work pace picked up).

 

1 hour ago, Bensemus said:

That seems like a pretty bad example. It cost X amount to rent a small truck and much more to rent two semi trucks. Now swap small truck with Mb and semis with Gb. The more you move the more it costs. If everyone moved Tb of data 24/7 the networks would slow to a crawl. 

 

I do think the caps are dumb as the ISPs have been given plenty of money to grade their infrastructure.

A better example would be your local swimming pool(or at least most swimming pools). You pay an entrance fee(lets assume 5€) and you get to stay in the pool(or on the lot) for as long as you want or when the pool closes(whatever happens first). Introducing "data caps" to swimming pools would mean that the entrance fee is still 5€, but you can only stay for 2 hours, and if you want to stay longer it will be 3€ per hour(and yes, the € per hour increased, just like going over your data cap changes your GB per € rate). The tricky thing with ISP's is  that they don't "pull you out of the pool" and tell you 'times up', they just let you rack up data and when the bill comes they're like "oh by the way, you know how you went way past your data allowance? Well now its time to pay up!".

[Bensemus]

2 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

I think you misunderstood the analogy. I don't have time right now to redo the example. So Ill leave foe somebody else to attempt (work pace picked up).

I don't think it did. The moving company charges you based on how much you need to move. That is exactly what ISPs shouldn't be doing. Moving a bed or room will cost much less then a whole house worth of stuff or a first stage if you are SpaceX. Moving companies don't just rent out semi's for every job. They scale the transport based on need. ISPs shouldn't scale amount, only speed. Moving companies will charge more for a faster time and more stuff.

[kiska3]

Really, is this what people in America is arguing about? What data caps? I can tell you that some countries have had it since the beginning. And that isn't changing, and if some providers do unlimited I can also tell you that speeds will vary during the day, sometimes you might get 100kbits/s, they'll claim they are delivering your service package, that being unlimited.

[Michael McAllister]

6 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% agreed.

 

ISP's need to be broken up into ITTY BITTY pieces.

 

Comcast has been doing shit like this for a while.  It does not surprise me in the least.

[Michael McAllister]

5 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

I have said this before.

Data should not have ever existed. Why?

Because ISP's DO NOT CREATE THE DATA they only provide a means to move it along.

 

You pay a moving company to move your stuff but you do not pay the moving company for your stuff.  

 

 

Comcast response: You would be paying for a different tier plan depending on how much you need to move.

[Michael McAllister]

3 hours ago, QueenDemetria said:

 

A better example would be your local swimming pool(or at least most swimming pools). You pay an entrance fee(lets assume 5€) and you get to stay in the pool(or on the lot) for as long as you want or when the pool closes(whatever happens first). Introducing "data caps" to swimming pools would mean that the entrance fee is still 5€, but you can only stay for 2 hours, and if you want to stay longer it will be 3€ per hour(and yes, the € per hour increased, just like going over your data cap changes your GB per € rate). The tricky thing with ISP's is  that they don't "pull you out of the pool" and tell you 'times up', they just let you rack up data and when the bill comes they're like "oh by the way, you know how you went way past your data allowance? Well now its time to pay up!".

 

The counterargument to that point would be that the alternative would be that the customer gets their Internet service disconnected for a time until they can afford to pay the bill.

[ScratchCat]

Solution: Buy a tank to scare any of those idiots off.

Our internet is pretty good, 100mbit down and unlimited.

[suicidalfranco]

muh free market! /s

[JAKEBAB]

I have a feeling not many people have read what was posted. I did, well at least i think i did, and from what I've gathered is the customer was still in the wrong. Do i agree with data caps? No, especially after they haven't had them previously. That doesn't take away from the fact they are here now and "Brad" was clearly in the wrong since his Apple TV was the culprit. I feel this article should be blaming Apple more than anyone though as i've seen this happen to people in Australia with other Apple products (iphone), a feature is enabled i can't quite remember but it's to do with the cloud and it chews the shit out of your data. 

 

Also quick after thought, how do we know they weren't streaming 4k netflix?

[Deletist_Jerk]

Is Comcast 4K streaming service excluded from the data cap? 

 

I'm tired of data discrimination, and the data caps. We all (in America) literally pay for speed tiers. Not data tiers.  

[crystal6tak]

omfg, you guys are complaining about datacaps when the bigger issue is Comcast being a complete fu**** dou*** about the measurement.

 

If you guys read the article (and OP, you should have included more of this part) the Chris dude actually measured his usage with a DD-WRT router. When he found massive discrepancies, comcast replied with:

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"We have the meter, and we cannot kind of get into the speculation that your meter is right or wrong, but we know that our meter is right."

This is just complete utter bullsh**

 

Not to mention the Brad dude turned his Apple TV back on after he turned it off (which Comcast blamed the high usage for), and usage did not rise back to it's insane heights.

 

I'm so glad I don't have to deal with these garbage ISP's...

 

And probably unpopular opinion, I don't mind data caps IF done right. If ISP's offered a reasonable monthly cap and actually made the monthly fee MUCH cheaper than uncapped contracts then I have no problems with it. 

[Yamoto42]

@JAKEBAB & @crystal6tak The customer is not necessarily in the wrong.  Correlation is not causation, however it does warrant further inquiry.  And the original wording does imply it did rise to the abnormally high (as measured by Comcast) rate when the AppleTV was reactivated.

 

@Deletist_Jerk  We all literally pay for what is in the terms of service.  If that includes a data cap then we do in fact pay for data tiers.  I don't like it, but disliking gravity does not enable me to fly without technological assistance.

How to engineer a system where it is disadvantageous for companies to include data caps in the ToS, be it through regulation or the free market, is a topic which I will not weigh in on.

[crystal6tak]

30 minutes ago, Yamoto42 said:

@JAKEBAB & @crystal6tak The customer is not necessarily in the wrong.  Correlation is not causation, however it does warrant further inquiry.  And the original wording does imply it did rise to the abnormally high rate when the AppleTV was reactivated.

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Brad told us that he turned the screensaver download feature back on, yet Comcast's spokesperson says that the data usage measurements continued to show a big reduction. Additionally, even if the video screensavers were set to download daily, they would only account for about 18GB of usage a month. Each download is about 600MB, and the default download frequency is monthly.

The AppleTV was not to blame.

 

And what do you mean customer is not necessarily in the wrong? I'm furious Comcast isn't taking proper actions in reevaluating and hopefully fix it's measuring system. Comcast is simply not considering the fault as it is at their end (when all evidence points to them).

[Coaxialgamer]

 Meanwhile,  in france we get 80/5 mbps with no caps and no throttling for 30$ a month...   All that thanks to the competition we have here. 

[MrStrul3]

Meanwhile in Croatia we pay independently for speed and the data cap, and I can't complain about my data cap.