Comcast Gigabit review

[AngryBeaver]

Well where to start. It costs 89.99 in my area... you pretty much need to toss $50 at it for the unlimited data, which I feel should be included at this level. It isn't symmetrical and a docsis 3.1 modem is going to set you back about $160 pretax.

 

That being said the speeds are decent, but I still prefer my fiber provider with a 1/1 Gb connection. This at least lets me run comcast for my personal network, and fiber for my servers,game servers and such. Little bit more protection for my personal network.

 

Also if you want to cut cable this could be a good way of doing it. For a blast pro (250/10) package with about 200-220 cable channels it will set you back about $180/m with all the added taxes and fees plus the cable box charges.  With this setup you pay about $145 a month after taxes and fees, but can add streaming cable options between 15-40 a month. So depending on which you add you can come out ahead with the gigabit. You get faster speeds, unlimited data, and pretty much all the stations you would want cable for anyways.

 

Speed test link:

Https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/5e046c4d-1215-467c-a786-539a8cdc70f2

[Fullmental]

What the hell is that upload speed?! I would expect at least 200 up if I have a gigabit down.

 

I'm glad I'm on fiber. $40 for 50 up 50 down. Not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but no contract and no equipment rentals, and the upload speed isn't completely decimated by the provider.

[AngryBeaver]

Just now, Fullmental said:

What the hell is that upload speed?! I would expect at least 200 up if I have a gigabit down.

 

I'm glad I'm on fiber. $40 for 50 up 50 down, no contract and no equipment rentals.

That is the problem with cable. Even the best modems are only 32 down and 8 up channels for bonding. Docsis 3.1 makes those channels of carrying more data, but they are still crippled in comparison. That being said the upload I am getting is much better than most get on cable. I think comcast normally only offers 1000mbps/35mbps for their gigabit tier, but for some reason I see 70+ pretty consistently sometimes boosting to 100ish. That being said my fiber connection costs me about 80 per month for unlimited data and 1/1gbps connection. Unfortunately, they limit you at one connection per home.

[Fullmental]

6 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

That is the problem with cable. Even the best modems are only 32 down and 8 up channels for bonding. Docsis 3.1 makes those channels of carrying more data, but they are still crippled in comparison. That being said the upload I am getting is much better than most get on cable. I think comcast normally only offers 1000mbps/35mbps for their gigabit tier, but for some reason I see 70+ pretty consistently sometimes boosting to 100ish. That being said my fiber connection costs me about 80 per month for unlimited data and 1/1gbps connection. Unfortunately, they limit you at one connection per home.

I can't even get gigabit where I'm at. The fastest fiber I can get is 500/500, but it's $180 a month and I just can't justify it. I need 50mbps upload minimum to handle my cloud backups, but download speeds are generally a convenience thing at best for me as a single person living alone. I've considered 100/100 at $60, but I just don't think it'll be worth it.

 

I suppose 100mbps is nice to get on those rare occasions, even on cable.

[AngryBeaver]

6 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

I can't even get gigabit where I'm at. The fastest fiber I can get is 500/500, but it's $180 a month and I just can't justify it. I need 50mbps upload minimum to handle my cloud backups, but download speeds are generally a convenience thing at best for me as a single person living alone. I've considered 100/100 at $60, but I just don't think it'll be worth it.

 

I suppose 100mbps is nice to get on those rare occasions, even on cable.

Well for me, the download is more important for my family network. Since most of what they do is stream or download stuff. They do have a little upload for say backups, livestreaming, etc. The 70+ I see on upload though is more than enough for that. I have a feeling comcast is going to go nuts when they see I will probably pull 6-10 tb of usage a month. The 4k streaming in my house alone eats up most of that lol.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Out of curiosity, why on earth do you need more than 1Gbit in the first place?

 

If you want to isolate to two different LANs then get a router that can do that - far cheaper than having two Internet connections.

 

On the other hand, its good to have a backup connection in case the main one goes down, but paying as much for that as your main connection is overkill.

[AngryBeaver]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Out of curiosity, why on earth do you need more than 1Gbit in the first place?

 

If you want to isolate to two different LANs then get a router that can do that - far cheaper than having two Internet connections.

 

On the other hand, its good to have a backup connection in case the main one goes down, but paying as much for that as your main connection is overkill.

I do it because I have a half rack full of servers, then I have several retired 3-4th gen i7 workstations that have been re-purposed as game servers for games that need the high ST performance. So before I was using the fiber connection for both and I was also able to do a decent enough job isolating them. That being said though I can easily saturate a gb connection with what I am running.

 

So right now I have about 10 servers running, then another 3 re-purposed workstations. My wife has a blog and website for a business that I run off one of the servers. Then the game servers which chew up about 25-30mbps upload per server for about 70mbps per box. I have a couple NAS's that I also use for remote access for audiobooks, music, and videos.

 

Now the above is my fiber connection, before it also included what I am going to list below.

 

My gb comcast line is now running. 5 gaming machines with another one that doesn't have a desk for us atm lol. Then I have 4- 4k smart tv's, 1 regular 1080p smart tv, 1 alexa show, 2 normal alexa's, and 3 alexa spots. I have a Nas here for backups that are then sent to the cloud every Sunday night around 1am. 1 - Day one xbox and 1 xbox one X. Then I have all the smart phones and devices used by my family. So 3 smart phones atm and 2 tablets (these will both increase by 2 in about 3 years when my twins are old enough). Then I have a handful of IP cameras with cloud capabilities.

 

So when I have nephews over playing (most days) the two combined could easily saturate the connection and cause performance to suffer. Now, do I need a second GB connection from comcast? Probably not, I could have gotten by with a 400mb, but then again that is locked at a much lower upload speed.

 

I mean if I was trying to be frugal then you are right, I could have just pushed more QoS settings and struggled on with the single fiber connection, but the extra expenditure isn't something that I really notice... I mean yes I could toss and extra 130 in savings each week, but that isn't going to make or break me either way.

[Donut417]

7 hours ago, Fullmental said:

What the hell is that upload speed?! I would expect at least 200 up if I have a gigabit down.

 

I'm glad I'm on fiber. $40 for 50 up 50 down. Not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but no contract and no equipment rentals, and the upload speed isn't completely decimated by the provider.

In most area's Comcast can only do a max of about 45 Mbps on the upload. Most of the other lower plans are only 10 Mbps. So 76 Mbps is pretty good. 

[beersykins]

10 hours ago, Fullmental said:

What the hell is that upload speed?! I would expect at least 200 up if I have a gigabit down.

Please explain the specific technical reasoning behind this perception.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'm guessing its more a perception issue seeing as many countries that offer Gigabit do it symmetric so if you are from one of those its going to seem a bit low.

 

The rest of us of course have ISPs that want to barely give us enough upload to handle the ACK packets from a maxed out download, let alone enough to do actual uploading.

 

There isn't really a "wrong" way to do it, unless your ISP somehow manages you give you less upload speed than you need to actually reach the rated download.

[Fullmental]

1 hour ago, beersykins said:

Please explain the specific technical reasoning behind this perception.

No technical reasoning, just consumer expectation based on my parents existing 100 down 20 up cable connection scaling appropriately. Apparently it's not possible with cable and my parents just got lucky. I hope I never have to deal with it over the fiber connection I have.

[beersykins]

You kind of have to understand how something works before making demands.  That's like asking why your cpu doesn't come 10 GHz out of the box because 3 GHz cpus came out 15 years ago.  Proportionally it should just work bro!

 

Hoping to never have to deal with it is really sensationalized.  There's really no user impact unless you enjoy uploading hundreds of GB which is a niche consumer workload.  The DOCSIS standard is advancing to address some of that, but eventually you run into a physical medium limitation.  With things like fiber you just have to change the optics to increase bandwidth.  Also consider the average worldwide internet speed average is like 10 mbps, so quit your bitchin'.  It's a waste of time to complain about 40 when you personally can't justify the cost to break above 50.

 

My main criticism of Comcast is their horrible WAN peering.  No, you Comcast dicks, I don't want to go KC -> Denver -> San Jose as a path to hit frigging New York...

 

17 hours ago, Fullmental said:

$40 for 50/50 and upload isn't decimated

I'd say your download is pretty decimated.

[Fullmental]

1 hour ago, beersykins said:

You kind of have to understand how something works before making demands.  That's like asking why your cpu doesn't come 10 GHz out of the box because 3 GHz cpus came out 15 years ago.  Proportionally it should just work bro!

 

Hoping to never have to deal with it is really sensationalized.  There's really no user impact unless you enjoy uploading hundreds of GB which is a niche consumer workload.  The DOCSIS standard is advancing to address some of that, but eventually you run into a physical medium limitation.  With things like fiber you just have to change the optics to increase bandwidth.  Also consider the average worldwide internet speed average is like 10 mbps, so quit your bitchin'.  It's a waste of time to complain about 40 when you personally can't justify the cost to break above 50.

 

My main criticism of Comcast is their horrible WAN peering.  No, you Comcast dicks, I don't want to go KC -> Denver -> San Jose as a path to hit frigging New York...

 

 

 

Well you know what? You're right, I should do some research. I don't want to be an uninformed consumer, I never have wanted that. So I looked up the maximum upstream capacity for the DOCSIS standard, and this is what I found:

 

 

See that 3.0 upstream capacity? 200. Since 2006, meaning the standard is now 12 years old. Furthermore, it's the earliest standard offering gigabit speeds. This is also in line with the 32 vs 8 channel bonding that was brought up here. 8/32 is 25% of the capacity. 25% of a 1gbit connection is 250mbps. 70mbps is just 7% of the downstream capacity, which means the 8 channel connection is not being pushed to its limit. So what, are the modems being made with 32 channels downstream and then only 4 channels upstream to save cash? That sounds like a budget limitation to me, not a true physical limitation of the technology.

 

Unless I'm missing something, in which case please enlighten me.

 

1 hour ago, beersykins said:

I'd say your download is pretty decimated.

I pay for a small download speed by choice and I'm not limited by the bandwidth the company offers at my physical location in this case. I could get up to 800 up 800 down if I wanted, I just have no true need for it. So no, it's really not "decimated" by any stretch of the imagination, there's a big difference between having shit for upload speeds at your highest possible plan, and having "slower" download speeds because I choose to pay for less. 4x less than the gigabit plan being reviewed here, to be specific. And I get pretty close to the same upload speeds. At 1/4 the cost to me.

 

Also, by your own admission the worldwide average is 10mbps. How is 50 "decimated" compared to 10? It's actually closer towards being the opposite, really.

 

Ultimately you pay for what you need, I'll pay for what I need. It just so happens that my needs are more closely centered around upload speeds that allow for 1-3 hour backups for my PCs - instead of 10-30 hour backups - and not download speed to get video games in 5 minutes for that sweet, sweet instant gratification. I can wait an hour for a game to download, that's no big deal to me. And Youtube in 4K works just fine with a stable 50mbps download. In fact I could do three at once if I wanted.

 

[AngryBeaver]

3 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

 

Well you know what? You're right, I should do some research. I don't want to be an uninformed consumer, I never have wanted that. So I looked up the maximum upstream capacity for the DOCSIS standard, and this is what I found:

 

 

See that 3.0 upstream capacity? 200. Since 2006, meaning the standard is now 12 years old. Furthermore, it's the earliest standard offering gigabit speeds. This is also in line with the 32 vs 8 channel bonding that was brought up here. 8/32 is 25% of the capacity. 25% of a 1gbit connection is 250mbps. 70mbps is just 7% of the downstream capacity, which means the 8 channel connection is not being pushed to its limit. So what, are the modems being made with 32 channels downstream and then only 4 channels upstream to save cash? That sounds like a budget limitation to me, not a true physical limitation of the technology.

 

Unless I'm missing something, in which case please enlighten me.

 

I pay for a small download speed by choice and I'm not artificially limited by the bandwidth the company offers at my physical location. I could get up to 800 up 800 down if I wanted, I just have no true need for it. So no, it's really not "decimated" by any stretch of the imagination, there's a big difference between having shit for upload speeds at your highest possible plan, and having "slower" download speeds because I choose to pay for less. 4x less than the gigabit plan being reviewed here, to be specific. And I get pretty close to the same upload speeds. At 1/4 the cost to me.

 

Also, by your own admission the worldwide average is 10mbps. How is 50 "decimated" compared to 10? It's actually halfway towards being the opposite, really.

 

Ultimately you pay for what you need, I'll pay for what I need. It just so happens that my needs are more closely centered around upload speeds that allow for 1-3 hour backups instead of 10-30 hour backups, and not download speed to get video games in 5 minutes for that sweet, sweet instant gratification. I can wait an hour for a game to download, that's no big deal to me. And Youtube in 4K works just fine with a stable 50mbps download. In fact I could do three at once if I wanted.

The problem you are missing is that those cables lines have a maximum capacity they can carry. Docsis increases this by breaking it up into smaller and smaller frequency ranges per stream, but that is only a temporary fix. So while they have that theoretical capacity if they were to even try to come close to that the lines would become saturated and reduced to a crawl from only a handful of users.

 

I mean we are also limited by the models. Docsis 3.0 could theoretically move 48mbps per channel.. So for 32x8 channels the modem would be limited to 1372/245. The problem is once again you are limited to the amount of channels concurrently being used in these lines. For docsis 3.1 the per channel speed increased to 64 on the down side and still 48 on the upload side. When 3.1 full duplex is fully released this will change to 64/64..  

 

So for 3.1 modems with 32/8 channels that puts us at 2048/245.  that same modem with full duplex would be  2048/512.

 

So the major factors are going to be where cable stations are located... how far and how many people are on a cable connection before it hits a fiber connection. In my area at least comcast runs cable to the homes in an area which then hits their fiber network and goes from there. I wish I could remember the exact number for estimated capacity per cable line, but I can't seem to dig it up today.

 

That being said there is a limit on what can be carried and it isn't a huge number. That is why they have been so limited to docsis improvements to increase capacity... it just lets them chop things up into more channels at smaller and smaller frequency ranges.

 

 

[Fullmental]

 

23 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

The problem you are missing is that those cables lines have a maximum capacity they can carry. Docsis increases this by breaking it up into smaller and smaller frequency ranges per stream, but that is only a temporary fix. So while they have that theoretical capacity if they were to even try to come close to that the lines would become saturated and reduced to a crawl from only a handful of users.

 

I mean we are also limited by the models. Docsis 3.0 could theoretically move 48mbps per channel.. So for 32x8 channels the modem would be limited to 1372/245. The problem is once again you are limited to the amount of channels concurrently being used in these lines. For docsis 3.1 the per channel speed increased to 64 on the down side and still 48 on the upload side. When 3.1 full duplex is fully released this will change to 64/64..  

 

So for 3.1 modems with 32/8 channels that puts us at 2048/245.  that same modem with full duplex would be  2048/512.

 

So the major factors are going to be where cable stations are located... how far and how many people are on a cable connection before it hits a fiber connection. In my area at least comcast runs cable to the homes in an area which then hits their fiber network and goes from there. I wish I could remember the exact number for estimated capacity per cable line, but I can't seem to dig it up today.

 

That being said there is a limit on what can be carried and it isn't a huge number. That is why they have been so limited to docsis improvements to increase capacity... it just lets them chop things up into more channels at smaller and smaller frequency ranges.

 

 

I'm not really seeing how a higher upload speed will saturate the lines, if the lines were built with appropriately proportioned channels in the first place. If the total throughput is 1gbps split into 40 channels, then whether you have 37 channels for download and 3 channels for upload, or 20 channels for download and 20 for upload, you're still using the same total theoretical bandwidth. So it sounds more of a marketing scheme to get the fastest download speed at the expense of upload by restricting the available upload channels and re-allocating some of those as download channels, at least from my perspective. Unless I'm understanding it all wrong.

 

If I am understanding it correct, then in theory a single customer opting for a more balanced connection shouldn't strain the lines themselves, if they take an appropriate hit in download speed to compensate. The ISPs just don't offer such a thing, even though they could in theory allocate extra channels for upload if the local neighborhood has demand for it.

 

If I'm not understanding it correctly, then I'm probably way off base here.

 

Do you have any sources that explain this in more detail?

[AngryBeaver]

2 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

 

I'm not really seeing how a higher upload speed will saturate the lines, if the lines were built with appropriately proportioned channels in the first place. If the total throughput is 1gbps split into 40 channels, then whether you have 37 channels for download and 3 channels for upload, or 20 channels for download and 20 for upload, you're still using the same total theoretical bandwidth. So it sounds more of a marketing scheme to get the fastest download speed at the expense of upload by restricting the available upload channels and re-allocating some of those as download channels, at least from my perspective. Unless I'm understanding it all wrong.

 

If I am understanding it correct, then in theory a single customer opting for a more balanced connection shouldn't strain the lines themselves, if they take an appropriate hit in download speed to compensate. The ISPs just don't offer such a thing.

 

If I'm not understanding it correctly, then I'm probably way off base here.

 

Do you have any sources that explain this in more detail?

So they aren't proportional. They dedicate lanes to upload and download. If they were symmetrical it would greatly limit the amount of channels they could use for downloads which would reduce speeds for everyone. That is why they are not proportionate, not because they can't do that, but because download is more important to most people so they prioritize it over upload when dedicating resources to it.

 

Sorry should have read more of your reply lol. So in theory I am agreeing with how channels are being handled. The problem is you have to think of this in terms of potentially a few hundred people sharing those resources. Some people pay for 150, some for 250, others for 400, some for 1gb... that has to come from some where and people seem to care much more about their download speed. Then you have the upload speeds which are around 5, 10, 20, 35 (normally). People use upload, but they don't use it as often.. and for most it isn't a priority.

 

Now if you wanted better uploads you might have better options by moving to a business connection, but those are extremely overpriced for what you get.

 

So in theory they have just given more download channels because that is what is more important to most consumers. The people that need that higher upload are really probably less than 2-4% of their subscribers and all of us probably fall into their high use offenders.

[Fullmental]

8 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

So they aren't proportional. They dedicate lanes to upload and download. If they were symmetrical it would greatly limit the amount of channels they could use for downloads which would reduce speeds for everyone. That is why they are not proportionate, not because they can't do that, but because download is more important to most people so they prioritize it over upload when dedicating resources to it.

In other words, if you were willing to pay them enough for an upload-prioritized connection and the ISP was willing to drop the highest tier of download speeds for other customers in your area, you *could* get more out of the technology? The ISP just chooses not to offer that to you because they want to market and provide faster "internet" speeds for the majority - which is download focused. Is that correct?

 

If so I still don't agree that it's a technical limitation. I understand why it's being done, but I would still prefer to see 750mbps down and 200 up than 1gbit down and 75mbps up. But that's just me, and my desire for this speed is not limited by technology. It's limited by the market.

[AngryBeaver]

2 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

In other words, if you were willing to pay them enough for an upload-prioritized connection and the ISP was willing to drop the highest tier of download speeds for other customers in your area, you *could* get more out of the technology? The ISP just chooses not to offer that to you because they want to market and provide faster "internet" speeds for the majority - which is download focused. Is that correct?

 

If so I still don't agree that it's a technical limitation. I understand why it's being done, but I would still prefer to see 750mbps down and 200 up than 1gbit down and 75mbps up. But that's just me, and my desire for this speed is not limited by technology. It's limited by the market.

Well it is a limitation in that even the hardware right now is restricted on upload channels. The best modems are 32/8.. So while with 3.1 full duplex that could theoretically hit 512mbps.. it still wouldn't be the 2gbps that can be downloaded.

 

I mean when it comes to connection speed cable has always been a asymmetrical pile of poo. DSL is in a very similar boat at this point too. So for the most part you are reduced to fiber for symmetrical down/up speeds.

[Fullmental]

5 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

Well it is a limitation in that even the hardware right now is restricted on upload channels. The best modems are 32/8.. So while with 3.1 full duplex that could theoretically hit 512mbps.. it still wouldn't be the 2gbps that can be downloaded.

 

I mean when it comes to connection speed cable has always been a asymmetrical pile of poo. DSL is in a very similar boat at this point too. So for the most part you are reduced to fiber for symmetrical down/up speeds.

Yes, those 32/8 limitations are on consumer modems, correct? Otherwise an ISP could never offer gigabit speeds to more than one person in a neighborhood in the first place if their actual network infrastructure was limited to 32/8 for an entire street.

 

At 38Mbps per channel in the US, that's 32x38=1216Mbps download, and 8x38=304Mbps upload. I'm assuming the upload channels use a narrower spectrum since the theoretical maximum is 200 and not 304, and furthermore I'm assuming about a 10% signal loss due to noise/interference. This would put a "real world" maximum at 1.1gbps download, and 180 upload, for your home modem. Does that sound about right?

[AngryBeaver]

2 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

Yes, those 32/8 limitations are on consumer modems, correct? Otherwise an ISP could never offer gigabit speeds to more than one person in a neighborhood in the first place if their actual network infrastructure was limited to 32/8 for an entire street.

 

At 38Mbps per channel in the US, that's 32x38=1216Mbps download, and 8x38=304Mbps upload. I'm assuming the upload channels use a narrower spectrum since the theoretical maximum is 200 and not 304, and furthermore I'm assuming about a 10% signal loss due to noise/interference. This would put a "real world" maximum at 1.1gbps download, and 180 upload, for your home modem. Does that sound about right?

Sounds within the realm of reason, yes.

[Fullmental]

1 minute ago, AngryBeaver said:

Sounds within the realm of reason, yes.

 

OK, so in theory your high end home modems could support faster internet, it is the ISPs that are behind on available bandwidth, and as we all know just dropping in new lines and building out infrastructure can be extremely expensive. I was actually not aware of this mostly because with fiber I don't even have a modem. I just literally have a wireless router from amazon hooked straight up to my network box.

 

Thank you for your patience and explanation, I appreciate it. I think I have a better understanding of the dilemma faced by cable ISPs now.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, AngryBeaver said:

I wish I could remember the exact number for estimated capacity per cable line, but I can't seem to dig it up today.

Ive heard for Comcast is like 100-300 people per node. 

[Donut417]

35 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

OK, so in theory your high end home modems could support faster internet, it is the ISPs that are behind on available bandwidth

Yes, the higher end the modem the better speeds. Even using a higher end modem on a lower end connection is better. Because if one or a few channels become clogged or some kind of interference is affecting a few channels it wont affect your speeds. Remember the Cable co uses the same RF bands as Broadcast TV and Cellular services. Another thing to consider about upload too is the Cable Co only uses 5 Mhz to 42 Mhz for upstream traffic. Thats pretty limited. Docsis 3.1 will fix this eventually, allowing them to utilize more for upstream traffic.

 

As far as being behind on bandwidth, thats kinda a true statement. Comcast has about 100-300 people were node. The node is generally connected to fiber that leads back to Comcast. Remember fiber can carry a lot of data, but thats determined by the lasers at each end. I think I heard some nodes only have like a 10Gbps connection to share between 100-300 people. This is the reason during prime time why the internet slows down on. 

[AngryBeaver]

45 minutes ago, Fullmental said:

 

OK, so in theory your high end home modems could support faster internet, it is the ISPs that are behind on available bandwidth, and as we all know just dropping in new lines and building out infrastructure can be extremely expensive. I was actually not aware of this mostly because with fiber I don't even have a modem. I just literally have a wireless router from amazon hooked straight up to my network box.

 

Thank you for your patience and explanation, I appreciate it. I think I have a better understanding of the dilemma faced by cable ISPs now.

The sad fact is it is a dilemma they got themselves in to because of greed. Most of these big ISP's were paid out hundred of millions of dollars to help improve their network speeds and despite all of that money their networks aren't actually seeing improvements outside of changing hardware to support new docsis technologies which basically gives them free bandwidth upgrades.

 

Actually in this time they have just been raising their rates so we are even less competitive with other countries. I mean if you look at the profit margins for say comcast and time warner... they have a 97% profit margin on high speed internet... meaning the cost for them to provide you that connection is 3% of what you pay. These data caps they are imposing isn't because they are needed, but because it is another way to nickle and dime people for using the connection they pay for. For example the download speeds i posted earlier, if I wasn't using the unlimited data addon I could run my connection full blast for 2.5 hrs and go over the 1tb cap.

 

I mean the way we handle data in the USA is corrupt. They are charging us for the speed of delivery and then the amount of what we are being delivered... so in theory we are being double dinged. They don't go to a completely metered approach, because then they would lose money on anyone not pushing a certain data threshold. My thoughts are that if you pay for a speed tier, then that speed tier should cover 24/7 usage. At the very least the cap should increase based on the tier. Someone using 150mb speeds are fine in most cases with a 1tb cap, but someone that knows they need 400 or even 1gb are going to need way more than 1tb... so why is that data not baked in to these tiers? Simple, greed.

 

So the short answer is we could easily support more upload speeds if needed, but the big cable companies don't care about that. They care about maximizing profits which means stalling upgrades as long as is needed.

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

we could easily support more upload speeds if needed, but the big cable companies don't care about that

Funny you should mention that. Comcast a few months ago added a 4th downstream channel in your our cable network. Then like a month ago it went off line, it seems this happened in a lot of areas around the country. They dont want to provide the upload. Even though WOW does 50 Mbps upload on most of their speed tiers and they dont have data caps. Comcast chooses to give most of up 10 Mbps upload.