Comcast - The ISP with the most sensible internet pricing

[Omega]

Just looking at the various tiers for my upcoming move... Made me laugh.

Performance Starter:
Price: $49.95/month
Download (no powerboost): 6 Mbit/s
Upload (no powerboost): 1 Mbit/s

vs.

Performance:
Price: $48.95/month
Download (no powerboost): 15 Mbit/s
Upload (no powerboost): 3 Mbit/s

That's right, the higher tier is $1 less per month, with significantly better speeds. The higher tier also has the powerboost "technology", but that's a joke given how it works and the arbitrary restrictions placed on it.

---

Extreme 50
Price: $116.95
Download (no powerboost): 50 Mbit/s
Upload (no powerboost): 10-15 Mbit/s (If purchased at rate shown above, it's 15, if purchased at the deal rate below it's stuck at 10 even when you're paying the full price)

vs.

Extreme 105
Price: $105.00
Download (no powerboost): 105 Mbit/s
Upload (no powerboost): 20 Mbit/s

To be fair, they are offering the Extreme 50 service as a deal for $79.99/month for the first 6 months, with a 2 year guarantee you'll use it (thus 18 of those months being at the increased rate), but even with that it still ends up costing $65.04 more over those two years, and with the Extreme 105 you're not locked into a contract...

[Ghost]

With a local cable company I'm paying $55/mo for 12 down, 4 up, but I bundle it with extended cable and an HD box for $88/mo after tax so it's pretty cheap and the speeds are very reliable.

Comcast is pretty much shit and I'd probably try every alternative before moving to them.

[Omega]

I know how much Comcast sucks. Sadly, my options will be Comcast and... Uhh... Comcast.

[eeralf_]

is this real intresting?

[Captain Nemo]

lol poor megs. I pay about $40 for a 25 Mbit up/down connection. So looks pretty expensive what u got going there. I even tested my upload to 50 Mbit once.

[Ghost]

The U.S. is actually pretty terrible when it comes to average speed and price, especially when compared to some European countries. Japan and South Korea are blowing everyone else out of the water.

http://dailyinfographic.com/internet-sp ... nfographic

[Captain Nemo]

didn't actually realise denmark was so low in average speed. It's not super expensive tho at least

[simple_faith]

??????? Comcast is pretty good they just try to charge you for everything, And I have 30mbits for 30$ + that powerboost or w/e for free...... ive never heard of those prices before lmao must be in a 3rd world country where comcast picks on the poor, oh how i feel sorry for u megs

[Omega]

??????? Comcast is pretty good they just try to charge you for everything, And I have 30mbits for 30$ + that powerboost or w/e for free...... ive never heard of those prices before lmao must be in a 3rd world country where comcast picks on the poor, oh how i feel sorry for u megs

Liar.

Comcast has no tier with 30 Mbit/sec down. They have one tier with promised powerboost speeds "up to 30 Mbit/sec", known as "Blast!". Powerboost is a complete joke. It will allow you to use excess node capacity (up to a certain speed), for the first 10 to 20 MB (YES, MB--and whether it's 10 or 20 depends on what tier of service you have) of a file you're downloading, or 5 to 10 MB of a file you're uploading. So basically, you *maybe* get a bit of a boost (only tiers with powerboost are performance and blast!, and whether or not there's excess node capacity for you to use is any ones' guess) for the first few seconds of a download. Sounds pretty useless to me. For anything big enough for me to care about how long it will take, even if the first 5 to 10 MB up or 10 to 20 MB down were uploaded/downloaded INSTANTLY, the time would still be approximately the same to the point of me not caring what the difference was. I can understand your confusion here, because their advertising is fairly deceptive... unless you read the fine print, you'll only ever see language saying you get speeds "up to" whatever the download speed cap with the powerboost technology is.

Depending on your area, the "Blast!" service, if it's even available, will have 16 to 25 Mbit/sec down, and 2-5 Mbit/sec up. Most places where that service is available will always be on the low side of that range, and you obviously will never get the promised speed from Comcast for longer than a minute or so. Looking at a few different areas that have both FiOS and Comcast available for internet, in which areas comcast's pricing is notoriously much lower and service much better, both Blast! from Comcast and the lowest FiOS tier are approximately the same price.

Thus, you're comparing a 16-25 down 2-5 up connection versus a 15 down 5 up connection, but the first one is from Comcast so you've got a crappy "excessive bandwidth" policy to contend with, poor customer service, and KNOW you're getting way less than you pay for, whereas with FiOS you know there's no excessive bandwidth policy or caps on use of any kind, and you know the speeds promised will be approximately what you get most of the time. Or you could jump to the 50/25 FiOS tier for ~$10/month more, which the closest comcast tier to that of Extreme 50 (50 down / 10-15 up) is going to cost a minimum of ~$40/month more.

Comcast sucks. And I'm certain the price you quoted for the Blast! service you have is much higher than what you said, since the lowest I found was more than twice what you quoted.

[[-Ts-] Tricky]

lol faith just got owned rofl

[eeralf_]

u got all tricky, cuz what teh fuck they tell?

lol, u know crisis=, real?, hahaha, and so watch ur money

np

[lightnessking.]

30 mbps slooow i have around 50.

[simple_faith]

??????? Comcast is pretty good they just try to charge you for everything, And I have 30mbits for 30$ + that powerboost or w/e for free...... ive never heard of those prices before lmao must be in a 3rd world country where comcast picks on the poor, oh how i feel sorry for u megs

Liar.

Comcast has no tier with 30 Mbit/sec down. They have one tier with promised powerboost speeds "up to 30 Mbit/sec", known as "Blast!". Powerboost is a complete joke. It will allow you to use excess node capacity (up to a certain speed), for the first 10 to 20 MB (YES, MB--and whether it's 10 or 20 depends on what tier of service you have) of a file you're downloading, or 5 to 10 MB of a file you're uploading. So basically, you *maybe* get a bit of a boost (only tiers with powerboost are performance and blast!, and whether or not there's excess node capacity for you to use is any ones' guess) for the first few seconds of a download. Sounds pretty useless to me. For anything big enough for me to care about how long it will take, even if the first 5 to 10 MB up or 10 to 20 MB down were uploaded/downloaded INSTANTLY, the time would still be approximately the same to the point of me not caring what the difference was. I can understand your confusion here, because their advertising is fairly deceptive... unless you read the fine print, you'll only ever see language saying you get speeds "up to" whatever the download speed cap with the powerboost technology is.

Depending on your area, the "Blast!" service, if it's even available, will have 16 to 25 Mbit/sec down, and 2-5 Mbit/sec up. Most places where that service is available will always be on the low side of that range, and you obviously will never get the promised speed from Comcast for longer than a minute or so. Looking at a few different areas that have both FiOS and Comcast available for internet, in which areas comcast's pricing is notoriously much lower and service much better, both Blast! from Comcast and the lowest FiOS tier are approximately the same price.

Thus, you're comparing a 16-25 down 2-5 up connection versus a 15 down 5 up connection, but the first one is from Comcast so you've got a crappy "excessive bandwidth" policy to contend with, poor customer service, and KNOW you're getting way less than you pay for, whereas with FiOS you know there's no excessive bandwidth policy or caps on use of any kind, and you know the speeds promised will be approximately what you get most of the time. Or you could jump to the 50/25 FiOS tier for ~$10/month more, which the closest comcast tier to that of Extreme 50 (50 down / 10-15 up) is going to cost a minimum of ~$40/month more.

Comcast sucks. And I'm certain the price you quoted for the Blast! service you have is much higher than what you said, since the lowest I found was more than twice what you quoted.

Wait, so your telling me that paying 69.99 for 15mbit/5up is good compared to comcast 29.99 + Modem(6.99 I think) + 5$ for BLAST which is 30mb I don't know why it make you think its not 30mbit. 15mbit DL > Approx. 2mb/s, compare that to comcast dl speed which is 30mbit > 4mb/s every time I download? WTF? SO YOUR TELLING ME THEY ARE LYING TO ME ABOUT MY SPEED LOL! Well, I guess if you don't care about money you can take your FiOS lmao. And the excess bandwidth? It's a a sort of myth/legend but then again I maybe lucky. I always go over my 250gb limit and never got a warning or anything but would the normal user go over 250gb? I agree that having 250gb limit is gay but they only implement this a couple years now or I'm not sure if they've always had this but I've always had comcast my whole life.

[Omega]

Wait, so your telling me that paying 69.99 for 15mbit/5up is good compared to comcast 29.99 + Modem(6.99 I think) + 5$ for BLAST which is 30mb I don't know why it make you think its not 30mbit. 15mbit DL > Approx. 2mb/s, compare that to comcast dl speed which is 30mbit > 4mb/s every time I download? WTF? SO YOUR TELLING ME THEY ARE LYING TO ME ABOUT MY SPEED LOL!

They're not lying to you. You just didn't read the fine print or ask what the non-powerboost upload and download speeds were. It's like shitty apartments that offer a low base rent, but when you read the lease you find out that a set amount of 'additional rent' is due every month, making the place pricy as shit.

You're also not paying $30/month for BLAST! service. By your own admission above, you're paying $35/month (which is inconsistent with your 'I pay $30/month' you previously stated), plus a $7 modem rental fee. Of course, those numbers are also incorrect, except for the modem rental fee. Blast is a service tier. You can't get it by paying for something and then paying an extra $5/month. The absolute lowest price for the Blast service I can even find *anywhere* is $58.95/month, and that's for long-term existing Comcast cable customers only--if you're considered a new customer, it's $72.95/month for Blast regardless of where you live. This does NOT include the modem rental fee, which adds another $6.99/month unless you own your own modem.

Also, assuming that Verizon FiOS fucks you on bandwidth the same way Comcast does is a mistake. If you're paying for 25 down from comcast, you're lucky if you get 4 down. At my current location, I pay for 12 Mbit/s down from Comcast, and I haven't *EVER* seen a download occur faster than 1.5 Mbit/s (excluding Powerboost, because as already mentioned, it's a joke). If you're paying for 15 down from Verizion with FiOS, you'll pretty much always be getting at least 10 down. FiOS is the better service. There's a reason Comcast prices are lower in areas where FiOS is available, especially regarding their lower service tiers because offering dirt cheap low speed plans is really the only edge they have on FiOS internet. Their higher service tiers simply cannot compete with FiOS for the price they offer them at.

And the excess bandwidth? It's a a sort of myth/legend but then again I maybe lucky. I always go over my 250gb limit and never got a warning or anything but would the normal user go over 250gb? I agree that having 250gb limit is gay but they only implement this a couple years now or I'm not sure if they've always had this but I've always had Comcast my whole life.

The excessive bandwidth policy has been in effect since October 2008, so that's almost 4 years now. Once every 12 months you get a 'free pass' on exceeding the cap, without penalties or charges. If you exceed the limit a second time in that 12 month period you will be charged an arm and a leg in overage fees. If you exceed it a third time, Comcast will either charge you an arm and a leg again, or they'll terminate your service (AND ALL OTHER COMCAST SERVICES) for a period of 1 year, and will not reinstate them for any reason prior to that date. They've also been known to terminate your service if you exceed the cap once per year, two years in a row (not including the 'free' month of each year).

I'm pretty sure you haven't ever gone over the 250gb limit, because they'll contact you and tell you if you do. Also, you wouldn't have any service from them at this point if you did.

[eeralf_]

30 mbps slooow i have around 50.

and ur cavs are not better, lol, sry ecuse me