Tag: ISPs

Comcast Eliminates Data Caps – But You Have to Call First

We’ve been following the Comcast data cap saga for years, and this week there was finally some movement worth talking about. Comcast has made a major shift in its internet plans: the dreaded data caps are gone—for now. The change isn’t automatic, though. You’ll need to call or visit Comcast’s website to make the switch yourself.

I take a look at their new Internet plans in my latest video.

For a while, Comcast’s cap was 1.2 terabytes a month, with a $10 charge for every 50GB you went over unless you paid a hefty monthly fee to bypass it entirely. It wasn’t a small issue either—many people, especially in areas without competing providers, had no choice but to deal with it.

Interestingly, in parts of the Northeast where there’s more competition, Comcast never turned on the caps. Comcast planned to roll them out during the early COVID lockdowns but backed off when the timing turned out to be especially poor. Increased competition in those regions likely kept the caps at bay.

Now Comcast is facing even more pressure. The FCC recently approved a merger between Verizon and Frontier, which means Verizon’s footprint is about to expand significantly. Frontier, after emerging from bankruptcy with a pile of copper infrastructure, managed to build out a decent fiber network using their existing poll attachments. They’ll now be part of a much bigger player, giving Comcast real competition in areas they used to dominate.

To stay competitive, Comcast has introduced new nationwide pricing tiers that eliminate data caps and includes a modem/router gateway without additional fees.

There are several tiers available, from 300 Mbps to 2 Gbps download speeds, though the upload speeds remain asymmetrical. The upstream rates will vary depending on where you live and typically range between 20 and 200 megabits per second.

But like anything with Comcast the price tiers are not cut and dry. Each data rate has three different prices: a one year lock, and five year lock, and an “every day price.” The one year rate is the least expensive, but after the year is up it will revert to the every day rate which at the moment is $30 more per month.

You can cancel service any time without a penalty, but you’ll lose that rate if you decide to come back later. My advice is for people in regions with more ISP competition to go with the one year as you’ll likely get the same or better deal after the year is up. If Comcast is your only choice, the five year is probably your best bet to maintain pricing stability.

The announced prices are assuming you opt into their $10 monthly autopay discount—and they’ll only give you that discount if they can draw directly from your checking account. Credit card autopay doesn’t qualify.

I looked at my own local rate card and confirmed that these new rates are available here in Connecticut. Comcast also offers bundling discounts if you include phone or mobile service, shaving off $10 to $40 depending on how many products you add.

Still, if you’re only looking for internet service in competitive regions, Comcast is not necessarily the cheapest option. Fiber providers like Frontier and GoNetspeed in my state offer symmetrical upload and download speeds, and at lower prices. For instance, Frontier offers 500 Mbps for $30 a month for the first year, while Comcast charges $55 with a one-year lock. But I’m finding all of these ISPs are always looking for ways to up their charges once customers have been with them for awhile.

The important takeaway here is that Comcast’s move to eliminate data caps and bundle in rental equipment is a direct response to increased pressure from fiber providers. Even in areas where Comcast still holds a monopoly, the new pricing applies—so it’s worth taking the time to switch plans.

The trick now is staying alert and ready to exercise your power as a consumer in a competitive marketplace. When your promotional rate expires, don’t let it slide. Call, negotiate, or switch to get the best price.

Frontier Fiber 2 Years Later

I first reviewed Frontier’s Optic Service here in Connecticut two years ago when my Dad had the 500/500 service installed. My mother had the service installed at her place a year later. Recently, I received a lot of comments asking how well the service is holding up. For the most part, it’s been stable, but there are a few key things to watch out for, especially when it comes to billing.

You can find out more in my latest video.

The service itself has been great in terms of bandwidth and reliability, even in challenging areas like my father’s home near the beach, where salty air causes corrosion on traditional coax wires and connectors. Compared to cable services, which often needed repair due to corroded connectors, Frontier’s fiber optic technology has been much more reliable for him.

However, it’s not all good news, particularly when it comes to customer support and billing. When my mom signed up, she encountered multiple issues. Her initial service order was botched, resulting in two accounts being set up, and it took several rounds of customer service calls to sort out.

After a year of service, her bill began to creep up. Initially, her service package cost around $150 per month, but as promotions ended and prices increased, she found herself paying $300 more annually, with no change in the level of service. By mid-2024, her bill had risen to nearly $176, mainly due to increases in the base price for the Internet service, the expiration of promotional discounts for YouTube TV, and a reduction in the autopay discount.

Frontier’s online tools for managing the account were less than helpful. When I attempted to change her service plan, their website crashed. Despite the challenges, it may be worthwhile to switch her to Frontier’s newer, more affordable 200 Mbps symmetrical plan, which didn’t exist when she first signed up.

Frontier now offers higher-end packages with speeds of up to 7 gigabits per second across most of their fiber service area. But, as impressive as that may sound, it’s not necessarily practical, since most online services usually top out at around 2 gigs. Also of note, Comcast’s Gigabit Pro costs about the same as the 7 gig plan with a more robust metro ethernet connection.

Frontier may soon be acquired by Verizon in a $20 billion deal. If the acquisition goes through, it would mark an ironic turn of events, as Verizon had previously sold off its copper landline assets and pole attachments to Frontier.

The deal still requires shareholder and regulatory approval, and there are concerns within the financial community about whether it will benefit Verizon. In the meantime, Frontier customers should keep an eye on their bills. While the service itself is reliable, navigating customer support and billing issues will sadly be an ongoing challenge.

No, the FCC Did Not Increase Your Internet Speed.. But they do want to regulate it.

Recently, the FCC made headlines with an announcement that ostensibly seemed to require an imminent increase in internet speeds for American consumers. Yet, the reality is far more nuanced and requires a deeper understanding of what broadband means in a regulatory context, and how the FCC’s declaration has no teeth in a largely unregulated marketplace.

In my latest video, we dive into why the FCC made this declaration and some of the politics driving it.

In the commissions first adopted broadband assessment since 2015, they raised the standard for what should be considered high speed internet to 100 megabits per second downstream and 20 megabits per second upstream. The previous definition was 20 megabits down and 3 megabits up.

But this report is really more about tracking the rollout of broadband infrastructure in the United States, something the FCC is mandated to do per the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Congress set a goal of getting every American connected to broadband that year, and despite billions of taxpayer dollars going to telecommunications companies over the decades, nearly 45 million people still lack access to the minimum broadband specification in their communities. Or do they?

The FCC report excluded satellite services, even though most of the areas not covered by wireline broadband are within SpaceX Starlink’s service area. Starlink’s Internet service also meets the FCC’s newly defined minimum specifications for a broadband connection. The FCC’s two Republican commissioners voted against adopting the report because of this exclusion.

In their dissenting opinions, the Republican commissioners argue that by excluding Starlink and thus making the nation’s broadband rollout appear stalled, the Democrats on the commission are laying a foundation by which they can impose heavier regulation on Internet Service providers. This is because the 1996 telecommunication law requires the FCC to “take immediate action to accelerate deployment” if the agency issues a negative report on broadband access.

And the FCC is doing just that. On a similar 3-2 vote in November, the FCC began the process of re-classifying ISPs under Title II rules. The FCC previously moved ISPs into the Title II category during the Obama administration over net neutrality concerns which was later reversed by the Trump administration.

But Title II regulation can go far deeper than just net neutrality, including regulating pricing, requiring ISPs to provide access to remote areas, and much more. The Republicans argue that the market will take care of these things and no further regulation is needed. The Democrats say that after three decades of “light touch” regulation the broadband rollout has not achieved the 1996 goal of universal access.

But is it necessary to apply Title II everywhere? I think a more balanced approach is needed. In my area we went from one provider (Comcast) to now having five with potentially more on the way – all meeting and exceeding the minimum broadband standards with no data caps. Do we need regulation here? Likely not.

But there are parts of the country that still only have one provider that may not meet the broadband standard, applies expensive data caps on service, and holds back infrastructure investments. Perhaps regulating markets like this and lifting regulations when competitors enter those markets might be a smarter approach.

And it may not be necessary for Title II to apply either. In the 1996 law, the FCC has the ability to impose price caps, remove regulatory red-tape that prevents competitors from accessing pole attachments along with other regulatory powers to encourage competition and market choice. It is not clear how much of those powers the FCC has exercised over the years.

I’m sure there will be more to come on this topic! Stay tuned.

Gigabit ISPs: Real World Usage vs. Speed Tests

One of the things I talked about recently in my Gigabit Pro update video is that even though you have the bandwidth you likely will never make full use of it on any single task.

Sure it’s possible to run a speed test to fully saturate the connection as I have done many times, but when doing real world tasks things work differently. So even though I have a full six gigabits available, I’m usually only getting about half a gigabit to each location I’m sending data to.

The image above was taken from my Unifi app as I was uploading an 8.7 GB video to YouTube and Floatplane simultaneously. Each can only take about 500-600 megabits per second.

Remember the Internet is not one network. So it’s possible that within Comcast’s infrastructure I can utilize the full bandwidth. But once we cross outside the network it depends on how different networks interoperate and what kinds of bandwidth they allow across those crossing points. In some cases there are multiple networks to traverse!

Starlink Holding Up Against Russian Cyberattacks

Starlink has become a key communication tool for the Ukrainian military and the Russians are having a hard time detecting and jamming it. As we’ve found in our Starlink coverage the service is remarkably easy to connect to and offers bandwidth on par with low to mid range cable Internet services.

Elon Musk in a tweet today says that the satellite network has so far resisted Russian jamming and hacking attempts. Starlink’s network engineers are up against a tough adversary with state level resources so they no doubt will have to remain on their toes.

The service doesn’t work as well in the eastern part of the country as the satellite network still relies on ground stations to connect users to the Internet. But SpaceX is working on a laser based orbital relay that would bypass many ground stations to route traffic. At some point we might see SpaceX launch servers into positions to act as CDNs for streaming services, etc.