Posted on 05/19/2012 6:14:24 PM PDT by AmonAmarth
Comcast’s plans to do away with its 250 GB data cap and charge users based upon usage marks the end of an era for cable TV providers, and for the online video industry. No longer will users be able to endlessly stream all the content their hearts desire. Not just that, but the fact that usage-based pricing is arriving at the same time that more, higher-quality content is appearing online could have a dampening effect on demand for services like Netflix or Hulu Plus.
Comcast, of course, says that its new, usage-based pricing policy is pro-consumer, and to a certain extent it is. The average broadband subscriber — those who only use up about 8 GB or 10 GB of data a month — shouldn’t necessarily pay the same as those whose usage goes above 300 GB in the same period of time.
But for those of us who are avid streaming video users, usage-based pricing models could change the overall value proposition of watching video on the Internet.
(Excerpt) Read more at techcrunch.com ...
Hey, all of you “Internet-over-Cable” snobs - my poky old DSL streams everything just fine - and the price hasn’t changed in years.....
Watching HULU (Free) as I type this... ;)
kill the tv. you’ll all be better off.
dont even know who comcast is and don’t care, it wont affect me or my ability to stream over my AT&T dsl.
Ha ha. I have heard this all before. There are enough outlets now, that unlimited plans will expand, NOT contract. I remember AOL resisting unlimited dial-up hours. I also remember paying by the minute for Compuserve and Delphi.
Comcast can do what it wants. The DSL providers and others will provide the bandwidth over time to win customers. The cable companies always treat broadband like the unwanted step-child anyway. Until they learn, they will pay, by losing customers.
” I remember AOL resisting unlimited dial-up hours. “
I remember AOL using up all of my “free” minutes with every-other-day update downloads (2-3 hours each @ 1200 bpm)... I dropped them as soon as MSN came on with their unlimited plan...
Just took a look at my comcast account. I ditched cable tv and now watch everything thru the internet. I was over 370GB in February, 260 in March, and 202 in April. Moving the max to 300GB will help me avoid more nastygrams.
I would say the LEAD horse in this effort is Carlos Slim Helu, he owns so many Telecomunications in Latin America, and just recently Tel Mex told it’s customers in Mexico that they would start paying for content downloaded...
Cable is the reason we have the Matthews and Oprahs , every Patriot should cancel it. I wish my Wife would agree..
and the MSNBC and CNN and NBC...
I'd pay 10% for my pick of 10% of the 300 channels.
The real issue is for local communities to quit giving Comcast monopolies on running cable and internet to every house. These communities need to allow other companies to compete with Comcast. Other companies who want to compete should be allowed to run their own lines, not buy wholesale off Comcasts lines.
Comcast employees are the #1 donors to the Obama campaign. Comcast’s CEO is the weekly golfing partner of Obama. Comcast can shove anything they want down the consumer’s throat and don’t have a worry with the current DOJ. I canceled Comcast back six months ago and haven’t looked back.
I was the one who pushed it in my house.
We have a Roku and it’s the best.
HD TV Ping
I have no problem with the notion of paying for that which I consume - as long as market competition is protected.
Roku will play any video you can find streaming on the web? Nice unit if so.
Wireless (4G WiMax etc.) will end up killing Comcast soon enough. Comcast is just overhanging the market, giving the consumer the desire ahead of availablity.
Look up Plex.
Between Plex and Justintv, I get everything I want to see.
You can “Plex” most YouTube videos. I’m not sure what site you are looking to watch.
There are tons of Roku channels too.
Free market to the rescue!
Problem is that all the shows worth watching are on cable networks now. Every show that my wife and I regularly watch, Game of Thrones, Borgias, Spartacus, True Blood, Dexter, etc etc, are all cable. Broadcast television is utter crap with insulting commercials every seven minutes.
I’m a dabbler. Most of the time what I dabble will be on You Tube. I suppose I could get a video card for a PC that supports a television, either the modern HD video or the old fashioned NTSC.
Going over 200 GB requires a lot of watching. I have a Roku box and a PS3 connected online, watch a lot of Netflix movies and MLB.TV games, and the most I’ve ever gone to in a month was 55 GB.
Ha, good luck on that. Between the two of us, my wife and I have 5 4G (what they’re calling 4G) devices on 4 separate accounts. We regularly exceed the data cap and are throttled back for the remainder of the billing period.
I think you completely misunderstood the story, Ike. The days of you being able to endlessly stream Netflix, Hulu and Vudu over the internet are coming to a close. This story focused on Comcast, but it’s a move that all providers are going to, whether you have cable, fiber-optic, or as you put it lowly DSL. Right now about 30% of internet users stream video from sources like Netflix. It’s already been recognized in the industry that the infrastructure is not there to handle it when it climbs to 50%.
My hubby hooked a tower up to our LCD tv.
The picture died this week but it’s been good up until now.
We watch a lot of Judge Judy, Iron Chef and Mystery Science Theater on YouTube.
There will have to be work arounds such as cacheing during non peak periods.
It’s not nearly as much as you think. HD streaming hits on average about 1.3gb an hour. Have a household like mine with 4 computers and two internet enabled blu-ray players that can simultaneously stream, and you can chew up 8gb an hour just with family members watching television.
Without a payback guarantee, no company will spend the capital to run lines.
Comcast took over our ATT cable company and expanded the service to include internet (ATT didn't offer it). Verizon is not going to wire the county for FIOS.
My options were to continue to use a bad phone line from Verizon (and max 1.3 dsl) and use dish or direct tv or go with comcast for a good product. The price is pretty much equal. Since verizon would not even admit my phone line (outside line) was bad, it was a no-brainer. Thanks to going all digital tv, we all need either cable or satellite.
Every patriot should cancel cable because of Oprah and Matthews? Well genius, if it wasn’t for cable we wouldn’t have Fox News and ESPN either.
Anything else you think we should get rid of just because liberals take advantage of it? Cars maybe? Electricity?
That’s without a doubt being considered. I don’t think anyone that’s truly tech savvy expected this to last though. When I first read that streaming had broken the threshold and accounted for more than half of internet traffic, I saw the writing on the wall. When I learned just how small a percentage (at the time less than 25%) of users it took to consume that much bandwidth, it removed all debate from my mind.
The FReepers on this thread that think that this can go on and that the free market is going to provide this bandwidth at current rates is dreaming. As it gets worse, someone will offer unlimited data, but it won’t be for $50 a month.
That’s really the bottom line. Bandwidth is going to become more precious, and it’s going to cost more. There won’t be any getting around that.
“Game of Thrones, Borgias, Spartacus, True Blood, Dexter”
Ha, I’ve never seen a one!
I’ve followed maybe two shows that have come out in the last ten years
There’s no accounting for taste, I love the old shows- Perry Mason, whatever.
They’re broadcast over the air on the secondary digital channels.
So? I download thru the torrents every week.
download thru torrents? it sounds so.....shady
Then by all means, expand upon your idea and show why only an idiot would believe this. It’s enough to say, but can you support the idea?
Without a doubt. We're all different. Perry Mason is way before my time. Literally long before my time. I wasn't even a twinkle then. I look at television from that period, Leave it to Beaver, Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy with sort of a morbid fascination as to why anyone would willingly sit down and actually watch it. My children however love it, but more in a MST3K kind of way than a true appreciation.
That’s because it’s theft.
I find the old children-oriented shows- and most shows tried to appeal to the whole family back in the three-channels days- aren’t very interesting.
But the ‘adult shows’ that came on after 9 o’clock hold up very well.
I have a question about this streaming issue: is it the bytes or the bytes/sec that is the problem? Or both?
More bytes per second, but to some degree total data as well. Just not as important. I know that internet providers have looked at returning to peak hour models, similar to what phone providers now use. As to if they seriously considered it and rejected it, are still considering, or just laughed their asses off at the prospect, I couldn’t tell you.
Supply lags an increasing demand; that’s typically what’s seen in capitalism. But I’d been hearing about all this unlit transnational fiber for years. I think it’s great that something is finding a way to light it up. All manner of business will be fed from it, if liberals don’t bollix it up with demands for cheap streaming video to all, now.
And in the meantime, video streaming services will probably find a way of doing localized mirrors coordinated with network traffic data.
I agree. It will be a tech boom. One which the likes of Lucent Technologies (kinda R.I.P., it’s Alcatel-Lucent now) wishes had happened a decade ago. But it’s not too late to do the economy good soon. If Mitt gets it this fall, it will probably happen during his first term.
Some Columbian gangster should take him for a ride.
Or worse, which I will leave to your imagination.
Oh it will happen, but it’s going to cost you. There are already a million solutions coming down the pike. Some will be winners, some will be losers, but none of them will be free.
That’s the free market, baby. When demand exceeds supply, the price goes up.
There isn’t a provider out there that is prepared for 50% of it’s base to start using 100+ gigabytes a month, but everyone knows that it’s coming. They’ve built a pricing model that is based on subscribers using half that, and it won’t last. It’s the free market, baby, and consumers love their Netflix enough to pay.
I’ll make you another prediction right now. Those new services that are springing up left and right, like HBO GO, and Showtime Online? Expect to see cable providers exempt those from the monthly data caps that are coming.
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