Comcast Capping Consumer Broadband?

I saw the following headline in my feed reader:

Comcast to cap monthly consumer broadband

After I recovered from choking on my coffee, I read the full story, courtesy of Webware.com (now part of C\Net)… and it ain’t pretty:

Starting October 1 customers of Comcast’s residential data services will have an invisible barrier on their monthly data usage. Under the new guidelines of Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy announced Thursday, that cap will be set at 250 gigabytes per month, per account.

Users who go over the limit will get a courtesy call from Comcast’s customer service for the first instance. However, under the new policy a second-time offense means the service is immediately suspended for an entire calendar year.

The cap - at 250GB per month, sounds like a lot - and for a casual user, it is. But for anyone with a home office with some online backup systems (such as Mozy) - this can be a real problem.

So what happens when a customer breaks the 250GB barrier?

Users who go over the limit will get a courtesy call from Comcast’s customer service for the first instance. However, under the new policy a second-time offense means the service is immediately suspended for an entire calendar year.

Well, alrighty, then. How about some alerts or usage meters? Not so much…

Surprisingly the company is not providing any tools to help users monitor their current usage. An FAQ on Comcast’s support site simply suggests that customers do a “Web search” for bandwidth metering software that will track this amount for them.

Ok - to recap - Comcast will now place a low limit on bandwidth on our access, not tell us if we’re close to it, not provide any tracking or measurement - and then cut off service on the second “offense”.

So how about upgrade options for heavy users?? (From WebWare’s followup post) - uh… nope.

Will you be offering larger bandwidth packages for home businesses or “excessive users?”
Bill G.: No packages at this time is being offered for larger bandwidth.

As this is supposed to go into effect on October 1st, I have yet to get a letter about it from Comcast - I happened to see it on WebWare.com. 

I really hope Comcast reconsiders this - or comes up with a better accomodation for heavy users.

Maybe I need to look at Verizon’s FIOS.

UPDATE: Webware just posted a nice list of bandwidth meters - good to know.