Comcast data cap issues

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:23, sc302 said:

FWIW, I am utilizing over 1000GB per month on comcast/xfinity.    No caps here.  Also we are heavy streaming, completely cut the cable cord.

 

 

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Which leads me to ask why they insist on capping? From the article that was shared here, it appears that they don't cap markets with allot of competition, and out here we really only have Comcast and AT&T, and AT&T sucks.

[sc302 Veteran]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:26, jnelsoninjax said:

Which leads me to ask why they insist on capping? From the article that was shared here, it appears that they don't cap markets with allot of competition, and out here we really only have Comcast and AT&T, and AT&T sucks.

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No clue...we have them and verizon DSL (no fios) and dish (who wants laggy satelite).  Hardly a lot of competition, similar to yours tbh.

[neufuse Veteran]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:20, jnelsoninjax said:

This is the app they told me to install. Is that the one you use?

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no that is for their wifi and only their crappy wifi devices... the comcast my device app is a different one

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:28, sc302 said:

No clue...we have them and verizon DSL (no fios) and dish (who wants laggy satelite).  Hardly a lot of competition, similar to yours tbh.

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I just checked AT&T, and they don't even have service at this address, so we are stuck with Comcast.

[neufuse Veteran]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:26, jnelsoninjax said:

Which leads me to ask why they insist on capping? From the article that was shared here, it appears that they don't cap markets with allot of competition, and out here we really only have Comcast and AT&T, and AT&T sucks.

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they cap everywhere except for the north east region... mainly because of verizon's huge fios footprint here... and it's their headquarters

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

How do you know it is capped? Can you also ask them to raise the cap?

 

Just odd to me...

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:30, Mindovermaster said:

How do you know it is capped? Can you also ask them to raise the cap?

 

Just odd to me...

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I just checked, and all of the plans come with 1TB data cap, and I do not see any option to raise it, or pay for more, except when you exceed, then it's $10 for 50GB

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Oh, OK.

 

Do they say on their site HOW much data is used? As in 900Gb of 1024GB?

 

Just saying 90% isn't a discreet way of saying that...

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:38, Mindovermaster said:

Oh, OK.

 

Do they say on their site HOW much data is used? As in 900Gb of 1024GB?

 

Just saying 90% isn't a discreet way of saying that...

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[neufuse Veteran]

  On 10/02/2020 at 20:35, jnelsoninjax said:

I just checked, and all of the plans come with 1TB data cap, and I do not see any option to raise it, or pay for more, except when you exceed, then it's $10 for 50GB

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call them and ask, a lot of regions can pay an extra $50 a month to get unlimited, and some areas will give you unlimited for $15 a month if you rent their craptastic gateway

 

  Quote

With the Unlimited Data Option, is there a limit to how much data I can use?

Part of Questions and Answers About Our Data Usage Plan.

No Limit to Data Usage

With our Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan, your Xfinity Internet data usage is unlimited. Your plan includes 1 terabyte (1,024 GB) per month, with an unlimited number of additional 50 GB blocks of data provided as needed for $10 each (up to $200 per month).

If you enroll in the Unlimited Data Option, you will pay a flat fee of $50 per month regardless of how much data you actually use. That way, you never have to pay individual overage charges.

However, like all other Xfinity Internet customers, your use of the Xfinity Internet service must be consistent with our Acceptable Use Policies for residential services and network management system. To learn more about our policies, see Customer Agreements, Policies & Service Disclosures.

To find out if you are in a market that offers our Unlimited Data Option, please see Is my household included in the Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan?.

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[+BudMan MVC]

Dude that is serious over, not juts a bit... Where is the daily breakdown of your usage?  For that matter where is the hour breakdown... They just show you total for the whole month?  Utter BS nonsense..

 

What was the traffic?  On what ports?

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

  On 10/02/2020 at 21:14, BudMan said:

What was the traffic?  On what ports?

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Could that be a case of "someone has the same IP as him?"

 

I mean, is that possible?

[xrobwx71]

  On 10/02/2020 at 15:18, neufuse said:

wow... just had Linus Sebastian say that in my head when you wrote that... thanks Linus... Lttstore.com

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I had to Google who he was. I didn't know. When I saw his face, I recognized him as I have come across his Youtube page a few times. 🤔

[PGHammer]

  On 10/02/2020 at 15:38, jnelsoninjax said:

AFIK, the data cap is from the 1st to the last day of the month, not billing cycle, I am in communication with them via Twitter, awaiting their response. They first told me to install the Xfinity app on my cell phone, but that will not work since we own the equipment.

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I have been a Comcast/Xfinity customer since 2000 - and I have never (as in ever) gotten whacked for cap usage, and I stream daily - to both my PC and my phone - wirelessly (Xfinity Stream) - I smell Dead Fish.

 

You can still install the Xfinity app on your phone (even though you own the equipment - the only equipment Comcast owns here is the telephony router).      

[+BudMan MVC]

  On 10/02/2020 at 21:49, Mindovermaster said:

Could that be a case of "someone has the same IP as him?"

 

I mean, is that possible?

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IP?  doubt it - I would think they track this by their device mac.. Since they could hand out different IPs all the time - if you talking IPv6 it could be huge amount of IPs in their assigned prefix, etc..  And IPv4 even could change all the time - depending!

 

If the OP is saying they don't do anything that would account for such usage - I would guess its mistake, as others have stated.  Its not like they have not made huge mistakes in the past.. That they don't provide you with a day to day, or even hour to hour breakdown.. And ports being used.. Yeah its BS..

 

If your isp is going to set some cap on your usage - it for sure behooves you to do your own accounting. So you have something to compare with.. If you don't and they say you did X.. You have no real way to say no I didn't my system shows Y.  Especially if they are not going to give you some breakdown on days/hours/ports...

 

He might have a kid or something doing p2p that he is not aware of, or misbehaving device or application.  Or sure someone on his wifi doing whatever.. But since he has no local accounting of what his router did, then he has no grounds to stand on to say, hey my system shows I used X vs Y..

 

Its really no different than the water or electric company - when the electric company says you use X kwh, how do you say no I didn't I use only Y..  Shoot even the elec company these days give you a day/hour breakdown of what you are using..

 

How is it that a company that deals with moving packets, can't show you the details - and only give yous a lump some "monthly" total? If they are going to charge you for going over X per month.. they should be able to show exactly what you did and how you did it (what ports)  And if you want to get picky about it to where.. You downloaded or uploaded X bytes to this IP on this port, etc..

 

I mean if they are going to charge you for it, why can they not show you what you did?  I would think if you want to fight it you could take them to court and say prove I did this.. Show me the traffic reports where I move MBps to here, and grabbed X KB from there, etc. etc..

 

But you really should have something locally showing you what you did..

 

While I don't detail logging, I could if wanted/needed get more granular.. I have a lots of details of what amount of traffic my router moved..  And can even show that on an hour to hour basis.. So if my ISP said I moved X, over this period - I could show, no I only moved Y and here is the breakdown hour by hour, etc..

[+Warwagon MVC]

  On 10/02/2020 at 19:24, Vince800 said:

Again, are the 3 desktops running Windows 10? If they are you can at least find out what's going on with those by going into Settings>Network & Internet>Data Usage

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Neat and all, but it appears to not differentiate between LAN and WAN traffic.

[+BudMan MVC]

But that is only his 1 pc.. What about everything else that is on his network.. When it comes to the ISP you need to track the usage at your edge device - not just 1 device.

 

As mentioned it "could" be some device that his is not aware of - for all we know it could be is freaking thermostat   Maybe it was compromised and is part of a ddos attack.. Anything is possible these days.. But if isp is going to call you on moving X amount of data, they need to be able to show where and to what ports that data was moved.

[+Warwagon MVC]

  On 11/02/2020 at 01:23, BudMan said:

But that is only his 1 pc.. What about everything else that is on his network.. When it comes to the ISP you need to track the usage at your edge device - not just 1 device.

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Yep, something like YAMon would give some pretty invaluable information right about now.

[+BudMan MVC]

Problem with that data usage thing on pc, isn't it doesn't break down what was internet or just local

 

 

How much of that was "internet" and how much of it was just local traffic? To be honest I don't trust that info from that... I move a ###### ton of data from my pc to my nas over smb3 multichannel where both local and local2 are used... Why is it only show 6GB used over local 2.. That can not be right at all.. That is like 2 movie files..  Which should of been split evenly across both.. And it can't be internet or even other than local traffic because local 2 doesn't even have a gateway.. So I call in question the accounting being done on windows

[jnelsoninjax]

Is there anything I can use that will monitor all traffic? I can't flash the router right now to ddwrt, so that is out of the question.

[adrynalyne]

  On 11/02/2020 at 02:26, jnelsoninjax said:

Is there anything I can use that will monitor all traffic? I can't flash the router right now to ddwrt, so that is out of the question.

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Why is it out of the question?

[Chris Graham]

  On 11/02/2020 at 02:26, jnelsoninjax said:

Is there anything I can use that will monitor all traffic? I can't flash the router right now to ddwrt, so that is out of the question.

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Only options are, buy a new router that has a meter in it, or flash your current one as suggested.

 

Simply no other options when dealing with multiple devices ona network.

[+Warwagon MVC]

  On 11/02/2020 at 02:26, jnelsoninjax said:

Is there anything I can use that will monitor all traffic? I can't flash the router right now to ddwrt, so that is out of the question.

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Just say dudes, we are blowing over our caps and I don't know why so i'm getting us a new router so we can figure this out! and the get the ac1900 off eBay!. What do you currently have?

[Ve7878]

  On 11/02/2020 at 01:21, warwagon said:

Neat and all, but it appears to not differentiate between LAN and WAN traffic.

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  On 11/02/2020 at 01:23, BudMan said:

But that is only his 1 pc.. What about everything else that is on his network.. When it comes to the ISP you need to track the usage at your edge device - not just 1 device.

 

As mentioned it "could" be some device that his is not aware of - for all we know it could be is freaking thermostat   Maybe it was compromised and is part of a ddos attack.. Anything is possible these days.. But if isp is going to call you on moving X amount of data, they need to be able to show where and to what ports that data was moved.

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Yes I am well aware of this. However the OP doesn't appear to have the means to track usage from his router. So now I think it's time to move onto process of elimination. If he can check his three Win10 PCs then we can rule these out if there isn't any suspiciously high usage on these and then go from there and look into if there is a way of finding out on the OPs mobile devices and rule those out too.

 

The OP is saying that they're streaming only from PCs so we could look at the data usage and find out if perhaps the Netflix app has consumed 800GB+ for example.

 

But we still need to know from the OP if friends or visiting family members have access to the WiFi network, if other members of the family know the WiFi key there's nothing to stop them from giving it out to visitors. I had asked this further up the thread but the response was that it was protected from hackers, but this doesn't answer the question.

[+BudMan MVC]

Sound advice - ya good to look and see if any high numbers on these PCs..