Comcast data cap issues


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So after I was promised to be contacted by Friday from the Data Usage Team, they never did (no surprise at all) but I did some checking and discovered my Niece's computer had Netflix and Hulu and Netflix was set to UltraHD 4K, which is odd considering her monitor is only 1080p, so I lowered the default settings and disabled the autoplay (she likes to fall asleep to it) so this was next month we should not have any surprises. I was not able to access the Hulu account, so I do not know what it is streaming to, but I am very suspicious that the massive data usage was from Netflix.

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21 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

So after I was promised to be contacted by Friday from the Data Usage Team, they never did (no surprise at all) but I did some checking and discovered my Niece's computer had Netflix and Hulu and Netflix was set to UltraHD 4K, which is odd considering her monitor is only 1080p, so I lowered the default settings and disabled the autoplay (she likes to fall asleep to it) so this was next month we should not have any surprises. I was not able to access the Hulu account, so I do not know what it is streaming to, but I am very suspicious that the massive data usage was from Netflix.

That would explain it...

 

Odd that it was set at 4K. That isn't by default, unless she changed it without knowing.

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that IS odd; I would have thought it would auto cap the quality based on screen/window resolution and downgrade based on connection speed. if that's NOT how Netflix has it implemented then that's bad code on their part 😮

 

I don't have any 4K devices so have never messed with the 4K settings myself so I'm not sure how it's handled.

 

definitely explains the data usage though

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2 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

That would explain it...

 

Odd that it was set at 4K. That isn't by default, unless she changed it without knowing.

Let me clarify: it was set to the highest setting, and her plan was the UHD 4K, so IDK for sure, but was making an assumption based on that info.

1 hour ago, Brandon H said:

that IS odd; I would have thought it would auto cap the quality based on screen/window resolution and downgrade based on connection speed. if that's NOT how Netflix has it implemented then that's bad code on their part 😮

 

I don't have any 4K devices so have never messed with the 4K settings myself so I'm not sure how it's handled.

 

definitely explains the data usage though

Yeah, @BudMan said that 4K could easily use allot of bandwidth, and now that I have lowered it and disabled the auto playing, we should see a massive decline in the data used. Her dad told me when he got up this morning to take his son to the bus (0600 or so) that he went into her room, and paused Netflix. I have no idea what time she went to bed, but that easily could have been running 5+ hours! 

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8 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

 

Yeah, @BudMan said that 4K could easily use allot of bandwidth, and now that I have lowered it and disabled the auto playing, we should see a massive decline in the data used. Her dad told me when he got up this morning to take his son to the bus (0600 or so) that he went into her room, and paused Netflix. I have no idea what time she went to bed, but that easily could have been running 5+ hours! 

Should take away her computer for eating up that data...

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2 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

That would explain it...

 

Odd that it was set at 4K. That isn't by default, unless she changed it without knowing.

It isn’t odd at all.   It defaults to the highest setting.   You have to manually go in and drop it down for each thing you watch.  

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Here's a suggestion: I exceeded our Comcast data cap for two months. The first month they automatically waive as a courtesy but to get them to waive the second charge I complained that "my WiFi must have been hacked" and that I "reset my WiFi password" after which they did waive the charge for the second overage. May want to try that. Apologies if this isn't relevant anymore since I haven't read every page here.

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1 hour ago, Bryan R. said:

Here's a suggestion: I exceeded our Comcast data cap for two months. The first month they automatically waive as a courtesy but to get them to waive the second charge I complained that "my WiFi must have been hacked" and that I "reset my WiFi password" after which they did waive the charge for the second overage. May want to try that. Apologies if this isn't relevant anymore since I haven't read every page here.

I like the idea, but my argument with them has been that my WiFi has not been hacked, and is a very secure password, and I have made this argument a few times, so they might have record of me saying that...

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You may want to go into your account and drop down the quality of all devices.  Instead of best quality or auto quality, drop down to medium quality.  go into your netflix profile in a web browser, go to account, go to playback settings, choose medium.  (auto is my default).  You will have to do this for each profile.

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1 hour ago, sc302 said:

It isn’t odd at all.   It defaults to the highest setting.   You have to manually go in and drop it down for each thing you watch.  

It does? So they pay extra for Netflix 4K and cant use it? Unless they have a 4K TV...

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27 minutes ago, sc302 said:

You may want to go into your account and drop down the quality of all devices.  Instead of best quality or auto quality, drop down to medium quality.  go into your netflix profile in a web browser, go to account, go to playback settings, choose medium.  (auto is my default).  You will have to do this for each profile.

My niece is the only one who watches Netflix, me and her dad do not use it, she is paying for it on her own, so aside from changing the quality, there is not much else that can be done (at least by me)

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19 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

It does? So they pay extra for Netflix 4K and cant use it? Unless they have a 4K TV...

Aren’t laptops 2/4K now as a standard?  Sounds like she is watching on a laptop. 

3 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

My niece is the only one who watches Netflix, me and her dad do not use it, she is paying for it on her own, so aside from changing the quality, there is not much else that can be done (at least by me)

But you are paying for the internet connection.   FYI Netflix is included with my Comcast triple play package. 

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8 minutes ago, sc302 said:

Aren’t laptops 2/4K now as a standard?  Sounds like she is watching on a laptop. 

The latest ones, yes. But most laptops (from the last 10 years) can usually just do 1080p. As jnelson said.

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8 minutes ago, sc302 said:

Aren’t laptops 2/4K now as a standard?  Sounds like she is watching on a laptop. 

But you are paying for the internet connection.   FYI Netflix is included with my Comcast triple play package. 

No, she is on a desktop, and you are correct, I am the one paying the internet bill, so I do have some leverage there. As I have stated before, we do not even have any TV's in the house, so we do not need anything but the internet.

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16 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

The latest ones, yes. But most laptops can usually just do 1280. As jnelson said.

I don’t know what quality it would stream at being that is above 1080, sounds like 2k, if so wouldn’t that be 4k content rendered at 2k because 1k isn’t enough?   Idk, I haven’t put any effort or concern to try to figure it out, so it is more or less a question.  From my understanding there is only 1k and 4k content, it would only make sense that higher quality than native capable to be downloaded and rendered vs filling in information that isn’t there to try to Upscale.  Better quality to be had when down scaling vs up scaling. 

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1 minute ago, sc302 said:

I don’t know what quality it would stream at being that is above 1080, sounds like 2k, if so wouldn’t that be 4k content rendered at 2k because 1k isn’t enough?   Idk, I haven’t put any effort or concern to try to figure it out, so it is more or less a question.  From my understanding there is only 1k and 4k content, it would only make sense that higher quality than native capable to be downloaded and rendered vs filling in information that isn’t there to try to I’ll scale.  Better quality to be had when down scaling vs up scaling. 

That really is a good question and not just on the laptop, even on a desktop, if the display is not 4K, does it stream at whatever the display can do? I have 4K, but I do not watch Netflix enough to be able to answer that question.

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5 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

No, she is on a desktop, and you are correct, I am the one paying the internet bill, so I do have some leverage there. As I have stated before, we do not even have any TV's in the house, so we do not need anything but the internet.

Yes I understand that and I too was on the cheapest internet plan that gives best bandwidth but crapcast likes to screw with pricing.  For no additional cost they gave me a triple play deal.  140 for just internet or 140 for 1 tv, internet, and phone.  The tv box top is hooked up to a tv that is 100% used for video games (useless box) the land line is used for kids that I am not putting on my cellphone plan so they have a way to contact easily 

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5 minutes ago, sc302 said:

Yes I understand that and I too was on the cheapest internet plan that gives best bandwidth but crapcast likes to screw with pricing.  For no additional cost they gave me a triple play deal.  140 for just internet or 140 for 1 tv, internet, and phone.  The tv box top is hooked up to a tv that is 100% used for video games (useless box) the land line is used for kids that I am not putting on my cellphone plan so they have a way to contact easily 

Not bad, I got the internet only for $50, that was by far the better option to do.

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5 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

Not bad, I got the internet only for $50, that was by far the better option to do.

I wish they offered that but I guess that is what u get with no caps. Just 2 years ago for just internet it was 90.  And that is for blast, the best they have up here. 

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1 minute ago, sc302 said:

I wish they offered that but I guess that is what u get with no caps. Just 2 years ago for just internet it was 90.  

Yeah they are still a-holes in my book, I asked what happens if we move to an area that they do not have coverage in during my current agreement of one year with them, and they said that the ETF would still apply.

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  • 1 month later...

So today I got curious, and logged in and checked current usage, now (no surprise) this month we are well under the 1 TB cap, which is funny because of the Covid-19 virus, they have eliminated the cap for the next few months... I was able to find this, which just goes to prove my theory that there's something amiss with the reporting system:

Data.thumb.PNG.14dd12fdaf72e48f519f0e03b8f11fe6.PNG 

Left column is how much was used, right side is how much over we went.  So far this month, we have done nothing different then the previous months, and me and my BIL both downloaded Doom: Eternal separately, and my niece has been home all month and she watches Netflix and Hulu all the time, yet as of yesterday we have only used 219 GB of the 1 TB. Does this seem off to anyone else besides me? 

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