Comcast's 1 TB cap has caused me to stop buying games on steam

[mephisto925]

As the title states. Comcast's bandwidth caps have directly affected my purchases on steam. Because of the 1 terabyte cap now being enforced and the fact that when they started implimenting this cap suspiciously we went from an average of 600 to 700 GB's a month to 900 to 1000 GB's a month. We have gotten our 2 courtesy warnings about going over the limit. So this month my bill will be higher because we have gone over the limit and we still have a week left before the end of the month. So for every additional 50 GB we go over they will charge us an extra $10 up to $200. I would have bought a few games with the winter sale. Atleast $100 worth but instead I bought none because I can't see buying a game that I can't play unless I want to pay extra to download it. I know I can buy it and then wait until next month, but then next month there will be new games I want to buy so I have to be careful about what I get because I can only download so much before hitting my cap. Comcast has totally affected how I buy games now. I would love to find physical copies of games on Blue-ray. then atleast I would only have to download the patches. I may have to start buying physical copies on Amazon. It would be cheaper for me. Im looking for options here and thanks to Comcast and they're bandwidth cap steam and all the other online gaming stores may become obsolete.

[-V-]

Escrito originalmente por shad:

Escrito originalmente por RRW359:

I admit using 1tb just for gaming is a bit excessive

1 tb for gaming is a LOT. I can't even fill my 1 tb harddrive and I've had it for about 2 years.

Well, filling a hard drive is data storage. You can spend 14.3GB/hr streaming in HD through Amazon Prime without saving a single thing.

There have been several months where I used 700GB via livestreaming uploading combined with netflix streaming. My hard drive only contains games.

[shad]

Escrito originalmente por -V-:

Escrito originalmente por shad:

1 tb for gaming is a LOT. I can't even fill my 1 tb harddrive and I've had it for about 2 years.

Well, filling a hard drive is data storage. You can spend 14.3GB/hr streaming in HD through Amazon Prime without saving a single thing.

Even then. I watch YouTube on my PC in 1080p60 and I only use about 60GB in 30 days.

[Profile Name™]

If it were up to me, I would at the very least implement a rollover plan. So if you are allowed 1 TB one month but only used 800 GB, then 200 GB would rollover to the following months. You paid for that 200 GB so shouldn't you be allowed to keep it?

[Fostin4]

Escrito originalmente por Zefar:

There are not a lot of games that takes up to like 50 GB and you'd need to buy 20 of those games to get up to 1000 GB limit. It's like 20 triple A games.

Are you sure you're downloading THAT much? Surely this limit isn't something you'll hit every month too right?

Also buying retail won't solve the problem as Steam will still download the latest version of the game because the files on the disk are outdated.

This has to be one of the most politically correct answers i have seen on the interwebs. Back in the day of MMORPGs I used to hit over the 1 TB mark and that was a long time ago.

[Exiled Alchemist]

The only things I can think of that is causing the OP to hit the cap is:

1. OP leaves all owned games installed, and lets them auto-update all the time.

2. Has multiple people watching video streaming services.

3. Has a neighbor, or other third party that is within range of the home's wifi connection that is taking up data usage.

Solutions:

1. Only leave games that you are currently playing installed. The unplayed, or completed games should be uninstalled to help slow down auto-update downloading.

2. Cut down on how much the house hold watches video streaming services. Limit the time to watching videos to at least 2-3 hours a day.

3. Change the wifi network passwords.

[Marcy]

The fact that you have a data cap in a first world country alone is sad. What's up with American ISPs being so scummy and awful?

[Exiled Alchemist]

Escrito originalmente por Vertisea:

The fact that you have a data cap in a first world country alone is sad. What's up with American ISPs being so scummy and awful?

Greed, and because they know they are one of the small number of providers in an area. So it's a case of put up with it, or go without.

[Fostin4]

Escrito originalmente por ExiledAlchemist:

Escrito originalmente por Vertisea:

The fact that you have a data cap in a first world country alone is sad. What's up with American ISPs being so scummy and awful?

Greed, and because they know they are one of the small number of providers in an area. So it's a case of put up with it, or go without.

Also the amount of people defending this practise of data caps in this thread is beyond pathetic.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Escrito originalmente por Fostin4:

Also the amount of people defending this practise of data caps in this thread is beyond pathetic.

Doesn't look like anyone is defending the practice, only stating th difficulty in reaching 1TB of date in most cases and giving advice on how to avoid it.

[mephisto925]

Escrito originalmente por Washell:

Escrito originalmente por mephisto925:

I would love to find physical copies of games on Blue-ray.

Forgot to address this: PC games aren't (reliably) released on Blu-ray, and the DVD versions tend to only include installers that download the entire game. The only reliable way to obtain physical copies is to switch to consoles, and you'd still get hefty patches there.

Escrito originalmente por Spawn of Totoro:

OP, what Comcast has told me, they won't charge for the extra GB, but will instead roll you over into the Unlimited plan if it happens often.

Are you in an area where Comcast has competition?

no I think thats one fo the biggest parts of the problem. Comcast bascially has a monoploy here so there are no other choices

[Profile Name™]

Escrito originalmente por Spawn of Totoro:

Doesn't look like anyone is defending the practice, only stating th difficulty in reaching 1TB of date in most cases and giving advice on how to avoid it.

Yeah. If it were up to me, the data caps wouldn't exist in the first place. They didn't always exist. It is a fairly recent development, like in the last five or six years. I just don't think that any one person would ever go over the 500 GB threshold. Countless others are also shocked and so many here have reported that they rarely even go over the 250 GB threshold. Well, there have been many good suggestions so far like making the network password protected and stuff like that. Hopefully the original poster makes the necessary adjustments. There really is no reason for him to have to stop buying and playing games on Steam. Anyone who thinks that is delusional.

[Profile Name™]

Also, I have my doubts that any of what the original poster said is even true to begin with. Looking at his Steam profile, he has played less than 4 hours of games in the last two weeks. Wouldn't a serious gamer have at least 60-100 hours of gameplay in the last two weeks? My friend is still going to school and has very limited time to play games, but he still has 32 hours of gameplay in the last two weeks. Something doesn't add up here.

[Zefar]

Escrito originalmente por Fostin4:

Escrito originalmente por Zefar:

There are not a lot of games that takes up to like 50 GB and you'd need to buy 20 of those games to get up to 1000 GB limit. It's like 20 triple A games.

Are you sure you're downloading THAT much? Surely this limit isn't something you'll hit every month too right?

Also buying retail won't solve the problem as Steam will still download the latest version of the game because the files on the disk are outdated.

This has to be one of the most politically correct answers i have seen on the interwebs. Back in the day of MMORPGs I used to hit over the 1 TB mark and that was a long time ago.

How is it politically correct? It doesn't contain any "PC" in it at all.

[mephisto925]

Escrito originalmente por Spawn of Totoro:

Escrito originalmente por Fostin4:

Also the amount of people defending this practise of data caps in this thread is beyond pathetic.

Doesn't look like anyone is defending the practice, only stating th difficulty in reaching 1TB of date in most cases and giving advice on how to avoid it.

thats the reason I originally posted this. Comcast just started enforcing there data caps for us about 5 months ago. They sent us a warning saying that we had reached 90% of are data cap. It was a day before the end of the month so I wasn't too worried. Then the next month it happened again but a few days before the end of the month. when I checked our data history (which of course is controlled, ran and monitored by comcast) it showed that through out the year we had averaged about 600 to 700 GB a month. Now almost every month it hits 900 GB. our habits have not changed at all. I work full time (40 hours a week) away from home. my daughter is at school during the day my wife and my mother are here during the day. I know my wife uses netflix a lot but she mostly streams it to her Ipad my mother uses and apple box to stream mostly to a 1080p TV. When I am home I stream netflix or youtube though the ps4 occasinally but my biggest hobby is gaming. I use stream, Battlenet, Origin, I even use the windows store to get some games like Forza 4. recently I would say that I have been using Battle.net the most with Destiny 2 being what most of my friends are playing.

So I originally posted this up for 2 reasons.

1. To see if other people were having similar problems and what they were doing to fix it.

2. To get the word out about how easy it is to hit these bandwidth caps with just a regular family. To let people know that because Comcast has a Monopoly in my area as far as highspeed internet I have no other options except to either quit gaming or continue to pay their fee's and with 4k it will only get worse. I own 1 4k monitor for my PC I don't want to buy any new 4k TVs because to me thats just more bandwidth I am going to have to pay for.

This is a real problem especially for gamers and as games grown in size (which they will) we will have to pay our ISP's additional fees for 1 reason only, because they have put these arbitrary bandwidth caps out there as a way of getting more money out of their customers.

[mephisto925]

Escrito originalmente por postandreply:

Also, I have my doubts that any of what the original poster said is even true to begin with. Looking at his Steam profile, he has played less than 4 hours of games in the last two weeks. Wouldn't a serious gamer have at least 60-100 hours of gameplay in the last two weeks? My friend is still going to school and has very limited time to play games, but he still has 32 hours of gameplay in the last two weeks. Something doesn't add up here.

I have been sick and spent the week before Christmas in the Hospital with Pnemonia. The week before that I was in bed the entire week due to the same Pnemonia. So yeah this month I haven't been on steam as much. Although the first week I did watch a lot of netflix and youtube streaming to my TV since I was sick.
So if I haven't been home to use the internet for a week it seems even more strange that I would hit the bandwidth cap. Yeah sure the rest of my family was here and my daughter is home for school break but I don't see them using that much more bandwidth than usual.