Issue with Bandwidth caps

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

So I came from Tampa Bay where my home had the option between Bright House, Knology, and FioS. Aside from Brighthouse being a little expensive and slow at times, I would say these are the 3 Best ISPs I could ever land on top of, all 3 offer fast packages, all 3 have unlimited usage.

Well, job situation changed and I found myself in Pensacola. I now landed on top of a steaming pile of ISP garbage. I get a choice of Comcast, Cox, and ATT DSL. DSL was out, so I went with the lesser of 2 evils, Cawks. I have the highest package they offer, currently, 35/6 with 250GB monthly (up+dn) for $38/mo. Comfortably, I would put myself in the 350GB/mo range, given netflix, bittorrent, VPN, filesharing, etc, and I made this known to Cox many times. I use more than the average person.

Now this is where the problem is. I don't mind paying a little extra for more, but I can't. The price is great, the speed is great, but I run out 22 days into the month...being conservative. I have the highest package they offer, and they don't sell additional data. 250 is what everyone gets. I mean, i guess it could be worse, it could be something ridiculous, like $1/1GB if you go over, but I wouldn't mind something like $5-10 for each extra 100GB.

For the time being, their policy is: If you go over, we won't charge you extra and we won't shut down your connection, we'll just send you a friendly email. Fine by me, but according to the techs, if I get 3 of these friendly emails, I will be shut down and my account possibly suspended (depending on the situation).

This brings up a major issue with me, you see, how can you justify suspending an account when I'm ASKING them to sell me a higher cap, but at the same time, they can't offer a higher cap?

 

[turbohans]

Well discussion of circumventing that cap is prohibited in this forum.


On the other hand, you could distribute load between two "connections", (two accounts)


Or if you were just ranting, I agree, seems everything with internet is "caped" wayyyy to low!

 

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

Well discussion of circumventing that cap is prohibited in this forum.


On the other hand, you could distribute load between two "connections", (two accounts)

Or if you were just ranting, I agree, seems everything with internet is "caped" wayyyy to low!

Well, luckily, this thread isn't about that (although, PM me if you know something, wink wink).

I was thinking of load balancing between 2 accounts, with 2 modems. My router already supports 2 WAN inputs and load balancing, although I think 2 35Mbit/s connections would go beyond its max throughput (I have a Linksys RV082). On the other hand, paying almost $80 a month and just KNOWING I still have that roof over my head is simply ridiculous.

Anyway, I can't exactly think of any questions to ask, I'm just stuck in this situation with no way to resolve my issue. Maybe I'll just start a discussion that may lead to a solution for my situation.

 

[turbohans]

Hmmm, I don't think that router would stress much doing that. Weak link there I think would be your connection to your computer (LAN), or whatever else; would need to be gigabit (100/1000) to really take advantage of it.
That is a beast of a router though never-the-less!

And yea, $80 a month there and you still only get 500gb

 

[TalRW]

As much as I loathe the idea of bandwidth caps they are unfortunately becoming a reality. There should (I'm not saying there is) be a way in your router to put a bandwidth limit per month. I'm sure coming up with an algorithm would be straightforward enough. Something along the lines of you put that your cap is 250 gigabytes (or whatever it is) and the closer you come to reaching it the slower your connection would become but it wouldn't go over.

 

[grumperfish]

The best option would really to check and see if Cox has a business line since it'd be uncapped, and failing at that, switch to a Comcast business line.

 

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

The best option would really to check and see if Cox has a business line since it'd be uncapped, and failing at that, switch to a Comcast business line.

Oh god, the thought of that word being used in my house sends chills up my spine. LOL.

Anyhow, I think I'll just keep going over my limit.

For now, there is no immediate recourse in their policy, no penalties and no immediate suspension or DoS. Only after a few warnings will I catch their attention and it comes to someone's decision whether or not they're going to suspend my account. IMO, there's no ethical reason they should be able to suspend my account when I'm the one who's trying to work with them and they're unable to work with me. I'll just keep saying, I'm waiting for them to roll out a better package. (Apparently, they will have an "Ultimate" package coming soon, which is something like 50/10 and 400GB). That I can deal with, IF it's reasonably priced.

 

[Edward78]

The mobile net plans really suck most are 5 gigs. if you are tethered, that is a horrid cap. If you are in modern tech forgot about this part of the country (well modern net) & have no other choice it sucks. God, before I moved here, the town I lived in it was only dial up (accept cell phone data plans) until like mid 2009.