Suddenlink Data Caps

[fblevins1]

Hello all,

I was just informed of a 350 GB data cap on my 75 Mbit internet line. I was already over my cap just 15 days into my current monthly billing cycle. Lucky for me they just started monitoring so I have another month or so to figure out where I can cut down on my usage. And here are the culprits and what I had to do to stay within the cap or hopefully will stay within.

1. Netflix. Set to lowest quality setting and no auto playback of next episode.
2. Online gaming. (my son used nearly a terrabyte of data in two months, so online gaming is now banned or at least significantly reduced.
3. No more downloading episodes that are available via DirectTV (use the damn DVR function)
4. Suddenlink. As soon as an ISP is made available that do not cap my usage, Suddenlink is gone.

So I guess my point here is why have high speed internet when all you are going to do is reach your cap faster than ever? Going with a lower speed unfortunately lowers the cap.....so it would appear that while they are greedy, they are not stupid.

I have loved the service that Suddenllink has provided over the years. I will miss them.

Edit: By the way guys. I did some visual comparisons to Netflix streamed at the highest quality setting vs the lowest and from what I can tell for most of the show I watch....not a bit of difference visually, but a huge difference in the amount of data used in the initial buffering and then the stream. Lowest quality buffered at around 1.6 Mbit then streamed at around 80 kbit. Highest needed nearly 6 mbit to buffer then streamed at nearly 500 kbit so....(sorry for my bad units of measure, but I think you get the jest) Perhaps we need to do our part to reduce the load on the system, but again, I won't need 75 Mbit to do what I have to do to avoid going over the cap.

 

[Troch77]

Online gaming does use that much data.
Not sure what he's doing that uses that much.
200 GB gives you 10,000 hours of Online gaming through Xbox live, or Playstation Network.

This is 6 days left of my billing cycle and my Data that's left to use.

 

[fblevins1]

Online gaming does use that much data.
Not sure what he's doing that uses that much.
200 GB gives you 10,000 hours of Online gaming through Xbox live, or Playstation Network.

All I could do is go into his Xbox1 console settings and there is a place you can review current and past usage and he clearly used over 500 GB for December and over 500 GB for the current month (January) Now while he is in school the usage drops dramatically to maybe 50 GB on average but once school is let out.....If I understand right even Netflix can use up to 3 GB per hour and if you have two people streaming Netflix in the HD mode for 3 hours a day that would be 540 GB. Now I admit I might be getting my bits and my bytes confused and maybe it is not as bad as I thought, but....only 15 days into my billing cycle I received a pop up from Suddenlink telling me that I was at 90+ percent of my monthly cap so that part is real. I could be that our family represents the worse case scenario for ISP's 4 People in the house, Netflix streaming all the time, two smart phones and a kid that plays online gaming, so the total usage is staggering. Suddenlink has stated on several occasions that "according to their research" less than 1 percent of internet customers will be affected by the cap. I guess we are a one percent family.

 

[osu1991]

Cable internet is just a monopoly running wild. The cable companies have no competition in many areas or in some areas a really slow DSL service. I will go back to Windstream's crappy, but steady 6mb dsl with no caps when Cox starts enforcing their caps. The price went up this month and the data cap stayed the same. I already use 500-600gb a month of the 750gb cap and its just me. The latest price increase from Cox now makes 100/10 internet service as much as what I pay for TV.

 

[Troch77]

All I could do is go into his Xbox1 console settings and there is a place you can review current and past usage and he clearly used over 500 GB for December and over 500 GB for the current month (January) Now while he is in school the usage drops dramatically to maybe 50 GB on average but once school is let out.....If I understand right even Netflix can use up to 3 GB per hour and if you have two people streaming Netflix in the HD mode for 3 hours a day that would be 540 GB. Now I admit I might be getting my bits and my bytes confused and maybe it is not as bad as I thought, but....only 15 days into my billing cycle I received a pop up from Suddenlink telling me that I was at 90+ percent of my monthly cap so that part is real. I could be that our family represents the worse case scenario for ISP's 4 People in the house, Netflix streaming all the time, two smart phones and a kid that plays online gaming, so the total usage is staggering. Suddenlink has stated on several occasions that "according to their research" less than 1 percent of internet customers will be affected by the cap. I guess we are a one percent family.

Maybe he is doing other streaming on his Xbox, like Netflix, or what ever other movie or video watching.

Because that actual Gaming doesn't use much at all.

 

[fblevins1]

Maybe he is doing other streaming on his Xbox, like Netflix, or what ever other movie or video watching.

Because that actual Gaming doesn't use much at all.

True, he does use his console for watching netflix as well as online gaming, but that is about all he does with it.....as far as I know...perhaps I need to grill him a bit about what the console is capable of doing.

 

[Troch77]

Yes Grill him lol.
I game about 4-8 hours a week online, our house streams netflix or Dish on demand 40-50 hours a week, plus 4 smart phones, and we use around 200-250 GB on average a month. Sometimes even less.

 

[fblevins1]

Yes Grill him lol.
I game about 4-8 hours a week online, our house streams netflix or Dish on demand 40-50 hours a week, plus 4 smart phones, and we use around 200-250 GB on average a month. Sometimes even less.

I wish the console would break down the usage. Right now I know how much he uses, just not where he uses it. I doubt if Pornhub uses all that much...LOL.

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

I would bet alot of his usage is downloading games, or updates. Make sure you buy physical disks and not the streamed versions of games

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[david_gilbert]

bumping this back up, but SL now has unlimited on the top 2 tiers. costs 5.00 a month, but well worth it. We have 200/20 service and it came with a 450gb cap. With 4 people in a streaming only house that was too low. Heck my 2 daughters will each have Netflix on the tv and youtube on their ipad, sometimes even a 3rd stream going on their phones! it is not unusual for us to see 40gb in a day over the weekend and regularly see 25-30 during the week. So when I saw the offer I jumped on it.

 

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