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Mediacom, a cable company with roughly 1.4 million Internet customers in 22 states, is asking large chargers to reduce their data usage, even when those users are well below their monthly data cap.
Mediacom’s fastest internet plan offers gigabit download speeds and 50 Mbps upload speeds with a 6TB monthly data cap. But as Stop the Cap wrote in a detailed report on Wednesday, the ISP is “[ing] to a growing number of its big downloaders and telling them to cut back on usage or face a speed booster or eventual account closure. Mediacom told Ars that it is contacting large uploaders “more frequently than before” due to increased usage triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said large uploaders “may be under their total allocation bandwidth usage, but still have a negative impact on Mediacom’s network. “
Mediacom’s terms and conditions say the company charges a fee of $ 10 for each additional 50GB block used by customers who exceed the data cap. But users can be notified of their use well before risking overage charges. A user from East Moline, Ill., Who described the predicament on a DSLReports forum in early January, said he paid for the 6TB plan “to make sure we don’t go over the cap” and don’t have never used more than 4TB. User wrote:
So I got a call from Mediacom’s fraud and abuse department today. The rep told me that they are calling customers who have “above average” bandwidth usage because they have network issues. I hurried up and checked my account and only used a little over 2.5TB last month. He told me my download was 450gb above their average and if I didn’t reduce my usage they would speed me up or disconnect me. I argued that I had used less than half of the total data allowed by my plan, but he said my 1.2TB download was too much and that was my warning.
Another gigabit user from Missouri, Cory, told Stop the Cap that the 6TB monthly cap “is way more than I will ever use, but I still received a warning letter claiming that I ‘downloading too many. I found out that I had used around 900GB in the last two months setting up a cloud backup of my computer. At most I can send files at around 50Mbps, this which they think interferes with other customers in my neighborhood. I don’t understand. “
Too much use of “Mediacom’s sole opinion”
Letters sent by Mediacom to large uploaders read: “Your account usage is greater than 99.5% of all Service customers. Due to your excessive usage, you negatively impact Mediacom’s network and customers. other users of the Service. “
The letter goes on to say that it is a “violation” of Mediacom’s acceptable use policy “to use excessive bandwidth, either upstream or downstream, which in Mediacom’s sole opinion, imposes an abnormally high load on the network or goes beyond normal use. Mediacom has the right to impose limits on excessive consumption of bandwidth by any means at Mediacom’s disposal. “
Mediacom provided a few more details to the Federal Communications Commission in response to customer complaints. A letter from Mediacom to the FCC stated that “the company’s network is designed to allow more downstream use than upstream.” Mediacom’s letter to the FCC also described the data cap as “one large conduit with a smaller conduit inside … Due to historical trends, the smaller conduit allows for upstream use while the rest of the conduit is reserved for downstream use. ” Heavy upload usage may stress that “a smaller channel” meaning clients “may be under the total data usage limit, but still negatively impact the network.”
Mediacom blames the pandemic
Even without the overall data caps, Mediacom’s Internet plans have built-in download limits. While the Gigabit download plan limits downloads to 50 Mbps, the 60 Mbps download plan limits downloads to only 5 Mbps, and the 100 Mbps download plan limits downloads to 10 Mbps. The 60/5 Mbps plan has a monthly cap of 200 GB, and the 100/10 Mbps plan has a 1 TB cap.
We asked Mediacom why it hasn’t upgraded its network enough to fully support the download speeds and data allowances its customers pay for, but we haven’t received a response. New versions of the Cable Data Service Interface (DOCSIS) specification, which have received much media coverage by the cable industry, can support symmetrical download and upload speeds of 10 Gbps. Even an earlier version of the DOCSIS 3.1 standard that is now widely deployed theoretically allows downloads of 10 Gbps and upload speeds of 1 Gbps. But the cable industry has been slow to increase download speeds.
Contacted by Ars, Mediacom referred to cable industry statistics showing growth of 31.8% in downstream traffic and 51.1% in upstream traffic since the pandemic escalated in March 2020. The Mediacom spokesperson Thomas Larsen also told us:
Given the surge in traffic during the pandemic, we reached out to customers who are in the top 0.5% of upstream users more frequently than before. This is not the easiest topic to explain as internet usage is increasing rapidly in this work from home / home study so it is difficult to give an exact number that places a client in the 0.5 category. % because this number changes from month to month. month.
Ideally, we can help the customer identify the root cause of the overuse problem upstream and help them take action to manage it. We can offer business class services designed to support greater download capacity, but that is really not the point of this exercise.
Mediacom also contacts large download users “when their use has a negative impact” on other customers, Larsen said. “Since our network is designed to be able to handle a lot more downstream traffic, this happens less frequently.”
As to whether customers who do not reduce their use will face limitation or account terminations, Larsen said: “Use which has a negative impact on Mediacom’s network is prohibited and Mediacom may implement network programs necessary to process such use or to suspend or terminate service. “
Changing your ISP “is not an option”
The management of uploaders by Mediacom recalls the measures taken by Cox Communications earlier in the pandemic. Cox has imposed neighborhood-wide slowdowns in some cases, slashing download speeds for the gigabit download plan from 35Mbps to 10Mbps. Mediacom doesn’t seem to have done anything so drastic, but telling users to cut down on their download usage when they’re not even close to reaching their data limits is frustrating for customers.
“If there were other Internet options besides the horribly slow AT&T DSL, with a small data cap, I would change in the blink of an eye,” wrote customer Mediacom in Illinois who posted on the forum DSLReports. “Unfortunately, with my work and home business, going without a usable internet is not an option.”
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