Cut the Cord? - Comcast Data Usage Question

[thedukelamere]

Howdy all. Cut the cord back in July and went from Comcast TV/Internet to Internet only, which brought the ridiculous monthly bill of $215 down to a manageable $55. I also purchased my own modem to stop paying the $15 monthly rental charge. Signed up for Hulu and DirectvNow (already had Netflix), and saw my data usage go from around 250GB a month prior to the switch to 436GB in July and 750GB in August. Standard; kids are out of school, watching Netflix all day, I get it. Didn't even know there was a cap limit of 1TB (1024GB) until I crossed it in September (1043GB), saw it jump again to 1155GB in October... And now, with 3 days left in the month I am sitting at a ridiculous 1380GBs used... Meaning I'm in line to pay almost $100 in additional fees this month.

Has anyone dealt with this before with before? Comcast is absolutely no help (*shocker*) and has no way of giving me daily or hourly reads to find out how a family of four with usually only one tv streaming at a time can use that much data. To this untrained eye, it looks like they just make up whatever number they want and have placed me on the "recoup our loses on this account and get that $55 back up to as close to the original $215 as you can" naughty list.

Any tips or suggestions on things to look at or consider? I'm all ears.

Besides the "change your password, maybe your neighbors are stealing your data" that Comcast has told me several times... If any of them have guessed "KrzyzewskiTheGOAT" being my password, they deserve to use it.

[wavedukefan70s]

Howdy all. Cut the cord back in July and went from Comcast TV/Internet to Internet only, which brought the ridiculous monthly bill of $215 down to a manageable $55. I also purchased my own modem to stop paying the $15 monthly rental charge. Signed up for Hulu and DirectvNow (already had Netflix), and saw my data usage go from around 250GB a month prior to the switch to 436GB in July and 750GB in August. Standard; kids are out of school, watching Netflix all day, I get it. Didn't even know there was a cap limit of 1TB (1024GB) until I crossed it in September (1043GB), saw it jump again to 1155GB in October... And now, with 3 days left in the month I am sitting at a ridiculous 1380GBs used... Meaning I'm in line to pay almost $100 in additional fees this month.

Has anyone dealt with this before with before? Comcast is absolutely no help (*shocker*) and has no way of giving me daily or hourly reads to find out how a family of four with usually only one tv streaming at a time can use that much data. To this untrained eye, it looks like they just make up whatever number they want and have placed me on the "recoup our loses on this account and get that $55 back up to as close to the original $215 as you can" naughty list.

Any tips or suggestions on things to look at or consider? I'm all ears.

Besides the "change your password, maybe your neighbors are stealing your data" that Comcast has told me several times... If any of them have guessed "KrzyzewskiTheGOAT" being my password, they deserve to use it.

Any xboxes or play stations some games chew data like candy.like destiny ect.
Also can you upgrade your data?maybe get a better rate.

[LasVegas]

Howdy all. Cut the cord back in July and went from Comcast TV/Internet to Internet only, which brought the ridiculous monthly bill of $215 down to a manageable $55. I also purchased my own modem to stop paying the $15 monthly rental charge. Signed up for Hulu and DirectvNow (already had Netflix), and saw my data usage go from around 250GB a month prior to the switch to 436GB in July and 750GB in August. Standard; kids are out of school, watching Netflix all day, I get it. Didn't even know there was a cap limit of 1TB (1024GB) until I crossed it in September (1043GB), saw it jump again to 1155GB in October... And now, with 3 days left in the month I am sitting at a ridiculous 1380GBs used... Meaning I'm in line to pay almost $100 in additional fees this month.

Has anyone dealt with this before with before? Comcast is absolutely no help (*shocker*) and has no way of giving me daily or hourly reads to find out how a family of four with usually only one tv streaming at a time can use that much data. To this untrained eye, it looks like they just make up whatever number they want and have placed me on the "recoup our loses on this account and get that $55 back up to as close to the original $215 as you can" naughty list.

Any tips or suggestions on things to look at or consider? I'm all ears.

Besides the "change your password, maybe your neighbors are stealing your data" that Comcast has told me several times... If any of them have guessed "KrzyzewskiTheGOAT" being my password, they deserve to use it.

I’ve fought with cox before about my data with no luck. My “meter” on cox will say something like 50gb used and my router will tell me only 35gb was consumed on the SAME day. Crazy. Not sure what else I could do so I paid the extra $50 for unlimited. Brings my bill to $140. Internet only. Still saving money but I really am suspicious that cox is doing this on purpose.

One thing to watch is Netflix. Do you pay for 4K content? Are you streaming more 4K content? That will jump your Netflix usage from 2 gb to about 7 gb per hour.

Another is, I read online about diretvnow using data when devices are slept but the app was never exited out of. So when I sleep my Apple TV, I make sure to exit out of directv now. Not sure if it has helped because I haven’t done any testing yet. Been too busy.

[moonpie23]

AT&T giga service, as well as Spectrum have unlimited data when bundled with a TV package...

[camion]

I’ve fought with cox before about my data with no luck. My “meter” on cox will say something like 50gb used and my router will tell me only 35gb was consumed on the SAME day. Crazy. Not sure what else I could do so I paid the extra $50 for unlimited. Brings my bill to $140. Internet only. Still saving money but I really am suspicious that cox is doing this on purpose.

One thing to watch is Netflix. Do you pay for 4K content? Are you streaming more 4K content? That will jump your Netflix usage from 2 gb to about 7 gb per hour.

Another is, I read online about diretvnow using data when devices are slept but the app was never exited out of. So when I sleep my Apple TV, I make sure to exit out of directv now. Not sure if it has helped because I haven’t done any testing yet. Been too busy.

Here's a test. Try turning off your router for a day and see if Cox lists any usage.

[thedukelamere]

I’ve fought with cox before about my data with no luck. My “meter” on cox will say something like 50gb used and my router will tell me only 35gb was consumed on the SAME day. Crazy. Not sure what else I could do so I paid the extra $50 for unlimited. Brings my bill to $140. Internet only. Still saving money but I really am suspicious that cox is doing this on purpose.

One thing to watch is Netflix. Do you pay for 4K content? Are you streaming more 4K content? That will jump your Netflix usage from 2 gb to about 7 gb per hour.

Another is, I read online about diretvnow using data when devices are slept but the app was never exited out of. So when I sleep my Apple TV, I make sure to exit out of directv now. Not sure if it has helped because I haven’t done any testing yet. Been too busy.

I pay for 4K but it's very very rare that we watch anything in 4K... regardless, I signed into Netflix and changed my video quality from Best to 1080p to avoid any situation of Trolls accidentally being watched in 4K six times in one day. I'm also curious about the Directvnow stream still being active while the tv is powered off... It's something that would make sense (albeit a pretty shady Roku/Directv/Comcast tactic), so for the past week or so I've been exiting the app and unplugging the Roku when not in use to be absolutely sure.

Next month I'm going to keep a daily log of usage since they can't provide it for me, so I'll be interested in seeing if these changes make a dent in the data.

[Acymetric]

How many kids? I have a 1TB limit and do a ton of streaming (Netflix, sports, music, YouTube, etc.) and have a roommate doing the same and I don't think I've ever even used half of the 1TB allowance yet. Seems like there is something hogging data beyond just streaming (unless you have 4 or 5 kids or they are literally steaming 15+ hours per day). Depending on your router you should be able to log in and check what is using the most data. My guess is something is sucking up a ton of data that you aren't even considering.

[thedukelamere]

How many kids? I have a 1TB limit and do a ton of streaming (Netflix, sports, music, YouTube, etc.) and have a roommate doing the same and I don't think I've ever even used half of the 1TB allowance yet. Seems like there is something hogging data beyond just streaming (unless you have 4 or 5 kids or they are literally steaming 15+ hours per day). Depending on your router you should be able to log in and check what is using the most data. My guess is something is sucking up a ton of data that you aren't even considering.

A 7 year old who is in school all day and then my wife and 1 year old who probably have Netflix or Directvnow streaming in the background throughout the day... I don't have a chance to play Xbox as much as I did 10 years ago, so for the most part there's only one tv on at any given time, maybe two on the weekends. I'm one of those "set it and forget it" kinda guys, so I didn't really pay attention to the usage until I got the notification that we were over. When I saw their explanation of their data limit being "99% of users won't come close to the cap" on their website I started digging into it, seeing as though a family of 4 watching Netflix doesn't strike me as being in the 1%

I need to do some research into my router and seeing how to log in and check it out... I'm not a techie, but also not tech illiterate so there has to be a way.

[Acymetric]

I pay for 4K but it's very very rare that we watch anything in 4K... regardless, I signed into Netflix and changed my video quality from Best to 1080p to avoid any situation of Trolls accidentally being watched in 4K six times in one day. I'm also curious about the Directvnow stream still being active while the tv is powered off... It's something that would make sense (albeit a pretty shady Roku/Directv/Comcast tactic), so for the past week or so I've been exiting the app and unplugging the Roku when not in use to be absolutely sure.

Next month I'm going to keep a daily log of usage since they can't provide it for me, so I'll be interested in seeing if these changes make a dent in the data.

If you haven't been exiting streaming apps when you turn off the TV that could definitely be a part of it by the way. The Roku has no way to know that your TV is off so it keeps right on streaming. Unplugging the Roku is unnecessary as long as you return to the Roku home screen, but it won't hurt either.

A 7 year old who is in school all day and then my wife and 1 year old who probably have Netflix or Directvnow streaming in the background throughout the day... I don't have a chance to play Xbox as much as I did 10 years ago, so for the most part there's only one tv on at any given time, maybe two on the weekends. I'm one of those "set it and forget it" kinda guys, so I didn't really pay attention to the usage until I got the notification that we were over. When I saw their explanation of their data limit being "99% of users won't come close to the cap" on their website I started digging into it, seeing as though a family of 4 watching Netflix doesn't strike me as being in the 1%

I need to do some research into my router and seeing how to log in and check it out... I'm not a techie, but also not tech illiterate so there has to be a way.

Depending on what exactly you mean by the bolded, one side effect of cord-cutting with metered service is that you really can't do that (especially if your wife has something streaming for the 1 year old and 1 streaming for herself). It is more than enough data for most active screen watching, but if you're turning on the Discovery Channel (for example) when you get up in the morning and leave it running in the background 10-15 hours a day while you're doing chores, mowing the lawn, taking a shower, etc. and not actually watching in addition to your actual screen time I can see how you would go over. Constant background TV is a luxury reserved for unmetered connections and cable/satellite customers.

As a reference, you can probably safely stream ~15-18 hours per day combined and never worry about coming close to the cap (but two devices streaming for 10 hours each already puts you at 20). Any more than that and you might be pushing it depending on video quality and other usage.

[devil84]

I just checked how to do it on my Netgear router. Netgear has a Basic and Advanced tabs -- go to the Advanced tab, then select the Advanced Setup option. They've put the traffic meter there. Not sure why it's under a "setup" option, but there it is. It allows me to set the first day of the month (defaults to the first) and shows me today, yesterday, this week, this month to date, and last month.

It's just the two of us here, but we'll sometimes have multiple streams at once, especially if several favorite teams are playing at the same time. Not much streaming during the average workday, though there is plenty of email, Google searches, social media, other browser data, and smart home stuff happening all waking hours. We had higher usage this month, as the kids came home and spent a good deal of time sharing YouTubes or watching other streams. Our monthly total is currently 0.371 TB, up from last month's 0.342 TB.

Hope that helps!

[pfrduke]

Do you backup anything to the cloud on a regular basis? That can be a big data-suck. My wife has a rather large photo library that she was moving to the cloud and it blew right through our data limit basically by itself (yes, it's more than 1 TB worth of photos).

[kmspeaks]

Howdy all. Cut the cord back in July and went from Comcast TV/Internet to Internet only, which brought the ridiculous monthly bill of $215 down to a manageable $55. I also purchased my own modem to stop paying the $15 monthly rental charge. Signed up for Hulu and DirectvNow (already had Netflix), and saw my data usage go from around 250GB a month prior to the switch to 436GB in July and 750GB in August. Standard; kids are out of school, watching Netflix all day, I get it. Didn't even know there was a cap limit of 1TB (1024GB) until I crossed it in September (1043GB), saw it jump again to 1155GB in October... And now, with 3 days left in the month I am sitting at a ridiculous 1380GBs used... Meaning I'm in line to pay almost $100 in additional fees this month.

Has anyone dealt with this before with before? Comcast is absolutely no help (*shocker*) and has no way of giving me daily or hourly reads to find out how a family of four with usually only one tv streaming at a time can use that much data. To this untrained eye, it looks like they just make up whatever number they want and have placed me on the "recoup our loses on this account and get that $55 back up to as close to the original $215 as you can" naughty list.

Any tips or suggestions on things to look at or consider? I'm all ears.

Besides the "change your password, maybe your neighbors are stealing your data" that Comcast has told me several times... If any of them have guessed "KrzyzewskiTheGOAT" being my password, they deserve to use it.

Your post made me curious so I went and looked. According to Comcast my last 4 months were 367, 276, 403, 708 GB. It's just me in the house but when I'm home and not sleeping there is something streaming (Netflix, Sling, etc) and there have been a couple times I've fallen asleep watching a game and it continued to stream all night. However, I'm only paying $30 a month for internet and don't have any sort of data cap. Very interesting how things are priced in different markets.