70% of All Comcast Internet Usage is Now from Streaming and Gaming

telcodad · 2025-03-29T12:59:41+00:00

Many Comcast data plans have a monthly “data allowance” of 1.2 TB, which is being reached more often now by households streaming 4K programming or gaming: 70% of All Comcast Internet Usage is Now Streaming & Gaming Raising Concerns About Data Caps By Luke Bouma, Cord Cutters News - March 29, 2025 https://cordcuttersnews.com/70-of-all-comcast-internet-usage-is-now-streaming-gaming-raising-concerns-about-data-caps/

MacLeech

lesmikesell Local caching moved to local hubs would make it easier, not depending on customer CPE memory/storage availability. That’s part of the Comcast distributed content delivery network (CDN) standardized platform project allowed by the freed up space, power, and HVAC capacity after DAA migrations: https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-edge-compute-enhance-streaming-experience-standardized-platform-content-delivery-network

Stuff

lesmikesell For live events Netflix should have gotten multicasting working with the major ISPs. Otherwise it seems like a dead technology.

Man-of-Leisure

kmax An easy example was the Netflix debacle with the Tyson/Paul fight.

Seems like their own issue, not an inherent issue with streaming.

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure Seems like their own issue, not an inherent issue with streaming.

No, it is inherent. Broadcast technology sends one copy that all 300 million people in the country can receive at the same time (given some simple repeating equipment). Streaming is one connection and one copy per customer - potentially 300 million times the bandwidth needed unless you play some very clever tricks. Just managing large numbers of simultaneous individual connections can be a difficult thing aside from the bandwidth since each will have its own buffer and tracking requirements and require memory for that.

Man-of-Leisure

lesmikesell No, it is inherent.

YouTube has had live streaming for years now, plus YouTube TV.

No issues, even during major events like the Super Bowl.

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure YouTube has had live streaming for years now, plus YouTube TV.

Google has boatloads of money to throw at the problem - and they have been willing to lose money on YouTube TV for many years. Hardly anyone else could do that.

Man-of-Leisure

lesmikesell Google has boatloads of money to throw at the problem

Yeah, because when you’re running a streaming service, being able to stream video is sort of important lol

The others just look like they have no idea what they’re doing if it doesn’t work well.

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure Yeah, because when you’re running a streaming service, being able to stream video is sort of important lol

If you want to continue to do it, making money is kind of important. I think YouTube TV is still losing or if they are profitable it just happened recently after years of losses.

Donut417

lesmikesell I have to agree with @Man-of-Leisure on this one. It was likely just a Netflix issue. Netflix doesnt have experience when it comes to live broadcasts. Youtube, Twitch, Hulu, etc all have experience with Live Broadcast, due to A) Either allowing users to live stream or B) offering paid TV services. Also it might also have to deal with how robust those streaming companies data centers / networks are. I mean Google and Amazon both have major data center presence and many companies use them for hosting.

Man-of-Leisure

lesmikesell If you want to continue to do it, making money is kind of important. I think YouTube TV is still losing or if they are profitable it just happened recently after years of losses.

I’m not sure how they are. They charge roughly the same price as DirecTV Stream and all the other streaming services with the same channels.

Raising the price even more would just cause them to lose even more customers.

Wasn’t it $35 originally, and now it’s $83/month? They cost nearly as much as cable now.

Would they need to charge $200/month to be profitable?

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure They just need to sell more NFL Sunday Tickets at $378/year to cover the $2 billion/year it costs them.

Keep in mind that when you paid for cable, the price included the bandwidth to your house, where with streaming you pay for that separately.

Man-of-Leisure

lesmikesell Keep in mind that when you paid for cable, the price included the bandwidth to your house, where with streaming you pay for that separately.

Did it?

Cable TV costs essentially what YouTube TV does now.

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure Cable TV costs essentially what YouTube TV does now.

Except Xfinity adds extra fees to cover local rebroadcast and sports fees that they pay.

telcodad

lesmikesell Except Xfinity adds extra fees to cover local rebroadcast and sports fees that they pay.

Yes, here are my monthly BTV and RSN fees:

Broadcast TV Fee $30.20
Regional Sports Fee $16.00

lesmikesell

telcodad I’m currently paying around $62 total for Sling Orange plus an entertainment package and unlimited DVR. In this area it includes the main network channels in my area but I also have an antenna and an AirTV DVR device that picks up all the others and merges them into the app with no extra fees. That works even if you don’t pay for any of the Sling packages. The Sling app isn’t as slick as YoutTube TV but it is usable and they do a better job of splitting thing up into small packages so you just pay for what you want (plus a bazillion free ad supported channels that you probably don’t want…).

Man-of-Leisure

lesmikesell they do a better job of splitting thing up into small packages so you just pay for what you want

I think we’re headed towards just paying for individual services that you want, no more bundles.

If you want NFL, you can pay for an NFL subscription and stream in their app.

If you want NBC, you can pay for an NBC subscription and stream in their app.

Most people don’t watch more than a few channels anyway.

I think out of the 100 channels YouTube TV has, my parents probably only watch 5 or 6 of them.

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure I really dislike switching apps between watching different things, especially on the low end chipsets built into smart TVs and cheap streaming devices because it is slow and takes a bunch of remote control clicks. I’ll probably end up buying an expensive Apple TV with the max storage just to speed that up.

But yeah, I have always thought that one or a few streaming vendors/platforms should have a single app that works on all devices and consolidates the feeds from all sources but bills only for what you watch. Life could be simple. - the issues are not technical.

Man-of-Leisure

lesmikesell But yeah, I have always thought that one or a few streaming vendors/platforms should have a single app that works on all devices and consolidates the feeds from all sources but bills only for what you watch.

That would require all of the different companies to work together, or set up some sort of streaming joint venture, which I guess would be possible, but most people seem to be fine with how it works currently.

lesmikesell an expensive Apple TV

For what it’s worth, the current rumors are they are working on a cheaper model.

They had a $70 model years ago.

lesmikesell

Man-of-Leisure That would require all of the different companies to work together, or set up some sort of streaming joint venture, which I guess would be possible, but most people seem to be fine with how it works currently.

Most of the vendors that provide live feeds have the technology to add other live feeds. It’s not a technical issue. The issue is that every content owner wants to maximize their profit and they think the way to do that is to restrict access to vendors that they can force to bundle a bunch of stuff together in a “take it all or you don’t get any” package.

kmax

telcodad Yes, here are my monthly BTV and RSN fees:

Broadcast TV Fee $30.20
Regional Sports Fee $16.00

And that is why I dumped Comcast for DirecTV. I used to have the “Quad play”, and every two years had to do the “retention call” to negotiate a new promo rate. But they stopped doing that. No problem, I’ll sort of move on. You had a high ARPU 20+ year customer, now this customer is on the way out.

Anyways, tried Youtube tv. Gave it an honest go, wife wasn’t happy. Switched to DirecTV with a couple streaming boxes and “real” remotes with linear channel numbers and all is ok in the world. None of that broadcast fee business.

edit: In short, different strokes for different folks. Find what works for you!

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