randigb's profile

New Poster

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5 Messages

Monday, July 31st, 2023 6:39 PM

Closed

Data overages

In May, my data usage increased by 300GB/month. There have been no new devices, no new users, my streaming habits have not changed, my password has been changed multiple times, my modem restarted and still my data usage is climbing. I've already spent hours in online chats with support and on the phone with support. Spent close to an hour on the pone with Customer Security Assurance yesterday and no help or ideas on a resolution.

The most I got from support was "your modem is leaking, and you need to replace it." Silliest thing I've heard in my over 45 years of working in IT. I am not happy right not and am very much considering change to another internet provider.

My average usage prior to May was below 600GB. Is this perhaps a ploy by Comcast to force customers to an unlimited data plan?

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

2 years ago

Modems is leaking.

Well that is a silly explanation but you probably still are using the data.  You are also blind if you are using their equipment, and you are really blind if you are using their cable TV equipment and using any other streaming service on it than their cable lineup with a streaming app, which will really burn trough data.   

40GB/day average (That is 1.2T/month) is surprisingly a little amount of data if you are streaming and running unthrottled.  I can easily exceed that with a low end Roku TV using WiFi, and streaming services are not equal in data use.  Some can really be pigs.  Add a couple of phone updates at 11GB a pop (if they worked the 1st time and didn't hang -- iphone had two this month), and some quarterly windows July roll-ups, and even assuming everything is working correctly on your network, and you don't have the neighbors stray devices connecting via MoCA, and have a Point of Entry filter installed, you'll see some data swings.  

 .

If you can see when and which device used it, and control the bandwidth by device, a data cap isn't that big a deal.  You might even find out you've got something that isn't behaving correctly.

New Poster

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5 Messages

@flatlander3​ That might make sense if my data usage has been high all along but it hasn't. It's only the past 3 months and I've been a comcast internet customer for years. 

I dropped comcast cable better than a year ago. I don't have an iPhone. My phone updates once a month and they're not big updates.

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

@randigb​ Hard to guess what's on your network, but every time you connect to the internet, you are doing something different.  There's an entire multi-verse of open source network monitoring software that will run on a retasked PC, and a really cheap access point, plus connecting everything through that is cheaper than an overage charge until you get it nailed down. 

Way more effective than looking at the outside of a comcast modem, and they claim the xfinity data use page is "up to 24 hours off" anyway.  As a bonus, it's also useful for proving your case in a dispute.  

Official Employee

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1.3K Messages

Hello, @randigb. Thank you for reaching out over Xfinity Forums for support, you have reached out to the right place for assistance. I appreciate all the detailed information you have provided, it is helpful. When it comes to internet usage, even though you may be doing the same actions on your network it may take up more data for example if you are streaming a higher quality video, TV show, or movie.  Adding attachments to emails, uploading pictures or content to social media sites can also affect data usage. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/data-usage-what-counts-towards-my-data-plan.

 

When you were working with our dedicated Customer Security Assurance experts, was there a ticket that was opened for an investigation (if so, please just answer yes without adding ticket number in public reply)? 

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