CenturyLink has confirmed with Broadband Reports that there are usage caps in place for residential users. A thread in our forums contained more than a few users who were confused about the caps; some users saying they'd been warned and even disconnected -- while other heavy users had never been warned. Some are even being told when they call in that the company does not have any caps on their service.

"We received a rude awakening Thursday when we discovered our Internet access not working," said one user who was disconnected for consuming 250 GB for several consecutive months. "I called embarq Centrylink today and inquired about this data cap and they told me they absolutely don't have a data cap even on their slower speeds," says a different user.

I contacted CenturyLink, who clarified that there are hard caps in place for residential users, and that users who consume significant amounts of bandwidth should be getting warnings.

"CenturyLink’s Excessive Use Policy includes limits of 150 GB for residential high-speed Internet service plans with speeds of 1.5 Mbps and below and a 250 GB limit for service speeds above 1.5Mbps per month," CenturyLink's Mark Molzen informs me. "The limits do not apply to business-class lines, uploads or assess overage fees." The company says they do not charge overage fees "at this time."

Users are warned by a series of up to three pop up messages telling users they've exceeded their allowance and urging them to upgrade to faster residential or business plans. Those warnings didn't appear to help this visually impaired user in our forums, who had his line disconnected but says he couldn't read the warning pop ups. He also denies CenturyLink's charge that he was consuming in excess of 30 terabytes each month.

As we've explored previously, Qwest had a history of kicking users off of the network for "excessive usage," without bothering to clearly tell customers precisely how much usage would bring down the hammer. CenturyLink's clear caps are preferable to Qwest's old approach, but many users in the forums are complaining that the company does not offer users a consumption meter so they know how close to the cap they're getting.