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Comcast Usage Caps Are Now Officially 1 Terabyte

As the company promised back in April, Comcast has officially raised the usage cap in the company's "trial" markets to 1 terabyte, up from the previous limit of 300 GB. The move comes as the FCC has made some hint that it may begin taking a closer look at usage caps, after banning Charter from imposing usage caps for seven years as a merger condition of the company's acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. While the cap has formally been raised as of June 1, users still need to pay $10 per each additional 50 GB of data consumed beyond the cap -- to a max penalty of $200 each month.

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And while customers can still pay Comcast extra if they want to avoid usage caps entirely, users now have to pay $50 per month to do so -- up from the $30 to $35 per month charged previously.

"In our trials, we have experimented with different offers, listened to feedback, and learned a lot," Comcast says of the increase.

As we've long noted, usage caps on fixed-line networks aren't about congestion or financial necessity -- they're about protecting revenues from Internet video while charging more money for the same service. Caps raise rates on existing services, deter cord cutting, and confuse customers, but ISPs like Comcast also exempt their own content from the limits to give these services a leg up in the market (aka "zero rating").

Comcast can't just come out and say usage caps are a blind cash grab, so the company has historically tried to argue that usage caps are about providing users with choice, flexibility, and simplicity.

"We have learned that our customers want the peace of mind to stream, surf, game, download, or do whatever they want online. So, we have created a new data plan that is so high that most of our customers will never have to think about how much data they use," Comcast says of the new, higher limits.

And while the higher 1 terabyte cap is welcome, that doesn't somehow magically change the fact that usage caps shouldn't exist at all on fixed-line networks and wouldn't if consumers had a broader choice of alternative ISPs.

Comcast has slowly but surely been expanding its usage cap markets, hoping the glacial expansion will minimize public backlash (think of the frog in boiling water metaphor, with you being the frog). Claiming the caps are a "trial" also lets Comcast pretend to regulators that caps are about "creative pricing experimentation," and not just a price hike on captive customers in uncompetitive markets.

You can track if your market currently faces usage caps by checking out the Comcast usage cap FAQ.

Most recommended from 54 comments


chrismitt
join:2012-07-09
Orange, CA

17 recommendations

chrismitt

Member

One word for this

Extortion this is why we so desperately need competition in this country

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

7 recommendations

w0g

Member

internet used to cost $0-25 a month unlimited

that was back in the dial up days. for free internet you'd get something like netzero or freewwweb or other service. $9.95 you could easily find cheap dialup. some providers charged $17.95. others $19.95. and the max was about $24.99 for AOL, which was for the extra software and services they provided in-house to subscribers.

as soon as cable and DSL came out, the companies attempted to justify a $29.99 a month price tag because you were technically saving money by not having to tie up a second phone line and it was "always-on."

according to the Huffington Post, the actual price today to offer high-speed cable internet per customer regardless of usage by the customer is $1.23 per month. the price of service however has kept climbing to the price point of $50+ and now with Comcast, they expect to be able to get $60 a month plus $50 a month to bypass the artificial cap. the price of that is now $110. if you pay per GB it might cost $250. for service that costs them $1.23.

it appears that everything going on is a con to jack the price up purely to take in even more money for the same old service that's been around for 20 years and cost just keeps going down.

as you can see, internet is cheap. but there are people out there who want to tap our bank accounts and live for free off us. what enables this is two fold: the republicans own congress and the senate, and FCC/regulators, so prices are not properly regulated nor is service quality. second competition has been nixed as line sharing was thrown out by the republican regulators under Bush sometime around 2004, so companies can set the prices they wish and competitors won't be able to hold the price down. I don't presume installing democrats will fix this problem - because the system has laid to waste and already rotten due to past bad decisions which are hard to undo.
Kuro
join:2014-10-01

7 recommendations

Kuro

Member

Still need accurate readings

They still need to find a way to give out accurate readings. My usage meter on my router is about +-50 GB to what Comcast says I use.
8744675
join:2000-10-10
Decatur, GA

5 recommendations

8744675

Member

I think it's a ploy

I think Comcast is using the unusually high 1 terabyte cap to reduce customer backlash and thwart any FCC regulations regarding usage caps. By providing such an artificially high cap, everyone will think that they'll never use that much and forget about it, and the FCC will back off. Once all the others ISP's jump on the bandwagon and everyone has forgotten about usage caps, they can start lowering the caps without any regulation standing in their way.

rchandra
Stargate Universe fan
Premium Member
join:2000-11-09
14225-2105
ARRIS ONT1000GJ4
EnGenius EAP1250

5 recommendations

rchandra

Premium Member

In what alternate universe...

said by comcast:

so the company has historically tried to argue that usage caps are about providing users with choice, flexibility, and simplicity.

In what alternate universe is a varying bill "simple?"

Cake_Eater
join:2016-05-02
Port Ewen, NY

2 recommendations

Cake_Eater

Member

Let me correct that..

said by comcast:

"In our trials, we have experimented with different offers, listened to feedback, and learned a lot about how much we can get away with."

Pretty sure that was the full comment.