Cox customers are worried that the company intends to dramatically expand enforcement of the company's usage caps. Over the years Cox has employed what's commonly known as "soft" caps, or caps that are only enforced in some locations on select customer accounts known for extremely heavy consumption. But about a year ago we exclusively reported that Cox was ramping up tests that would both impose hard caps, but charge users the increasingly-standard $10 per each additional 50 gigabytes consumed.
Users in our
Cox forum seem to believe those tests may be wrapping up and a more serious enforcement could arrive any day now.
Cox's Data plans and usage website appears to have been recently updated and fleshed out. As it stands, caps range from 200 GB (for the company's 5 Mbps service offering) to two terabytes for Cox's slowly expanding "Gigablast" gigabit broadband service. Users note that the usage cap assigned to its top-shelf "Ultimate" 200 Mbps broadband tier was recently dropped from 2 terabytes to 1 terabyte to help push these users to gigabit speeds.
Customers complain they were given no warning of the changes by Cox.
"The change was made this week to more consistently reflect the increased speed and usage allowances included with each Cox Internet package," Cox confirmed to DSLReports.com. "Ultimate now includes 1 TB of data usage and our Gigablast package includes 2 TB. These changes are effective in all markets where these speeds are available. It is important to note that current Cleveland customers are grandfathered with the 2 TB data usage allowances on the Ultimate tier."
The company previously stated it was only enforcing overage fees in the company's Cleveland, Ohio market, but it seems likely that the restrictions will expand to all Cox markets before long. A customer support script obtained exclusively by DSLReports urges customer support employees to tell annoyed customers in the Cleveland trial market that the company's pursuit of higher rates is about "fairness":
quote:
"Data usage plans promote fairness by asking the high capacity Internet users to pay a greater share of network costs. Some critics of data usage plans push a flat fee pricing model, meaning that users would pay a flat fee whether they simply use the Internet to surf the web and check email or if they are a “super user” and consume copious amounts of bandwidth.Data usage plans are a far more fair approach, giving consumers a choice based on their personal needs rather than forcing all customers to absorb the network costs incurred by the 5% of customers who exceed their allowance."
In reality, American consumers already pay some of the highest prices for broadband services in the developed world (OECD
data), and usage overages aren't about "fairness," they're about protecting TV revenues from the inevitable rise of Internet video. Similarly, consumer advocates have argued that if just "5%" of users are causing problems, why not push those users to business-class tiers, instead of imposing surcharges on your entire userbase? The answer is that usage caps are about one thing and one thing only: raising rates on uncompetitive markets where users can't flee to cheaper, better service.
Insiders have told me Cox is planning to move forward with usage charges for all of the company's markets depending on the success of (read: customer response to) this initial Cleveland trial. Cox however says an expansion is, at least, not "immediately" imminent.
"We have no immediate plans to extend the trial beyond Cleveland," Cox told DSLReports.com.
Cox customers worried about an expansion of Cox's policies may find it useful to
file a complaint with the FCC, as well as voicing their disapproval to Cox directly.