Some Comcast customers are subject to 300 GB per month data cap
Many customers may just now be finding out that Comcast caps home Internet use to 300 gigabytes per month. Perhaps more surprising is the company’s rationale. According to a Comcast VP, the practice serves no purpose.
Comcast VP of Internet services Jason Livingood spotlighted the practice when responding to a question on Twitter.
Last week the Twitter handle @CableCares asked Livingood, “Serious question, why are Comcast’s caps set so low compared to the speeds they’re being sold at? 100 Mbps can hit 300 GB in 6 [hours approximately].”
And Livingood’s response: “No idea—I’m involved on the engineering side to manage the measurement systems but don’t weigh in on the business policies.”
That statement has been interpreted by many to mean that the data cap is a “business” policy and not based on any sort of technical imperative.
Based on an investigation from ArsTechnica, Comcast only applies the data cap in portions of its service area. Customers can go over the 300 GB cap three times in a 12-month period. The fourth time a customer goes over, Comcast charges $10 per additional 50 GB of Internet usage.
News outlet BGR reasoned that a very small portion of Comcast customers actually exceed the data cap, but that could change as technology continues to evolve.
“Once 4K video streaming becomes commonplace, for instance, 300 GB of data a month will all of a sudden seem like nothing,” BGR noted. “Putting 4K video aside for a moment, even Apple’s rumored TV subscription service might warrant a reevaluation of Comcast’s data caps. It’s one thing for folks to browse the Web and watch Netflix here and there, but if Apple’s TV subscription service catches on, the amount of video coming down the pipes of all ISPs will be incredibly higher.”
