Comcast Escapes FCC Wrath With 1TB Data Caps, Taunts Users With $50 Unlimited Data Money Grab
And it’s not just customers that are fed up with data caps; the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also let it be known that it won’t tolerate such nonsense. In fact, the FCC stipulated that in order for Charter to win approval for its Time Warner Cable acquisition, it cannot impose data caps on customers for the next seven years.
Comcast apparently sees the writing on the wall, and is easing up a bit on its customers. Instead of imposing 300GB monthly data caps on its customers, it has raised the limit to a more generous 1TB. “As the world changes and the Internet evolves, so do we,” writes Marcien Jenckes, Comcast Executive Vice President for Consumer Services. “A terabyte is an enormous amount of data. It’s far more than most of our customers will ever use in a month. Today, more than 99 percent of our customers do not come close to using a terabyte.
“We’ve always said that we’d look carefully at the feedback from our trials, continue to evolve our offers, and listen to our customers. We’re currently evaluating our plans to roll this out in other markets, we’ll keep listening – and we'll be open to making further changes in the future to deliver the best high-speed data service to our customers.”
While this definitely gives heavy hitters that like to stream a lot more breathing room (namely Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video subscribers), dispensing with the data caps altogether would have been an even more palatable solution. However, considering that there is very little overlap in which Comcast competes directly with Charter-Time Warner Cable in markets across the country, there’s really little incentive for the company to completely open the floodgates just yet.
For those currently in 300GB trial markets, plans will automatically be switched over to the higher 1TB limit starting June 1st. The 1TB data cap applies to all data speed packages. If 1TB still isn’t enough data for you, Comcast will gladly charge you an additional $50 a month to have truly unlimited internet (that’s actually a $15 increase from the previous $35 fee). For those that creep past their 1TB allowance, but don’t want to pay the outrageous $50 unlimited data fee, you can buy additional 50GB buckets at $10 each.
