Comcast to apply 1.2TB data cap across 39 states in early 2021

Comcast’s 1.2TB monthly data cap will reach 12 other states and the District of Columbia as of January 2021. The unpopular policy has already been rolled out across most of Comcast’s 39-state US territory in recent years, and the next expansion will be for the first time It’s time to push the boundaries of all markets in Comcast’s territory.

Comcast will provide “free months” during which new capped customers can exceed 1.2TB without penalty, so the first overage charges for those customers will be assessed based on data usage during the billing period. from April 2021.

Comcast’s data limit has been imposed since 2016 on 27 states out of 39 in Comcast cable territory. Unlimited portions of Comcast’s network include the northeastern states where the cable company faces competition from Verizon’s unlimited FiOS broadband service.

But last week, an update from the Comcast website said the cap will reach Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York. , Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia and the District. from Columbia. . The cap will also reach parts of Virginia and Ohio where it has yet to be implemented. In total, Comcast has nearly 28 million residential Internet customers.

On Friday we saw the updated language on the Comcast website. Comcast appears to have removed the update from this Web pageBut a Comcast spokesperson confirmed to Ars today that the data cap will be extended nationwide in January 2021 and said notifications are being sent to customers on their invoices. The updated language of the Comcast website was also kept in a press article by Stop the Cap

today.

Free months for newly limited users

Comcast’s update says customers in recently constrained markets “can take the months of January and February to understand how the new 1.2TB Internet data plan is affecting them at no additional cost. We will pay your bill for any additional data usage charges over 1.2TB during those months if you do not have an unlimited data plan.

That would delay the app until March, but Comcast is also offering all of its customers a courtesy month in each 12 month period. Newly limited customers could start receiving overage fees for their use from April 2021.

Comcast is sure to be criticized for expanding data limits amid the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as the number of cases skyrockets in the United States, pushing more people to work than ever before at home, “wrote Stop the. type.

Extending the data limit will likely lead to more litigation between Comcast and customers. Comcast has always said its data counter is accurate, but has had to correct occasional errors. Customers facing excessive fees often suspect that the meter is wrong. Comcast does not offer its customers any way to independently verify meter readings, and there are no government regulations on broadband data meters to ensure their accuracy.

Unlimited data options

Comcast’s overload fee is $ 10 for each additional 50 GB block, up to a maximum of $ 100 per month. Customers can avoid the overage charge by spending an additional $ 30 per month for unlimited data or $ 25 for the “xFi Complete” plan which includes unlimited data and the cost of renting the Comcast xFi Gateway modem and router. .

Comcast is trying to get customers in recently limited markets to switch to unlimited data before the limits take effect. It’s a bit tricky: Customers who sign up for unlimited data in December or January will be exempt from the $ 30 unlimited data fee until June, the Comcast spokesperson told Ars. People who sign up for unlimited data in February or March will be charged an additional $ 30 fee starting in April.

Comcast does the same with the $ 25 xFi Complete add-on, which essentially combines two fees in one: a $ 14 per month fee for Comcast’s gateway and another $ 11 for unlimited data. Customers who upgrade to the unlimited data version of xFi Complete in December or January won’t be charged an additional $ 11 until June, the spokesperson said. Customers who register later will pay the fee starting in April.

Comcast says limit is for “super users”

The Comcast spokesperson defended the widening of the data cap, saying that “a very small number of customers generate a disproportionate amount of traffic” because “5% of residential customers make up more than 20% of our network” .

About 95% of Comcast’s residential customers use less than 1.2TB per month, with an average customer of 308GB, the spokesperson said. The limit is “for these super users, a very small subset of our customers” and “for these super users we have limitless options,” the spokesperson said.

But Comcast customers would likely use more data if they had no limits. A new study from OpenVault, a provider that sells data usage tracking platforms to ISPs, found that 9.4% of US customers with unlimited data plans exceeded 1TB per month and 1, 2% of the percentage exceeded 2 TB in Q3 2020. For customers with data limits, 8.3% exceeded 1 TB and 0.9% exceeded 2 TB.

Comcast hasn’t provided a clear answer as to why the company decided the time to extend the data cap to more states is now. The spokesperson said that Comcast had spent $ 12 billion to expand its network since 2017 and that the increase in capacity had helped the network run smoothly, even as the COVID pandemic caused a sharp increase in the use of the broadband at home. But Comcast cut investments in its cable division in 2019 and Reduction in cable division capital expenditure again in the first nine months of 2020.

Data caps generate revenue for ISPs

It has been clear for years that Comcast’s data caps are a revenue-generating system rather than a congestion management tool. When Comcast imposed a monthly limit of 300 GB in 2015, a Comcast engineering executive said that imposing the monthly data limit was a business decision, not motivated by technical necessity.

Monthly data caps aren’t useful for managing congestion in real time, as they only apply to a customer’s monthly total rather than really addressing the impact heavy users can have on other customers. during peak hours. Comcast once used a congestion management system to slow down heavy internet users, but it shut down the system a few years ago, claiming its network was strong enough that it was no longer needed.

Comcast began imposing a data cap and overuse charges in some states in 2012. The cap was originally 300GB and was increased to 1TB in 2016.

Comcast removed the data cap for a few months during the pandemic, then raised it from 1 TB to 1.2 TB when it was reintroduced in July. Despite the temporary exemption from the data cap, Comcast boasted that its network could handle use fueled by the pandemic.

A small Maryland ISP, Antietam Broadband, decided to permanently remove the data limits after finding that increased usage during the pandemic was not damaging the network. Antietam also said that customers working from home have switched to “broadband plans that more accurately reflect their broadband needs.” As Antietam’s experience shows, heavy Internet users often pay for faster speeds, allowing ISPs to derive more revenue from heavy users even without a data limit.

As Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Told Ars earlier this year, the pandemic has shown that data caps are not needed to handle network traffic. “Data caps have always been about imposing additional fees on consumers to increase Big Cable’s profit margins,” Wyden said at the time. “Even after the COVID-19 emergency has passed, ISPs should remove unnecessary data limits.”