Comcast today announced that it was ending its policy of capping data usage at 250 GB per month. The cap policy has been in place since October of 2008, and has caused many to question the wisdom of a business turning turning away customers for using its product. It was a policy to lighten load on the network in a time when streaming video (a major cause of high bandwidth usage) was relatively uncommon and roused suspicions of piracy. Now, people are much more regularly pulling large-file video content from services like Netflix and Hulu, and the caps make even less sense than they did 4 years ago. And Comcast-affiliated services like Xfinity TV and HBO Go that bump up customers’ usage certainly contributed to the issue and a need for resolution.
Comcast’s new plan includes a couple of trial approaches, as the company determines what will work best.
The first plan is a multi-tiered approach, which would give users of the Internet Essentials, Economy, and Performance plans 300 GB initial allotments, and give higher performance plans, such as Blast and Extreme, higher initial allotments. All plans would have the ability to purchase further blocks of data at prices such as $10 per 50 GB.
The second trial approach starts all plan levels at 300 GB and offers the same $10 per 50 GB for additional needs.
In markets where neither of these trials are in effect, the previous 250 GB cap will simply be lifted. Comcast did not have details on what markets will see which treatments.
Will you use your connection any differently now? Did you worry about having your service cut off due to watching too many movies on Netflix? Let us know in the comments.
Finally a good decision from Comcast
Just another packaging with the same flaw. We should pay for access, how much we access should not be of any concern if network is built properly. Any “overload” is only the sign that ISP planned poorly. Any tiring in price should be by the speed of access.
Example from Comcast main business: there is no extra charge if one subscriber watches HBO 24/7 and another 1 hour per day. Customers there too pays for access of inexhaustible resource (it is not water or electricity that gets used and needs to be produced/replenished).
what a joke, first of all i use far more than 250G a month my average is about 600G a month. if this rate usage goes into play, ouch and good bye to Comcast for good. though i am over the monthly 250G a month, I have never received any warnings from comcast for going over the 250G mark. 10$ for 50GB? bit extreme. 70Kbps constant for a month and you would get nailed for overage charges yet they give you 23Mbps + service? DSL is my 2nd choice and they have 0 Cap. i would take a small hit on the speed (down to 14Mbps in my area) but would have unlimited usage and they would actually be cheaper. Yea for comcast for dropping the cap 250G. and boo for thinking about adding additional charges.
Personally, I’ve only used about 160G in any one month but I’m just one person. I would image that a large family with a couple of teenagers that stream a lot of video would have problems staying under the 250G cap so good for Comcast for lifting the cap. Even though it won’t affect me, I hope they don’t impose a price per gigabyte scheme.