Comcast to subscribers: pay extra or face 300GB data cap

Comcast wants to play a game: pay $30 extra per month, or get your data capped at 300GB and pay extra anyway when you go over that amount. It’s a lose-lose situation for subscribers in the regions where Comcast will be introducing it — if you don’t pay it, you may end up paying more than the $30/month extra in overage charges. If you do pay it, though, but don’t end up using more than 300GB that month, Comcast will just pocket the money and you’ll be faced with the same situation the next month.

According to the Miami Herald, Comcast users located in South Florida will be hit with a 300GB data cap starting October 1. Every 50GB above that data cap will cost an additional $10. If you consume significantly more than 300GB a month, though, there will also be another option: a “premium” alternative that gets rid of the data cap for an additional $30/month.

Customers in the Florida Keys, Miami-Dade region, and Broward were informed of the changes yesterday. Comcast calls the premium plan an “Unlimited Data Option”, and is careful to point out that customers who “use less than 300 GB in a given month will still be charged $30 for that month.” The only exception to this is the Gigabit Pro plan, which will not be subjected to the data cap.

A Comcast spokesperson spoke with Miami Herald about the plan, stating that the ISP’s “medium data use” among customers is 40GB per month, and that “about 70 percent of our customers use less than 100 GB per month.” Ultimately, Comcast says this change will not affect 92 percent of its subscribers. According to Comcast’s reasoning, most people shouldn’t care, but that’s not the case.

As content streaming options increase and more people get on board with cord-cutting services, the amount of data they will use could easily exceed 300GB per month. Those who get their entertainment fix exclusively through Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and more likely already use more than the planned data cap.

Those who don’t opt for the unlimited data option will be provided with alerts and notifications, data usage calculators, and more to help monitor how much data they’re consuming monthly.

SOURCE: Miami Herald

