Comcast Forges Ahead With Pay-Per-Byte Pricing, New Data Caps
Comcast is moving forward with a new pricing plan that could discourage subscribers from cutting the cord.
The company's new model imposes data caps that range from 300 GB to 600 GB, depending on the subscription package. Users who exceed the limits will be charged $10 per 50 GB. The broadband and cable provider has already started imposing the new caps in Nashville, Tenn., and intends to start rolling them out next month in Tuscon, Ariz.
In some ways, the plan marks an improvement from Comcast's prior practices. Until May, Comcast imposed a data cap of 250 GB per month for residential users, and suspended service to some users who exceeded their data caps. Currently, most users don't come close to the caps; median data use tends to range from 8 GB to 10 GB, the company said recently. But that's bound to change as more video becomes available online.
Although the new caps are higher and more flexible than the old system, the plan is still drawing plenty of criticism. Comcast hasn't said why it's imposing data caps at all, but consumer groups suspect that the company hopes to prevent cord-cutting by making it more difficult for people to watch unlimited video online. Public Knowledge's Michael Weinberg points out in a statement that the new caps are "still below the 648 GB per month required to replace cable television with Internet-delivered video." (That figure is based on the assumption that people would want to watch eight hours of high-definition video a day.)
Free Press adds that data caps aren't a good way to manage network congestion -- which is a lot rarer these days than several years ago, thanks to recent upgrades. Joel Kelsey, legislative director at Free Press, says that even if Comcast's networks occasionally got bogged down, the company could manage traffic in a more targeted fashion. "There's no reason that a grandmother in Indiana should be capped because they experience congestion in a Philadelphia suburb," he tells MediaPost.
Recent Daily Online Examiner Articles
-
BuzzFeed Slideshow Leads To Copyright Lawsuit June 18, 7:31 p.m.
BuzzFeed has been hit with a copyright infringement complaint that could have a significant impact on ...
-
Can Ad Networks And Advocates Close The Gap On Do-Not-Track? June 17, 7:54 p.m.
Will the World Wide Web Consortium's effort to forge online privacy standards come to naught? Some ...
-
Analyst: NSA Surveillance Will Raise Awareness About Big Data June 14, 6:18 p.m.
The National Security Agency's data collection from Web companies remains top of mind for analysts and ...
-
Ad Group Warns Of Possible Backlash From NSA Surveillance June 13, 6:42 p.m.
For almost one week now, the ad industry has been digesting the revelations that the National ...
-
Cable Companies Try To Prevent New Platforms From Gaining Foothold June 12, 6:45 p.m.
Cable companies and telecoms apparently are so spooked by the prospect of cord-cutting that they're now ...
-
Mozilla, Other Web Companies Lobby To Rein In NSA June 11, 6:50 p.m.
Search engine Duck Duck Go, browser developer Mozilla and social news site Reddit are among dozens ...
-
Will NSA Revelations Bring Added Privacy Pressure To Ad Biz? June 10, 5:57 p.m.
The recent revelations that tech companies are sharing information about users with the National Security Agency ...
-
Universities Garner Support In Battle Against Authors Guild June 7, 5:26 p.m.
A broad array of outside organizations is aligning themselves against the Authors Guild in its lawsuit ...
-
FCC Poised To Vote On Wireless Privacy Protections June 6, 6:38 p.m.
The Federal Communications Commission will vote at the end of this month about whether to issue ...
-
FTC's Ohlhausen: Privacy Regs Could Harm Startups June 5, 6:23 p.m.
Federal Trade Commission member Maureen Ohlhausen reiterated her view that restricting companies from collecting data about ...
Be the first to comment on "Comcast Forges Ahead With Pay-Per-Byte Pricing, New Data Caps"
Leave a Comment