Americans Working From Home Face Internet Usage Limits

The coronavirus pandemic led millions of Americans to turn their homes into offices and classrooms. It also forced many to change their habits to keep their internet bills in check. The amount of time consumers spend streaming TV, gaming and using Zoom or other videoconference platforms substantially increased since the start of the pandemic, activities that often eat up large amounts of data. The practice of limiting the internet usage of customers and charging heavy users more is common among many of the nation’s internet providers. Doing so partly helps offset the revenue lost from subscribers abandoning their traditional pay-TV plans in favor of internet-based options—a phenomenon known as cord-cutting. Users who consistently need more data are encouraged to upgrade to a pricier plan. Data caps also help keep the prices of internet packages stable by shifting the extra cost to heavy users, according to Mark Trudeau, chief executive of broadband-data firm OpenVault, which tracks more than a million U.S. subscribers. “It protects the majority of subscribers from having rates raised every year,” he said.