Comcast Expands Data Capping Trials: Why You Should Care

[Commentary] Starting in December 2013, subscribers to any of Comcast’s broadband services in Atlanta or Maine will face a 300 GB limit. Customers who go over the cap will automatically be charged $10 and allocated 50 GB of additional data. Customers will be notified multiple times by email before hitting the cap, and alerted by phone when the 300 GB has been completely used. This trial also includes a “discount” plan just for Economy Plus subscribers, giving those who use 5 GB or less per month a $5 discount off the cost of the regular plan.

300 GB of data is still a lot for today’s median user. Comcast reports that median usage is 17 GB per month. According to the FCC’s 2013 Measuring Broadband America report, however, the median cable broadband user used about 40 GB per month. Many activities that used to happen offline, like watching movies, playing video games, and listening to music, are now moving online. Streaming HD video from Netflix uses up to 2.8 GB an hour and downloading a single video game can be 7 GB or more of your monthly data. And it’s not just entertainment that uses up data: online education including video lectures is just starting to take off. Though data usage is not going up exponentially, there is a clear trend towards higher data consumption by the median user. The fixed costs for Comcast are hardly high, and the system they propose is hardly fair. Digging up streets and installing wires do require a significant up-front investment, but cable providers paid off their fixed network construction costs a long time ago. Data transit costs have been falling for years and are now estimated to be at most a few cents per extra GB. Public statements from Comcast say that it has more than enough capacity for today’s demands as well as into the future. It’s clear that Comcast does not need increased revenue or huge investments to deal with additional capacity. Instead, these kinds of caps just help wireline providers rake in even larger profits and encourage a climate of broadband scarcity. If you don’t live in Atlanta or Maine, this trial expansion may not seem like a big deal at the moment. But it matters because this is a step in implementing a 300 GB cap as the nationwide policy of the largest cable company and internet provider in the US. And once you’re covered by this kind of cap, the fear of using up your monthly data allowance can limit possibilities for innovation in business, communication, the arts, and education.

[Katie Fiegenbaum is policy intern with the Open Technology Institute]