Comcast has started instituting fees for customers who use large amounts of data with the company’s new “data caps”. Any customer who exceeds the data limit will be charged for it, and the new policy has absolutely nothing to do with preventing so-called “network congestion”. The news comes from a training manual from Comcast that was leaked to the public.
Many people believe that Comcast is enforcing the new policy as a way of making up for the fact that more people are terminating their cable services and switching to exclusively streamed content in order to save money.
Comcast recently introduced 300 GB data limits for internet users in the United States. Should a customer exceed this limit, they will be charged $10 for every 50 GB of data that is used.
Customers can opt-out of these limits and receive a classic “unlimited” plan, but it will cost them an extra $30 every month. Also, Comcast is being very “generous” by not charging their customers overage fees the first few times that they exceed the 300 GB limit.
Some people might believe that these new data caps are a method of preventing “network congestion”, but that is incorrect. Research shows that a large amount of network activity would not slow down the entire Comcast network.
The data caps are simply a new way to milk money out of customers. In fact, Comcast call center employees are being trained to discuss the new data caps in a way that will upset their customers as little as possible.
For one, they are told not to use the word “data cap”. This is because Comcast is doing nothing to actually stop users from going over the limit. In fact, they want customers to go over the limit. Doing so won’t slow down the internet; it will just allow Comcast to charge more money. Instead, they are calling the caps “data usage plans”.
Comcast says that this new policy is about “fairness and providing a more flexible policy to customers”, which really means absolutely nothing. To be fair, the vast majority of internet users never come close to using 300 GB of data per month based on current technology.
However, with bandwidth usage rates quickly rising because of higher-quality 4K streaming content and more demanding gaming and streaming services, it won’t be long before customers will need more than 300 GB per month. When that happens, expect Comcast to offer it with a nice price tag.
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