Comcast Considering Capping Bandwidth Use

Nemo - May 8, 2008 07:13AM in Internet

Comcast Corp. is looking at the idea of officially capping the monthly bandwidth used by customers and charge a fee for those who exceed the limit. This revelation comes on the heels of the announcement of Time Warner's plans to test out tiered service plans in Beaumont, Texas. Comcast has long had an unspoken limit on their 'unlimited service' plans and would caution customers who exceeded the limit, and sometimes terminate service for up to one year for those who abused the policy. The problem was this policy was never publicly disclosed and Comcast only vaguely defined it when pressed. This plan would make those limits official and public for the first time. One idea would be to cap usage at 250GB per month and dun users $15 for every 10GB over that limit. While users are used to unlimited service, the term 'unlimited' most often doesn't mean all-you-can eat. Other providers, such as Cox Communications, have limits in place for some time but those limits are generally clearly defined and communicated to subscribers.