TechDirt: As Comcast Broadband Usage Caps Expand, Company Still Refuses To Admit They Even Have Caps

Low, punishing data caps are little more than a license for price-gouging. We need to make them a thing of the past. Article by TechDirt Like the boiling frog metaphor, Comcast continues to slowly deploy usage caps in a growing number of uncompetitive markets in the hopes that nobody will notice until it's too late. As noted previously, Comcast has started imposing a 300 GB monthly cap in more than seventeen "trial" markets, after which users have to pay $10 for each additional 50 GB of usage. In a most recent wrinkle, the cable operator has also started offering users the honor of paying $30 if they want to avoid these usage caps entirely. It's a glorified rate hike on what's already some of the most expensive broadband in the world. 

Low, punishing data caps are little more than a license for price-gouging. We need to make them a thing of the past.

Article by TechDirt

Like the boiling frog metaphor, Comcast continues to slowly deploy usage caps in a growing number of uncompetitive markets in the hopes that nobody will notice until it's too late. As noted previously, Comcast has started imposing a 300 GB monthly cap in more than seventeen "trial" markets, after which users have to pay $10 for each additional 50 GB of usage. In a most recent wrinkle, the cable operator has also started offering users the honor of paying $30 if they want to avoid these usage caps entirely. It's a glorified rate hike on what's already some of the most expensive broadband in the world. 

Amusingly, for some time now Comcast spokespeople have been scolding any reporters that call these restrictions a "usage cap," in the belief that changing the terminology will somehow fool the public into thinking paying more for the same service is somehow reasonable. No, states Comcast, it doesn't impose usage caps -- it delivers friendly neighborhood "data thresholds" that provide greater "choice and flexibility." 

This week the company's usage caps went live in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and the Keys, and once again Comcast spokesfolk are making the rounds trying to force journalists to adhere to specific lingo when discussing the plan:

"Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman, argues that its wireless-style plans aren’t a cap. A true cap, he argues, was what Comcast implemented in 2008 when it told users that if they used more than 250 gigabytes per month they would be first warned and then cut off from service. That plan ceased in May 2012. Comcast insists that its offering since then is better described as a “data usage plan.” “We don’t call it a cap,” Douglas says. “We call it a data plan just like wireless companies have data plans."

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