Comcast data cap could mean bigger bills
As the state and nation continue to wrestle with life amid a pandemic, thousands of Connecticut residents could find themselves facing up to $1,200 a year in additional Internet access charges.
Workers are teleconferencing, schools are learning virtually, municipal officials are Zooming and TV viewers are bingewatching. Computer, cellphone and tablet screens are aglow for work and entertainment, and home Wi-Fi is more important than ever.
But a new a data usage cap to be imposed by Comcast Corp., one of the state’s largest cable television and internet providers, could make that access more expensive.
Consumers may be used to data plans from their cellphone providers — you get this much data for this much money. When it comes to home Internet access, however, we usually consider speed — is it fast enough to stream that movie? — more than how much data it takes to get the movie to our living room.
Comcast’s data cap will be instituted in March for residential customers in Connecticut and other states who don’t have an “unlimited” plan. Those using more than 1.2 terabytes of data in a billing cycle will be charged $10 for every additional 50 gigabytes used, up to a maximum of $100.
Comcast serves 87 towns in Connecticut, including nearly two-dozen in the New Haven area. The Comcast spokeswoman declined to reveal specific numbers for either cable television or Internet subscribers.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Comcast’s announcement raises concern “about the impact these new caps could have on consumers working and studying from home during this pandem
ic.”
“We have reached out to Comcast to discuss their rationale for this change,” Tong said in a statement.
How much data is 1.2 terabytes — aside from being 1,200 gigabytes?
According to Comcast officials, that could be any one of the following:
⏩ Listening to 21,600 hours of nonstop music.
⏩ Watching 500 hours of high-definition television.
⏩ Engaging in 34,000 hours of online gaming.
⏩ Video conferencing for
3,500 hours online for distance learning and/or working from home.
Sounds like a lot, right? It is, especially for one person. But what about a household with 3, 4, 5 or more people all doing some combination of those activities?
Kristen Roberts, a Connecticut-based spokesman for the company, said 5 percent of the company’s residential customers will end up surpassing the cap. And she said those customers use about 20 percent of the company’s residential network capacity to handle data on a monthly basis.
Any data usage overages Comcast customers incur in March won’t show up until a customer’s April bill, Roberts said. She said customers who suspect they will go over their monthly data allotment can upgrade to an unlimited data plan for an additional
$25.
Customers can keep track of how much data they are using each month through Comcast’s MyAccount and Xfinity mobile apps, MyAccount online and the X1 platform, according to Roberts.
Company officials say revenue from the data overage fees will be used to continue to bolster the company’s network. Since
2017, Comcast has spent more than $12 billion to add more capacity and resiliency to its network, according to company officials.
Lon Seidman is a technology expert who reviews technology products on his YouTube channel, LON.TV and the Essex resident believes the company has underestimated what percentage of its Internet service customer base could end up paying the overage fees.
Based on unscientific polling he has done among his face Facebook friends and subscribers to his
YouTube channel, Seidman estimated that as much as one-third of Comcast customers could incur the charges on a regular basis.
“Now, it’s not going to happen every month, but if you have an electronics or gaming enthusiast in your home, you’re going to be far more likely to hit the cap,” Seidman said. “A lot of people don’t realize how much data they use. People are becoming the collateral damage in a shift of media economics.”
As an example, he said that a customer who exceeds the cap and pays $10 for an additional 50 gigabytes could burn through that additional amount of data by streaming just four full-length movies.
“Some people could see their bills go up by as much as $100 per month,” Seidman said. “If the amount of customers that are going beyond what is being proposed for the cap was just 5 percent, I don’t think they would one implementing this.”
High-definition TVs provide a better picture, but also use more data, according to Seidman.
So-called 4K television sets, which provide picture resolution that is nearly movie theater quality, require a larger amount of data than lower definition televisions, he said.
And it’s not even a customer’s choice of online activities that can eat up
data. Regular software updates on computer operating systems and cellphone apps are using some of a customer’s monthly allotment, as well.
“The last Windows update was 2.5 gigabytes,” Seidman said.
Gaming — a popular indoor activity already and more so considering social distancing guidelines amid a pandemic, also can have a significant impact on data usage once the Comcast cap is instituted, according to Seidman.
“Your kid gets a new gaming system and downs four or five games,” he said. “You could easily tear through a half a terabyte.”
Seidman said its somewhat difficult to project the impact online schooling amid the pandemic could have on a customer’s data usage.
“You can’t say with a definitive number,” he said. “Something like Zoom, they say their system uses three megabytes on average (per call).”
Participants in Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, which is designed to make high-speed online service more affordable for people of modest means, also will be subject to the data cap, according to Roberts. But if they believe they may surpass the data cap, they, too, can pay extra for unlimited access, she said.
To avoid paying excess fees or buying the more expensive unlimited plan, Seidman said Comcast customers will have to pay close attention to their usage.
“This is going to be like your phone bill: You don’t know what you’re using unless you’re online all the time keeping track of it,” he said.
And the transfer speed of your access level won’t have an effect on your cumulative usage. Even the slowest data transfer speeds will come with a cap, he said.
“You can be on the slowest data speeds and still blow through the cap,” Seidman said.
For many Internet customers, data usage has increased as they stopped purchasing cable TV service from companies like Comcast, choosing instead to buy only Internet access and take advantage of lower-cost streaming options for their television viewing.
Comcast lost nearly 1.1 million cable subscribers over the first nine months of this year, and Seidman said he thinks the company could be using the new data cap as a tool to retain its cable TV customers.
“They’re losing a lot of television customers, but gaining a lot of internet customers,” he said. “If you’re watching content on their cable system, it doesn’t count against the (internet) cap.”
Customer usage of the internet has been a heavily debated public policy discussion since the start of the Obama administration.
At the center of that debate is net neutrality, the idea of treating all internet traffic data equally, designed to prevent internet service providers from blocking, slowing down or charging extra money for any website, content or application.
Seidman said during the Obama administration the idea of “throttling” — or slowing certain types of data or service for customers who used a lot of data — was made illegal. But the use of data caps was allowed to remain.
When Donald Trump became president, Seidman said the rule regarding throttling was changed, although he said there has been a reluctance among internet service providers to make use of that as a tool.
“They (Comcast) have promised never to throttle,” Seidman said. Using a data cap, he said, allows Comcast “to find a way to monetize their market position.”
“Imposing the cap creates a false scarcity, in my opinion,” Seidman said.
The way Comcast’s business model works is similar to that of other companies that provide both Internet and cable television service, he said. On the television side, Comcast has to pay content providers to air their programs on the cable network. The Internet side of the business is the exact opposite, he said.
“Content providers like Netflix and many other companies pay Comcast for better access to their networks,” Seidman said. “They’re paying to be able to have their content delivered to you at a faster rate of speed.”
In addition to Connecticut, the cap and overage fees are being instituted in Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia and the District of Columbia as well as parts of North Carolina and Ohio. The cap and overage fees already are in place in Comcast’s West and Midwest operations, according to company officials.
In 2020 first-quarter filings, Comcast in April reported a total of 29.5 million residential customers nationwide, with 26.8 million of those being high-speed Internet customers. It was not immediately clear how many of those 26.8 million customers bought only internet access, versus internet access and cable television service.