Comcast to delay data cap, surcharges

Cable and internet giant Comcast announced Thursday night it was delaying implementation of its internet data cap and price hike until 2022.

Comcast’s announcement of the further delay came on the company’s website. It was announced just two weeks after the Philadelphia-based company said it would postpone putting the internet data cap with a price hike for those who surpassed it from March until July.

“We recognize that our data plan was new for our customers in the Northeast,” the company’s statement said. “While only a very small percentage of customers need additional data, we are providing them with more time to become familiar with the new plan.”

The company had originally planned to implement the cap starting in March. But after criticism of Comcast’s plan by the attorneys general of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, as well as lawmakers from Massachusetts, the company announced earlier this month it would delay the plan.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the company’s decision to postpone the data cap “is the right call.”

“I have heard from families across Connecticut who easily exceeded this cap while studying and working remotely,” Tong said in a statement released Thursday night. “Far from so-called superusers, these were stories from typical Connecticut families trying to stay employed and educate their children during a global pandemic. To raise rates on these families at the very moment they were most reliant on broadband access and least able to pay more was simply unconscionable.”

Residential customers in Connecticut and other states who don’t have an “unlimited” plan will be given up to 1.2 terabytes of data in a billing cycle. Any data usage in excess of that will have a surcharge of $10 for every additional 50 gigabytes used, up to a maximum of $100.

Comcast, which serves 87 towns in Connecticut, first announced the plan in November 2020. Besides Connecticut, the plan would impact Delaware, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Vermont, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.