Comcast is raising the bar on its data caps again, this time more than tripling the base amount of data available per month in markets where the company is testing the feature.
Customers in test markets including Florida, Georgia, Maine and Virginia now have 1TB of data per month instead of the 300GB of earlier trials.
However, users in the test markets who want unlimited data will now have to pay $50 per month instead of the $30–$35 charged previously. Users will still be charged $10 for every 50GB over the new 1TB limit.
Comcast said the 1TB limit means 99 percent of users won’t be hitting their limit though. The “typical” customer, according to Comcast, uses just 60GB per month, but tests of the data cap led to more than 13,000 FCC complaints as of December.
“What can you do with a terabyte? A whole lot,” Comcast said in a post announcing the change. “You can stream about 700 hours of HD video, play 12,000 hours of online games, and download 60,000 high-res photos in a month.”
This doesn’t affect users in Seattle and other parts of the country not involved in Comcast’s data cap tests.
The increase is enough to draw approval from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who hasn’t had kind words for the cable giant in the past.
Huge for me as a Comcast customer. Now I'll never be able to watch enough to hit my cap. https://t.co/euhZy9jJhT
— Reed Hastings (@reedhastings) April 27, 2016
The new data cap, or “data usage plan” in Comcast’s parlance, will go into effect in all trial markets starting June 1. Comcast last raised the data cap for its test markets back in 2012, increasing the monthly allowance from 250GB to 300GB.
