Comcast to raise data limits
Even harsh critic Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, had something nice to tweet about Comcast after the cable giant announced Wednesday that it will soon raise the data-cap limits now being imposed on some broadband subscribers.
Even harsh critic Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, had something nice to tweet about Comcast after the cable giant announced Wednesday that it will soon raise the data-cap limits now being imposed on some broadband subscribers.
In the Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, and Florida) where Comcast has been testing a usage cap of 300 gigabytes per month before the customer has to pay overcharges, the ceiling will be lifted June 1 to 1 terabyte (1,000 gigabytes), said Marcien Jenckes, Comcast Cable's executive vice president.
The revised allowance, more than three times as generous, "is so high that most of our customers will never have to think about how much much data they use," Jenckes said, noting that the typical broadband subscriber now uses 60 GB of data - about 6 percent of 1 terabyte.
To reach the new cap, a user would have to stream 700 hours of high-definition video, or play 12,000 hours of online games, or download 60,000 high-resolution photos in a month.
"Huge for me as a Comcast customer," Hastings responded. "Now I'll never be able to watch enough to hit my cap." Unless, that is, he watches only Netflix content streaming in the ultra-high-definition format (maybe the next big thing), which is far more data-intensive.
Comcast's change of heart comes after a scathing story in the Wall Street Journal detailed how some active video streamers in those trial markets have been forced to ration viewing to avoid overcharges of $10 to $50 a month.
It also follows the just-revealed deal Charter Communications has made with the Federal Communications Commission, vowing not to impose data-usage caps on its customers for seven years as a pre-condition for the FCC's approval of Charter's purchases of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Communications.
The altered stance also may muffle criticism of Comcast's new Web-TV service, Stream, which makes a technical end-run around the data metering imposed on rivals like Netflix, Hulu, and Sling TV.
Comcast has not revealed any data-capping plans for subscribers in its home territory, the Philadelphia area.
215-854-5960 @JTakiff