“There isnt a cap anymore. Were out of the cap business,” Executive Vice President David Cohen said in May 2012 after dropping a policy that could cut off peoples service after they use 250GB in a month. Comcasts then-new approach was touted to effectively offer unlimited usage of our services because customers will have the ability to buy as much data as they want. Setting limits on data and charging extra when customers exceed them is precisely the type of scheme that nearly everyone besides Comcast considers to be a “data cap.” It’s the phrase normal people use to describe wireless data plans with exactly the same type of structure. [...] The federal government is investigating data caps in both cellular service and fixed broadband, and the preliminary findings probably wont shock you: data caps for companies like Comcast are more about boosting revenue than preventing network congestion. [...] Why impose the limits? Because charging extra when customers exceed their data limits can generate more revenues for ISPs to help fund network capacity upgrades as data use grows, the [U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) ] wrote. The caps can also push customers to use Comcasts own content services instead of those offered by rivals, since certain Comcast services dont count against the limits. - Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica
Posted on: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 12:52:56 +0000
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