Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) instituted data caps in 16 states last year and is now planning to expand the data cap to more than 12 other states.
Comcast will set the data cap at 1 terabyte of use per month and it claims that it does not expect this data cap to affect its customers in any significant manner. The company believes that a very small percentage of its customers use more than 1 TB of data and thus it will not affect most people.
“More than 99 percent of our customers do not use a terabyte of data… so they can continue to stream, surf and download without worry,” stated the company.
A spokesperson from the firm stated that most customers use roughly 75 GB of data every month. Comcast claims that it is rolling out the data cap for fairness purposes to curb excess consumption. The firm argues that there are some users who use too much data and that such individuals or households should pay more for the excess consumption.
Comcast claims that the 1TB limit is enough for customers to stream HD videos for 600 to 700 hours. They can also stream music for 15,000 hours, play online video games for 12,000 hours and upload or download about 60,000 photos.
“Our data plans are based on a principle of fairness. Those who use more Internet data, pay more. And those who use less Internet data, pay less,” argued Eric Schaefer the general manager of data, communications and mobility services on the internet.
There has been some speculation about why Comcast decided to employ data caps. Some argue that it is an elaborate plan to make people want to keep using cable rather than cord cutting or internet streaming services. The world is shifting towards 4K content and 4K streaming consumes a lot of data. 1TB of data will eventually turn out to be a small amount of data that will be inadequate for cord cutters.
Comcast stock closed the latest trading session at $64.96.