Comcast To Remove 250GB Data Cap. Don't Celebrate Just Yet

Following the recent news that Comcast would not count any of its own Xfinity streaming video services against Internet customers’ 250GB data cap, the folks at Kabletown have announced they is doing away with that cap — and replacing it with tiered data plans.

The good news is that the tiers will actually begin above the 250GB level, with everyone bumped up to a 300GB cap.

The bad news is that those who go over that limit won’t be throttled — as Comcast currently does to cap-busters — but will instead be hit with fees for additional blocks of GB.

(The Comcast statement gives an example of $10 for 50GB over the limit, but it’s not clear if that’s merely a possible example or an actual price to be quoted.)

Comcast isn’t exactly set on how it’s going to price those tiers, so it will begin doing trials in some select markets.

Adds the company:

In markets where we are not trialing a new data usage management approach, we will suspend enforcement of our current usage cap as we transition to a new data usage management approach, although we will continue to contact the very small number of excessive users about their usage.

So while we’re glad that Comcast is realizing that more and more people are using the Internet to view data-hogging video, we won’t be able to judge its tiered plan until we actually see the tiers and their respective overage prices.

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