(Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Comcast is killing off one of the most loathed limits in residential broadband, its 1.2-terabyte data cap. The Philadelphia cable giant announced new rate plans today that include unlimited data, bundle its Wi-Fi gateway, and don't require a contract.
Steve Croney, Comcast's COO for connectivity and platforms, describes these new "everyday price plans" as "built on simplicity and transparency – no hidden fees, no confusion."
Comcast began showing the new plans on its sign-up pages Thursday morning. The monthly rates largely match those announced when Comcast advertised a rate-lock offer in April:
- 300Mbps downloads for $40 with a one-year lock or $55 with a five-year lock, then $70 a month
- 500Mbps for $55 with a one-year lock or $70 with a five-year lock, then $85
- 1Gbps for $70 with a one-year lock or $85 a month with a five-year lock, then $100
- 2Gbps for $100 with a one-year lock or $115 with a five-year lock, then $130
Upload speeds on those plans will vary by location but should start at 40Mbps. These plans also include one year of Xfinity Mobile wireless service, which combines Verizon's coverage with Comcast's Wi-Fi network.
Competition Is Persuasive
Comcast's data cap, which it calls its "Data Usage Plan," has been a longstanding pain point for its customers, both because it does not reflect underlying capacity limits of its infrastructure and because it can be so difficult to tell which site, app, or service pushed a multiple-computer household over 1.2TB.
Comcast maintains this policy on most accounts outside the Northeast, where Verizon's Fios fiber service has provided strong competition, and in the few areas where Comcast offers "X-Class" service based on upgraded infrastructure. After a one-month grace period, exceeding that threshold incurs a surcharge of $10 for each extra 50GB, up to $100 a month.
Subscribers could also pay an extra $30 a month for unlimited data or opt for a premium bundle of Comcast's Wi-Fi gateway that includes unlimited data for $25 a month.
The company began enforcing a data cap in 2008, when it set that limit at 250GB. Four years later, it raised that to 300GB, then lifted it to 1TB in 2016 and inched it up again to 1.25TB in 2020 after suspending it entirely during the early months of the pandemic.
The opaque presentations of data caps by Comcast and other providers—a 2021 survey found that 48% of affected subscribers didn't even know they had a cap—contributed to the FCC requiring internet providers to break down those and other fine-print points in standardized broadband labels.
In 2023, the commission also launched an investigation of data caps under then-Chair Jessica Rosenworcel. Current chair Brendan Carr has since invited telecom firms to tell the commission what rules they would like to delete, resulting in requests to have the FCC drop that inquiry.
Competition, however, seems to have been persuasive enough for Comcast. After years of growth, Comcast and other cable providers have seen millions of subscribers flee to cheaper fixed-wireless broadband services that don't include data caps and offer simpler and cheaper pricing.
Both fiber and fixed wireless services dominated PCMag's latest Readers' Choice awards for broadband service, while Xfinity earned a score of 6.7 out of 10. In our latest ranking of the Best Major ISPs, Xfinity comes in third behind Google Fiber and Verizon Fios Home Internet.
Last May, Comcast responded partially to this customer discontent by introducing a line of prepaid plans that ditched data caps. In April, company executives admitted on an earnings call that their pricing was too "opaque" and pledged to offer plans with "less complexity and friction."
But for subscribers on older Comcast plans with that data cap in place, one bit of friction remains: To get out of that 1.2TB box, they'll need to change to one of the newer plans.