Comcast Plans to Cap Everyone's Data

Comcast is reviving the idea of Internet data caps, and intends to roll them out to all of its customers in the coming years. At a conference yesterday, Executive VP David Cohen said he envisioned implementing "a usage-based billing model" for everyone within five years. Customers would have to pay a fee if they used too much bandwidth in a month—though Cohen said the cap might be as high as 350 gigabytes or even 500 gigabytes, CNN reports.

Cohen added that Comcast would likely keep increasing that cap over time. "We will always want to say the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated," he said. Comcast is already experimenting with 300-gigabyte caps in some markets, which it once told Ars Technica affect only 2% of users. Basically the move is a shot across the bow at cord cutters, observes Amadou Diallo at Forbes. Comcast "could essentially say, 'Want to drop our TV service? Go ahead. But it’s going to cost you.'" (More Comcast stories.)