During a talk with investors Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said that he expects the company to roll out “usage-based billing” within the next five years. What that basically means is that the company is looking to introduce data caps for all of its customers. It certainly won’t be doing something new. Comcast is already enforcing a 300GB limit for all customers in seven states.
The company has over 20 million broadband customers across the country. Those who reside in the seven states where a limit is enforce receive 300GB of data per month. When they go over the assigned cap there’s a $10 charge for each extra 50GB. Though Comcast allows customers to cross the limit for three months out of any 12-month period during the trial for free.
Last November Comcast said that 98 percent of its customers in the U.S. don’t use 300GB of data per month. Since that seems to be the yardstick here Cohen suggests that the company might enforce a 500GB data cap on all customers in the country. Going by Comcast’s estimates, most of its users would never cross the limit in a month.
Comcast is in the middle of an attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable. Its possible that the company might be required to maintain unlimited data plans in TWC’s territory but Cohen doesn’t believe this is something that regulators will be dead set on.
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