The company’s move, comes as several Internet service providers shift to a new business model allowing them to charge consumers by the bit the way wireless providers do.
As part of a courtesy program, users will not be billed for the first three times they exceed the 300 GB limit, according to emails sent Thursday to users affected by the trial.
Some users also received emails indicating they are unlikely to exceed the 300 GB limit based on their prior usage.
.@comcast you are an evil, terrible company and I can't wait for the data breach that puts you out of business. http://t.co/HxhTn8cE3u
— Dan Woods (@danveloper) September 5, 2015
“To put things in perspective, 300 GB is an extremely large amount of data to use,” said spokesperson Mindy Kramer in an email to the Sun-Sentinel. “The medium data use for our customers is 40 GB per month; about 70 percent of our customers use less than 100 GB per month. … About 92 percent of our customers will see absolutely no impact on their monthly bills. Our data plan trials are part of our ongoing effort to create a fair, technologically-sound policies in which customers who use more data pay more, and customers who use less pay less.”
Sign the petition: Comcast data cap repeal http://t.co/FWTzkhZvKo
— Keith Spurlock (@CybermanInc) September 5, 2015
Still, it’s not hard to imagine more users will move closer and closer to that limit as the Internet dishes out more high-bandwidth goods like streaming HD videos. Some users will also have to deal with downloading content they don’t want like auto-play videos on websites.
Click here for a full listing of zip codes affected by the trial.
