Comcast is making a major change to its broadband data caps, one that will no doubt be welcomed news to cord-cutters.
Marcien Jenckes, Executive Vice President, Consumer Services, Comcast Cable, said that starting June 1, Comcast is raising its broadband data cap in all of its trial markets from 300GB to 1TB (1,000GB), regardless of the speed of their plan.
Jenckes said more than 99 percent of its customers do not come close to using a terabyte of data each month. In fact, it claims the typical customer consumes about 60GB each month.
For the roughly one percent of heavy data users, Comcast will offer an option to upgrade to unlimited data for an additional $50 per month. Conversely, customers can purchase additional buckets of 50GB of data for $10 each.
1TB of data is honestly more than I would have anticipated from a "courtesy" cap increase. According to Comcast, it's enough to stream about 700 hours of HD video, play 12,000 hours of online games and download 60,000 high-res photos in a month.
It's hard to view the development as anything but great news, especially for cord-cutters like myself that have exceeded the 300GB cap on more than one occasion as a result of streaming content from services like Netflix, Hulu and Sling TV on a regular basis. For most users, 1TB should be plenty although once 4K streaming becomes the norm, data caps will once again need to be adjusted.