Andre Yoskowitz
16 May 2014 22:52
According to Comcast executive David Cohen, the U.S.' largest cable and Internet provider is looking to make bandwidth caps mandatory for every customer within the next five years.
Within the time frame, Cohen says he expects the company to move completely to the controversial "usage-based model."
"I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that 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 by the usage-based billing plan," Cohen added. "I don't think that's the model that we are heading toward, but five years ago I don't know that I would have heard of something called an iPad. So, very difficult to make predictions."
Comcast started testing a 250GB bandwidth cap in a few pilot cities in 2011, but it did not go over too smoothly with the greater population. The company is still testing in certain cities, but with larger 300 or 600GB caps. In some places, Comcast offers a ridiculous 5GB 'flexible' data account where subscribers get a credit back to their accounts for every month they stay under the amount, and pay overages if they can't.
The company is trying to acquire Time Warner Cable, which is the second largest cable company in the U.S., making the caps almost a guarantee for most Americans if the deal is allowed to go through.
Source:
Verge