A Comcast executive revealed this week that the company expects to roll out a “usage-based billing model” over the next five years, meaning a monthly cap on consumers’ use of Internet data and overage charges for exceeding it.
Then the Internet blew up with furious commentary from customers.
There are plenty of them out there. If its planned merger with Time Warner Cable is approved by regulators later this year, Comcast will have a combined 30% to 35% share of the US market for Internet services.
David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, wasn’t just putting out a feeler at the communications industry meeting in New York. Comcast is already testing usage-based billing in some parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Its Flexible-Data Option is capped at 300GB of data per month, with a $10 fee for each additional 50GB of data.
