Comcast once again decided to cut the data limit for some of its customers, Ars Technica reports. Always facingincreasing pressure from customers and legislators, the Internet service provider decided not to impose data limit overuse rates on customers in the Northeast until 2022.
“We recognize that our data plan was new to our customers in the Northeast, and while only a small percentage of customers need additional data, we are giving them more time to familiarize themselves with the new plan,” Comcast said in an ad yesterday.
The most recent change affects Xfinity customers in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
If Comcast pursued its policy, Northeast Xfinity customers would have to pay an extra $ 10 for every 50 GB of data they exceeded the limit after reaching the 1.2 TB limit, unless they signed an unlimited plan, as of last month. These charges would reach a maximum of US $ 100 per month.
Earlier this month, Comcast had said it would not charge excess data fees to customers in those states until July 2021 after negotiations with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The state of Massachusetts introduced legislation last month to temporarily ban ISPs like Comcast to impose data limits on customers in the state until the end of the covid-19 pandemic.
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Comcast also recently increased the speed of its essential internal package from 25/3 Mbps to 50/5 Mbps, starting next month, in response to parents, teachers and students saying that the previous speed was not sufficient for low-income families to attend school virtually. It seems that the setback has worked to make the ISP treat its customers with a little more compassion, but the job needed closing the digital divide is not close to being completed.
As a reminder, the rest of Comcast’s Xfinity customers in non-northeastern states not only still have to worry about data limits, but they are still paying extra fees, although the covid-19 pandemic also affects them. This has been pointed out several times by organizations as Electronic Frontier Foundation that there are no data limits to manage network capacity. They exist to charge customers more money, either in the form of extra fees or by convincing customers to upgrade to a more expensive plan.
So far, Comcast has said nothing about what it will do when the papers occur in January 2022.