Comcast To Offer Unlimited Data In Capped Markets, But It’ll Cost You An Extra $35/Month

After monitoring Internet usage and listening to customer feedback in these three markets, Comcast thinks that it has the solution for customers that routinely use more than 300GB of data per month — charge them a flat monthly fee to upgrade their accounts to unlimited data.

So instead of paying $10 for each 50GB increment that Comcast’s “heavy data users” consume over their 300GB allowance, customers would instead pay an additional $35 on top of the existing Internet charges for the luxury of having unlimited data. There’s one thing to consider, however; if you’re going to opt for paying $35 a month for unlimited data, you had better be exceeding its regularly month after month. We say this because there are no givesies backsies when it comes to that $35 fee.

Comcast writes in its FAQ:

If you enroll in the Unlimited Data Option, you will be charged the current additional fee of $30-$35, depending on area, for every month or part of the month the option is in effect. This fee will not change based on your actual usage, whether it is above or below 300 GB.

The troubling thing about this whole unlimited data scheme is that we wouldn’t put it past Comcast to transition all of its Internet customers to metered connections with the option to pay extra for unlimited data. And if Comcast starts toying with a wide scale rollout of metering, you can bet your bottom dollar that its major competitors will eye a move in that direction as well.

But then again, there’s always the “other” guys like Google Fiber and municipal Internet if you’re lucky enough to have access to those options.