Data caps can be very annoying, costing you in the case of Comcast as much as an extra $100. Comcast has always been one of the leaders in the use of data caps that set limits for how much you can use the internet. Now if you go over your data cap, that could add up to as much as an extra $100 per month in fees.
Comcast, on most residential plans, now has a data cap of 1.2 TB of data per month. If you use more than that, Comcast will charge you an extra $10 for every 50 GB of data you use. Comcast says they will cap that at $100 a month if you keep going over your bill.
Comcast says that its 1.2 TB a month of data is enough to do 500 hours of HD streaming, but if you do 4K or have multiple streams going at once in your house, you can burn through that faster than you would expect. According to HighSpeedInternet.com, you can burn through 1.2 TB of data in just 171 hours by streaming 4K video from Netflix. That works out to be just under 6 hours of 4K video per day in a 30 day month.
How to avoid Comcast’s data caps?
There are a few plans that come with unlimited data here is what Comcast has to say:
As of January 1, 2021, the plan will be available nationally. It does not apply to Xfinity Internet customers on our Gigabit Pro tier of service, Signature+ More and Super+ More packages, Business Internet customers, customers with Prepaid Internet, or Bulk Internet agreements.
Comcast does not enforce its data caps in the Northeast markets, including CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, VA, VT, WV, the District of Columbia, and parts of NC and OH. All other areas have data caps.
How much extra will unlimited data from Comcast cost you?
The first thing you need to know is that once every 12 months, you get one free allotment of 50GB of data if you go over your data cap. If you do it a second time, you will be charged an extra $10 a month.
Comcast’s xFi Complete with unlimited data plus its xFi Gateway now costs you an extra $25 a month to have unlimited data. Currently, this extra $25 a month fee is the only way to get unlimited data if you live in one of the states listed above.
How to avoid Comcast data cap fee:
So how can you fully avoid it you have two options first switch to an internet provider without data caps like Starlink, T-Mobile, or Verizon. The second option is to switch to HD-only streaming and monitor how much data you use. For now, with Comcast, those are the only two ways to avoid paying extra for going over your 1.2 TB data cap with Comcast.
You can learn more about Comcast’s data caps on its website HERE.