On May 18th, 2023, Spectrum’s deal with the FCC to not impose data caps on their customers has come to an end. This means that Spectrum is now able to follow Comcast and others to impose data caps.
Back in 2016, Charter closed a deal to buy Time Warner Cable. This newly merged company became what we know as Spectrum. To get the deal approved by the FCC, Spectrum agreed not to impose any data caps on its internet customers until 2023.
Spectrum has already tried to impose data caps. Back in 2021, Spectrum asked the FCC to allow it to impose data caps before the end of its deal. After it became clear that the FCC was unlikely to approve the deal, Spectrum pulled its request.
Spectrum has recently said it no longer has plans to add a data cap. Back in April in a statement to LightReading Charter, the parent company of Spectrum said that they have no plans to change its data policies when the FCC ban ends next month.
Right now, only a handful of major providers do not impose data caps in some form. Most customers may never go over 1TB of data it is possible.
So can you be a cord cutter and have a data cap? The good news is yes, you can. Streaming Netflix in 4K will go through 1TB of data in about 171 hours. That works out to be roughly 7 hours of 4K streaming every day in a month.
Now, most streaming is not in 4K. With Netflix HD, it works out to be about 500 hours of streaming to hit 1TB. That works out to be over 16 hours of HD streaming every day in a 30-day month.
So now the question is if Spectrum will impose data caps or not. For now, we will have to wait to see what will happen.