Comcast blinks

Facing criticism and possible regulatory scrutiny over its use of data caps to manage traffic on its network, Comcast said yesterday it would remove its current 250 GB per month hard cap and replace it with a new, tiered-pricing plan. Under the new plan, users who consume more than 300 GB per month will pay higher fees, most likely in increments of $10 per 50 GB. In some markets, users who currently pay for higher speeds will have an unspecified higher cap before they start incurring additional fees. The higher monthly cap did not placate Netflix, however, which noted in statement that Comcast still will not be counting streaming traffic from its own online services toward subscribers’ monthly data allowance while Netflix traffic will get counted. Public interest group critics of Comcast, like FreePress and Public Knowledge, were similarly unmoved. The only critics Comcast cares about, of course, work at the Department of Justice and the FCC, which did not comment on the move.