In June 2023, FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the FCC was going to investigate the impact of data caps imposed by ISPs on broadband usage. For those who don’t know what a data cap is, it is an arbitrary cap on the amount of home broadband usage in a given month. Most ISPs with data caps charge extra for exceeding a data cap – and customers who won’t pay more typically get throttled to very slow speeds.

Most ISPs don’t use data caps, and most home broadband usage is unlimited. But there are still ISPs that enforce data caps. Here are a few of the larger ISPs that use the practice – there are numerous smaller ones:

• Comcast imposes data caps in some, but not all markets. The data cap is 1.2 terabytes per month, and extra usage is billed at $10 for an extra 50 gigabytes.
• Cox has a data cap of 1.28 terabytes per month, and extra usage is billed at $10 for an extra 50 gigabytes.
• Mediacom has data caps that differ by product. Their smallest data cap is 350 gigabytes per month and largest is 1 terabyte. Extra usage is $20 for 50 gigabytes.
• Sparklight has a data cap on some products. On their slowest products the data cap is 700 gigabytes. Other products have a cap of 1 terabyte. All plans get throttled to very slow speeds if monthly usage hits 5 terabytes.
• Viasat and HugesNet have severely small data caps.
• Cellular hotspots also have small data caps, but FWA cellular doesn’t seem to have a cap.
• Practically all cellphone plans have a data cap, with a separate cap for overall usage and tethering.

The FCC opened a Notice of Inquiry on October 15 to examine data caps. This is an interesting document that talks about the ever-increasing amount of home broadband usage. I’ve written a number of blogs about this issue over the years. OpenVault reported at the end of 2023 that the average broadband customer in the country uses 561 gigabytes per month of broadband – which is download and upload usage combined.

In the NOI, the FCC wants to understand more about the impact that data caps have on customers. This might be from seeing increased costs for exceeding the data cap limit or having speeds reduced. There are different practices that fall under the FCC investigation, including hard data caps, like the ones listed above, soft data caps that ISPs sometimes selectively invoke, de-prioritization where customers that reach a cap may be knocked out of service in times of heavy demand, and throttling where speeds are severely decreased when the data cap is reached.

When the FCC decided to investigate data caps in 2023, the agency opened a portal and asked consumers to tell them stories of the impact of data caps. Consumers can still provide their experiences with data caps at this link.

Consumers almost universally hate data caps. A household that uses more data than the cap can pay as much as $50 more per month for broadband. This is a severe penalty if you consider that every network engineer I know scoffs at the idea that there is an incremental cost from using reasonable amount of extra broadband in a month. If there is a cost, it is pennies, not the large fees charged for exceeding data caps. It’s clear that data caps are a way to increase revenues, not to protect networks.

It’s even more painful for customers who hit a data cap and can’t afford to buy more data. Speeds can be curtailed to dial-up speeds, which in today’s online world means it’s nearly impossible to connect to websites.

The investigation is interesting, because the FCC doesn’t currently have the authority to do anything about data caps. They would have gained that authority from their decision to implement Title II authority over broadband. But that order is sitting in a court and the FCC is only going to be able to do anything about broadband and data caps if and when they win that court dispute.