As if we didn’t already have enough reasons to be wary of the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, GigaOM gives us a new one: Data caps. GigaOM points out that Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are the only two major cable companies in the United States that haven’t yet imposed data caps on their customers but that could change if TWC gets gobbled up by Comcast as part of a $45 billion acquisition.
“If we add Time Warner Cable’s 11.6 million broadband subscribers from the end of 2013 into the mix of customers with caps, the total percentage of U.S. homes that have some type of cap or other limit on downloads rises to 78% up from 64% today,” GigaOM writes. “That’s a significant jump, especially after the number of homes with caps plateaued after 2011 when AT&T hopped on board the bandwagon that Comcast started driving in 2008.”
While it’s not a sure thing that Comcast would bring the magic of data caps to Time Warner Cable customers after the merger, it’s a good bet that the company will at least give it a shot, especially since the cable industry as a whole has been trying to sell its customers more aggressively on data caps in recent years.
