As we become more reliant on the Internet in our daily lives, chances are we are using more data in order to perform these tasks. Although you might not be aware, some home or office internet services do not offer an unlimited bucket of data, instead, limiting how much you can access on a monthly basis, similar to your contract with your cellular provider. This might sound a bit foreign, but internet providers in the United States are slowly imposing data caps on their customers, requiring them to pay more if they exceed it.
While Cox isn"t as big a company as Spectrum, the firm does operate in a number of states and has about six million residential and business customers. According to a report, Cox is now charging overage fees in Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. This action is nothing new for the company as it was already charging overage fees in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, and a few other states. But, the folks that live in the new markets will probably need some time to adjust to the changes. Oddly, it seems that not all customers are being treated the same, as those that reside in California, Rhode Island, and Virginia have somehow been glossed over by the firm and have managed to avoid being charged for overages for now.
This is a bit of an issue since we are starting to creep into the age where media consumption is at an all-time high. As time passes, that same media will continue to get better in quality, requiring more data. For example, if you are planning to play Forza Motorsport 7 on the Xbox One X, the download is expected to be around 100GB, while a download of Destiny 2 is set to be under 68GB. If these two were downloaded in the same month, you"d be roughly looking at a fifth of the 1TB data allowance available in a month. This doesn"t even consider the rise of 4K media which is slowly becoming more common on services like Netflix and YouTube.
But, if you do happen to hit the cap, you won"t be subjected to a life without internet. Cox will charge those who need more an additional $10 for 50GB of data. While most people probably don"t ever reach their cap, this could become a very sticky situation a couple years down the line.
Source: Ars Technica | Image via Cox