Comcast Delays Data Use Charge As NJ Parents Cry Foul In Pandemic

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Jeanna Zimmerman started getting the text messages from Comcast in January, warning that her internet usage was nearing the data threshold.

If she exceeded it, there would be an additional charge on her monthly service bill, unless she upgrades to unlimited usage.

"I'm a single mother on a very strict budget," said Zimmerman, a Toms River resident whose four children are all attending school virtually in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. "I do not have the option of upgrading my Comcast plan nor can I afford the overage rates."

Comcast's data threshold charges kick in when a customer exceeds 1.2 terabytes of data usage. For each 50 gigabytes of data over the 1.2 terabytes, Comcast would charge $10, up to a maximum of $100 additional per month. The option they offer is unlimited data usage, for cost of $25 per month if you are renting a modem and wifi router from them. For customers with their own modem and router, unlimited data is $30 per month. That charge is on top of the internet access package customers already have.

Complaints about the charges all across the state prompted legislators to get involved. Last week, Comcast announced it will postpone the data overage charge until July, with it first becoming payable in August.

"To give our customers in the Northeast more time to adjust to usage-based billing, we are pushing out the effective date until August," said Jennifer Bilotta, vice president of communications for Comcast. "So no one will actually get a bill for this until August. If someone already signed up for unlimited, they will not charged for it until then either."

The company set the data threshold at 1.2 terabytes after researching usage from March through June, when families were working and studying and learning from home, and says the data threshold is only anticipated to affect about 5 percent of its customers.

Comcast estimates 1.2 terabytes of data is enough to do any of the following:

• Stream about 500 hours of HD video a month — about 18 hours a day;
• Videoconference for 3,500 hours (Zoom, FaceTime, Google Duo, Houseparty, etc.);
• Nearly 1,200 hours of distance learning videos on Seesaw or Google Classroom;
• Play more than 34,000 hours of online games in a month, about 1,100 hours per day;
• Stream more than 21,000 hours of music;
• Ride 390 hours of virtual Peloton workouts.

"(The) 1.2 terabytes is a massive amount of data," Bilotta said. "Our data plan is structured in a way that the very small percentage of our customers who use more than 1.2 terabytes of monthly data and generate the greatest demand for network development and capacity pay more for their increased usage. For those superusers, we have unlimited data options available."

Comcast says it has invested heavily in upgrading its infrastructure across the country to meet the ever-increasing demand for internet access. It also has increased the download speed of its Internet Essentials service, a program for low-income families.

Because of the pandemic, internet access has become a necessity — so much so that the state of New Jersey provided "Digital Divide" grants to school districts to provide internet-capable devices and wifi access to low-income families. Thousands of families were without access when schools first went to remote instruction last March. Now, the number of students without access is fewer than 1,000.

In a letter to state Sen. Troy Singleton of Burlington County, Comcast officials said the company had notified customers of the impending move to charge for extra data usage with letters in their billing statements in November and December.

Some parents said they first became aware of the data threshold when they received the text messages warning about the potential data overages. Those messages went out when they had used 90 percent of the 1.2 terabytes.

Dayna Flores, who lives in Manahawkin with her husband and three sons, said she pays $120 per month for internet access, which she said was spotty.

"Our internet was always cutting out, or the channels were continuously 'buffering,' " Flores said.
The family uses several streaming channels, and from March through June and then September to November, the three boys attended school virtually.

"We used Zoom and Skype and Facetime for work and school and to keep in touch with family and friends," she said. "As of November, my children went back full time, but still have schoolwork on the computer and at any moment, they are forced back to virtual learning. I am forced to work from home during any COVID scare and my husband works constantly from home every single day. In December, my one child was virtual for three weeks and then two more following break."

Their December usage spiked dramatically, she said.

"Our entertainment, our work and our entire life revolves around internet usage. We rely on internet to keep up informed of the scariest time in our history," Flores said.

Comcast said December overall is a high-usage month for thousands of customers because people get new devices and new games. New Playstation consoles with people downloading games to them used extra data.

For Kyra Biddinger of Toms River, who has a first-grader in virtual-only classes, high data usage is an unavoidable part of her life a contractor who works from home. She was paying $110 per month for Comcast's basic cable and high-speed internet with 600-plus mbps download speeds.

"The last three months, I have consistently gone between 1.8-3.2 terabytes, so significantly much higher than the 1.2 (threshold)," Biddinger said. She received the 90 percent data usage alert for the first time Jan. 22, and because of her level of usage she switched over to unlimited data.

But there is a catch to get the unlimited data: you cannot add it by itself, according to the Comcast website. Comcast offers two packages with unlimited data; both require the addition of phone and TV service, and the cost is significant. One package starts at $150 for the first year then rises to $190 after two years, before fees and taxes. The second starts at $170 and rises to $200 after two years.

Biddinger said she is getting faster download speeds and more cable channels along with the unlimited data. But it wasn't a choice she would have sought if not for the data overage charge.

Zimmerman, whose four children are all virtual because one is in the high-risk category, said she was struggling to pay her Comcast bill before the pandemic hit, and is not working because of the risks. Upgrading to unlimited data isn't an option for her.

"What they're doing to people during a pandemic, knowing kids are virtual and people are working from home makes me even more livid," she said. "I should never have to put my children's health and safety at-risk for 8 hours a week just because Comcast wants to take advantage of the situation."

Comcast offered a few tips to manage data usage:

• Make sure you exit out of applications when you're not using them. Netflix, for example, continues to use data if you've paused a show to do something else. If you pause it for a long period of time, it's burning a lot of data. Other applications can continue to use data when then they are left open.
• Make sure no one is using your network without your knowledge. If your wifi isn't password-protected with a strong password, correct that.
• Make sure your wifi password is secure and change it if necessary.

Parents, however, see it simply as greed.

"Comcast is taking advantage of our basic need for internet," Flores said. "And that is what it has become in 2020, a basic need and not even delivering on that! We need internet the way we need electricity and gas. How can they charge more during a global pandemic where we are forced to use their service?"

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