Comcast admits data cap meter blunder, charges wrong customer for overage

(credit: Comcast)

You probably know that Comcast is hitting subscribers with overage charges of $10 when they exceed their 300GB monthly data caps. But can customers trust Comcast to measure Internet usage accurately? The nation’s largest cable company points to research it commissioned showing that its data metering is usually accurate, but one customer who contacted Ars was able to prove that he was being incorrectly accused of using excessive data.

Oleg, a programmer from Tennessee who prefers that we not publish his last name, said he got repeated warnings from Comcast that he was using too much data. But the traffic logs from his router showed that “I was not even close to Comcast’s cap,” he wrote. Oleg described his saga in a Pastebin posting, a YouTube video, and in e-mails to Ars.

Oleg received warnings in September and another in October, the latter while he was overseas for a multiple-week vacation with his wife. When they returned home on November 9^th, Comcast’s data meter was “showing I used 120 gigs of data, like, while I was gone,” he wrote. Customers can check their usage on Comcast’s website.

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