News

Comcast Stream TV won't affect data caps and bandwidth

Comcast internet subscribers have a strong reason to stick with the company's video streaming service since it won't be counted against users' data cap and it has no impact on bandwidth.

In a report by The Verge, Comcast's new Stream TV won't affect subscribers' data caps, which typically starts at 300GB a month. It also won't have any impact on the internet speed since the company will route the streaming service through bandwidth that the customer is not paying for. This means users can conveniently watch TV without their internet speed slowing down.

According to Digital Trends, Comcast's Stream TV will costs only $15 a month. Subscribers can enjoy a long list of on demand content and live streaming TV from HBO, FOX, and ABC. It doesn't use cable box, but it is beamed to homes through the typical Comcast IP gateway. It seems like the company figured out that the cable TV cord cutters are customers worth chasing after. The company reported 48,000 loss in cable customers in the third quarter, but gained 320,000 more broadband internet users.

In a completely different note, The Washington Post reported that the "unlimited" TV streaming service that Comcast's new Stream TV provides sparked controversy among critics, who claims that the strategy is unfair for competitors and start-ups. Critics claim that it is a violation of net neutrality, as it unfairly favors certain online content, especially their own.

The federal government recently passed the net neutrality law, but hopefully it won't work against Comcast's new Stream TV. The Federal Communications Commission has no exact rule that prohibits cable companies from not putting data caps on certain services they offer.

Comcast spokesperson Lisa Scalzo said, "This is a cable video service" and that it is not a cable Internet service. Comcast claims that Stream TV is an IP cable service delivered through their managed network and not over the internet.


Real Time Analytics