Comcast-Time Warner deal means data caps for 75% of Americans

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.

As regulators attempt to sift through the possible public harms and benefits of Comcast’s $45.2 billion plan to buy Time Warner Cable, we thought it was worth showing that if the deal takes place it could lead to a significant jump in the number of broadband subscribers getting a data cap. 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 percent up from 64 percent today.