Internet bills can always make the sanest people crazy. If you are facing overly charged internet bills so you have come to the right place. After going through a hard time, we have found some tips and tricks on how to keep your internet bill as low as possible.
As per the digital media trends survey by Deloitte’s 14th edition, the number of people who are subscribed to a media streaming service has ticked up in 2020. Adding to this finding, the Statista survey of 2020 also found out that an average American household has at least 10 internet-connected devices running. This means that there is way more internet usage happening than we can imagine.
A high number of internet users will not be a problem if the internet service providers do not enforce data caps with their internet data plans. The big internet names like AT&T Mediacom, Comcast Xfinity, Cox, and a lot more intent service providers are playing with the internet bills in ways that are hard to understand for someone who has little information on how data caps work. If you are living with an internet plan that enforced data caps then browsing downloading and streaming too much can cause you overage charges in your next bill. With some of the internet plans from these internet service providers regarding the data caps, mean that you get a throttling internet speed that will remind you about the month.
While we are not here to create a debate on whether or not data caps are important, but there’s one thing for sure that many of us have no choice but to have them in our internet plans. However, there is always a good strategy for every modern age problem. Following are some of the basic steps that can get you working right from the start.
First thing first: what are the data caps?
Trust us, internet language is not an easy language but we will try making things as simple as possible. Data caps are the limits that your internet service provider set on your monthly internet usage. This comes from the idea that every internet service provider has a limited amount of bandwidth on its network so the data cap helps him or her ensure that no customer takes up more than their fair share of internet bandwidth.
So the lower the data cap is the less activity you will be allowed to do before your internet service provider begins to slow down your internet connection, charge you extra fees, or throttle with your service. In some of the cases, you might face all that is mentioned earlier.
So one way to lower your internet bill is by understanding how internet service providers work. So now that you’re familiar with the basics of data caps and how it works with your internet plans you are ready for some more information.
Which of the ISP enforcers Data cap?
So we have done some research. There are a bunch of internet service providers in the United States that are working on providing exceptional service to their customers like Hughes satellite internet but enforces data caps. We have listed down the internet service providers that are serving up to 10 million billion in the country and are enforcing data caps.
| Provider | Data Cap |
| AT&T | 1TB for DSL plans, 350GB for fixed wireless and unlimited for fiber |
| Cox | 1.28TB |
| HughesNet | 10-100GB |
| Mediacom | 200GB-6TB |
| Rise Broadband | 250GB on some plans, unlimited on rest |
| Sparklight | 350GB-1.5TB |
| Viasat | 40-150GB |
| WideOpenWest | 1.5-3TB for Chicago, unlimited for others |
| Xfinity | 1.2TB |
Time for Education
If like most people you are suffering from data caps from your internet service provider then the first thing you need to do is find if your area is dealing with other internet service providers. It is not that hard. All you need to do is insert your zip code in the zip code bar and you will find all the internet service providers, their deals, packages fees, and much more. This way you can save yourself from a whole lot of hassle by having an internet service provider that does not enforce data caps.
If this is not an option and you are stuck with an internet service provider that imposes data caps then you need to start getting aware of your internet activities and how much data every activity consumed. For example, web browsing can require 3-5 Mbps but streaming in 4k requires 25Mbps. These two activities further require 15-25 MB data per hour for web browsing and 7-8GB for 4K streaming.
Awareness is the Key
Once you are done educating yourself and getting all the information about what data caps are and how they work, you will be able to cut on activities that require a lot more data. Other than this switching to a non-data caps imposing ISP is always a good option.
