Covid-19: ISPs pressed to suspend data throttling, fees for overages; some big firms do, but big wireless carriers silent

Many workers are working remotely and students learning from home because of the coronavirus, but that means increased internet and wireless usage. That could cause some people to exceed their monthly data caps, resulting in extra fees and often throttled data speeds.

"Eighteen U.S. senators, all members of the Democratic caucus, sent a letter to internet service providers urging them to 'temporarily suspend broadband caps and associated fees or throttling for all communities affected by covid-19' and to coordinate with schools to provide free or low-cost broadband for students," Jon Brodkin reports for ArsTechnica.  The two Democrats on the Federal Communications Commission support the notion; the three Republicans have not commented.

Comcast, which has a wider rural reach than most internet providers, announced Thursday that it will increase speeds for its budget internet program and will make the program free for new low-income customers for two months, WXYZ-TV in Detroit reports.

AT&T is suspending broadband data caps for home internet customers until further notice, Karl Bode reports for Vice. He also reports that Mediacom is giving all internet customers 50GB of extra data through March 31. Charter and Verizon do not impose data caps or overage fees on home internet customers. 

However, many rural customers rely on wireless for their home internet, and none of the major carriers have said they will suspend data caps or throttling, Brodkin reports.