Cox Is Dramatically Increasing Its Usage Caps

(Updated with confirmation from Cox). Cox Communications appears to have dramatically increased the company's usage caps on all of its broadband tiers. Users in two different threads in our forums indicate that the company's usage meter informed them of the notable allotment increases, starting earlier this week. Cox's website still lists the older caps, but these are the changes from what I can gather from user experience:

• The50 Mbps tier has seen its usage allotment increase from 250 GB per month to 350 GB per month.

• The Premier 100 Mbps tier has seen its usage allotment increase from 300 GB per month to 700 GB per month.

• The Ultimate 150 Mbps tier has seen its usage allotment increase from 400 GB per month to two terabytes per month.

It's unclear so far what changes are being made to the company's Essential 15 Mbps tier, or its limited-availability 1 Gbps "Gigablast" service offering. It's also unclear if these increases are being deployed to all markets simultaneously. The company's caps were last increased back in 2013.

I've reached out to five different Cox PR representatives for comment, but each one was either on extended leave, on vacation, or attending the cable industry's Internet & Television Expo this week and unavailable (Update: I did get a formal confirmation from the company, but am still waiting on additional details). I'll post additional specifics once I'm able to formally confirm them.

Users that cross these threshholds are usually nudged to faster tiers. "In rare cases of extremely high usage," the company's website insists, "Cox will suspend the user's service until they call Cox. In even rarer cases, Cox will terminate a customer's service if they do not decrease their usage after consultation with Cox."

Update: Cox has confirmed to me the changes, which are officially:

• Starter 150 GB/month

• Essential 250 GB/month

• Preferred 350 GB/month (the most popular plan)

• Premier 700 GB/month

• Ultimate 2 TB/month