Comcast Corp. will delay a planned price increase based on customer’s data usage until July 2021 in its Northeast division, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Wednesday.

Comcast, which is based in Philadelphia, has reversed course after announcing in November it would charge more for heavy internet usage for Xfinity customers in the Northeast division, which includes Pennsylvania households.

The price increase, which some customers would have started seeing on their bill in May, has been pushed back until July 2021 and won’t show up in charges until August.

At that time, the company plans to start charging customers for data used over a certain threshold. Without an unlimited data plan, customers could use up to 1.2 terabytes of data each month, Comcast said. After that, it would charge an additional $10 for every 50 gigabytes of data.

Customers will be notified when they reach 75%, and then 100%, of the 1.2 terabytes of data, a spokesperson for the company said Wednesday.

Comcast maintains that only about 5% of its home-internet customers exceed that limit and says 1.2 terabytes is enough data to watch 500 hours of high-definition video or video conference for nearly 3,500 hours a month.

“We are providing customers in our Northeast markets with additional time to become familiar with the new plan,” Comcast said in a prepared statement. “Customers in these markets now have six months to understand their data usage, and the earliest that the very small percentage of customers who exceed 1.2 TB of data could have any charges due under the plan is August 2021.”

The decision to implement a data threshold is meant to align Comcast’s Northeast division with its footprint across the rest of the country, the spokesperson said. The threshold is already in place in other markets.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated data usage as people are working, learning and socializing digitally, but many of us were already upping our usage before the virus began to spread.

By 2020, median monthly usage by broadband subscribers was set to surpass 250 gigabytes for the first time, according to an analysis from OpenVault, a Hoboken, N.J., broadband software firm.

By the end of 2020, OpenVault predicted 12% of all subscribers would use more than 1 terabyte per month and 1.4% would reach more than 2 terabytes.

As of December 2020, Xfinity Internet customers’ median monthly data usage was 346 gigabytes during the past six months, according to data from Comcast.

“As Pennsylvanians continue to navigate this pandemic, we know millions are relying on the internet for school and work more than ever,” Mr. Shapiro said in a prepared statement. “This is not the time to change the rules when it comes to internet data usage and increase costs.”

As of Wednesday, Mr. Shapiro’s office has received 21 complaints about Comcast and its announcement to implement a data threshold.

Under a set of commitments between Comcast and Mr. Shapiro’s office, the company will also:

• Waive any early termination fees normally charged for customers who opt out of a service through Dec. 31, 2021. This applies only for customers who entered into a term contract prior to November 2020.
• Forgo the data threshold on low-income users who are enrolled in the Internet Essentials program, a Comcast service that offers discounted connectivity. This will last through the end of 2021.
• Disclose data threshold information more prominently in the contract execution process.

Comcast has continued to sign up record numbers of new customers for home internet services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, about 1.6 million new customers signed on for cable communications, Comcast announced on a call with investors in January. High-speed internet customers grew by 2 million last year.

Lauren Rosenblatt: lrosenblatt@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1565.

This story was updated at 12:30 p.m. on Feb. 3 , 2021

First Published: February 3, 2021, 3:38 p.m.