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  • September 2016 (Revised October 2016)
  • Technical Note
  • HBS Case Collection

Internet Data Capping Note

By: Shane Greenstein, Lisa Cox and Christine Snively
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:14
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Abstract

In April 2016, U.S. federal regulators approved Charter Communications’ acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC). The Department of Justice (DoJ) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however, stipulated that the new company could not apply data caps or introduce usage-based pricing to its Internet customers for seven years. Over the course of 2015, the number of consumer complaints filed with the FCC had grown to nearly 8,000. The focus of this note is to highlight some of the controversy surrounding data capping, introduce competing claims and outline the durable and inescapable tensions between different outlooks on pricing Internet service.

Keywords

Internet Service Provider; Data Caps; Compression; Technology; Internet; United States

Citation

Greenstein, Shane, Lisa Cox, and Christine Snively. "Internet Data Capping Note." Harvard Business School Technical Note 617-003, September 2016. (Revised October 2016.)

About The Author

Shane M. Greenstein

Technology and Operations Management
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