FCC will pay ISPs to deploy broadband with 250GB monthly data cap

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Henrik5000)

The Federal Communications Commission plans to grant a request from AT&T and other ISPs to make more rural-broadband funding available for slower-speed services with lower data caps.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai initially proposed distributing $20.4 billion in rural-broadband funding to ISPs offering three levels of service: an entry-level tier of 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds, with a data cap of at least 150GB a month; a mid-range level of 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up, with a data cap of at least 2TB per month; and a "gigabit performance" tier of 1Gbps down and 500Mbps up, with a data cap of at least 2TB.

But AT&T, Frontier, Windstream, and their industry lobby group urged the FCC to either lower the standards of the mid-range tier or add another tier that would be below the mid-range one. The FCC is complying, with an updated plan that it released yesterday and scheduled for a January 30 vote.