Data tiers and caps are commonplace on cell phones. But as our insatiable demand for online video grows, data caps are becoming increasingly prevalent on consumers' home Internet connections too.

In many regions across the country, Comcast has begun testing new tiers of data caps, which start at 300 GB a month and go up to unlimited, depending on the plan. Customers are charged $10 for every extra 50 GB they use over their cap.

Comcast also offers a "Flexible Data Plan" in certain regions, in which customers get a $5 credit if they use less than 5 GB of data per month. If they go over, they'll be charged $1 per GB.

Comcast this week added Little Rock, Arkansas; Shreveport, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Galax, Virginia, among other cities, to its growing list of regions with broadband data caps.

The news was first reported by industry blog DSL Reports.

Comcast technically has a 250 GB cap for all customers, but it stopped enforcing it in 2012 to implement the new data cap trials.

The company notes that 300 GB is a lot of data, allowing customers to stream 117 HD movies, download 5,500 hours of music, make 86,000 minutes of FaceTime calls, upload 20,000 photos or send 585 million tweets.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/06/technology/comcast-data-cap/index.html