Are you a residential customer using Comcast’s Xfinity High-Speed Internet service? If so, you can easily monitor your monthly data usage. Historically, Comcast has monitored and capped monthly data usage. As people increasingly stream videos using AppleTVs and iPads and backup the MacBook laptops to the cloud using online backup services, more users were approaching Comcast’s cap. Thus, it can be useful to periodically see how much data your household has been using.

Usage Meter Details

[Update February 2020:  The Xfinity data usage information is now found by logging in to your Xfinity account.]

Beginning in October 2008, Comcast started to cap the maximum amount of data that residential customers could download each month. At the time the monthly cap was 250 GB. If a customer exceeding this limit Comcast would contact them and ask them to curb their usage. In 2012 they apparently suspended the enforcement of this cap while they considered options. Consequently, I periodically monitor my household’s usage. It’s easy to do by simply logging in to your Xfinity account. You’ll be prompted to login to your Comcast account, then you’ll see your current running totals since the first of the month. If you click the View Details button you’ll see a graph showing your data usage for the past 3 months. For comparison purposes, in April and May I used 242 GB. In June it dropped significantly to 53 GB. I’m sure it fluctuates considerably based on what I’m backing up and how many videos I stream. I’ll be interested to see how Comcast implements new data caps or tiered data plans. I’ll also want to see what sort of data caps are imposed, if any, by Gigabit Squared when the start to offer fiber optic-based Internet connections to parts of Seattle in 2014. [Update October 2014: The deal with Gigabit Squared fell through and they will not be coming to Seattle.]

[Update December 2016: Comcast is starting to impose 1TB (Terabyte) monthly data limits in some cities.]