Comcast & The Cable Industry Greets The New Year With A Flurry Of Price Increases
from the we-don't-have-to-compete,-we're-the-cable-and-broadband-industry dept
What do you do when you're faced by an existential, evolutionary shift that threatens your entire, overly-comfortable industry? Why you raise rates, of course! Comcast is one of six cable providers who have informed customers that they've raised the rates for the new year, despite the record-setting shift toward cord cutting during 2017. Everything Comcast offers is seeing price hikes of some kind, ranging from increases in the company's traditional channel bundles, a price increase for Comcast's standalone streaming platform, and even the fee charged for renting a modem (which is now $11 per month).
Comcast's even jacking up the obnoxious fees it's currently facing several lawsuits over. That includes the "Broadcast TV fee," which is simply a part of the cost of doing business (paying for content) buried below the line, letting Comcast advertise one rate -- then sock consumers with another price entirely once the bill comes due. That fee, which Comcast has insisted is just its way of "being transparent," was just $1.50 when introduced in 2013 -- and will be bumped to $8 per month in the new year:
With cord cutting setting records, why doesn't Comcast feel the need to actually adapt to changing markets? It doesn't have to. The company is securing a bigger monopoly over broadband in a growing number of markets thanks to telcos that no longer think it's worth it to upgrade aging DSL lines.
That means there are more markets than ever where if you want a decent broadband connection that meets the FCC's 25 Mbps definition of broadband, Comcast is your only option. As a result, Comcast knows that it can simply jack up the cost of broadband as well to counter any TV revenue losses without being punished by the pesky nuisance of competition. This, of course, includes Comcast's implementation of arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees, which have proven a handy weapon in hamstringing streaming alternatives. It doesn't take an economics degree to know that when you're the only provider in a market for a product that many feel is a necessity, that prices will rise quickly.
Publicly, Comcast and other cable providers will lay the blame squarely at the feet of broadcasters, who consistently demand higher and higher rates for the same product. But that ignores the fact that Comcast is a broadcaster (NBC Universal, several regional sports networks), and is jacking up pricing on numerous services, hardware rental costs, and other products that have nothing to do with the cost of programming.
Granted, with the Trump administration laying the groundwork for gutting federal and state oversight of an already quite dysfunctional and broken cable and broadband market, you can expect a lot more where this came from over the next few years.
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Filed Under: cable, competition, fcc, fees, internet access, price hikes
Companies: comcast
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DSL would have to do quite an upgrade
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Re: DSL would have to do quite an upgrade
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Re: Re: DSL would have to do quite an upgrade
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Re: Re: Re: DSL would have to do quite an upgrade
Go to their website. They're lowest plans start at 25 MB up to 1GB
Of course that all depends on your area. I pay for the 25 service ($45) but only get 3MB because the lines are so old. But still have to pay their lowest rate plan as they do not offer a 3MB tier.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DSL would have to do quite an upgrade
so is that what you are getting or are you getting only 3 Mbps (366 KB/sec)
so i just want to make sure your units are not being mixed up.
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Re: Didn't TV Guide magazine used to be delivered free to your door?
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Re: Re: Didn't TV Guide magazine used to be delivered free to your door?
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Perfect timing
One other funny thing - Spectrum cable modems are FREE! By that, they mean that they got tired of people using their own modem to avoid rental fees, so now it's baked into EVERYONE'S bill, whether you use it or not. How's that for customer service? :D
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Re: Perfect timing
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Re: Re: Perfect timing
That the model isn't sufficiently safe or economically better for the users to notice is tied to the upgrade-negligence that is making the economics of keeping worn, corroded copper lines in use the thing to do.
Pirates and their burried copper-treasure...
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Re: Perfect timing
If the such threats fails to keep up their cable subscriptions, they will start bundling Internet services into their various cable TV packages. The more you want to stream, the bigger your cable subscription will need to be.
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Re: Re: Perfect timing
Start? That's what caps are for.
'Sure you can use those other, competing services, but keep in mind if you use them too much it's going to start costing you extra. On the other hand, our stuff is cap exempt, and as such you can watch it as much as you want without having to worry about adding to your bill. Just something to keep in mind...'
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Possible, but I'd say not likely.
As JoeCool mentioned they seem to be dropping subtlety, but by using caps to hamstring competition they can play the classic 'network congestion/protection from super-heavy users' card in defense, whereas blatantly requiring you pay to access those services would be more difficult to justify, and would involve one fee, rather than an every increasing one if people use them a lot(or more likely multiple people use them on the same connection).
They're greedy enough to do it, but they probably won't as they can get the same result using tactics they already use.
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Re: Re: Perfect timing
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And to think, some people actually believe Comcast will not fuck with Internet traffic as soon as doing so is both legal and convenient.
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cord cutter rate hikes to come?
Also, have that paired with a requiement to rent a modem from them to use the internet. No more customer owned modems.
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Re: cord cutter rate hikes to come?
Last year when I complained about that price increase, the Comcast rep told me that Internet only would cost me more than the double play. The double play package included HBO but dropping it would actually cost me more.
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Re: Re: cord cutter rate hikes to come?
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Don't worry don't vote
Don't worry be Happy
Don't worry bout that additional fee
Don't worry this is the land of the fee
Don't worry be Happy
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flip side
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Re: flip side
Comcast could make the claim, based on economically sound principles, that prices had to be raised to make up for the loss of revenue due to "cord cutting" customers.
The words "downward spiral" come to mind...
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Re: Re: flip side
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Re: flip side
Not sure wtf that means, especially in todays world of total bullshit where some think they can just spew a mouth full and everyone will lap it up.
I imagine that the world economic collapse following the Bush43 presidency was also due to economically sound principles or so they would have you believe because certainly they did nothing wrong.
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Re: flip side
Sooner or later they'll either figure out how to operate in the modern economy or they'll fail so hard they have to be bailed out with taxpayer money, not because cable content is important but because the internet is. If we're lucky that will happen under a liberal government that isn't afraid to heavily regulate the provision of a service as important as internet (as it has with water, power and telephone).
"The free market will fix all the things" is a wonderful sentiment but entirely inapplicable to the cable industry.
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Like ripping off a bandaid we might as well get this cord-cutting out of the way by making Comcast etc simply too physically expensive for 99.99999999999% of the population.
Then we get the big Comcast Crash now instead of in 2019 or 2020 and as they burn screaming (and we roast marshmallows on it's financially ruined flaming corpse) we can get proper internet access that isn't spied on, censored or has adverts inserted/changed at a whim.
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Cord Cutting
TRY IT...YOU WILL THANK YOURSELF, and spend the money on YOU!
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Re: Cord Cutting
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I live in a Comcast regional monopoly.
I may end up having to switch to my phone's service and tether.
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I will drop xfinity and tether with my phone I’ve already looked into it and it will save me more than xfinity is worth being it on Comcast
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Legal attack
How about passing a law that requires telecommunications companies to offer the same prices to existing customers as to new customers?
Also, prohibit contracts with early termination fees. Make them month to month.
Also, mandate that consumers can purchase their own equipment from any supplier rather than only from the cable company?
Do these things and they will really have to compete on price.
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