Comcast Wants A Cookie For Suspending Its Bullshit Broadband Caps For a Few Months
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
For years, Comcast has slowly but surely expanded its pointless and arbitrary broadband usage caps and overage fees into all of its markets (picture the boiling frog metaphor, with you as the frog). And for most of that time, the company avoided doing so in the Northeast where it faces more competition from competitors like (uncapped) Verizon FiOS. But recently, likely fearing an incoming Biden FCC willing to do its job, Comcast rushed to finally push these useless, confusing, and expensive restrictions into the Northeast. In the middle of a pandemic. When people were already struggling to pay for basic utilities and rent.
Needless to say, lawmakers weren't happy about it. Massachusetts lawmakers were quick to complain about the practice, noting that price gouging captive customers during a financial and health crisis isn't a good look. This morning, Pennsylvania AG nabbed headlines after Comcast announced it would be pausing the expansion of usage caps for a few months (until July):
"The Philadelphia-based cable giant said it would postpone the new charges after Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) raised concerns that Comcast’s policy threatened to disproportionately harm cash-strapped Americans who are learning, working and communicating primarily online."
There are a couple problems here. One, The Washington Post (like a lot of outlets) never even informs readers that the caps are technically unnecessary. They're literally the monopolistic price gouging of captive customers using technically unnecessary nonsense. That's kind of important context, without which the reader walks away possibly thinking Comcast is somehow being altruistic here. This is pretty standard practice for a mainstream US tech press which has a violent allergic reaction to calling a duck a duck (in this case, monopolistic price gouging).
Two, I know from my conversations with Massachusetts lawmakers last week that briefly suspending the caps for a few months was Comcast's idea. It was their base offer in negotiations, and they're unwilling to go further. As such, what's portrayed here as a savvy win for PA AG Josh Shapiro is really just him agreeing to let Comcast get away with doing what is effectively nothing. These restrictions shouldn't exist in the first place. Suspending them for just a few months in one portion of the country is an empty gesture. Comcast will simply bring them back once the PR heat dies down a bit.
If there's an area the modern FCC and state regulators have failed miserably, under both parties, it's broadband caps. It shouldn't take a pandemic to realize that monopolies imposing costly, confusing, and unnecessary restrictions to drive up the already high cost of broadband access isn't a great idea (such restrictions are also also abused competitively in the streaming space). And, with only the occasional exception, and despite endless, breathless yammering on about the "digital divide," most federal and state regulators clearly couldn't give any less of a shit.
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Filed Under: broadband caps, covid, fees, josh shapiro, pennsylvania, usage caps
Companies: comcast
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Comcast is the Mafia. They create a problem where one never existed and then charge people for the "benefit" of being "protected" from the problem they created in the first place.
Forget trying to go after them as a monopoly. Charge them with the RICO act.
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It’s not RICO, dammit!
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The big legacy ISPs, just like all other big corporations, are untouchable. You try anything to reduce their profits and they will immediately and ruthlessly exterminate you.
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Nobody deserves a reward for doing the bare minimum.
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Daily reminder: “Corporations are private and can do what they want — no matter how nasty or undemocratic — as long as it aligns with our worldview. Otherwise, the government should clamp down on them.” -Techdirt
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Maybe you should see that Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, Tim Geigner, and Karl Bode are four different people.
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I’m sorry that you’re upset about support for platforms being legally allowed to kick off racists, transphobes, misogynists, anti-vaxxers, and Fifty Shades of Grey fans for being racists, transphobes, etc. But your anger is no reason to be this intentionally ignorant.
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[Projects facts not in evidence]
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And who pays for all the data I don't want?
I am fine with caps. Just don't count all the extra bits I didn't request. Like say, ads, spam and commercials. Also, I expect Comcast to rewrite their webpages as static simple HTML without all the scripts (that consumes data too).
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Re: And who pays for all the data I don't want?
It's very unlikely ads and spam will take you over the cap. The amount of data used by streaming video generally is completely dominant.
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Re: Re: And who pays for all the data I don't want?
It doesn't matter the amount, if they want to charge by bits of data, then they have an obligation to ensure ALL the bits are what the user requested. We charge by the gallon for gasoline and I am pretty sure most folks would be upset if they were handed a cup of dirty water and 15 cups of fuel and told hey, it's just a little bit off the top.
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Re: Re: Re: And who pays for all the data I don't want?
They're not charging by the bit. They're charging if you go over a threshold. So it only makes a difference if the bits you didn't request cause you to go over the threshold.
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Let's give AT&T a cookie
Hey AT&T, bend over, we have a cookie for you.
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