Blistering Hubris, Bald-Faced Lies And Atrocious Customer Service Kill Comcast's Merger Ambitions Dead

from the end-of-the-bloviating-road dept

Comcast's week just got notably worse with the news (barring some last minute miracle) that the cable giant will likely be walking away from its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable after leaks suggested the DOJ and FCC will likely be blocking the deal. Regulatory opposition was based in part on the belated realization that Comcast had failed to adhere to the conditions set in its 2011 acquisition of NBC, despite the fact that most of the conditions were volunteered and engineered by Comcast to be as meaningless as possible. The real deal killer however? More than a year's worth of unrelenting, negative media attention for what's arguably some of the worst customer service in any industry.

Leading this latest merger sales job for Comcast was top lobbyist David Cohen, who played a starring role in getting Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBC approved, earning him the reputation for being a telecom policy and lobbying "rock star." As any well-paid lobbyist would, when tasked with a new merger to sell, Cohen repeatedly pushed a litany of utterly unbelievable deal benefits pulled entirely out of the ether, denied absolutely every criticism as illegitimate and irresponsible, then proudly proclaimed that nobody "reasonable or knowledgeable" could possibly object to the company's merger.

Cohen's secret weapon during the NBC acquisition was something Comcast called its "Internet Essentials" program, which provides $10, 5 Mbps broadband to homes that qualify for the National School Lunch Program. Cohen consistently touted Internet Essentials as an utterly selfless, altruistic effort to close the digital divide, wholly unrelated to the company's attempt to grease the M&A rails. There's many reasons why Cohen and Comcast failed to win the hearts of consumers and regulators, but Internet Essentials perfectly exemplifies Comcast's unique brand of hubris.

The program became an absolutely massive public relations boon to Comcast, which held junket after junket at schools across the nation, patting itself on the back for being a noble corporate citizen, with Cohen and politicians endlessly photographed surrounded by smiling children as they pretended to crush the digital divide in classrooms across America. The PR success of the effort even prompted Cohen to start calling himself Comcast's "Chief Diversity Officer," despite the fact the title's real goal was to help him dodge legal lobbying restrictions on how many hours a week he can lobby.

Since it worked so well for the NBC deal, Cohen and his lobbyist team started hyping the program even more heavily for the Time Warner Cable deal. The problem was, by this point people were starting to see through the effort. The program started taking national media heat for being hard to find, hard to qualify for, rife with caveats and little more than a faux-altruistic show pony for regulators. As a result, depending on the state, only about 11 to 15% of the millions of eligible households were able to sign up for the program. Stanford Law Professor Susan Crawford recently called Internet Essentials a "customer acquisition program masquerading as a philanthropic gesture," highlighting the restrictions Comcast baked into the program to ensure it had to do as little heavy lifting as possible:

"...only low-income families with school-age children are eligible for the program. It does nothing to close the digital divide for other underserved groups like the elderly, the disabled, and low-income childless adults. Plus, it’s hard to apply: the California Emerging Technology Fund says that it takes two or three months for applications to arrive. No existing Comcast customers are eligible — no matter how “low-income” you are, you can’t decide to reduce your bill by applying for Internet Essentials instead. (Families have been told to drop their Comcast service for 90 days and then try signing up — a terrible hardship for anyone.)"

Whenever anybody pointed out that Comcast's effort was anything less than the pinnacle of nobility, Cohen trotted out a brand of snotty rhetoric that only managed to make the company seem less likable than ever. Case in point from a blog post this week, in which Cohen once again tried to "set the record straight" about the deal benefits:

"And while it may be easy for critics to do this from the sidelines, we would rather try, in the spirit of President Kennedy, to light a candle than to curse the darkness. The reality is that Internet Essentials has been one of the most successful, if not the most successful, private sector initiatives to close the digital divide ever. And it’s not just Comcast that says this; scores of credible civic and community leaders have said the same...But to those critics and business interests that want to take shots at the program, we say join us in the fight against the digital divide to make broadband a reality for all Americans, working together to do more, rather than sniping at cross purposes to run down what has been done."

To be clear here, Comcast is offering a limited number of homes a $10, 5 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up broadband service that costs the company virtually nothing to provide, then behaving as if it had just cured bowel cancer. Meanwhile, the lion's share of the "credible civic and community leaders" supporting the program are usually paid to do so. Most importantly though, Cohen ignores that these amorphous "critics" of the program are the same poor families he breathlessly claims to care so much about. Said critics had to protest in Comcast's hometown of Philadelphia to get Comcast's attention regarding the failures of the program:

"A 10-year-old back-due cable-TV bill for $180 made Hawkins ineligible for the $9.95-a-month Internet Essentials that Comcast publicized as an aid to closing the nation's digital divide - the term for the substantial number of poor people who can't afford $50-a-month Internet service. Hawkins didn't think that was right, and Comcast wouldn't agree to a payment plan. She has a son, Khyrie, then a fifth grader at L.P. Hill Elementary School on Ridge Avenue. "They opened a can of worms with me," said Hawkins, who helped organize a protest in 2012 at Comcast's Center City headquarters to present executives with bologna sandwiches that she thought represented its Internet Essentials program."

Internet Essentials was the very heart of Comcast's Time Warner Cable merger sales pitch, as it shifted the focus away from Comcast's poor customer service reputation and toward Comcast's manufactured image as a champion of diversity, propped up by a chorus of astroturfers on the Comcast payroll. Cohen pitched a laundry list of other imaginary deal benefits that were equally negligible, from hallucinated cyber security improvements to claims the deal would be a boon to creative people everywhere.

But as AT&T found out when it tried to claim that killing T-Mobile would magically increase wireless competition, there actually is a line you can cross when it comes to lobbying bullshit and blistering hubris, even in Washington DC. However, government only respects that line when consumers can be bothered to pay attention, and they were certainly paying attention here after two decades of being abused by one of the least competitive, most apathetic industries in American history.

Filed Under: broadband, david cohen, doj, fcc, merger
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Deeply Offended By Claims It Pays People To Support Its Merger

from the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain dept

Comcast has consistently crowed about the volume of individuals and organizations that support the company's $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable. Of course the company has just as consistently failed to mention how much of this "support" is from people paid to regurgitate pretty much any Comcast dreck-filled missive that comes stumbling down the road. Want funding for a new events center or a "closing the digital divide" photo op? Just leave independent thought at the door and send lawmakers a pre-written form letter with your name or organization's logo on it.

It doesn't take much sleuthing to uncover the money trail, because Comcast (and the politicians and groups beholden to it) usually (with some think tank exceptions) don't bother hiding it. They just outright deny that the money impacts policy positions whatsoever. For example, take reports this week that clearly highlight how Comcast can effectively buy a media sound wall of merger support, then pretend there's nothing untoward about an army of "consultants," minority groups, and fauxcademics all paid to effectively be glorified parrots:

"Increased Concentration Does Not Equal Anticompetitive Effect,” Mr. Manne wrote last August, summarizing his submission. He separately wrote pieces in Wired magazine, extolling the virtues of the deal, and through a separate advocacy organization he helps run, called TechFreedom, wrote a blog post that appeared the same day that the deal was announced early last year. Each time, he praised the transaction. But nowhere in these statements does Mr. Manne directly disclose that Comcast is among a small group of donors that finances his nonprofit group, a fact that Mr. Manne confirmed in response to a question late last week. "We are no value to our donors or ourselves unless we maintain our independence and academic rigor,” he said, before adding that “maybe there is some subconscious thing there."

Yes, surely Comcast's cash comes associated not with an expectation that you'll give automated and artificial justification to what's frequently very anti-consumer and anti-competitive policies, but that you'll exercise your "independence and academic rigor" and tell Comcast to piss off when you're approached to help "correct perceptions" about the latest Comcast PR campaign. You see there's nothing untoward going on here -- because we say there's nothing untoward going on here. We're all just healthy American patriots busy expressing our First Amendment rights, after all.

That logic was mirrored by Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen -- who calls himself the company's "Chief Diversity Officer" to help skirt lobbying rules (I bring that up every time I write about Cohen because to me it just never gets old). Cohen says he's "offended" by the very idea that Comcast has to pay for its policy support:

"He did not dispute that many of the voices supporting the deal received donations from Comcast. But he said he was offended by the suggestion that their endorsements had been made in return for the financial help. "We have never provided financial support to an organization in exchange for support in a transaction,” he said. “Our support is based on the quality of the work they do in the community."

Now I'm sure that somewhere there exists a person that actually believes that, but I'd recommend not putting them in charge of your finances (or even lawn care). In Mr. Cohen's head, this is just another conspiracy contributing to the unfair overall "atmospherics" of anti-Comcast sentiment:

"The atmospherics around our customer service clearly stir some antipathy among some consumers," Mr. Cohen said. "And it does provide a basis for opponents of the transaction to gin up three-sentence, nonsubstantive communications to the F.C.C. saying that they don’t like Comcast or they don’t like Time Warner Cable."

That's a company with arguably the worst customer satisfaction ratings in any industry -- one that manufactures support for bad policies out of thin air -- trying to claim its horrible reputation is somehow manufactured. It's still not clear if regulators plan to deny the merger (or approve it with something vaguely-resembling meaningful conditions), but whatever happens it will spell the end of some fantastic entertainment that easily tops anything in Comcast's channel lineup.

Filed Under: advocates, astroturfing, david cohen, merger, payments, shills, support
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Caught Ghost Writing Politicians' Merger Support Letters

from the I-let-a-cable-giant-do-my-thinking-for-me dept

In a recent blog post, Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen proudly proclaimed that Comcast has been seeing a "wide variety" of support for the company's $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable. Though most people worry that an even larger Comcast means more usage caps, greater anti-competitive leverage in content negotiations, less media diversity and worse customer service than ever before, Cohen crowed that 70 mayors, 80 chambers of commerce and business organizations and over 60 other state and local officials think the deal is a wonderful idea.

What Cohen accidentally forgot to mention is that in most instances, that support is paid for and, quite frankly, entirely phony. The Verge this week did a nice job using public records requests to highlight how Comcast has been busy ghost writing merger support letters for lazy politicians. Said letters, as you'd expect, ignore the company's abysmal customer service reputation and downright disdain for the American consumer, instead insisting that Comcast is a pillar of the community. Like this gushing missive from Mayor Jere Wood of Roswell, Georgia, which The Verge notes was actually written by a Comcast VP of External Affairs:

"When Comcast makes a promise to act, it is comforting to know that they will always follow through," Wood's letter explained. "This is the type of attitude that makes Roswell proud to be involved with such a company," the letter asserts, "our residents are happy with the services it has provided and continues to provide each day."

Of course, this is something happening in every industry, every day, though Comcast's behavior is getting extra attention of late because the company's extreme unpopularity has become a hit magnet for many technology blogs (kind of the reverse Apple effect). When asked about the practice, Comcast would only state that it's not that big of a deal because the recipients of these letters have the choice to edit them or not use them at all:

"In response to a list of questions from The Verge, Comcast emphasized that it did not have final say in the substance of the letters. "We reached out to policy makers, community leaders, business groups and others across the country to detail the public interest benefits of our transaction with Time Warner Cable," Sena Fitzmaurice, a Comcast spokesperson, said in an email. "When such leaders indicate they’d like to support our transaction in public filings, we’ve provided them with information on the transaction. All filings are ultimately decided upon by the filers, not Comcast."

In other words, throwing campaign contributions at politicians and doing the thinking for them isn't a big deal because it's up to those specific politicians not to be used in such a fashion. Everyone feel better about the state of the union?

Comcast probably should tread carefully if it values the deal it has spent the last year pitching. When AT&T was trying to acquire T-Mobile, we noted how the company went completely off the rails when it came to using astroturf and other farmed support to try and convince regulators that eliminating T-Mobile would somehow create jobs and increase competition. Regulators found themselves so awash in bogus enthusiasm and phony math that it actually contributed to a rejection of the deal. AT&T executives of course learned nothing from the experience and kept lying after the fact.

Both mergers highlight how giant telecom companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have been so pampered by government for so long, they know the rules (of logic or otherwise) simply do not apply to them. As such they've been writing not only letters but law for corrupt state legislatures for more than a generation, and have seen absolutely no repercussions for decades of distortions and outright falsehoods. Thanks to the recent rise in digital activism, the press and public have started paying closer attention to telecom issues, though companies like AT&T and Comcast have pretty clearly failed to notice.

Filed Under: david cohen, foia, ghostwriting, lobbying, mayors, merger
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Lobbyists Give Lawmakers Golden Tickets: Secret Phone Numbers To Reach Good Customer Service

from the giving-a-damn-is-a-special-perk-just-for-you dept

Comcast has certainly been pulling out all the stops to get its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable approved by regulators. That has involved calling everyone who opposes the merger ignorant and unreasonable, paying minority groups to parrot the company's positions, and generally repeatedly denying all of the competitive and monopsony concerns raised by deal critics. All while the company's top lobbyist, David Cohen, busily dodges lobbying rules by pretending he's not actually lobbying (he seriously calls himself the company's "Chief Diversity Officer").

Comcast has employed some forty lobbying firms to court DC politicians, and offered up cash donations to 32 of the 39 members of the House Judiciary Committee that recently held hearings on the merger. In a piece exploring how David Gregory lost his job on "Meet The Press," (and the rise of Comcast's David Cohen as a K Street powerhouse) the Washingtonian points out that Comcast lobbyists have also been busy handing out special "VIP cards" to DC lawmakers. These cards feature a single-use phone number that will prioritize your customer support call:

"Comcast also had an even more personal way of sucking up to Washington. Its government-affairs team carried around “We’ll make it right” cards stamped with “priority assistance” codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service. A Comcast spokeswoman says this practice isn’t exclusive to DC; every Comcast employee receives the cards, which they can distribute to any customer with cable or internet trouble. Nevertheless, efforts like this one have surely helped Comcast boost its standing inside the Beltway and improve its chances of winning regulatory approval for its next big conquest: merging with the second-largest cable provider in the country, Time Warner Cable."

Comcast's customer service is, as we've noted a few times, historically awful. As in, surveys show it's worse than nearly any other company in any other industry, which is no small feat. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts frequently complains that this is simply because the company's so large, and that statistically you're simply going to have a lot of squeaky wheels. So amusingly, in addition to throwing cash at DC lawmakers, Comcast is using actually giving a damn about your customers (or the illusion of giving a damn, as Comcast employees tell me these cards are common and don't actually do all that much) as a "special perk" you can only get if you're immeasurably annoyed with the company -- or a DC lobbyist that can help it out.

What's the over/under on a larger Comcast someday waking up and realizing that the company should focus on giving everybody decent customer service?

Filed Under: customer service, david cohen, lawmakers, lobbying, lobbyists, merger, policymakers, vip
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Continues To Pretend To Support Net Neutrality With Misleading Claims

from the because-of-course-it-says-that dept

We've mentioned in the past how Comcast has been pretending to support net neutrality, with ad campaigns stating that it does -- clearly in an attempt to confuse the public. Yesterday, Comcast even put a thing on its own front page claiming that the company is "committed to an open Internet and Net Neutrality." That links to a blog post from David Cohen, Comcast's chief lobbyist / government relations guy, whose job it is to convince lawmakers to rubber stamp any of Comcast's big plans; from killing (not preserving) net neutrality to letting it acquire Time Warner Cable. Cohen, who has ridiculously and cynically been given the title "Chief Diversity Officer" (by which we assume means the guy who gives money to minority groups to have them repeat Comcast's talking points), tries to make the argument that Comcast supports net neutrality.

Again, as we've noted in the past, this is not actually true. Comcast supports the 2010 open internet rules that were painfully weak and didn't really limit Comcast in any meaningful way. And Comcast supports them because it's legally obligated to support those rules as part of the terms of its last big merger, with NBC Universal. But that agreement runs out in a few years and Comcast has, in the past, shown a willingness to compromise on net neutrality issues, and as it gets bigger that seems likely to continue. Many of Cohen's claims are outright laughable:

We don’t interfere with our customers’ ability to access lawful content online.

Well, unless that lawful content you want to access online is from Netflix, and Netflix hasn't paid up at the Comcast tollbooth. As a reminder, here's the wonderful chart that the Washington Post put together of Netflix's download speeds on various broadband networks. See the black line as it drops and drops before suddenly darting upwards? That's Comcast purposely letting its border routers clog up until Netflix paid the toll, and Comcast went in and hooked up a few more ports (a trivial exercise it could have done quite a while ago if it actually cared about its customers' ability to access lawful content online.) So, uh, yeah, Comcast does interfere. And, of course, it's done so in the past as well, such as the time it throttled all Bittorrent traffic, whether it was "lawful content" or not. Or how about more recently when it came out that Comcast is using packet injection to insert its own ads over other company's websites?

As today’s actions show, the availability and access to lawful content and websites online is ultimately up to the provider of that specific content.

Until they get big like Netflix, and then it's up to how much that provider is willing to pay Comcast to stop letting their traffic purposely degrade.

We continue to be committed to delivering the same high-quality, high-speed Internet service that our customers rely on each and every day.

Committed... right up until the point Comcast feels it can shake down a company to pay extra just so Comcast's consumers can actual reach them with the bandwidth those customers already bought.

Of course, the meat of the post is that Comcast really, really, really hates the idea of reclassification under Title II. You can practically hear Cohen screaming "don't do it!"

What we don’t support is reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II because it would harm innovation and investment. It would harm the very thing we love about the Internet – the speed at which it can change, adapt, and innovate. And a Title II reclassification is simply not necessary.

Except Comcast is not exactly viewed as a particularly innovative or adaptable company. Comcast totally tried to mislead the FCC by misrepresenting a Fortune listing of "most admired" companies (Comcast was way, way, way down the full list, but at the top of a very, very small list of "cable and satellite providers" all of whom were not particularly admired). And should we really forget that Comcast regularly wins the "world's worst company" award from Consumerist? Comcast hasn't exactly shown its ability to be particularly innovative under the existing regime.

In fact, if history has shown anything, it's that greater competition leads to innovation, not greater consolidation. But, remember that Comcast is actively trying to buy one of the biggest competitors in the space, Time Warner Cable. And while both companies and their supporters point out that the two companies don't compete head on for customers, they do compete in other areas, such as in how they can buy third party services. And, of course, just think about how much more leverage a combined company would have in shaking down internet companies in the future...

At Comcast alone, we have invested tens of billions of dollars in our network and continue to invest more every year.

Yes, and that won't change under the FCC's regulations... unless there's no competition. Investment follows competition.

We want our customers to continue to enjoy their favorite videos, web applications, shopping, news, and whatever may come next.

Unless, of course, those favorite videos come from Netflix, and Netflix hasn't paid the toll taker.

Light touch Open Internet regulations should be a part of that.

Because it allowed us to shakedown Netflix, and Comcast now has its eyes on others as well...

Again, if there were a truly competitive market, perhaps this wouldn't matter. But there isn't, in part because of efforts by companies like Comcast to block out anything that might lead to real competition. Comcast isn't supporting an open internet. It's supporting whatever puts it in the best position to shakedown internet companies.

Filed Under: claims, david cohen, net neutrality, open internet, support, title ii
Companies: comcast

NY Politician's Letter Supporting Comcast/Time Warner Cable Either Written By Comcast Or Plagiarized From Comcast

from the or,-i'm-sure-it-could-just-be-a-big-coincidence...-right? dept

It's no secret that politicians will often... er... "repurpose" legislation and talking points handed to them by companies. In some cases, they're even willing to admit who really wrote things. But, more generally, they at least try to hide it. However, sometimes they don't try very hard. NY State Assembly Leader Joe Morelle recently decided to send a letter expressing his support for the merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Fair enough. But the folks over at Stop The Cap noted that much of the letter appeared to be word for word identical to Comcast's David Cohen's Congressional testimony and Comcast press releases. This leaves a few possible explanations:

1. Comcast wrote the letter.
2. Joseph Morelle (or some poor intern he has) is a really bad plagiarist, who happens to only use Comcast's own material as source material.
3. It's all a big coincidence. Only so many words out there, right?

I guess there could be a few other options as well, but they're mostly escaping me at this point... Either way, the similarities noted by Stop the Cap:

N.Y. State Assembly Leader Joe Morelle: “The combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable will create a world-class communications, media and technology company to help meet the increasing consumer demand for advanced digital services on multiple devices in homes, workplaces and on-the-go.”

David Cohen, executive vice-president, Comcast: “The combination of Comcast and TWC will create a world-class communications, media, and technology company to help meet the insatiable consumer demand for advanced digital services on multiple devices in homes, workplaces, and on-the-go.”

---

Joe Morelle: “Comcast has a proven record of investing in new technologies, facilities and customer support to provide the best in broadband Internet access, video and digital voice services.”

David Cohen: “Comcast has a proven record of investing in new technologies, facilities, and customer support to provide the best in broadband Internet access, video, and digital voice services.”

---

Joe Morelle: “Similarly, TWC has made significant strides in offering a diverse array of video, broadband, and voice services to its customers.”

David Cohen: “Similarly, TWC has made significant strides in offering a diverse array of video, broadband, and voice services to its customers.”

---

Joe Morelle: “Combining the two companies’ complementary strengths will accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband Internet, video and voice services across the new company’s footprint.”

David Cohen: “Combining the two companies’ complementary strengths will accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband Internet, video, and voice services across the new company’s footprint.”

---

Joe Morelle: “Residential customers will benefit from technological innovations including a superior video experience, higher broadband speeds and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi, while also generating significant cost savings and other efficiencies.”

Comcast Press Release: “Through this merger, more American consumers will benefit from technological innovations, including a superior video experience, higher broadband speeds, and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi. The transaction also will generate significant cost savings and other efficiencies.”

---

Joe Morelle: “In just two-and-a-half years, over 350,000 families, representing approximately 1.4 million low-income consumers, have been connected to the Internet thanks to this program. This proposed merger would extend this vital program to many more low-income households in New York by providing access to it in certain areas of the state currently only served by Time Warner.

David Cohen: “In just two and a half years, over 300,000 families, representing some 1.2 million low-income consumers, have been connected to the transformative power of the Internet thanks to this program. The transaction will extend this vital program to millions more Americans in the areas currently served by TWC.”

Yeah, I'm sure it's all just a completely random coincidence...

Filed Under: david cohen, joe morelle, lobbying, merger, new york, plagiarism, talking points
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Says It's Going To Slap All Of Its Customers With Data Caps, Makes Half-Hearted Attempt To Walk Back Earlier Statements When Backlash Kicks In

from the what-are-you-going-to-do?-go-without?-HAHAHAHAHA dept

Comcast, perhaps feeling a bit too confident about its chances to swallow up Time Warner Cable, is talking about rolling out data caps to all of its subscribers. It had, up to this point, only "offered" it in certain areas on a "trial basis." Customers hated it, of course, but that's not really what Comcast was gauging with its trials. It was only interested in seeing a) how profitable it was and b) whether that profit would offset losses caused by the few customers lucky enough to have options.

With a merger on the line, Cohen chose his words very carefully, responding to a rather dancing, ambiguous question by industry analyst Craig Moffett (long an avid supporter of usage caps, and, apparently, "variabilization") with some dancing ambiguity of his own:

Moffett: Bottom line is, 5 years, 10 years from now, do you think that we will be in a model where the Internet is fully variablized, or usage is fully variablized, or at least variablized to the extent that most people are selecting from a reasonably large number of usage plans that match their usage to their price?

Cohen: I actually think the answer to that is, no. I would say, if you made me predict today, and I don't want to get myself in any trouble, if you made me predict today, I would predict that in 5 years Comcast at least would have a usage-based billing model rolled out across its footprint.

But I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to set the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan. And that number may be 350 -- that may be 350 gig a month today, it might be 500 gig a month in five years, but it will never -- I don't think we will want to be in a model where it is fully variablized and 80% of our customers are implicated by usage-based billing and are all buying different packets of usage.

As Karl Bode points out, it's fun to watch Cohen pretend that Comcast isn't eventually going to cap everyone. If the merger goes through, you can be sure former Time Warner customers will be experimented on and eventually capped as well. But, hey, it's not really a monopoly because the two companies don't compete head-to-head, as someone at the Washington Post claimed in defense of the merger. Instead, it's more customers being screwed by the same company's lousy idea.

Surely the contingent that declares "vote with your wallet" during these sorts of announcements has dwindled to near zero at this point. For most of the country's population, the choice is that or DSL, the offering AT&T and others can't wait to rid themselves of. And it's not like other companies won't initiate their own caps once Comcast puts its limits in place. If one big player is doing it, then everyone can hop on the money train without shedding a ton of customers. In an inversion of the "if everyone's special..." argument, the cable companies will operate under the "if everyone's a crappy service provider, then no one's a crappy service provider" motto.

With this in place -- along with the pay-for-play internet -- Comcast can collect on its customers' Netflix addiction on both ends. The easy money will now be even easier, and no expense will be spared to ensure infrastructure upgrades and better customer service the lousy, pricy caps are advertised using only the shiniest junk mail and the cheeriest TV spots. Or, in fact, why even bother advertising? Incestuous duopolies and straight-up "only game in town" structuring means never having to talk someone into a shitty plan.

Even if Comcast isn't granted its monopoly, its willingness to deploy unpopular usage caps will only encourage Time Warner to speed up its roll-out of the same terrible plans. At this point, the biggest players are hardly putting any energy into maintaining the farcical facade of "network congestion." After all, Netflix chews up a ton of bandwidth, and Comcast has just bumped the speed at which this gets "used up" in exchange for an untold amount of money. If congestion was actually a problem, data hogs like streaming services would either be priced out of the market or more of the market would already be laboring under restrictive caps. But Comcast says "Use more internet!" -- just as long as it gets a larger cut of the action.

There's zero benefit for the consumer.

What companies like Comcast are doing is simply taking current, already-expensive flat-rate plans and pricing -- and affixing usage caps and overage fees on them, making existing product immeasurably more expensive. Under that model, everybody pays more -- no matter what. The industry claims they're just "experimenting" with "creative pricing," but the end result is usually just a rate hike wearing lipstick and a dress.

To extend the metaphor, Comcast's cap plan is like a hooker putting an egg timer on the nightstand and charging you every time she flips it over -- all the while telling you she's just "variabilizing" your sexual experience. And as she walks out the door with a handful of "overage fees," she points out that her service isn't really that restrictive because most of her customers "never achieve orgasm."

Now, Comcast has since made a half-assed retraction of these statements, which doesn't change anything for the thousands of users in uncompetitive Southern markets that are still dealing with data caps. Karl Bode does a great job taking apart the PR speak hastily assembled in the wake of its earlier remarks. Here's Comcast:

We have been trialing a few flexible data consumption plans, including a plan that enables customers who wanted to use more data be given the option to pay more to do so, and a plan for those who use less data the option to save some money. We decided to implement these trials to learn what our customers’ reaction is to what we think are reasonable data consumption plans.

And here's Bode:

Except as we noted the other day, Comcast knows full well what the consumer reaction to these plans is: they hate them. The company's 300 GB offer simply puts pricey overage fees on top of already-steep flat-rate pricing, and their other plan offers users a small $5 discount off flat-rate pricing if they agree to a 5 GB usage cap. Comcast isn't testing whether consumers like caps, they're testing how they can market usage caps in such a way that sees the minimal amount of user revolt.

While it's truly wonderful that Comcast will give customers the "option" to pay more for using more data, most customers would just rather have uncapped connections or data caps high enough that they don't need to cut the kids off Netflix mid-month. Add to that the fact that these caps are wholly reliant on Comcast's unverified measurement of data usage -- along with the fact that Comcast is openly pursuing paychecks from data-heavy services -- and you have the makings of a very profitable "offering." And Comcast has never been coy about preferring larger margins to satisfied customers.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, data caps, david cohen
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Says That If You Object To Its Merger With Time Warner Cable, You're Ignorant And Unreasonable

from the because-. dept

Oh, Comcast. Remember how it was going to try to be a bit more subtle in pushing for approval of its merger with Time Warner Cable? Well, you can only deny your true nature for so long. The main force behind getting the merger approved, Comcast's Executive VP David Cohen -- the company's most powerful lobbyist who isn't registered as a lobbyist because he's realized that as long as he says he's not lobbying, he isn't -- has announced that no one knowledgeable or reasonable has objected to the merger. By implication, of course, this means that everyone objecting to the merger is ignorant and unreasonable:

"I have been struck by the absence of rational, knowledgeable voices in this space coming out in opposition or even raising serious questions about the transaction." Cohen added.

Meanwhile, the obviously ignorant and unreasonable Writers Guild of America West has spoken out against the merger, noting that Comcast's increasing use of broadband "caps, tiers, metering or other usage-based pricing" could create serious problems in killing off competitive online video distributors. And the eminently knowledgeable and reasonable Comcast retorted that it doesn't have any caps at all. Oh no. It's merely "testing data thresholds."

"We don’t have data caps — and haven’t for about two years," said Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast’s vice president of government communications. "We have tested data thresholds where very heavy customers can buy more if they want more — but that only affects a very small percentage of our customers in a few markets."

Apparently, spewing complete bullshit is the only thing that counts as "reasonable" and "knowledgeable" in the minds of Comcast's top execs.

Filed Under: broadband, cable, david cohen, mergers, objections
Companies: comcast, time warner cable