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The Internet Businesses United States

State Reps Try To Ban Comcast Data Cap and Price Hikes Until Pandemic Is Over (arstechnica.com) 61

Posted by BeauHD from the cause-and-effect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In response to Comcast imposing a data cap on Massachusetts residents, state lawmakers have proposed a ban on data caps, new fees, and price increases on home-Internet services for the duration of the pandemic. The legislation was filed on Tuesday this week by Democratic state representatives Andy Vargas and Dave Rogers. Vargas called the bill a "response to Comcast Internet data cap plans," while Rogers said the goal is "to push back at Comcast and any other service providers who try to raise prices or fees during a pandemic." Verizon FiOS and RCN also provide Internet service in Massachusetts but do not impose data caps.

Vargas and Rogers previously led a group of 71 Massachusetts lawmakers who urged Comcast to halt enforcement of its 1.2TB monthly data cap, arguing that the cap hurts low-income people and is unnecessary because of Comcast's robust network capacity. While Comcast already enforced the data cap in 27 states for several years, the cable company brought the cap to the rest of its territory -- an additional 12 states including Massachusetts and the District of Columbia -- this month. Comcast is easing-in enforcement so that the first overage charges for newly capped customers will be assessed for data usage in the April 2021 billing period. The Massachusetts House has a 128-30 Democratic majority. Besides Vargas and Rogers, the bill so far has 21 cosponsors, most of whom just signed on today.
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State Reps Try To Ban Comcast Data Cap and Price Hikes Until Pandemic Is Over More

State Reps Try To Ban Comcast Data Cap and Price Hikes Until Pandemic Is Over

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  • Keep the porn flowing for national security (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alternative_right ( 4678499 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:13PM (#61003802) Homepage Journal

    When America stops masturbating, the civil war begins.

    Our real problem is that we have almost no options in most areas. When you have multiple providers, you can shop around. When there's only Comcast? Good luck.

    What happened to Google fiber? I thought that was going to save us all.

    • > Our real problem is that we have almost no options in most areas. When you have multiple providers, you can shop around. When there's only Comcast? Good luck.

      So much this.

      I've been told Comcast sucks, and I believe it.

      The owners of Comcast made about 4% on their investment last year, so it's not like you can just slash Comcast's fees (revenue) and get the service for less money. They'd be losing money and go out of business.

      If you only have Comcast in a certain area and you cut Comcast's revenue by 10%

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tflf ( 4410717 )

        > Our real problem is that we have almost no options in most areas. When you have multiple providers, you can shop around. When there's only Comcast? Good luck.

        So much this.

        I've been told Comcast sucks, and I believe it.

        The owners of Comcast made about 4% on their investment last year, so it's not like you can just slash Comcast's fees (revenue) and get the service for less money. They'd be losing money and go out of business.

        If you only have Comcast in a certain area and you cut Comcast's revenue by 10%, pretty soon you have NOBODY servicing that area. You need to replace Comcast, to have other options.

        Lots of businesses took a hit ,with huge losses, in 2020, so no sympathy for Comcast.

        In a monopoly situation, when there are extraordinary temporary external circumstances, and where the service provided can, and probably should, be deemed an essential service, legislation like this is to be expected. Assuming the worse, and Comcast cannot survive this measure, and no other provider steps in to fill the void, the State and local governments step up. Maybe not the desired option, but, governments are in p

        • Local governments granting Comcast a monopoly (called a franchise) is how we got here. Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

          I remember paying 25 cents a minute to call the other side of Dallas. That was the rate as a regulated utility. I also remember how shocked we were when Sprint started offering 10 cents per minute nationwide, after deregulation. That's a drop of 60%. A few months later, the phone companies, who were suddenly competing, starte

        • However, during a pandemic, you think companies that sell entertainment to the home -- where everyone is confined, thanks to lock-down orders -- would make bank.

      • My analysis was that the problem is the cost of running fiber, most of which relates to local regulations. I would suspend those and let competing networks run new lines, preferably fiber, into the neighborhoods. At that point, they can break even quickly and you will see more competition.

    • You gotta vote for politicians that will get you municipal/state service, and judges (where possible) that will dismiss all lawsuits with extreme prejudice.

    • I'm keeping my fingers crossed for T-MOBILE's 5g home internet offering becoming widespread. It's at least one option for those stuck with comcast. $50/month, no caps.

      • I'm keeping my fingers crossed for T-MOBILE's 5g home internet offering becoming widespread. It's at least one option for those stuck with comcast. $50/month, no caps.

        The problem with T-Mobile's service like this is that they don't always own the backhaul. My residential ISP supplies all their 5G installs in the area with their backhaul bandwidth, so it's basically the same service. Sure, T-Mobile has treated me better than my ISP, so if I lived in a place where I didn't need a microcell at home I'd probably go with it...but my point is that if T-Mobile is dependent on Comcast to provide bandwidth to those towers, all that's going to happen is that Comcast is going to sq

  • Emailed My Rep (Score:3)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:27PM (#61003856) Homepage Journal

    I just emailed my State Rep (I'm in MA), and asked him to co-sponsor this bill. This is the point in the legislative session where several thousand bills are filed, and each rep goes through them and co-sponsors a good number of them.

    If you live in Massachusetts, please ask your Rep to co-sponsor this bill.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Don't forget to suggest he add a provision that the freeze on prices is void if the Federal minimum wage raises to $15. All that extra payroll has to come from somewhere and it either comes from raising their prices or reducing their workforce.

  • In other words (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:30PM (#61003870)
    Comcast didn't contribute enough to a couple re-election campaigns.

    II hate that I have to be so cynical, but I'm old and I've been watching these asshats for decades now. And I see a pattern.
    • If this really is a shakedown for contributions (protection money), then there is in fact no prior amount previously contributed that avoids shakedowns for contributions (protection money.)

      The mob doesnt come to your store once, smash a window once, take their protection money once, and then thats it you are all good... thats just not how it works.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      ''Comcast didn't contribute enough to a couple re-election campaigns.''

      Not exactly.. they lost Ajit Pai

      https://slate.com/technology/2... [slate.com]

  • false advertising (Score:3)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:30PM (#61003874) Homepage
    About time, and they should eliminate all data caps forever due to false advertising. When I signed up for Comcast Internet I was told there are no bandwidth limits. And I asked multiple times when signing up and was assured there were no limits.

  • No good deed ever goes unpunished (Score:3)

    by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:30PM (#61003876) Journal

    the cap...is unnecessary because of Comcast's robust network capacity.

    That'll teach 'em to build a robust network!

    • Lol, Comcast and robust don't belong in the same sentence, unless there's a lot of "not"s and "lol"s in it.

      Almost 20 years ago I had the misfortune to have Comcast, and they were the worst. Their service was so shitty and I was persistent enough that I had a script ready for the fucking level 1 customer service reps. "Do you have your flow chart ready? Ok, follow along. I rebooted my computer. I checked my cables, I rebooted my router. I rebooted my cable modem, I checked x, y, and z,..." All to get to leve

      • Their own level of service? You don't really need good Internet service on the beach. A better idea would be:

        "Mr. Comcast executive, your sentence will conclude once you build out this company's infrastructure to five nines of reliability, to 20MBps for all the areas you currently serve--"

        "It'll take about five years to do that, and we'll need an additional subsidy for that."

        "--*personally*. I hope you've got a good pair of work boots, aren't afraid of climbing telephone poles, and know how to troubleshoot cable modem head-ends. You'll have help from the rest of Comcast's maintenance team, of course, so hope you've been treating them well to date."

  • "Until Pandemic is Over" (Score:3)

    by mattventura ( 1408229 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:35PM (#61003904) Homepage
    How about permanently? It is an absolute joke that Comcast will sell you a 1gbit connection yet put a 1.2TB cap on it - you can blow through an entire month of cap in less than three hours. 1.2TB a month comes out to less than 4mbps!

    • Re:"Until Pandemic is Over" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:40PM (#61003918) Journal

      How about permanently? It is an absolute joke that Comcast will sell you a 1gbit connection yet put a 1.2TB cap on it - you can blow through an entire month of cap in less than three hours. 1.2TB a month comes out to less than 4mbps!

      Yeah. At that rate you might as well have U-verse.

      But seriously, I think Comcast sells 1 GB connections for two reasons. (1) so they can charge more for it, and (2) for bragging rights. A consistent 100M without a cap is more useful, as you pointed out, than a 1G connection that you can blow through in a few hours. But 1G looks better in the advertisements.

      • 200Mb/s download is quite sufficient for most, 1000Mb/s has limited practical value

        The trouble is the asymmetry in cost and upload performance.

        1000Mb/s plan has a 35Mb/s upload for $110/mo

        200Mb/s plan has a 5Mb/s upload for $80/mo

        For a ~40% year increase in cost you get a 500% faster download and 700% faster upload.

        You're with a couple of lattes for monthly cost before you hit 20Mb/s upload. Why choose 20Mb/s for $100 when $110 gets you 35Mb/s

        Anyone needing the upload capability might as well go to the top

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by c-A-d ( 77980 )

          Maybe it's a good opportunity to split the cost with a neighbour or two.

        • > Anyone needing the upload capability might as well go to the top plan.

          Or go with an ISP that offers symmetrical service. I have fiber to the house, and it's been symmetrical from day one.

          My side hustle is photography, and upload speed is important to me, but I really think I'm an edge case. So in the situation you describe, yeah, I'll buy more download speed than I need in order to get a higher upload speed. But I am not most people.

          • Is there any technical reason for fiber to be asymmetric? At least here in Norway Iâ(TM)ve yet to hear bout fiber connections that are, unless itâ(TM)s by isps witch what I wold call legacy coax plants that for some reason donâ(TM)t want to have a different product on Fiber and coax

            • That's a good point; I don't know of any fiber service in the US that's not symmetric. Maybe it's a feature of the protocol?

              Before fiber I had DSL at one time and cable modem for awhile, and both were decidedly asymmetric.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
                well for dsl it was certainly technical, the total bandwidth of that pare of wires from the DSLAM (oth\ten et the telcos CO) to you was rather limited and the signal attenuated swiftly which did not improve things, since most customers cared more about download than upload they prioritized more bandwidth for download. I'm no expert but i suspect this also made CPEs a bit cheaper as the transmitting side of thing didn't need to be that powerful.with fiber the attenuation is far less of a factor, and the tota
      • ....and its a rare download where the difference between 100Mbit and 1Gbit is annoying. Lets face it, how often are you downloading (not streaming) multi-GB movies and then bothered by the few minutes they take to complete? Probably the other end cant push 100Mbit anyways, and for torrenting movies from a large number of sharers the downloads are still done long before your torrent client figures out which subset of sharers can peak out your connection.

        100MBit is already well into pirate-grade bandwidth.

    • 1.2TB a month comes out to less than 4mbps!

      That's an idea. Nobody said no bandwidth caps...

      Ok so now your bandwidth is capped to 4 Mbps. Download all you want, sucker!

    • This!

  • so we can all use it, even if not at the highest possible performance level. some of us have work to do and don't have time to stream youtube and netflix all day.

    • Are the meters accurate, and who makes sure they stay that way?

    • meter WITH certification on the side of your home.
      Not on the web at the headend.

  • The comcast salesguy still comes by periodically (Score:4, Informative)

    by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:45PM (#61003944) Journal

    We have fiber to the house. We don't have cable TV as such, just 100M fiber and a few streaming services. (I could get 1G but I don't think I need it.)

    Every so often a Comcast salesguy comes by and tries to sell us a cable package.

    And we laugh, and laugh.

    But seriously, isn't it the case that the areas where Comcast does well are the ones where there's no viable second choice? I would think anything would be better. I remember, before fiber became available, going back to DSL for a short time rather than do business with Comcast.

    • ok compare comcast tech i.e. their DNS etc to AT&T

      no competition

      basically, they charge but actually invest (when they have to) compared to tired old infra

      not charging for the amount you use is a false economy they (any ISP) just take the costs and divide it up among the users,
      basically unlimited does not mean unlimited...

      so why not have a per Mb charge and be done with it, at least then people would be concous of what they are actually using and the bill
      $ would actually reflect reality compared to now w

      • Ok admittedly, if the choices were ATT U-verse or Comcast, with no other possibilities, I'd reluctantly choose Comcast. But all that really means is that there are, if you look hard enough, worse carriers even than Comcast.

        I am so, so happy that I live in an area with a viable third choice.

  • In most municipalities, telcom and cable providers are monopolies, given an exclusive contract in exchange for a lot of regulation, including price controls. I thought any price changes had to be approved by the local public service commission. It seems like the state doesn't need legislation to stop the price hike - they just need to convince the local regulators not to approve the price hike.

    Am I missing something?

  • Becauseof this I stopped being lazy and moved to Verizon. No data cap, 4 times download speed, 80 times the upload, and $40 cheaper. One week in with no issues. Cancelling comcast on monday.

  • "If you enforce data caps, we'll eliminate your exclusive carriage agreement to service our town|city|county|state."

    ~signed, your loving local government.

  • The Telecom Deregulation Act of '96 was *specifically* so that the telecoms could immensely increase ROI, and no other reason.

    I was working for Ameritech then. The CEO *demanded* that all "management" employees not only write their Congresscritter and Senators to support the dereg, but *demanded* to see copies of our letters.

    Oh, and we had an entire department that worked insane hours coming up with "plans" to sell you, that looked good for you, but, in fact, no matter which you chose, you'd pay more.

    Don't

  • I've had comcast for many years. I have a surfboard that I own. It's up to date. Now in order to get the unlimited I have to get their triple play or get the service that I have to lease their modem for $15/month. I had this conversation with what sounded like a Chinese woman yesterday. Sowwy, dis is what we have.

    #include stdcursing.h
    Repeat f-bomb 1000 times with random other cursing;

    So now I'll have to hook up their modem and go through the bullshit to allow incoming e-mail to my machines again.
    We'll get t

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