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Orwell and Kafka would have understood Comcast
By adamg on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 12:47pm
Lack of due process? Failure to contact the customer about a problem? Termination without explanation? Jpell explains, in great detail, how Comcast terminated his Internet service, twice, for allegedly using too much bandwidth without ever telling him a) just how much that was or b) warning him in advance.
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Comments
Due process?
Due process? That only applies to the government, not a private company like Comcast.
Yep, you're right
One would like to think, however, that even a private company had some sort of established appeals process for something like this.
Indeed
Especially when canceling someone for using too much of an "unlimited" service.
But Comcast is licensed by the government
specifically, by each city and town that it operates in. Cutting off service without due process may violate the license. I'd also check with the state attorney general or the state department of telecommunications and energy.
Why can't Comcast charge an additional fee for use of 'too much' bandwidth?
If I had Comcast internet
If I had Comcast internet service and my connection was slowing down because this guy is downloading movies on P2P all day, I'd be happy to see them cut his service. When you sign up, you agree to their terms. They don't cut you off until you use a huge amount of bandwidth. Even if they start offering mega-use service for an extra cost, it will still affect the rest of us when the bandwidth hogs get online.
And those terms are ...
I'd love to hear your definition of "unlimited" Mark.
The problem isn't that heavy users who slow things down need to be limited. The problem is that heavy users are not given any warning about "unacceptable use", not permitted to switch to other plans, and not even given any definition of what constitutes unacceptable use.
It would be like a cop giving you a ticket for speeding, but refusing to tell you what speed you were doing or what the speed limit was! I think you use too much water. Lets cut off your water without warning, shall we? We'll never tell you how much you used or what the limit was, though. We'll just cut you off.
Sound fair?
Can't agree to terms that are not stated
The electric company doesn't turn off your service if you use too much electricity. They just charge you more, and hopefully use some of that money to improve the local infrastructure so that it supports your level of use.
Just like ...
Ol' Dominic Luberto on the Jamaicaway.
Cable regulation
It strikes me as bizarre that they don't send written notice to your billing address before they, you know, CANCEL YOUR ENTIRE ACCOUNT.
But these kinds of issues with Comcast are nothing new. Google for "comcast cancel bandwidth" for innumerable stories like yours. The FCC isn't happy about Comcast's policy of throttling their customers' Bittorrent transfers. Granted, Bittorrent is designed to grab chunks of a circuit's download and upload capacity simultaneously. That's why it blazes, compared to traditional P2P.
If Comcast does have traffic problems from time to time, they certainly have a Soviet style of dealing with it. What they need is a dose of real competition and/or tighter regulation.
In Boston, the regulating agency is the Office of Cable Communications. For the Commonwealth, it's the Department of Telecommunications and Cable.
After the first year at ComCast
it's all profit.
I used to do some consulting for them. Was told that
for each new subscriber, it took the first 12 months
to pay for the infrastructure. After that it was
100% profit for each month's billing.
As Emily Latella used to say: "We don't care.
We don't have to. We're the phone company."
Operator, please?
Emily Litella? Or Lily Tomlin as Ernestine?
Doh! Ernestine!
Is this the party to whom I am connected?
and to round out this conversation
"...never mind."