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Network neutrality by definition is regulation

NN is an ABSTRACT CONCEPT, the desire for networks to allow us to access any kind of traffic without blocking.

Can a provider like Comcast proclaim it supports Network Neutrality without supporting regulation? Why yes, in fact it can and has.

The problem the whole time is that regulation that supposedly embodied network neutrality from the FCC actually did the opposite, but people not adept to reading 30 page regulations were easily deceived into thinking it did and supporting it.

So sure, Comcast was going to spend some money on infrastructure anyway. The article stretches to get $48 Billion and the press release says "spend well in excess of $50 billion" with more announcements coming in their January earnings report, so even at the most generous, there is still a gap there. The part of the same press release they skipped over of course was that Comcast also announced "special $1,000 bonuses to more than one hundred thousand eligible frontline and non-executive employees." in the same press release. If you read the press release, that's the part most specifically attributed to the tax cuts and the FCC rule change. The infrastructure plans read as an add-on, so this is mostly much ado about nothing. But hey, these "reporters" will do just about anything to be able to publish something they can cast into an anti-Trump narrative of some sort.

Have you considered the alternative, that Comcast and AT&T and others are praising the tax breaks an end to NN in a Pro-Trump way?
Why would they do that, you ask? Isn't it obvious that they prefer no regulation and free reign to try to extract maximum profits from their customers?

Yeah, Comcast is generally a lame company, but to say an official announcement by the decision maker about the reasons for a particular decision equals "no evidence" is quite a biased stretch, especially when the counter evidence is a guess by someone who wasn't involved in the decision.

So sure, Comcast was going to spend some money on infrastructure anyway. The article stretches to get $48 Billion and the press release says "spend well in excess of $50 billion" with more announcements coming in their January earnings report, so even at the most generous, there is still a gap there. The part of the same press release they skipped over of course was that Comcast also announced "special $1,000 bonuses to more than one hundred thousand eligible frontline and non-executive employees." in the same press release. If you read the press release, that's the part most specifically attributed to the tax cuts and the FCC rule change. The infrastructure plans read as an add-on, so this is mostly much ado about nothing. But hey, these "reporters" will do just about anything to be able to publish something they can cast into an anti-Trump narrative of some sort.

Comcast HAS NOT removed promises to uphold Net Neutrality, they have it still up here.

If you got that wrong, I wonder what ELSE you have got wrong...

Like the article says nothing is going to come of this, the internet next year will be essentially the same as it is this year, possibly with a few more options but no reduction in service.

The last I checked I could buy my own modem and use it on my Comcast service to avoid the rental fees. They even publish a list of approved modems.

Home
https://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.c...
Business
https://business.comcast.com/h...

This type stuff is common. Heck when I went to sign and get a business internet connection from Comcast they handed me a single page contract that we very reasonable until I got to the last line. It read "By signing this you agree to this contract and all pages published at http://xxxxx.comcast.com/"

That to me was not "fine print" it was bait and switch. I refused to sign tell I had read everything at the web address. Turns out they had 900+ pages of legal text published there. Most of what was stated in the one page contract was amended or removed by the published pages. They also included such gems as, under grounds for termination "Making public any information which may reflect badly on Comcast.", and "Running any service which allows a user to make public posts." It also stated that the service could be terminated at any time, without notice, with or without reason and that they could not be held responsible for any financial losses. I was not about to sign it because it put my business at the mercy of Comcast.

Caps are a mathematical requirement. Without caps, Internet prices would be around what a dedicated line costs, which is about $7000/mo for an OC3 (155 Mbps).

BS. If this were true, then how is it possible for Comcast to just increase their "cap" from 300GB to 1TB without a price increase of several times the existing price?

OC3 is expensive because it requires dedicated lines, uses obsolete technology and may come with a minimum instantaneous bandwidth guarantee. It's not remotely comparable.

Pfft: Brian Roberts

Right, so far it's just bit players like Comcast and TWC. Maybe someday the major consumer ISPs will support IPv6, but that day certainly isn't November 9th, 2011.

Hmm, I thought all of Comcast's US residential service supported IPv6 now.

It does. Comcast's residential IPv6 deployment was completed last year. All residential customers should now be able to get IPv6 if they have a modem and computer/router that supports it.

The OP should check his equipment and work from there. With 100% deployment (well, nothing is ever 100%, he could be that one guy), he should be able to get IPv6.

Comcast hasn't enforced their data cap for years, at least in the Pittsburgh market. I use close to 1 TB per month and have not heard a word of complaint from them. If you go to https://customer.comcast.com/S... you can check your usage and see what the cap is (and it will likely say something along the lines of "Note:enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended").

Caps are getting more common in the US. One of the biggest national ISPs, Comcast, has been rolling them out city by city. So far still not in most of the country, but they've been rolled out as a "trial" in Atlanta, Memphis, Tucson, etc., and will probably be extended nationally. Here's their FAQ about it.

Caps are important to them because they see their cable monopoly slipping away as Netflix, HBO, et. al. offer a la carte purchase options that bypass their subscription based model. They realize they will eventually become a dumb pipe and need to find ways to extract extra money out of that pipe, be it by caps or trying to limit other entrants such as municipalities or Google. That's also why they want to own content providers so they can also sell content separate from cable.

Caps are getting more common in the US. One of the biggest national ISPs, Comcast, has been rolling them out city by city. So far still not in most of the country, but they've been rolled out as a "trial" in Atlanta, Memphis, Tucson, etc., and will probably be extended nationally. Here's their FAQ about it.

No, because they don't actially offer "SD only service", it's all HD now.

Cable TV is all digital, but not necessarily high-definition. Operators of digital cable systems can and do use conditional access in the digital cable platform to give 480i or 1080i versions of a particular channel to particular customers. For example, Comcast charges a "monthly HD technology fee" if an XFINITY TV customer has HD in his plan. This was true as of this forum post three years ago, and another forum post from three months ago confirms that it still is being charged. Or was it very recently discontinued?

Um, no. While they do have some conditions imposed on them until 2018, they have sued over FCC's regulations for net neutrality and won. Hell, these conditions were IMPOSED on them for violating the laws and regulations w.r.t. internet traffic.

And from Comcast directly: “we do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II.”
http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-files-open-internet-reply-comments

You can opt out of the binding arbitration clause, not that they advertise this fact. I believe you're "supposed" to complete the form within 30 days of commencement of service, but I don't know whether or not that requirement itself is legally binding.

Binding arbitration clauses don't hold up in court. No contract is allowed to revoke your rights.

You can opt out of the binding arbitration clause, not that they advertise this fact. I believe you're "supposed" to complete the form within 30 days of commencement of service, but I don't know whether or not that requirement itself is legally binding.

At least the major cable guys offer unlimited data a month...

That's on its way out. Comcast recently started rolling out data caps in several major markets, and plans to expand them nationwide over the next five years. Time Warner will probably match them soon.

This means that Time-Warner's and Comcast's content arms can both compete for my eyeballs.

There are NO markets in which they compete. Not a single one.

Some of the commenters fail to account for the most important economic reality of these transactions – that Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Charter do not compete in any market, which means that there will be no reduction in competition or consumer choice for any of the services we offer.

You're being blocked because any mail leaving Comcast's IP spaces is expected to come from Comcast's mailservers only.

Configure your mailserver with a "smarthost" option, have it deliver using Authenticated SMTP (with your Comcast account's username and password hardcoded, yes) over SSL on 465, or if you can't do SSL, use 587.

Source: Am currently running Postfix on Comcast successfully delivering to Yahoo Mail with no spamfolder problem via this method. (Am using SPF, no DomainKeys yet.)

More from Comcast on this: http://corporate.comcast.com/c...

Why does imbalance matter?

Because when peering agreements were created, the assumption was that trying to keep track of how much data you wanted us to carry and you keeping track of how much we gave you to carry was not necessary because we'd be charging each other the same amount if we did keep track.

Large amounts of data going one way breaks that basic tenet of peering. Now it makes sense to charge the other guy for data they want you to handle.

But this view ignores the most important point, that Comcast has explicitly promised its customers "internet access" at an advertised speed.

No. From here:

Performance Starter: Offer ends 01/04/15. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Limited to new residential customers. Requires subscription to Performance Starter Internet service. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees, including regulatory recovery fees, Broadcast TV Fee (up to $3.50/mo.), Regional Sports Fee (up to $1/mo.) and other applicable charges extra, and subject to change during and after the promotion. After applicable promotional period, regular rates apply. Comcastâ(TM)s current monthly service charge for Performance Starter Internet is $49.95 (pricing subject to change). Service limited to a single outlet. May not be combined with other offers. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed.

Emphasis mine. The same emphasized text appears in the details for all three residential service levels. My statement stands: they did not promise you 24/7 full-rate access to anyplace off their net.

There are no pharmaceutical-like disclaimers during those commercials

There are when you actually go to sign up. And common sense tells you that they cannot guarantee those speeds to every site on the planet. They can't even guarantee those speeds to every site on the Comcast network. That's why they don't.

If Comcast says you're paying for "10Mbps internet", the assumption is that you get the advertised speed to the entire internet, provided there are no technical limitations outside of Comcast's control.

That's what some people assume, but that's not backed up by the service agreement.

It's not even backed up by common sense. Suppose you buy the Blast service and get 105Mbps download. You want to connect to my system and I've got Performance Starter (6 Mbps down, God knows what it is up). You ain't getting anywhere near 105Mbps from my stream. Even trying to connect to your next door neighbor who has the same service, you ain't getting faster than his upload allows. If you think Comcast could promise anything faster, then you must think they'll upgrade MY service to Blast for free because they promised YOU that you'd get data from me that fast, and you're paying them for my data at that speed.

Understood, but what I'm saying is that, if you're a Comcast customer, you don't _need_ to subscribe to a full TV package to get HBO.

In Seattle, Internet Plus will get you 50Mbps Internet, plus the broadcast channels (aka Limited Basic), plus HBO, for $45/month. Rises to $65/month in the second year. 25Mbps service is $5/month less.

http://www.comcast.com/interne...

It does in markets where it doesn't have to compete with FiOS. See What will happen if I exceed my data usage plan?

They directly admit this: "Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Charter do not compete in any market" (direct quote)

Appalling.

official response: http://corporate.comcast.com/c... author even mentions that they use it themselves!

This is also covered by their AUP and explicitly listed as an OK use of XFINITY.

http://www.comcast.com/Corpora...

No, but they can reference their TOS and note preclusion against running 'servers' on residential service.

Actually, they have a few rules in their Acceptable Use Policy that specifically go after TOR: http://www.comcast.com/Corpora...

Yes, use the NoScript add-on for Firefox.

But the subject is about Comcast abuse. Here is just one example, from Comcast's "Automatic Payment Terms & Conditions", retrieved a few minutes ago:

"6. COMCAST SHALL BEAR NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSSES OF ANY KIND THAT YOU MAY INCUR AS A RESULT OF A PAYMENT MADE ON ITEMS INCORRECTLY BILLED..."

Most people don't have time to read legal language. Many would not understand it fully. It is overly broad. And, in my experience, Comcast often tries to over-bill.

My opinion? Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts (The page jumps around if you move the mouse over the menu.), and Tom Karinshak, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at Comcast (See the bottom of the page.), should be removed from office.

Another example: The Login page has a link at the bottom left, Contact Us. As of Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 4:18 am Pacific Time, it is a dead link.

Yes, use the NoScript add-on for Firefox.

But the subject is about Comcast abuse. Here is just one example, from Comcast's "Automatic Payment Terms & Conditions", retrieved a few minutes ago:

"6. COMCAST SHALL BEAR NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSSES OF ANY KIND THAT YOU MAY INCUR AS A RESULT OF A PAYMENT MADE ON ITEMS INCORRECTLY BILLED..."

Most people don't have time to read legal language. Many would not understand it fully. It is overly broad. And, in my experience, Comcast often tries to over-bill.

My opinion? Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts (The page jumps around if you move the mouse over the menu.), and Tom Karinshak, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at Comcast (See the bottom of the page.), should be removed from office.

Another example: The Login page has a link at the bottom left, Contact Us. As of Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 4:18 am Pacific Time, it is a dead link.

Yes, use the NoScript add-on for Firefox.

But the subject is about Comcast abuse. Here is just one example, from Comcast's "Automatic Payment Terms & Conditions", retrieved a few minutes ago:

"6. COMCAST SHALL BEAR NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSSES OF ANY KIND THAT YOU MAY INCUR AS A RESULT OF A PAYMENT MADE ON ITEMS INCORRECTLY BILLED..."

Most people don't have time to read legal language. Many would not understand it fully. It is overly broad. And, in my experience, Comcast often tries to over-bill.

My opinion? Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts (The page jumps around if you move the mouse over the menu.), and Tom Karinshak, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at Comcast (See the bottom of the page.), should be removed from office.

Another example: The Login page has a link at the bottom left, Contact Us. As of Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 4:18 am Pacific Time, it is a dead link.

it's newsworthy because Comcast went on the record denying that this is their policy ... http://corporate.comcast.com/c...

That's just the thing, the customers have no choice. As they maneuver to buyout Time Warner, Comcast themselves state plainly, "Comcast and TWC do not compete against each other in any area"

Comcast are actually doing very well in this arena. http://corporate.comcast.com/c... Their rollout plans are quite aggressive. John Brzozowski who works at Comcast gave an excellent presentation around 6 month ago in the UK about how they are rolling it out on their network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's not how it works, either. There's settlement-free peering (the "real" peering) and there's paid peering and there's transit. Peering is when two networks exchange data which is destined for the respective other network. Transit is when two networks exchange traffic that is destined for some other network. Transit is the real cost factor, because nobody carries transit traffic for free: You want me to carry your data to someone else? What's in it for me? Whether peering is settlement free or not is a matter of negotiation. Most networks publish peering policies in which they describe where and with whom they will peer and what the conditions are. For example: Google, Comcast, Verizon, and few others. If you want to dig even deeper, there's a database of peerings (use guest login). It is indeed often a matter of size, and the resulting negotiating power, who pays whom. There are however "peering sluts": CDNs will typically peer settlement-free with anyone above a relatively small minimum size, even though CDNs are true behemoths on the internet. That's because their business depends on reaching everybody, and settlement-free peering is still a lot cheaper than the transit for their huge traffic flows. Netflix is in this category, for the same reason.

From their website at http://customer.comcast.com/he...

If you are looking to completely cancel your XFINITY service, we ask that you call us at 1-800-XFINITY (1-800-934-6489). We want to make sure weâ(TM)ve done everything we can to give you the best experience, price and package. We would also love to hear any feedback you have so that we can improve our service.

The call agent was just true to what Comcast told him to do. To be SURE everything has been done possible.
Fun thing is that when you go up one level to http://customer.comcast.com/he... you won't find the information on how to cancel. In fact I needed google to find the page.

From their website at http://customer.comcast.com/he...

If you are looking to completely cancel your XFINITY service, we ask that you call us at 1-800-XFINITY (1-800-934-6489). We want to make sure weâ(TM)ve done everything we can to give you the best experience, price and package. We would also love to hear any feedback you have so that we can improve our service.

The call agent was just true to what Comcast told him to do. To be SURE everything has been done possible.
Fun thing is that when you go up one level to http://customer.comcast.com/he... you won't find the information on how to cancel. In fact I needed google to find the page.

Pretty much.

Here's the actual link to the apology instead of a random blog. http://corporate.comcast.com/c...

Comcast's main web page has a link to the "Comcast Customer Guarantee". That page implies that they're trying hard to serve their customers well.

But look at the "Help and Support Forums" web page. Lots of angry customers today (July 15).

Comcast's main web page has a link to the "Comcast Customer Guarantee". That page implies that they're trying hard to serve their customers well.

But look at the "Help and Support Forums" web page. Lots of angry customers today (July 15).

So, that I know of, no ISP has a program where they police what you do.

Really? That's just not so. What is more, the abusive contracts/TOS/AUP do restrict what you allowed to do. Whether or not that's actively policed is a different question.

These types of restrictions are one of the biggest threats to the real promise of the Internet IMHO -- the truly free sharing of ideas and information.

Unfortunately thanks to Netflix and Amazon, I'm barely staying within my usage cap with Comcast as it is.

What the hell are you downloading? Raw uncompressed blu-ray images? According to Netflix's usage page, the highest quality streams use HD: 3 GB per hour, 3D: 4.7 GB per hour, Ultra HD 4K: 7 GB per hour.

For a HD stream, it would take you over 80 hours to reach 250GB. 40, 2hr HD movies. Wow. Just Wow. The average American watches 2.8hrs of TV per day. If you download 100% of only HD content from Amazon/Netflix every month you'll be about at the 80+hrs / month of usage. Still a lot of downloading, given that you can't watch live events (sports/news broadcasts). Btw, even the World Cup isn't broadcast in 1080p like on broadcast/cable TV.

The current caps are from 250GB to 350GB depending on your service area. In fact, if you look at your data usage, you'll notice that they've suspended the 250GB cap enforcement.

You do realize that you fall into the .000001% of consumers who should be on a business plan if they want to download 50TB/month.

Remember no business caters to the .0000001% of consumers regardless of their business. You should vote with your dollars, find a provider that will give you unlimited usage with higher bandwidth. I'm sure there's plenty of ISPs that would be willing to drop an OC48 (2.4Gb) into your house for a quite a few grand a month. Or a Comcast business solution that has no cap.

Surely a 150Mbdown 20Mb up with no caps for $250/month is enough for you and your entire family to watch HDs every minute of every day until your eyeballs rot. Just think, with 150Mb/s down you could consume about 65GB/hr, or 20 HD movies per hour 24hrs per day, 7 days per week...

Right tool for the right job. Obviously you want Commercial Services at Residential Pricing and you don't meet the requirements of the typical Residential user, so switch to Commercial Services and be happy.

Unfortunately thanks to Netflix and Amazon, I'm barely staying within my usage cap with Comcast as it is.

What the hell are you downloading? Raw uncompressed blu-ray images? According to Netflix's usage page, the highest quality streams use HD: 3 GB per hour, 3D: 4.7 GB per hour, Ultra HD 4K: 7 GB per hour.

For a HD stream, it would take you over 80 hours to reach 250GB. 40, 2hr HD movies. Wow. Just Wow. The average American watches 2.8hrs of TV per day. If you download 100% of only HD content from Amazon/Netflix every month you'll be about at the 80+hrs / month of usage. Still a lot of downloading, given that you can't watch live events (sports/news broadcasts). Btw, even the World Cup isn't broadcast in 1080p like on broadcast/cable TV.

The current caps are from 250GB to 350GB depending on your service area. In fact, if you look at your data usage, you'll notice that they've suspended the 250GB cap enforcement.

You do realize that you fall into the .000001% of consumers who should be on a business plan if they want to download 50TB/month.

Remember no business caters to the .0000001% of consumers regardless of their business. You should vote with your dollars, find a provider that will give you unlimited usage with higher bandwidth. I'm sure there's plenty of ISPs that would be willing to drop an OC48 (2.4Gb) into your house for a quite a few grand a month. Or a Comcast business solution that has no cap.

Surely a 150Mbdown 20Mb up with no caps for $250/month is enough for you and your entire family to watch HDs every minute of every day until your eyeballs rot. Just think, with 150Mb/s down you could consume about 65GB/hr, or 20 HD movies per hour 24hrs per day, 7 days per week...

Right tool for the right job. Obviously you want Commercial Services at Residential Pricing and you don't meet the requirements of the typical Residential user, so switch to Commercial Services and be happy.

http://www.comcast.com/interne...

Comcast's WiFi Location Map is the hot new burglary tool. Thieves are so thankful for the time savings. Soon we will hear old crooks lamenting to their children how when they were kids they had to break into half a dozen homes just to find one with laptops and tablets.

Apparently this is what you should really do http://forums.comcast.com/t5/B.... Stop paying the rental fee for a modem and put in a proper modem router firewall and ensure remote management has been disabled and use a good password.

While I agree that fast lanes should not be needed, just as they don't seem to be needed today (how many times the definition of the human eye does HD need to be, anyway?) it's important to understand that smaller countries can achieve faster internet speeds more easily due to their relatively small real estate. The number one factor affecting latency is distance, and the US has a lot of ground to cover.

That doesn't mean Comcast and TWC aren't still screwing us when they "do not compete against each other in any area" (direct quote).

Pretty much. Visitors can use it for two 60-minute sessions per month. http://wifi.comcast.com/faqs.h...

I live in south King County and logged into my Comcast account to see what all the fuss was about. Because I have a separate router running DD-WRT and it is connected to my Arris cable modem I do not have the Xfinity WiFi option; or perhaps it is because my Arris cable modem does not have WiFi available when checking it's IP address of 192.168.100.1. Using their online Xfinity WiFi finder, one person near me has Xfinity WiFi and one person near where my dad lives does as well.

Comcast themselves say "Comcast and TWC do not compete against each other in any area" (direct quote).
This collusion clearly violates the ideals of free-market capitalism, but at what point does it violate the law?

(Sorry to anyone who's seen me post this comment before, but I'm still scratching my head over this)

I'm pretty sure that a condition where the companies serving the market are local monopolies separated by geography, "competing" only in the sense that residents may move to another service provider's area if they are dissatisfied with their service (and how bad would it need to be, really, for people to consider moving halfway across a continent....) does not constitute a properly competitive market.

Exactly. Comcast themselves say "Comcast and TWC do not compete against each other in any area" (direct quote).