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Comcast Pays $800,000 To U.S. For Hiding Stand-Alone Broadband
First time accepted submitter vu1986 writes "The Federal Communications Commission has settled with Comcast over charges that the cable company made it hard for consumers to find stand-alone broadband packages that don't cost an arm and leg. As part of the settlement Comcast paid the U.S. Treasury $800,000 and the FCC extended the length of time Comcast had to provide such a service."
I had no problem finding an internet only package with Comcast and I was quite happy with their service.
I used Comcast for internet service for 3 years and it worked great. Consistent 15 mbit service, never hit any usage caps despite being a heavy Netflix user with no cable service (I used Comcast only for internet). Only one instance of downtime in 3 years, they had a truck there within 4 hours and re terminated the connection at the pole to get me back online (the tech said it was water damage - it had been rainy and exceptionally windy - many people lost power). I considered DSL, but the local Telco could only promise "up to" 1.5mbit of bandwidth and said that due to my CO distance it might be lower.
Now I have AT&T U-Verse (my only option) and after 2 missed install appointment (no call for either one - they just didn't show), it's been ok, but there have been 2 outages in 3 months. One lasted around 10 minutes, the other was 60 minutes but it was the middle of the night.
If I could use Comcast again, I would.
Uh. Yeah, I do sincerely believe the original post was an interesting, informative, amusing and mildly sarcastic jab at how both conservatives and liberals would view the settlement, followed by a pointed reference to the politically neutral crowd seeing this story as a complete non-starter. Girlintraining came through loud and clear for me, sans tag.
"nobody will proactively offer you the cheaper packages" -- _everyone_ does that if there's even a resemblance of competition on the market...
My provider likes to call me every few months and ask if i'd like their telephone service. I keep having to explain to them [..]
Have you tried telling them that you don't want marketing calls to your number?
National Do Not Call List: Who Can Still Call You?:
"If you do not want to be called by a telemarketer making an exempt call, you can ask to be put on the telemarketer's internal do not call list. Every Canadian telemarketer is required to maintain such a list and respect your wishes not to be called."
Woah there Johnny. Libertarians aren't "far-right." Libertarians are slightly more conservative anarchists. It's a different dimension on the graph than the left-right:liberal-conservative scale.
And libertarians wouldn't be thrilled about this news bit either. Just more collusion and uselessness.