There's No Evidence Comcast's New 'Network Investment' Is Because of Net Neutrality Repeal or Tax Cuts (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Comcast issued a statement last week claiming that the government's new tax plan and the end of net neutrality will directly result in a dramatic spike in Comcast's network investment and job creation plans. If you look at Comcast's capital investments over the past 12 months and calculate continued investment growth at current rates -- you'll find that Comcast was already on pace to spend more than $50 billion on investment over the next five years.

Journalists that could be bothered to take a closer look at Comcast's earnings discovered that the company's promise of $50 billion in investment over five years is something that would have occurred regardless of the net neutrality repeal or Comcast's shiny new tax cut. "In Q3 2017, the most recent quarter, Comcast's capital expenditures were $2.4 billion," noted Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin. "Continuing to spend at that rate, even if Comcast doesn't increase spending to account for inflation, would push Comcast to $9.6 billion a year or $48 billion over the next five years." Indeed; if you look at Comcast's capital investments over the past 12 months and calculate continued investment growth at current rates -- you'll find that Comcast was already on pace to spend more than $50 billion on investment over the next five years.

Comments

If we don't believe Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Should we make up stories and believe those instead?

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[_Sharp'r_]

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.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's. This is already known. The larger portion goes to dividends for stock holders and the rest is company cash assets. The fact that Comcast is claiming that the investment they have already been making is now due to the end of net neutrality is absurd at any level. I can claim that I'll pay my electric bill for the rest of the year because of net neutrality, so what.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The consent decree imposed on Comcast for the NBCUniversal merger is set to expire soon. However, there is a lot of risk the federal government may extend it. Since Trump seems susceptible to flattery/buttering up, giving him credit for things seems a cheap way to curry favor.

Certainly, their statement should be taken with a grain of salt.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[ShanghaiBill]

Comcast is in business to make money. The tax "reform" and the repeal of NN mean that Comcast's activities are likely to lead to higher profits and higher ROI, so it is rational for them to invest in expanding their business.

However, that investment is probably better spent buying up competitors rather than rolling out new infrastructure.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[drinkypoo]

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,

No, it is not even a short stretch. Only a compleat idiot (look it up) would believe something because there was a press release about it. The rest of your comment is thus utterly invalidated by simple common sense, and not just that you shouldn't listen to anything said by anyone who just said something so blatantly false, but that the rest of it is predicated upon trusting the words of corporate PR flacks and officers. Lying to you is literally part of their jobs. Looks like it's working brilliantly on you.

If you read the press release, that's the part most specifically attributed to the tax cuts and the FCC rule change.

AT&T says the same thing, while cutting 2,000 jobs. I wonder how many jobs Comcast will cut? And I further wonder how many employees will actually get those bonuses. Comcast is literally known for not keeping their word.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[drinkypoo]

So no actual evidence, just holding your hands over your ears and shouting "I don't believe you!"

It is literally the opposite. There is no actual evidence that these corporations will do what they say they will, and ample [historical] evidence that they will not. In fact, the available evidence says that when they say they will do something, they will do something else. You know, like when we paid them hundreds of millions of dollars to build out the last mile, and they gave the money to their executives as bonuses instead.

Seems pretty desperate, there.

You seem pretty desperate to support their narrative. Shareholder, or employee?

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[next_ghost]

Payroll expenses are exempt from corporate taxes and investments are tax-deductible over an extended period of time. So explain to me how exactly do tax cuts help you pay for something that's tax-deductible anyway?

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Cyberax]

Why is it rational? Repeal of the NN means that they actually don’t need to invest more, as they can extract bigger profit from existing infrastructure.

Re: If we don't believe Comcast

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are an idiot. The taxes they withhold are a portion of the *employees* salary, not a portion of the companies profits.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's. This is already known.

[citation needed]

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[ranton]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's. This is already known.

[citation needed]

Correct, nowhere near 10-20% of large tax breaks goes to employees. Of the $300 billion companies saved from the 2004 Homeland Investment Act, about 92% of it went to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends. The top 15 companies, who accounted for half of the repatriated money, cut 20,000 net jobs in the three years following the tax break.

But the remaining 8% didn't even all go to employees. I couldn't find exact figures, but some of that also went to capital purchases. At best you could say 5%-10% of large tax breaks go to employees, but even that is probably a bit high.

There is no honest debate on whether this tax bill will meaningfully boost the economy and help American workers. It won't. It will boost the stock market (or more likely already has) and create the illusion that the economy has improved, but that is about it.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[ranton]

There is no evidence yet because it hasn't happened yet.

What are you talking about? Do you think this is the first tax break for corporations, or the first repatriation attempt? We repatriated $300 billion in 2004, and we know what the companies did with it. The top 15 companies, which repatriated half of that $300 billion figure, cut 20,000 jobs in the next three years. 92% of the total repatriated money was simply given to shareholders in stock buybacks and dividends.

As for Comcast's specific case, the article shows how Comcast is already on pace to invest over $50 billion over the next five years, so there is ample evidence Comcast is not doing this because of the tax bill.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[ranton]

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 article does not stretch to get to $48 billion, they use that figure to show that even if Comcast stops increasing their investments year over year they will invest $48 Billion over the next five years. Comcast's third quarter results, which were cited in the article, shows they have increased investment by 4.2% compared to 2016. If they continue that growth, they will invest $52 billion over the next five years. And even that is a pessimistic figure because it assumes Comcast's growth will remain constant and not accelerate.

There is no gap, and you are the one stretching to find a narrative where Comcast's stated motives are true. Plenty of corporations made similar claims for how they would spend the 2004 repatriated money, and in the end there were no significant increases in investment but were significant reductions in payroll. Likely because of the increased automation and mergers the repatriated money made possible.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[JackieBrown]

How so? Because Net Neutrailty set pricing structures?

Net Neutrality was sure a magical, all encompassing piece of regulation. Everything bad that happens from now to the end of time can be blamed on it being repealed and nothing good can be credited to it..

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[JackieBrown]

Seems pretty desperate, there.

You seem pretty desperate to support their narrative. Shareholder, or employee?

You seem just as desperate to fight their narrative. Competitor or whiny bitch?

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[ShanghaiBill]

they actually don’t need to invest more, as they can extract bigger profit from existing infrastructure.

Businesses aim to maximize profit. They do not set a profit cap and then try to extract it in the easiest way.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[next_ghost]

Businesses aim to maximize profit. They do not set a profit cap and then try to extract it in the easiest way.

Corporate taxes are designed to encourage reinvesting profits (tax deductible) instead of shoveling them straight to the shareholders (not tax deductible). Lowering the corporate tax rate will result in less profit reinvesting and more shoveling to shareholders. But at least until the 2018 elections, there will be lots of PR hot air about investments, otherwise the GOP tax scam might get repealed before it even takes effect.

Re: If we don't believe Comcast

[next_ghost]

What are you talking about? Payroll ADDS to the corporate tax burden. A lot. There's a reason why companies always try to outsource or use contractors.

Do you understand the difference between corporate tax and payroll tax?

I suspect you're a Clinton voter.

Nope. I'm an EU citizen.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[KingMotley]

There is no honest debate on whether this tax bill will meaningfully boost the economy and help American workers. It won't. It will boost the stock market (or more likely already has) and create the illusion that the economy has improved, but that is about it.

So, you are saying that it will only boost the stock market. Which based on my last 12 months, my 401(k) and my separate stock account has grown by 21%. That's basically all the money I have saved over my lifetime is now 21% bigger, and the "only" thing it will do is increase it (assuming the same rate or better than last year) another 21%?

I think your logic here is pretty flawed because I'm an American worker, and I can tell you without a doubt that another 21% growth in my 401(k) and stock market accounts will meaningfully help me prepare for retirement someday, add to my rainy day cushion fund, and a not insignificant portion of it has already and will likely continue to go back into the economy.

In the past 3 months, I've bought a new house (which I haven't done in 25 years), upgraded all the fire detectors/carbon monoxide detectors with nest protects, replaced the thermostat with a nest thermostat, replaced (some) lighting with Philips Hue lights and replaced (some) CFLs with LEDs, bought 6 echo/echo dots, bought two bedroom sets, one couch, remodeled a bathroom, paid off my car loan in full, hired a contractor for some misc stuff, etc etc. So while I can't speak for everyone, I can definitely tell you that from my personal perspective you are dead wrong.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[dgatwood]

The fact that their infrastructure spending is predicted to be only 4% higher than you would expect by multiplying their typical expenditure by the time period means that the impact of those laws/policies was at most about $2B. So it might not prove that the Comcast folks are lying, but it proves that they're deliberately distorting the truth to an extent that is almost indistinguishable from lying.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[sabbede]

First, it's at least $2B, and that's if and only if the author's assumptions about Comcast's pre-cut/pre-repeal plans were correct. That's a lot of money.

Second, it isn't their "typical expenditure" that was being used in the projection, it was their expenditure for one quarter and the rate of change from the two before it. For all anyone outside Comcast knows, they were planning to invest $0 over the next five years.

Third, since all of the data used in the author's projection is from the first three quarters of 2017, even if those projections are correct the conclusions are still wrong.

Why? I'll tell you. Comcast looked at the political landscape and figured it was probably getting a tax cut and that the FCC would repeal NN, so they started the ball rolling, knowing that they could cut back if things turned out differently.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[ranton]

I think your logic here is pretty flawed because I'm an American worker, and I can tell you without a doubt that another 21% growth in my 401(k) and stock market accounts will meaningfully help me prepare for retirement someday, add to my rainy day cushion fund, and a not insignificant portion of it has already and will likely continue to go back into the economy.

First off, half of all households have no money in the stock market, so the people most in need of economic improvement gain nothing from stock market increases. 80% of the benefits go to the top 10%, with half of that going to the top 1%.

Other than not investing enough in the first place, the second biggest problem regular people have with the stock market is being too fixated on short term gains and losses. At least 95% of people, if not closer to 99% of people, shouldn't care at all what the stock market does in any given year. It should only matter what happens to it over a 10-30 year period. And for the most part no tax plan will ever have a meaningful effect on the stock market over those periods, unless of course it is bad enough to completely tank the economy for decades.

Sure some people who put short term savings into the stock market would have done well in the last year, but that same mentality would have made them lose half their money during the last recession. Saying that you bought a house with gains from your 100% stock savings plan isn't much different than saying you bought a house with lottery winnings. I mean, I'm glad for you, but that type of thinking very often destroys savings and ruins lives.

Your retirement savings 20 years from now would be the same whether or not the stock market rose 2% or 20% in 2017. In the long term it is based on macro trends which have nearly nothing to do with tax policy. That is why reputable economists say this tax plan will likely improve the economy by 0.1-0.3% in the next few years, and less than that if not having a negative effect after 2020. In the end your retirement savings in 2030 will be the same with or without this tax plan.

In the past 3 months, I've bought a new house (which I haven't done in 25 years), upgraded all the fire detectors/carbon monoxide detectors with nest protects, replaced the thermostat with a nest thermostat, replaced (some) lighting with Philips Hue lights and replaced (some) CFLs with LEDs, bought 6 echo/echo dots, bought two bedroom sets, one couch, remodeled a bathroom, paid off my car loan in full, hired a contractor for some misc stuff, etc etc. So while I can't speak for everyone, I can definitely tell you that from my personal perspective you are dead wrong.

Unless you cashed out retirement savings to buy all of that, this tax plan had nothing to do with any of this. If you did cash out your retirement savings for this then 2017 definitely worked well for you, but that was just luck. Plenty of people hoping to put a down payment for a house in 2008 through the sale of stocks had the opposite luck.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's.

[Citation needed]. There have been a couple of high profile raises to $15/hr (which turns out to be less of a change than you would think as a percentage of salary) and a few high profile one-time bonuses. These have been high-profile precisely because the vast majority of (esp. large) companies aren't changing incentive structures at all (maybe 5% of the Fortune500). And, they come exclusivey from heavily regulated industries (e.g. banking) or otherwise had pending regulatory decisions (e,g, AT&T) before the Trump administration.

Re: If we don't believe Comcast

[Jesus H Rolle]

Only a compleat idiot (look it up)

I looked it up. compleat adjective & verb: archaic spelling of complete. Interesting. Thanks for the trivia.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[shess]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's. This is already known. The larger portion goes to dividends for stock holders and the rest is company cash assets. The fact that Comcast is claiming that the investment they have already been making is now due to the end of net neutrality is absurd at any level. I can claim that I'll pay my electric bill for the rest of the year because of net neutrality, so what.

Weirdly enough, an equivalent tax break directed at payroll tax offsets would go 100% to employee wages!

[OK, no, the company would probably drop top-line wages due to the bump in bottom-line wages, but a pithy statement with a caveat like that isn't as pithy.]

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Cyberax]

Ok. I keep offering this bet to conservatives. Right now my house is served only by Comcast. I bet you $10000 that in 2 years I won't get any new competition offering unmetered Internet at least at 50MBps speed. I can even make it easier - I bet that I won't get better performance than I have right now from Comcast. Deal?

Before NN repeal the only way Comcast was able to get more profit was to build out the network, providing better speed and coverage. Now they also can raise the price for Internet content providers without investing in their network. Guess what is going to happen?

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[AutodidactLabrat]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's. This is already known.

And yet that never happened under Raygun or Bush 41.
Mmm, sounds like another talking point from Kochsucker's inc..

Birinyiâ(TM)s ruler

[mattwarden]

If a company spent $x the past 5 years, obviously they will spend $x the next 5 years!

Outcome

[Anonymous Coward]

- Comcast executives make even more money to spend snorting cocaine and partying.

- Comcast customers keep getting screwed at least as much as they were before.

- Conservatives cheer at the top of their lungs.

Re:Outcome

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a conservative, and I hate Comcast, support net neutrality. However I also support tax cuts for corps. I don't have any illusion that all their tax saving will help the CEO's more than the employee's or their customers. But the bottom line is that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. If you want to compete we need to lower that.

The USA ranks number 1 in prison incarceration, debt, and taxes. This is not a good thing.

I notice you were quick to snipe on Conservatives, but were you able to criticize your buddy Obama when he gave a huge bone to the corporate CEO's of the insurance companies under the pretense that he was helping poor people. The honest to god truth is there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. they all support their corporate campaign donors. Conservatives and Liberals need to ban together, find common ground and stop supporting the party oligarchs.

Re: Outcome

[Pop69]

You have to pay for all that military spending somehow. Did you think the money grew on trees? It comes from taxes and deficit spending.

Re: Outcome

[omnichad]

The person you replied to appeared to have their own brain. Why are you spouting off standard partisan talking points? Perhaps they aren't in favor of military spending? After all, it's not a fiscally conservative thing to do.

Re:Outcome

[Daemonik]

I'm a conservative, and I hate Comcast, support net neutrality. However I also support tax cuts for corps. I don't have any illusion that all their tax saving will help the CEO's more than the employee's or their customers. But the bottom line is that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. If you want to compete we need to lower that.

The USA ranks number 1 in prison incarceration, debt, and taxes. This is not a good thing.

I notice you were quick to snipe on Conservatives, but were you able to criticize your buddy Obama when he gave a huge bone to the corporate CEO's of the insurance companies under the pretense that he was helping poor people. The honest to god truth is there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. they all support their corporate campaign donors. Conservatives and Liberals need to ban together, find common ground and stop supporting the party oligarchs.

I've never understood the Conservative stance on the US's place in the world regarding taxes.. We're told socialism is teh evil, because high taxes.. but by your constant harping Democratic Capitalism has led to the highest taxes in the world. Yet most socialist countries seem to have universal health care and a pretty enviable quality of life in exchange for their high taxes compared to the US where we get more prisons, economic serfdom to a new Oligarchy and a forever war. And before anyone tosses out Venezuela or another failed dictatorship that cloaked itself in socialism, there's plenty of failed democracy's to pair that against, so don't even bother.

As for the tax breaks for insurance companies, nobody liked it then either, but it was the only way to get wide spread health care without the Republican nuclear explosion that expanding Medicare universally and having single payer would have done, so we accepted it as an at the time necessary mess. Thank a deity of your choice that Republicans are saving us from that, by doing even more to destroy health care accessibility and likely imploding Medicare at the same time, to pay for their cuts to the wealthy.

Re:Outcome

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one problem with your statement on taxes, that many seem to gloss over. Constantly glossing over the number that the rate is stated. However, does anyone actually bother to look at the actual rates that are being paid.

It is dishonest to keep saying that we have the highest rate, without actually accounting for what the corporations actually pay. That second part is important and is in financials for publicly traded companies. The amount of loopholes and skirting around (tax avoidance) is quite big.

"Lowering taxes" isn't going to do anything. With the loop holes around, you as a conservative as well as corporations are going to continue with the "the taxes are too high" when the very system we have shows that their actual rates being paid is far lower. Double Irish is one well-known tax avoidance strategy. Look, every rate other than paying 0 is too high for those individuals. You can't compete nor maintain a 1st world nation with everyone trying to skirt, but then sticking their hands out and say "subsidize me!"

I will concede on one point you made .... partially. Not that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats, but there isn't much. The parties today are close in political spectrums on both social and economic scales and glad that you can see that and don't buy into the false left-right dichotomy that is parroted in the US. However, there is a noticeable difference between conservatives and liberals (as long as we're in Civics 101 and not rhetoric 101).

Re:Outcome

[TheRaven64]

"Lowering taxes" isn't going to do anything

That's not quite true. Lowering the nominal tax rate will reduce the differential in actual rate between companies that engage in active tax avoidance and those that don't. That may end up making smaller businesses (that can't afford armies of accountants and lawyers to figure out the loopholes) slightly more competitive.

Re:Outcome

[gtall]

Starting with Reagan, Republican philosophy started being divorced from relevant statistical data. It only got worse during G. W.'s tenure. Then the Demos decided they too wanted some of that, so we had Obama. Now we have...well...you can see the results.

Re:Outcome

[gtall]

Yes, and it will also lead to everyone and their uncle's dog declaring themselves to be a pass-through corporation. The stupidity of putting this in the tax code can be seen with Kansas. Brownback recently skated out of the state to he didn't have to view the carnage he created.

Re:Outcome

[swb]

There was an interview on NPR where NPR's expert said the Kansas thing with pass through corporations wasn't going to happen with this tax bill. They discussed at some length, including interviewing an econ professor from Kansas.

I don't understand why the tax code even has "pass through corporations". I can see some consideration given to corporations with 5 or fewer employees to acknowledge that its a legal structure minus most of the economic structure of a corporation, but past that it just seems like a tax dodge or loophole-ism put in their because the principal beneficiary has lobbying strength (lawyers, accountants, etc).

Re: Outcome

[110010001000]

He doesn't have a brain at all. "If you want to compete we need to lower that [the corporate tax rate]." Is he saying American corporations aren't competitve???? The American corporation is doing VERY VERY WELL. The market has been going through the roof. Corporate income is at an all time high. The tax money is going to come from somewhere, because the "conservatives" are going to spend more and more. Where do you think the tax money is going to come from? Increased corporate profits? You better hope so, otherwise it is coming out of YOUR paycheck.

Re:Outcome

[next_ghost]

I'm a conservative, and I hate Comcast, support net neutrality. However I also support tax cuts for corps. I don't have any illusion that all their tax saving will help the CEO's more than the employee's or their customers. But the bottom line is that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. If you want to compete we need to lower that.

Except that corporate taxes are specifically designed to encourage reinvesting profits (tax deductible) instead of shoveling them straight to the shareholders (not tax deductible). Comparing the tax rate to the rest of the world is irrelevant. The original tax rate was reasonable so lowering it will only hurt the economy in the long run.

Re:Outcome

[next_ghost]

Therein lies the problem. Where can I find a political party who will design tax laws to pay for the cost of government, instead of to control people's behavior?

Look up a list of countries whose economy is about to collapse. The party that's been running the government for the past 5+ years is the one you're looking for.

Re:Outcome

[next_ghost]

I've read this sentence several times and I still have no idea what you are trying to say.
Are you blaming Democrats or something for failure of other countries?
What countries are about to collapse? North Korea maybe?
please give examples and add to the discussion

I'm saying that a political party which would pass tax legislation without carefully considering what kind of behavior it'd encourage and discourage will run the economy into the ground. Because every tax legislation has side effects that encourage or discourage specific behaviors. You can either accept that fact and try to use it for public good, or you can ignore it at your own peril.

Re:Outcome

[Obfuscant]

I'm saying that a political party which would pass tax legislation without carefully considering what kind of behavior it'd encourage and discourage will run the economy into the ground.

I think his point was that much of current taxation is being driven by creating or controlling behaviors, not by legal justifications and then thought of what behaviors it would create. For example, EV tax rebates (or whatever they are called) are created not based on tax concerns, but the desire to socially engineer the use of EVs. The tax on people who didn't buy health insurance wasn't based on a desire to fund some legitimate government service, it was intended to force people to buy health insurance when they didn't want to. Every time increasing cigarette taxes becomes a topic, it isn't a side-effect of a need for more taxes, it's a need to control the behavior and then a "need" for the tax is created to justify it.

Gas taxes, ditto. Our fair state has been threatening to change the gas tax structure to a per-mile/where driven formula requiring a GPS tracker in every vehicle (which they deny can be used to create a database of who is where and when). This is not based on a desire to find funding for road maintenance (because the gas tax is already used for other things), but to convince people to drive different roads or at off-peak times so current congestion is reduced. The state wants to change driver behavior, and this tax is how to do that. What it pays for is irrelevant.

Because every tax legislation has side effects that encourage or discourage specific behaviors.

Of course. But that's different than admitting that a government wants to play social engineer by managing behaviors so they create a tax for that purpose.

oh fuck off

[Anonymous Coward]

vice.com

really...

Re:oh fuck off

[sunking2]

Vice will however be using their corporate tax savings to pay off more women they harassed.

NBC making fake news for Trump administration

[Anonymous Coward]

NBC making fake news for the Trump administration... Fascinating.

(Comcast owns NBCUniversal)

Re:NBC making fake news for Trump administration

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Fascinating... the fake news is coming just as the Trump's Department of Justice is deciding if Comcast lived up to the negotiated antitrust terms it agreed to when it purchased NBCUniversal.

Re: Motherboard and Ars

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, Breitbart catches way more flak than they deserve simply because they're right-wing. Doesn't help with they sensationalize many things that they should just shut up about.

My favorite example of this

[rsilvergun]

is AT&T is going around telling everyone the bonuses they're giving out are due to their tax cut. Turns out the Union fought for a pay raise, lost, and took a one time bonus in lieu of a raise. The amount of gall on display there is stunning. It's a lie up there with Orwell's chocolate rations.

Re:My favorite example of this

[omnichad]

And if they have a tax rate payday coming, it's much more profitable to write off a one-time bonus when the corporate rate is higher than to raise wages during a tax cut.

Re:These numbers cannot be correct

[LordKronos]

Conventional Slashdot wisdom dictates that Comcast, and all monopoly internet ISPs, have not, do not, and will not invest money in infrastructure upgrades. The monopoly status means they can coast in a non-competitive environment with current network technology while nickel and diming everyone to death. So obviously wherever they got their information that Comcast is spending money on infrastructure is complete BS. It just doesn't fit the narrative.

Keyword being monopoly. Comcast has always done upgrades....in areas where they don't have a monopoly. I've got 3 choices for cable providers, and comcast has always done a good job of providing upgrades to have the fastest speed options available. But the problem is when they DO have a monopoly. I remember one of the stories that was here on slashdot years ago. Some town only had Comcast as an option, but Comcast wouldn't upgrade them beyond 10Mbps (this was a while ago, and I don't recall the exact numbers, so forgive me if it's off). Then the town decided to setup a community ISP with 100Mbps service and.....oh, what's that? Comcast is now busting ass to offer 100Mbps service in that area much sooner than the community ISP can be up and running? Wow, what a surprise!!!!!!

Re:But there will be growth...

[ScentCone]

now thatbthis administration has completely bent over backwards to the likes of Comcast

You're, of course, getting it exactly backwards. Companies like Comcast (which you're oddly confusing with being a "monopoly" ... despite the fact that are only one provider of such services out of multiple) - especially the big ones like them, Verizon, etc - LIKED Obama's rule. Because it made things harder on smaller, competing providers. Stop pretending you actually believe the crap you're spewing, and stop being a phony troll who's actually shilling for companies like Comcast. They wanted the more complex regulator environment in place, not stripped away. And you know that, and are simply lying with your childish-sounding theatrics.

So, if Comcast doesn't profit from the end of Net Neutrality, that's just incompetence.

Really, you're not fooling anyone with this BS. Comcast will LOSE market influence when things return to the way they were two years ago. Which you know, and are pretending (through things like your phony game of acting like you don't know how to use an apostrophe - that's a nice touch!) that you're too dumb to understand. Because you're just a righteous grass-roots resister! Power to the people! Except your troll is too juvenile to wash in a place like this. You need some fresh talking points from your employer - you're not coming across like a sincere enough useful idiot type.

Re: Motherboard and Ars

[omnichad]

Doesn't help with they sensationalize many things that they should just shut up about.

Are you sure that's not why they get flak in the first place? They make Fox News look like a fair and balanced media source - and they literally have shows with talking heads ranting about things.

Re:These numbers cannot be correct

[Daemonik]

They were also simultaneously suing the community ISP to delay their build out while they were rushing to put in their own wire.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

[rsilvergun]

you simply can't be that naive. Nobody is. The bonuses were already decided on long before the tax bill (which was surprisingly uncertain, but in the end passed because the Republican's donors made it clear that if it didn't they weren't getting any more money). They'll use the $1.5 trillion in new debt as an excuse for entitlement 'reform', meaning they'll pocket our social security and medicare money. We got sold out. All of us. Unless you've got a silver spoon in your mouth you're in for a rude, rude awakening when you're 65 and dying of a completely preventable disease.

Re:You don't honestly believe that, do you?

[TheGratefulNet]

I expect that, if its how you say and we all wake up to a rude awakening one day, hell, I can see how it plays out: we have nothing left so we have nothing left to lose. we'll go out in a blaze of glory, so to speak. any 'rich guy' in the way gets plowed down.

it will be bloody and the result will be 'change' but not for the better.

still, it WILL happen. the R's seem to want this, for some sick fucking reason. they are daring us all to do this. and I suspect they'll get their wish if things continue along this broken path they setup for us all.

yeah, I can see a new crop of american local 'terrorists'. when we have nothing left and the rich guys robbed us all blind, we'll take to the streets and that will be the end of us all.

republicans: please rethink your plan. I don't think you really have thought about the end result of all of this 'fuck you, I got mine!' attitude.

Re:You don't honestly believe that, do you?

[ScentCone]

We got sold out.

We got sold out when those welfare programs were first designed with baked-in insolvency as their inevitable end. Changing the age at which you start getting other people's money isn't "selling out," it's being grown ups and doing something about the inherently flawed and unsustainable phony delusion that it's possible to give benefits to young-ish retired people through the labors of a dwindling ratio of working people. If you were even awake for the last 30 years you'd recognize that the "rude awakening" happened to rational people decades ago. If this is just now dawning on people, it's because they've been consuming lefty propaganda for their entire lives and don't want to be bothered with things like the staggeringly simple math of the situation. If you're really troubled by a trillion and a half of new debt, you must have been furious about the far huger amounts racked up by Obama.

Re:You don't honestly believe that, do you?

[Uberbah]

We got sold out when those welfare programs were first designed with baked-in insolvency as their inevitable end.

Try not to be TOO much of an unhinged Randian dipshit. The programs are self-funded through payroll taxes. Even in the event of another Great Depression, it's impossible for them to become insolvent because there will always be some money coming in to pay for some benefits going out.

Re:But there will be growth...

[Daemonik]

You're, of course, getting it exactly backwards. Companies like Comcast (which you're oddly confusing with being a "monopoly" ... despite the fact that are only one provider of such services out of multiple) - especially the big ones like them, Verizon, etc - LIKED Obama's rule. Because it made things harder on smaller, competing providers. Stop pretending you actually believe the crap you're spewing, and stop being a phony troll who's actually shilling for companies like Comcast. They wanted the more complex regulator environment in place, not stripped away. And you know that, and are simply lying with your childish-sounding theatrics.

No, you have it backwards. When Comcast is the only cable provider and high speed internet provider in your county/state, they are a monopoly. It doesn't matter that people in the next county/state have Cox. Multiple providers in the country isn't competition if they don't actually compete for each other's customers. Also they don't want a complex regulatory environment. A regulatory environment gets reviewed by experts in the field and can be changed fairly rapidly in response to abuses. They want laws with plenty of loopholes written by themselves and handed to Congress as a fait accompli instead because getting one of those changed after the fact takes monumental effort.

Re:But there will be growth...

[eddeye]

Companies like Comcast (which you're oddly confusing with being a "monopoly" ... despite the fact that are only one provider of such services out of multiple) - especially the big ones like them, Verizon, etc - LIKED Obama's rule.

Begone troll! Your foul astroturf is no use here!

Re:Explanation can't be real because ...

[DaHat]

They also lacked specifics as to how Obama's NN rules made things worse.

Case in point... Comcast's bandwidth cap. 1 terabyte. You go over and you pay quite a bit for overages. Or for $50/month (at least in my area) more, you can have the cap removed. Already paying for the faster 'blast' speed tier? That just means you will hit the cap faster than those who don't.

Worse, this cap actually creates an environment beneficial to them and hostile to non Comcast streaming services... despite the rules.

Remember, the rules only covered internet traffic, on which Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, YouTube all traverse. The dirty little secret of the latest generation of Comcast boxes, is that they are pretty simple boxes with a cable modem inside which streams all but live shows. Even the latest generation of DVRs don't have a hard drive inside, they just stream from a private cloud. While your binge watching of something on Netflix traverses the public internet and counts against your bandwidth cap... you binge watching something via the X1 platform and your Comcast provided set top box doesn't. Sure, both use DOCSIS to communicate to the head office... one exits to the public internet, the other remains on a private network.

This means that as data usage increases due to higher degrees of consumption, cord cutting, or 4k video from streaming services, your use of Comcast's services is essentially 'free', while you only have a limited capacity for the external providers.

Welcome to the world which NN created.

Re:"There's no evidence.... "

[king neckbeard]

Okay, let me put it more bluntly. If you think Comcast is going to do anything that 1) won't make them money or 2) they are required by law to do, then you are gullible beyond gullible. the appropriate headline would be "Comcast's claims about investment due to NN repeal and Tax Cuts is clearly absolutely bullshit to anybody who knows anything about anything." But that kind of headline doesn't generally sit well with advertisers.

Re: Motherboard and Ars

[c6gunner]

How in the world did you manage to confuse the BBC with CNN?

Re:But there will be growth...

[gtall]

It isn't just the monopolies, it is the biggest fish eating the smaller fish. Amazon getting into just about any business with a decent cash flow is an example. The result is that there are now a dearth of small companies being built from the ground up. They get nipped in the bud before being allowed to blossom.

What's this fallacy called?

[sabbede]

They're making a very naive assumption about the continuation and linearity of a trend over the next 60 months based on the last 12. The reasoning is fallacious, and I'm pretty sure there is a name for it, I just don't know what that name is.

Another NN article? (Not moaning)

[houghi]

What amazes me is how long we are already fighting this. And once it is gone, we will never be able to get it back.

Here an article about it : https://www.dailykos.com/story...
Not so much the content is interesting, but the date. December 26th, 2010. twothousand-fucking-ten. And even if it won't happen now and the next two precidency terms are Dems, the one after that will be Rep again and they will go for it again. They only need to succeed once. We can never fail.

So I am actually a bit happy to see those articles. It means there is still a bit of hope.

Re:Smoke and mirrors

[sabbede]

What's wrong with your character encoding? Why do all your apostrophes look like â(TM)?

And if you're going to post so much, why the hell don't you sign in?

Time will tell

[stabiesoft]

I just read that Foxconn is getting another billion in incentives in WI to come there. And for the almost 5 billion in incentives, they are only guaranteeing they will hire 3000, but up to 13000. So if it is 3000, WI would have been better off opening the factory themselves and becoming state owned.

Re:Explanation can't be real because ...

[DaHat]

We could call him a 'grammar Nazi', to satisfy your ask... however I imagine he is more of a 'grammar Marxist' ;)

Re:But there will be growth...

[ScentCone]

Quit pretending that's something I've done so you can anonymously bitch about something without actually addressing the substance of the matter. A sure sign that you know you don't have anything constructive or even relevant to say.

Re:But there will be growth...

[ScentCone]

Begone troll! Your foul astroturf is no use here!

You can always tell when you're on to something accurate when the people who complain want to attack the messenger but can't muster the energy to trot out a single word addressing the substance of the matter. Like this. Pointing out that companies like Comcast LOVE high compliance costs and complex regulations because they have the corporate infrastructure to deal with it while smaller companies don't ... isn't trolling. Or astroturf. Astroturfing is a bunch of uninformed scaremongers parroting talking points that companies like Comcast LOVE. Like all the people who seem to think the internet was some unusable horror show of traffic shaping back in the bad old days of 2015. Hilarious.

Social Security wasn't insolvent at the start

[rsilvergun]

the tax on wasn't capped nearly as low as it is now. That's one of the common tricks of the Republican party: Let inflation do the work for you. We haven't raised the limit on Social Security taxes in over 80 years. No shit it's having problems. The Republicans can't kill it directly because old people vote. So they're doing it in sneaky ways. Loading down the US with Debt from pointless wars and the profiteering that goes with them while concern trolling to use the debt as leverage to take all the money.

I will say it again: You are being had. You're their patsy. Wake up. Grow up. Before it's too late.

One more thing I should add

[rsilvergun]

if you put people who are convinced gov't is going to fail in charge of gov't what do you think is going to happen? This is why the right wing can't govern. Either they're just just crooks, or they approach government like it's a disease to be excised from the body public. Bottom line: If you've already decided you're going to fail well, what do you know, you're gonna fail.

comcast lies to us

[roc97007]

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

What Investment?

[Elixon]

Is it investment in throttling technology and deep packet inspection servers? Yeah, that is expensive stuff. And I can imagine all those new jobs for calling customers to push them new paid features like $5 for your VPN running fast... So at the end those $5B will need to be extracted from customers anyway...

I wish customers will get some real improvements for their $5B.

Sophistry

[Uberbah]

But the bottom line is that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

That's a lie, as U.S. corporations pay very little compared to the rest of the world after deductions. But you knew that already.

If you want to compete we need to lower that.

Except: no tax cut on profits has ever created a single job or spurred investment. Ever. If a company thinks it will make more money by hiring more people or buying more equipment - it will hire more people or buy more equipment. Tax rates are completely irrelevant to that calculus.

Re: Motherboard and Ars

[Zontar The Mindless]

Why are you asking that question? Something was miscategorised as "fake news"; I pointed out that the news in question was not fake.

Re:Explanation can't be real because ...

[Obfuscant]

one exits to the public internet, the other remains on a private network.

One is an internet service, one is not. Sorry, but I have Comcast, and their video services are broadcast on the same old channels that the analog TV signals were carried on. I've got ATSC tuners on that cable and they can still pull off the few unencrypted channels there, while showing me the existence all of the encrypted ones. I can't watch them, but I can get the channel and stream numbers and names for them all. My Homerun devices can even tell me the frequencies for the channels.

But in any case, what you've just said means that Comcast does not sum up your bandwidth on their private network that you pay for in one lump on your cable TV bill, but does sum up the bandwidth that goes across the public internet and through their border gateways where it costs them money to expand. I'm not surprised at that, and find little reason to be excited either way. They can't charge or cap your TV service -- they can tell what you are watching through the STB backchannel (but not for a DTA that has none) and the data is there 24/7 whether you watch it or not.

your use of Comcast's services is essentially 'free',

Excuse me? Shall I show you my cable bill and the list of channels I am paying to get, all with a monthly charge? You don't get nothin' from Comcast for free, essentially or not. You pay quite a bit for the availability of certain channels 24/7, and your use of them does not change the signals on the wire in any way.

while you only have a limited capacity for the external providers.

Which exists for all "external providers" irrespective of source. That's net neutral. Yes, you can compare two different delivery systems for two different sources of data, but that's apples and oranges. The "private network" of cable TV is not slowing down the public network of Netflix; there is no prioritization of one over the other. There is no relation between the two.

Re: But there will be growth...

[ScentCone]

What? It's the people shilling for NN that are doing the handful of big corporations a favor. And you're still doing it, right now. Just like Comcast and Verizon like it. You're the one applauding an Obama-era rule that favored them and punished the little guys trying to compete. Quit lying about it, and be honest for a change.

Re: Motherboard and Ars

[c6gunner]

Because he said that CNNs version of events was fake. It is not a valid response for you to then link to the BBC article.

It's as if he said "Bill lied to me about the price of tea in China" and you responded with "here's Bob telling you how much tea costs in China". It's a non-sequitur.

Re:Explanation can't be real because ...

[DaHat]

One is an internet service, one is not.

Woosh... you utterly missed the point... but lets play along for a minute and ignore the fact I said "Remember, the rules only covered internet traffic".

Sorry, but I have Comcast, and their video services are broadcast on the same old channels that the analog TV signals were carried on.

I'm aware... in fact, I've got 'building DTV systems' on my resume from 2003-2007 so I am very aware of how their systems work, so much so that when a Comcast tech comes to my house (every 2 months for the last couple of years) I can provided more detailed signal monitoring logs than they have.

I've got ATSC tuners on that cable and they can still pull off the few unencrypted channels there, while showing me the existence all of the encrypted ones. I can't watch them, but I can get the channel and stream numbers and names for them all. My Homerun devices can even tell me the frequencies for the channels.

And? I've a couple of HDHomeRun's as well.. one in the next room with a CableCARD, the other out of state plugged into an antenna and a Raspberry Pi... do you have a point yet?

But in any case, what you've just said means that Comcast does not sum up your bandwidth on their private network that you pay for in one lump on your cable TV bill, but does sum up the bandwidth that goes across the public internet and through their border gateways where it costs them money to expand.

Serious question... which do you think costs more to maintain/expand: all of the wiring to/from houses & the head end and their private network... or from their private network to the different backbones? The answer may disturb you. Doubly so when you consider how much/little of their private network is physically private vs hosted on a public cloud service which is locked down via private routes.

I'm not surprised at that, and find little reason to be excited either way. They can't charge or cap your TV service -- they can tell what you are watching through the STB backchannel (but not for a DTA that has none) and the data is there 24/7 whether you watch it or not.

Which is where the 'woosh' comes in of you completely missing the point. Yes, when I sit down on my X1 set top box or a other QAM capable receiver (ideally with a CableCARD)... there are a multitude of channels to be had... which are broadcast to all on the network, regardless of the potential receivers ability to decode the channel, or even if they are tuned to the channel or not. If my neighbor happens to tune to the local ABC eight and a half minutes into the program I am watching... there is no additional load on the system. If 10,000 people suddenly switch channels... ditto.

That isn't the problem.

Recall I said "you binge watching something via the X1 platform and your Comcast provided set top box doesn't". Again, specifically calling out their X1 platform... but this actually goes back older. When you opt to watch some VOD program... the DOCSIS part of the box kicks in. Lets imagine you and your neighbor sit down to watch the same VOD program at the same time in different houses, there is a doubling of cost upon the network. Don't believe me? Imagine your neighbor has an overactive bladder... so they pause frequently to take care of business... do you think the box would cache everything that was also simultaneously (in some's mind) being sent to you? Nope, the latest gen of X1 boxes don't even have a hard drive inside, instead streaming even DVR recordings from the 'private' cloud via DOCSIS.

If Aereo still existed... the DVR side of things might be an issue, but lets just skip it for a moment.

Excuse me? Shall I show you my cable bill and the list of channels I a

Re:Explanation can't be real because ...

[Obfuscant]

Woosh... you utterly missed the point... but lets play along for a minute and ignore the fact I said "Remember, the rules only covered internet traffic".

Yes, because the rules don't cover cable TV. Cable TV is not "internet traffic". It is irrelevant that there may be a cap on Internet traffic but no cap on how much cable TV you watch. That's the point. It has nothing to do with net neutrality.

Let me say that again. While NN supporters were pushing against things like 'fast lanes', NN created, in the case of Comcast 3 distinct lanes on their network:

No. Cable TV is NOT A "LANE" ON THE NETWORK. It is a different service using a different protocol, it just happens to come on the same wire.

But that's ok, it's a 'private' network, you seem to be suggesting.

NO. I didn't say that. It isn't the internet. Cable TV is cable TV. It uses a different technology.

Isn't one of the aims of NN not only to prevent an ISP from deliberately slowing down XYZ's traffic because ZYX paid them..

Explain exactly how you think that watching cable TV slows down anyone's internet. Go ahead. I'll wait.

When you opt to watch some VOD program... the DOCSIS part of the box kicks in. Lets imagine you and your neighbor sit down to watch the same VOD program at the same time in different houses, there is a doubling of cost upon the network. Don't believe me?

No, I don't believe you. First of all, the "DOCSIS" doesn't "kick in". onDemand is carried ON THE TV SERVICE. I have seen this first hand, before Comcast started encrypting the onDemand service. It was fun, getting the clearQAM tuner to rescan the cable looking for undocumented channels and then tuning in to watch along. I've seen people actually rewind the video a dozen times to watch the racy bits. That's how I know it's not just an itinerant feed of something.

So no, when your neighbor plays the same thing you are watching onDemand, the "cost" to the network does not double. It has a miniscule fractional increase using an unused TV channel. That has NO effect on your internet. None at all.

Your streaming it via X1 does not count against your cap... while you streaming it from a service you also pay for does.

Of course watching onDemand does not count against your cap, because IT IS NOT USING THE INTERNET. Nothing you watch on cable TV counts against your internet cap BECAUSE IT ISN'T INTERNET.

Here, maybe a simpler system will make the point. You get DSL on your phone line, ok? Do you think that making a voice call on your voice telephone will count against your DSL internet cap? OF COURSE NOT. Do you get charged long distance for making "DSL" calls to a foreign country? OF COURSE NOT. Two different systems, but they use the same wire. I know, it sounds like magic, but it isn't. One is internet, one is not.