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Charter tries to convince FCC that broadband customers want data caps
Charter Communications has claimed to the Federal Communications Commission that broadband users enjoy having Internet plans with data caps, in a filing arguing that Charter should be allowed to impose caps on its Spectrum Internet service starting next year.
Charter isn't currently allowed to impose data caps because of conditions the FCC placed on its 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable. The data-cap condition is scheduled to expire on May 18, 2023, but Charter in June petitioned the FCC to let the condition expire two years early, in May 2021.
With consumer-advocacy groups and Internet users opposing the petition, Charter filed a response with the FCC last week, saying that plans with data caps are "popular."
"Contrary to Stop The Cap's assertion [in an FCC filing] that consumers 'hate' data caps, the marketplace currently shows that broadband service plans incorporating data caps or other usage-based pricing mechanisms are often popular when the limits are sufficiently high to satisfy the vast majority of users," Charter told the FCC.
Or you could offer some kind of software that shows which users are hogging the network.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 12 2020, @11:30PM (28 children)
Comcast imposed the same 1.2TB monthly cap on ALL of their plans - regardless of how much you pay, the "cap" is the same, and the only effect of this "cap" is that you pay a (rather steep) penalty for going over.
They claim that "less than 1% of their customers exceed the cap" - we don't do anything unusual, no torrents or other heavy usage, just Netflix and Youtube for the kids, we run within 10-20% of that cap every month.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @12:16AM (2 children)
Steps to prepare customers for overage fees:
Step 1, Implement data cap.
Step 2. Offer option to "extreme" usage customers to exceed data cap for a fee.
Step 3. Redefine "extreme" using averages and percentages to force downward scope creep.
Comcast made similar arguments about data usage in the past. These companies absolutely know how percentages work and use statistics to couch their manipulations in an air of legitimacy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @08:55AM (1 child)
"Step 3. Redefine "extreme" using averages and percentages to force downward scope creep."
It's not even just about forced downward scope creep. It's about the fact that, naturally, our bandwidth needs increase with time. Content on the Internet gets larger and larger. For instance you have 4K then 8K and then multiple devices, etc... windows updates end up taking more and more space (don't ask me why), files that you typically download get larger, etc...
They want to put a stop to this progress. They want to limit it to their convenience. and with an artificial lack of competition they can if only the government would not regulate their monopolies.
Plus all of the content that the Internet provides competes with their content (ie: cable). So putting caps would encourage people to buy their overpriced, commercial ridden, cable services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @12:32PM
(plus android and iPhone/iPad/etc... devices take more space just for regular app and OS updates)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:05AM (8 children)
All 8K+ @ 120 fps, of course. :)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:23AM (7 children)
Actually we don't do high def (beyond maybe 720p) on anything.
The kids can be demons on the fast forward / rewind though, and I think that eats it pretty fast.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @03:28AM (6 children)
Could be.
Hey, I know, I'll invent a thing that will store the video locally in RAM and maybe in a temporary disk file, that way you can scrub through, rewind, play loop, whatever you want and not download extra redundant bytes. I'll call it buffeting. No, maybe buttering. Bummering. No, wait, buffering! That's it, buffering! Naa, won't catch on. Takes away from carrier's profits so they'll figure a way around it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @11:11AM (5 children)
Not just profits, might scare the DRM people too, piracy is destroying the economy you know.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:36PM (4 children)
Not just the economy, the entertainment industry is what keeps the medical world afloat. Can you imagine hospital rooms without TVs? Mass carnage and deaths! Oh the humanity!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:19PM (3 children)
What I've noticed about "blockbuster movies" since the piracy wave hit is that their quality seems to have increased dramatically. Granted, there are a lot more movies that center on a small number of actors than there used to be, but when you're paying big names $20M to show up, plus a cut of gross - what do you expect. If "pirates" are hurting the industry, first I'd go after the agents for the big name actors - bigger pirate impact there than the whole internet.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday August 14 2020, @10:11PM (2 children)
You're one of the few people I've heard that claims that the quality of movies have gone up. Most everyone seems to bemoan how formulaic, unoriginal, and boring movies are now compared to how they used to be.
Unless you mean things like production quality and special effects and stuff like that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 15 2020, @01:24PM (1 child)
Films from "the golden era" were breaking new ground, like Rock'n'Roll of the late 1960s->1970s - try anything: that's groundbreaking and innovative, Jimi Hendrix using feedback was a big deal, like the first director who said: "no, keep the lens flare - control it like this..."
CGI has progressively enabled films to be made that just wouldn't have been attempted before, like LOTR with full battle scenes, or 2001-style movies that actually show Saturn's rings. It's analogous to the first Star Trek animated series that told stories they never would have attempted with their live-action cast and crew - but you don't have to put up with visuals as wooden as Shatner's acting.
I'd say actors are better. Watch Casablanca, it's a classic, they are doing a great job, but... it is all a bit stiff. Even in the late 1970s, most of what qualified as summer blockbuster classics would barely pass grade as a slapdash extended TV series episode today.
If, by "quality of movies has gone up" you mean they're enticing me to go to first run showings at theaters more than I used to - well, no... and I don't think they'll ever win that battle, though I do still go - in part because the theaters themselves have been improving with bigger seats, wider row spacing, (usually) better sound and visual quality, etc.
Streaming format delivery means that I do "binge watch" quite a bit more than I used to, and there's a lot more selection available to binge watch than there used to be. In part, I think the frustration over "quality" of current movies has a lot to do with the sheer quantity of what's available. If you want to get into some original storytelling, continued innovation in directing, etc. you're going to have to step away from the monster-financed sequel machine and put up with some 1960s era production budgets. God knows they've expanded the topic base as the years go by, from modern topics like environmental/societal concerns, minority(black) heroes to indigenous peoples' issues to LGBQTDHSWF; no, I don't know what all those letters stand for, but I'm sure if you really go through Sundance and similar festival entries, they're all there and more... Go back to 1970 and find me a well known film that told deep authentic stories about minorities, or controversial issues of the time...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2020, @02:26PM
"there's no accounting for taste"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Thursday August 13 2020, @06:53AM (15 children)
Comcast now has an unlimited plan for $10 extra a month. My service is now $100 a month. That is with unlimited bandwidth and their highest speeds they offer, which is 110 Mbps Down and about 8Mbps up in my area.
From what I can tell, this is a brand new thing they started last month. No need to pause those 4k youtube videos anymore when I leave my desk!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @11:15AM (14 children)
I feel like the old cellphone "minutes" plan with the over-cap penalties they impose... funny how those "minutes" plans all went away when cellphone companies started actually competing with each other.
Right after the .com crash, there was a huge fiber installation boom/crash that put in an outrageous amount of long distance data haul capacity - like 8K 120fps streaming video to every eyeball in the country and then some capacity. We have the capacity, what we lack is the competition in providing access to it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:21PM (13 children)
i'm still on my old "minutes" plan from ~2002. 2 phones, 500 minutes shared between the two, ~$62/month all-in. that includes the 5-10 "junk" texts that cost $0.20 per.
i think we hit 300 minutes of use in a month, but only once. when we had our first kid and got lots of calls from family.
but we might switch over to one of those "old people" plans that feature the big numbers on the clamshell phones. those would save me ~$15-$20/month. but i don't like that they all (?) feature an "emergency" button that can't be disabled and tends to be "activated" when you keep the thing in your pocket.
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:50PM (11 children)
That's a cell plan? If so, I don't want to border on "shill" or "spam" so I won't mention the company, but I just got a prepaid phone plan that gives me unlimited talk and text + 5GB / month data for about $16 / month. All prepaid, no fees, no online payments. Nothing to even think about for the first 3 months I prepaid for, other than checking the phone for total data used, which is very tiny because I use WiFi most of the time. After 5GB, no $ penalty- data will drop to 2G speeds, so no videos / streaming at that point but you could still do email, simpler websites, etc.
And you can keep your number as long as your existing company will release it. I've read horror stories of that taking more than a month, but sometimes it's almost instant.
Next I'll buy their year-long plan which will be about the same $ / month. They'll work with pretty much any existing phone, and on any of the 4 major networks. I don't want to sound like a shill nor spammer, but there are many companies out there with equally inexpensive plans, or less, but less data too. Most are limited to a single carrier like T-Mobile, which is fine, but I wanted to keep my existing AT&T phones.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:23PM (7 children)
Warning: my wife had a SUPER cheap cell plan for a year... tried it month to month for a couple of months and it was brilliant, so paid for the annual plan which cost something like 9.5 months to get. Once she was on the annual plan, quality became spotty - data very unreliable, and even voice had major outage spots that would come and go.
I think these cheaper plans often rent "3rd tier" access from the cell towers, so are the first ones to suffer when tower capacity is getting stressed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @03:18PM
that makes sense. when the storm hit last week, our cell reliability was unchanged. no loss of reception, no dropped calls. it would kind of suck for that to have dropped off when we needed it...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @04:10PM (3 children)
I'm of the ilk that if I buy 12 months (some sell 15 months ahead) and audio quality goes down, I'll persist until they either fix it or give my money back, including filing FCC complaints, and every other govt. hotline, media (TV station) help, governor's hotline, file lawsuit, etc. Somebody's got to clean up the mess! :)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @04:59PM (2 children)
Good luck with those windmills Don Quixote ... I don't know if they have the capacity to give you "preferential" service within their tier, but that's about all I think you would get in exchange for your squeaky wheel efforts.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday August 15 2020, @02:28PM (1 child)
Gee, thanks for the encouragement. /s
I suppose we should all just shut up and let corporations rule us?
I think a little too much of that has caused a lot of the problems in today's world.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 15 2020, @04:09PM
I find that complaining to the (insert evil character here) directly only educates them on how better to serve [wikipedia.org] you.
If you want to get some real traction against them, complain to their regulators, licensing boards, etc. Which is why cell phones and ISPs are such a lost cause... our regulators are actively screwing the customers in favor of the companies. To effect change there, we're going to need to start with the politicians who are appointing these foxes to guard the henhouses.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2020, @08:48AM (1 child)
Was that the FreedomPop annual service?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday August 14 2020, @01:18PM
That's one of the ones I looked into but nixed quickly. Not only for voice quality and network access problems, but they fail to mention- NO voicemail is included. You can buy it separately though, but that puts the total price in line with most other much better plans, so why deal with horrible "service".
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Thursday August 13 2020, @03:15PM (2 children)
not "shill" or "spam" - just "accurate". as i said, that plan is ~18 years old; price never went up or down. i'm sure i could go cheaper. the prepaid options i looked at a few years ago expired the minutes every month - which defeated the point of prepaid; haven't looked since
i used to love getting a new phone for "free" every 2 years with a re-up of the contract (that was baked into the plan). when they killed that, i got a bit grumpy - but my 5-year-old phone still holds a charge for 2 weeks, including light usage. the wife's 7-year-old phone holds a charge for a bit less, but still over a week, including light usage.
my family (including in-laws) are pretty much all on the same network, which is part of the reason my usage is so light; in-network m2m (and nights and weekends) do not count against minutes.
i know i should change, but i'm lazy :-)
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @04:06PM
Not at all. There are always many factors in decisions, including "it ain't broke so don't fix it". If it's working for you, keep it! :)
Very long backstory, but I couldn't keep my previous plan so I did a very intensive multi-week search and came up with a great plan. All good reviews. It's not the cheapest, but the 5GB / month is the most of any lower-tier plans. Audio quality is much better than before, but I need to qualify- I can't use the same phone (I have several) that I mostly used before because it's carrier-locked and getting it unlocked would involve me paying a lot of $ that I don't think I owe (because I never had a contract with the provider, and the people who did- my parents- are both passed away. There's more but not worth the time to type it all in.)
All that said, I did use current phone with old provider and audio quality was bad, so I blame carrier.
It turns out that cell plans and MVNOs are popping up everywhere, so competition is great.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 13 2020, @04:25PM
To clarify- I mentioned "shill" and "spam" because I didn't want to write the name of my new provider and get accused of shilling or spamming. But I will if someone asks. Let's just say the name involves a primary color that is not yellow nor blue, and also involves a thing typically made of cloth that's sewn into clothing so that you can put stuff in it like keys. :)
I think it was a cnet article that mentioned them, and after almost 4 weeks of very intensive research, including calling many customer service reps. about the many many other plans, and deducing many "gotchas", I settled on the aforementioned one. So far it's perfect!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:32PM
We're on GoogleFi, something like $60/month for 2 phones with our normal 4G data usage: no contract, unlimited voice and text. Such a plan was unheard of 10 years ago, I think it was T-Mobile that cracked first and all the other carriers were forced to follow suit.
🌻🌻 [google.com]