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from the why-cable-companies-are-so-hated dept.
Reddit user demian87 recently posted a letter from Comcast notifying him or her of a new Comcast internet access pricing plan being trialed in Fort Lauderdale, the Keys, and Miami, Florida. According to this letter, Comcast will set a limit beginning on October 1 of 300 GB per household per month. Customers who exceed this limit will have to pay $10 for every additional 50 GB needed after that, or sign up for an unlimited data plan for an additional $30 per month.
Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas confirmed that the letter is authentic, along with the company's new unlimited pricing plan. Douglas explained that "the company has trialed three other pricing plans since 2012 when Comcast had a static limit of 250 GB per month."
In a related development reported by the New York Times, Comcast will campaign to win over the quintessential cord-cutter class with new TV services designed to entice them into subscribing to its internet access service. Comcast will begin offering a $15-a-month TV service called Stream that includes broadcast networks and HBO for its internet customers. The new service will be available in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle later this year and across the company's coverage areas in the United States in 2016.
Stream looks similar to the Aereo service that carried over-the-air (OTA) television on top of the internet, but should perform even better because it operates on Comcast's managed network. Aereo lost a court battle to ABC and was forced to shut down, but not before proving that consumers would pay for crystal-clear OTA television delivered over the internet rather than get poor reception with an antenna. Stream improves upon Aereo by bundling a really cheap HBO subscription.
This story, "How Comcast is changing tactics in response to cord cutters" was originally published by Network World.
The article goes on to explore the usage of the majority of Comcast's customers and the expected usage of an average household that has cut the cord on TV service in favor of using only streaming services.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday September 07 2015, @02:07AM
So are you on board that internet service must be treated as a public utility yet?
No, still convinced that eliminating government grants of monopoly is the best way to handle it.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 07 2015, @03:28AM
Ok, let's say you do that. Now, how does that look in practical terms? Because we've now gone from 1 set of cable strung up around the neighborhood to 30 sets of cable strung up around the neighborhood, which has now increased the costs of providing you with cable service dramatically, and you can bet that those costs are going to be paid by you. And who owns the poles / underground passages those cables are going through? Because something tells me that if a company controlled a critical location to access a whole bunch of customers, they just might make it extremely hard for their competitors to use that location to access those customers - after all, wires do accidentally come off of poles sometimes.
Turning a utility into a competitive market has simply never worked. The closest we came was the Ma Bell breakup and all that competition of long-distance service, and what happened there was that the baby Bell with the largest number of customers started buying up their competitors and ended up within a decade as the newly constituted AT&T. Or you can look at what Enron did to the deregulated California electricity market for more examples of what can go horribly wrong.
The only things that have ever worked for handling utilities:
1. Make it a government program. The most common example of this is municipal water systems, but there's also municipal electric services, ISPs, and telephones in a number of places.
2. Make it a highly regulated monopoly. This is much more common. Yes, there are drawbacks, but nowhere near as bad as having an unregulated market.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AudioGuy on Monday September 07 2015, @04:48AM
You and jdavidb are arguing past each other because you are probably looking at different aspects of the same problem.
The problem with the present government granted monopoly is that the monopoly is granted on EVERYTHING. It is as if the government granted a monopoly on roads, and also what traffic passes over the roads. As if you had a monopoly on private roads and all the vehicles that could travel over them.
The solution is 'some of both approaches' - like roads are actually handled at present. The feds build the interstate roads, the states build the intrastate roads, the cities build the city roads, and ANYONE can use them, for the same price. So Fedex can exist and compete with UPS.
Some places in Europe and elsewhere do it this way, the last mile and the major trunks are state owned, and private industry gets access - all for the same price - to compete with each other on the services. It works very well.
The situation we have now is as if Fedex owned the roads - and if UPS wanted to compete, they would have to build their own roads.
The model above is really sensible for fiber trunks in the US, since by virtue of owning the interstates, the feds already have easy access to those right of ways, the state to theirs, etc. Homeowners just build and directly pay for their own driveways, which become part of their real property.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday September 07 2015, @03:07PM
Turning a utility into a competitive market has simply never worked
Nor ever been tried.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 07 2015, @05:28PM
Oh yes it has been tried, and the results are not good. For example, in 2000 the state of California deregulated electricity generation. The result was an 8-fold increase in prices and rolling blackouts across the state as the now-deregulated electric generating companies intentionally created shortages in the market.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday September 07 2015, @07:05PM
Oh yes it has been tried, and the results are not good. For example, in 2000 the state of California deregulated electricity generation
That's still a state controlled market, not a free market.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @05:52PM
> Ok, let's say you do that. Now, how does that look in practical terms? Because we've now gone from 1 set of cable strung up around the neighborhood to 30 sets of cable strung up around the neighborhood,
No, that would be a stupid way to do it and nobody is proposing that or doing it like that (other countries exist, you know).
What you have instead is one "last mile connection", provided by one provider, that he is required to rent out to competitors at (government regulated) reasonable price.