ISPs tell FCC that mistreated users would switch to one of their many other options:
Lobby groups for Internet service providers claim that ISPs' customer service is so good already that the government shouldn't consider any new regulations to mandate improvements. They also claim ISPs face so much competition that market forces require providers to treat their customers well or lose them to competitors.
Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association told the Federal Communications Commission in a filing that "providing high-quality products and services and a positive customer experience is a competitive necessity in today's robust communications marketplace. To attract and retain customers, NCTA's cable operator members continuously strive to ensure that the customer support they provide is effective and user-friendly. Given these strong marketplace imperatives, new regulations that would micromanage providers' customer service operations are unnecessary."
Lobby groups filed comments in response to an FCC review of customer service that was announced last month, before the presidential election. While the FCC's current Democratic leadership is interested in regulating customer service practices, the Republicans who will soon take over opposed the inquiry.
USTelecom, which represents telcos such as AT&T and Verizon, said that "the competitive broadband marketplace leaves providers of broadband and other communications services no choice but to provide their customers with not only high-quality broadband, but also high-quality customer service."
"If a provider fails to efficiently resolve an issue, they risk losing not only that customer—and not just for the one service, but potentially for all of the bundled services offered to that customer—but also any prospective customers that come across a negative review online. Because of this, broadband providers know that their success is dependent upon providing and maintaining excellent customer service," USTelecom wrote.
While the FCC Notice of Inquiry said that providers should "offer live customer service representative support by phone within a reasonable timeframe," USTelecom's filing touted the customer service abilities of AI chatbots. "AI chat agents will only get better at addressing customers' needs more quickly over time—and if providers fail to provide the customer service and engagement options that their customers expect and fail to resolve their customers' concerns, they may soon find that the consumer is no longer a customer, having switched to another competitive offering," the lobby group said.
The lobby groups' description may surprise the many Internet users suffering from little competition and poor customer service, such as CenturyLink users who had to go without service for over a month because of the ISP's failure to fix outages. The FCC received very different takes on the state of ISP customer service from regulators in California and Oregon.
The Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission in northwest Oregon, where Comcast is the dominant provider, told the FCC that local residents complain about automated customer service representatives; spending hours on hold while attempting to navigate automated voice systems; billing problems including "getting charged after cancelling service, unexpected price increases, and being charged for equipment that was returned," and service not being restored quickly after outages.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) told the FCC that it performed a recent analysis finding "that only a fraction of California households enjoy access to a highly competitive market for [broadband Internet service], with only 26 percent of households having a choice between two or more broadband providers utilizing either cable modem or fiber optic technologies." The California agency said the result "suggests that competitive forces alone are insufficient to guarantee service quality for customers who depend upon these services."
CPUC said its current rulemaking efforts for California "will establish standards for service outages, repair response time, and access to live representatives." The agency told the FCC that if it adopts new customer service rules for the whole US, it should "permit state and local governments to set customer service standards that exceed the adopted standards."
The FCC also received a filing from several advocacy groups focused on accessibility for people with disabilities. The groups asked for rules "establishing baseline standards to ensure high-quality DVC [direct video calling for American Sign Language users] across providers, requiring accommodations for consumers returning rental equipment, and ensuring accessible cancellation processes." The groups said that "providers should be required to maintain dedicated, well-trained accessibility teams that are easily reachable via accessible communication channels, including ASL support."
"We strongly caution against relying solely on emerging AI technologies without mandating live customer service support," the groups said.
The FCC's Notice of Inquiry on customer service was approved 3–2 in a party-line vote on October 10. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that hundreds of thousands of customers file complaints each year "because they have run into issues cancelling their service, are saddled with unexpected charges, are upset by unexplained outages, and are frustrated with billing issues they have not been able to resolve on their own. Many describe being stuck in 'doom loops' that make it difficult to get a real person on the line to help with service that needs repair or to address charges they believe are a mistake."
If the FCC leadership wasn't changing hands, the Notice of Inquiry could be the first step toward a rulemaking. "We cannot ignore these complaints, especially not when we know that it is possible to do better... We want to help improve the customer experience, understand what tools we have to do so, and what gaps there may be in the law that prevent consumers from having the ability to resolve routine problems quickly, simply, and easily," Rosenworcel said.
But the proceeding won't go any further under incoming Chairman Brendan Carr, a Republican chosen by President-elect Donald Trump. Carr dissented from the Notice of Inquiry, saying that the potential actions explored by the FCC exceed its authority and that the topic should be handled instead by the Federal Trade Commission.
Carr said the FCC should work instead on "freeing up spectrum and eliminating regulatory barriers to deployment" and that the Notice of Inquiry is part of "the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to deflect attention away from the necessary course correction."
Carr has made it clear that he is interested in regulating broadcast media and social networks more than the telecom companies the FCC traditionally focuses on. Carr wrote a chapter for the conservative Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 in which he criticized the FCC for "impos[ing] heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition and market forces to produce optimal outcomes."
With Carr at the helm, ISPs are likely to get what they're asking for: No new regulations and elimination of at least some current rules. "Rather than saddling communications providers with unnecessary, unlawful, and potentially harmful regulation, the Commission should encourage the pro-consumer benefits of competition by reducing the regulatory burdens and disparities that are currently unfairly skewing the marketplace," the NCTA told the FCC, arguing that cable companies face more onerous regulations than other communications providers.
How do they say that with a straight face?
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 01, @02:26PM (13 children)
Plain and simple: I only have one choice for broadband Internet service (short of 5G and satellite options), so my ISP is the best one.
The best ISP in my neighborhood took 9 months to acknowledge faulty service when the ground was wet after a rain, and then took over a year to bury the "temporary" cable that was installed to address the issue (never did replace the temp cable, just buried it.)
Their customer service took up to an hour to answer voice calls requesting service, never did anything about the trouble tickets. I finally got the cable buried by presenting at their retail store in person when it was crowded, waiting 20 minutes to get to the counter, then started explaining on a loud clear voice how the cable was laying on the lawn for the last 14 months...
They raise our rates arbitrarily, cut services sneakily - we were hitting bandwidth caps (penalized with potentially double bill rates) by streaming a single HD webcam more than 6 hours per day on average.
My ISP is the BEST, because it is our only choice.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Sunday December 01, @03:42PM (6 children)
Why would you say "you only have one choice" when you list a total of three choices?
(Score: 5, Informative) by aafcac on Sunday December 01, @05:41PM (5 children)
Those typically have much lower caps and cost far more. Few people on this site would accept those options if they had any other choices.
(Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Sunday December 01, @10:36PM (4 children)
(Score: 3, Touché) by aafcac on Monday December 02, @12:09AM (1 child)
Not really, those aren't viable alternatives for any sort of real use beyond casual browsing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 03, @12:29AM
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02, @01:46PM (1 child)
Your water company doesn't have a monopoly - you can collect rainwater or go to the local river instead. No monopoly at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 03, @12:29AM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday December 01, @04:46PM (4 children)
On sunny days during the summer from noon to 5pm, my Internet connection would drop, and as I used mtr to find out later, it started increasingly losing packets up to 100% loss from 11 to noon, (from what I could tell) in between two backbone routers, either my ISP's or Level3.
There was no way to share a document with their customer support, which (per "how's the weather there") was experiencing a declared "climate calamity" [philstar.com], so I ended up having to describe the packet loss verbally, ask them to type it in, tell them it wasn't my modem and it wasn't customer support's fault, it was only during sunny days on the summer, and request that they forward the notes up to their "network engineers" since I was pretty sure they didn't have the means to fix the problem.
I think I had to do this like three times, before the problem was noticed and eventually fixed. I suspected it was some kind of missing heat barrier, but I was diagnosing it from guesses about thermal shutdown in carrier equipment and network topology.
During this period (and now) I was getting ready to also get 5G and find a way to bond the two connections together, so I could start complaining to them without having them completely pull the plug on me. At least we have that option nowadays, but I still don't know of a solution for home/small office routers capable of bonding multiple consumer-level retail ISP connections.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 01, @06:39PM (3 children)
I effectively do have 5G as an alternate and we do use it when the landline flakes out, but at $0.01 per byte, it adds up fast, like $1000 per month fast if you stream HD video 6 hours per day.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 01, @06:43PM
Auto correct swapped byte for megabyte... It's still too pricey for volume video delivery.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday December 01, @06:48PM (1 child)
No I meant 5G home Internet [cnet.com]. I'd be paying for two providers, but man ... some ISPs drive you to it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 01, @10:58PM
I have been back and forth about getting "5G home" for the sailboat, but since I only use data at the boat a few days a month it's just cheaper/easier to just use the phone hotspot.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mhajicek on Sunday December 01, @05:09PM
I had a similar experience with Comcast raising my rates, signing us up for additional services we didn't want. We'd call, they'd promise to fix it, but instead make it worse again the next month, for several months in a row. So we dropped them, despite the only alternative at the time being geosynchronous satellite service. That was slow and laggy, but much cheaper, and with good customer service. We spent much less time watching TV, and only played single-player computer games. Then we got Starlink; signed up within the first 24 hours since the public beta announcement, and actually got service after a few months.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday December 01, @03:04PM
Customer service? I never even called them. Ever. I don't even know for how long I have had the same ISP now, but it's probably 20+ years. It's not their excellent service, or price -- there are cheaper once. It's mainly my own laziness and well a lack of good options. So it doesn't really have anything to do with them. I have been thinking about swapping a few times but it's just so annoying, plus I would have to make changes for all the machines that I setup. I can't be arsed. So once again, not their great service nor has it anything to do with them. If they think it's their great service they are delusional.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by srobert on Sunday December 01, @07:11PM
Funny the article mentions Centurylink customers going without service. I thought it was just me. I was out for over a week because a fiber optic cable broke over my neighbor's yard. Since I telecommute for my job this was very inconvenient. The repair company kept telling me that it was my responsibility to coordinate access to several of my neighbors' yards in order to get it repaired. My neighbors aren't real cooperative. I don't speak the language of several of the families whose yards they'd have to access. I told the repair people and Centurylink that I didn't think that should be my responsibility. I switched to the cable company. That was about a year ago. My end of the fiber optic cable is hanging from the poll and coiled up on the fence in my back yard. I'd still kind of like them to fix it because if my current provider ever finds out they're my only choice, I'd imagine the service will deteriorate and the price will increase.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Tork on Sunday December 01, @07:22PM (2 children)
Just the suggestion that I'm with AT&T because of "good customer service" and not "because they at least brought lube" nearly made me write an irrationally long rant detailing every dumb fuck problem I should never have had. I'm glad I spared you all that novel.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Frosty Piss on Sunday December 01, @11:25PM (1 child)
Oh, that's so, so very funny. Either you are a masochist, completely retired and have nothing to do with your time, or perhaps just like to waste your time in pursuits that have no possibility of effecting anything beyond several seconds of some "customer service" wonk's life while they send you some canned Spam and delete your "complaint".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Sunday December 01, @11:45PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Ox0000 on Monday December 02, @05:52PM
Because they have the cold, hard numbers to back it up: not only are there hardly any support calls, those support calls that do exist have the
connection dropcustomer hanging up themselves within 30 seconds and that obviously means that the customer's problem was resolved due to their excellent customer service.I mean, Goodhart's Law [wikipedia.org] is not a real thing, right? And infuriating customers to the point where they hang up when trying to get support or even cancel a service, is completely unheard of.
All facetiousness aside: sadly they do "have the numbers to back it up", it's just that they are (willfully?) misinterpreting what the numbers mean. But that clearly didn't stop them from using said numbers to make the statement they made...