I saw this in an ad the other day, and clicked it purely to see what bull crap they have on the page. If all this is legitimately true, what do we have to worry about? Are they being truthful, or are they just straight up lying? I have a hard time believing this is legit...
http://corporate.comcast.com/openinternet/open-net-neutrality
Comcast supports Net Neutrality. We are the only Internet Service Provider in America legally bound by full Net Neutrality Rules. We support the FCC's efforts to craft strong, enforceable Open Internet rules.
Okay....
Comcast won't block access to lawful content.
What do they class as lawful. What will they try to do to verify lawful content? Will they only verify stuff they provide.
Comcast won't throttle back the speed at which content comes to you.
What do they class as you? The last hop? In which case they will make sure traffic travels along as few (congested) lines as possible.
Comcast doesn't prioritize Internet traffic or create paid fast lanes.
Comcast's Internet Essentials will make the Internet more accessible to low income families.
Ummmmm, wait a second. Don't those two points conflict with each other? What will the essentials package cover? Will it only allow access to certain things?
Comcast will inspire innovation, promote learning, create access to jobs.
More corporate bullshit imo.
They are full of it, the phrase "more accessible to low income families" is code for data caps.
Yeah I was sort of thinking that when I read the "internet essentials" thing...
Goodness they're turds
If it's just another option, I don't see it as a bad thing. It's if they're forcing data caps on everyone that would be the suck.
Total bullshit. They have already broken everything on that list.
What lawful content have they blocked access to ?
Comcast is, in effect, impersonating the busy signal and preventing the phone at the other end from ringing by issuing TCP reset packets to both ends of a connection.
They are still behaving as if they can do anything they want, and nothing has changed since this 2007 incident. This behavior is what led to the FCC suit that the FCC lost.
The current PR moves are a smoke screen. Why would they have changed? It's a ruse.
They also got a bit more clever about their asshattey with the more recent netflix "throttling" which is 100% comcast's fault.
Fact: They could have spent 1/10,000th the money on upgrading their links w/cogent to meet customer demand vs what they HAVE ALREADY spent on this sort of PR/Astroturf/Nonsense. What does that tell you about their true motives? It is about control, and making sure the old-world cable monopolies can be used to squeeze every last dollar out of every subscriber.
Residential is bad, but american business are suffering as well as the business rates are utter crap. In areas where there is no competition, Time Warner's standard MO for 50/5 CABLE business connections is ~$400/mo. Robbery, imho.
So, I work for Comcast, in HSD.
You were mentioning "Internet Essentials"; "Internet Essentials" is an internet service plan for low income families in certain market areas. I think It's about 3mbps download speed and 768k upload. So, for example a family who doesn't use the internet except for email or web browsing, and just uses their smartphones over 4G has a child who is going to school and needs to google his homework, so the family gets an extremely discounted price on internet services. They also offer a discounted PC or Laptop for anyone using the Internet Essentials plan. The Internet Essentials plan does not come with a wireless router, just a modem.
As far as I know Comcast does not take money to prioritize traffic. Yes, they have introduced data caps, and offered customers a small credit on their bill if they agree to a very low data cap. In market areas where Comcast competes with other services that are not capped, it looks like they are holding off on enforcing data caps. They are not using traffic shaping or using QOS to slow netflix down during peak hours so more customers will use on-demand video instead.
I honestly don't know about these allegations brought up in the Ars article. It seems like there has been an admission of some form of "QOS" on certain services, whether or not that is resetting the torrent seed as mentioned on the show, I do not know. This is the first I've seen of that, and I will definitely keep my eyes open.
I'm an avid listener to the segments of the show where Wendell discusses the history of telecommunications, and it's fascinating to observe the tension between regulation and monopoly, corporation and individual. With that being said, the entire US should be covered with fiber and it's sad to see the country that invented the internet struggling with this issue. If we want to compete globally, we need to think locally, and foster innovation and creativity through freedom.
They're keeping all the 10GB connections to themselves meanwhile us peasants get 100mb lines.
wow those lies are lies! I never ever think Comcast wouldn't lie nowadays.
+1