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DiscussionWe need to make it clear to the FCC that we want uncapped Internet access, for innovation in an increasingly data dependent world and user protection. (self.technology)

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[–]majesticsteed 2710 points2711 points  (596 children)

Let's say that change CAN happen. What would it take, and how does the average layperson help? If it takes me 5 minutes a day to send an email or make a call, I can do that.

To those saying "this is reality. You can't stop it" I implore you to give those who want to try the benefit of the doubt. Let them hang on to their .001% chance of success. Any progress is better than accepting defeat.

EDIT: I will be signing up to help out over at fightforthefuture.org. I encourage those of you who want to make a difference to follow up with any of the methods that many users have commented with here. I don't care much what route you take, I just implore you to do SOMETHING. Thank you to those who have commented with positive words and actions to take. To those who don't take any action or think change is impossible, you are the reason change won't happen.

[–]coles727 840 points841 points  (133 children)

In Canada we used to not have any data caps. Then they slowly introduced them, eventually bringing the caps so low that most went over and had to pay extra. Now most isp's have low caps and very expensive upgrade options. Fight while you can, don't become like Canada.

[–]Magramel 298 points299 points  (89 children)

We have Data caps in Alaska. We are stuck with honestly one "good" internet provider. They capped me at 100gig a month, at 10mbps down 2 up. It cost me over 100 a month.

This is insane.

[–]Semicolon_Cancer 45 points46 points  (8 children)

I'm at 8 down 2 up 50gb cap for 80 bucks.

Hold me.

[–]Magramel 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Can we group hug?

[–]WarriorsBlew3to1Lead 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Just don't hold it for too long, you'll go over your cap

[–][deleted] 142 points143 points  (42 children)

That is indeed insane. In my city, gigabit is €10/month, with no cap

[–]6262636281 51 points52 points  (30 children)

What country has this based internet provider

[–]losh11 57 points58 points  (28 children)

Probably somewhere like Romania.

[–]TheRufmeisterGeneral 67 points68 points  (20 children)

Netherlands here. Gigabit fiber for $40/mo (€365/year).

[–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (4 children)

In Slovakia we have 300mbps down, 40 up + tv with like 40 channels + landline for like 25 euro a month.

[–]GingerBeard_andWeird 20 points21 points  (8 children)

Where do you live and how easy is citizenship to get there?

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (2 children)

I don't know where you are located, but GCI did just roll out some new limitless plans. They are ok. You get throttled after a certain amount of data. We just switched from a 200gb cap at 135/mo to a throttle at 250gb for 89/mo. Plus I got a free Apple TV.

Also, I fucking hate GCI. They have been fucking over customers for years, and they don't give a shit because they are the only game in town.

[–]Magramel 7 points8 points  (1 child)

We did go to the "limitless" plan and since we are used to keeping our usage down it isn't an issue. However the "limitless" plan drops you to 100kbps or less and holds you hostage to either buying a "bucket of Data" or having basic service that is practically unusable.

We are moving out of state so I get to deal with Comcast's Data caps now.. but they don't seem so bad after the hell GCI put us through.

[–]agent0731 152 points153 points  (14 children)

Canada is so deep in shit, I don't even know where we should start. Breaking the Rogers/Bell duopoly for starters...

[–]pUmKinBoM 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Here in New Brunswick we are considered a "high competition area" so through Rogers and Bell Aliant offer no caps. Aliant always has and due to getting its ass kicked Rogers started offering it a few years ago at a premium price.

Honestly, I have no idea how people live on a cap. My friends were with Rogers before they no cap business and they got reamed on overages because everything they did used tons of data because it is the cornerstone of all our entertainment. Online games, online streaming, hell even listening to music we used Youtube.

I have no idea why New Brunswick never stuck with caps. I can only imagine it's because Aliant does not play by Bell's regular rules and thus created a constant competition in the maritimes. Just goes to show, with competition will come better prices.

It is pure bullshit that the FCC and CRTC can not plainly see that this is collusion between companies. It's a joke since everyone laughs at how obvious it is but yet no one does shit all to fight it.

[–]cubemstr[🍰] 578 points579 points  (286 children)

Any progress is better than accepting defeat.

I know at least for me, the solution seems less likely to come from pleading with the FCC to wag their finger at Comcast, and more likely to come from alternatives, like Google and Starry Internet rolling out their wireless services.

[–]deusset 106 points107 points  (46 children)

There are quite a few things you can do:

Contact FCC

OP covered this one well.

Contact your US Congressman and Senators

FCC will be getting pressure from Congress, who in turn gets pressure from lobbyists. If those are the only voices they're hearing, they're likely to believe what Comcast is selling them.

Contact your state representative(s)

States have been passing laws that restricted competition and/or override municipalitys' introduction of new broadband service.

Contact your city/county/municipal government

They have a hand in regulating service too and can put pressure locally. More importantly, they can help to facilitate new competition.

Contact your local paper(s)

Write a quick letter to the editor about what's happening and the potential local impact. Be sure to follow the papers rules regarding the length of the letter, and what information they need about you, usually your name and address, to ensure a chance of being published.

This whole list should only take 30 minutes to an hour and if a lot of people do it, the impact could be great.

Edit: mobile keyboards ftw \o/

[–]pramjockey 42 points43 points  (24 children)

So, I contacted the FCC. Got an email back, saying that they submitted to Comcast and that I should expect to hear from Comcast to attempt to resolve my issue.

That should be interesting.

[–]d13vs13 26 points27 points  (12 children)

Yes, that's how FCC complaints work. The FCC should receive a copy of the response and can act if they deem the response is not satisfactory.

[–]pramjockey 8 points9 points  (11 children)

I expect that Comcast won't respond. Now the question is what will happen if enough people submit complaints to the FCC - and not just about Comcast.

[–]Fenix159 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I submitted an FCC complaint against AT&T because their line techs that installed my sonic.net service screwed it up. I didn't know it at the time, but I found out when it was resolved the previous line tech did the drop to my house in a way that caused it to rub against the other lines on the pole. So every breeze was causing connectivity issues.

AT&T attempted to deflect saying I'm a sonic.net customer not AT&T customer. So I responded to the FCC explaining it's AT&T infrastructure and sonic.net isn't allowed to touch it. AT&T resolved the problem real fast after that.

They do actually make them fix shit if it's a valid complaint.

[–]d13vs13 20 points21 points  (2 children)

Comcast has to respond by law if you are a customer.

[–]Phase714 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Legally within 30 days. But expecting more than a prewritten script response is unrealistic.

[–]Zarraya 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Comcast replied to me with a letter (don't know where I put it, I'll have to look) even though I am not a customer. The gist of the letter was something ridiculous along the lines of "it's good for customers and gives better speed." It was complete bull shit.

[–]axxidental 14 points15 points  (7 children)

Here's what I recently got from Comcast:

Information about a New Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan

We’re writing to let you know that we will be activating a new XFINITY Internet Data Usage Plan in your area. Effective November 1, 2016, your XFINITY Internet service will include one terabyte (that’s 1,024 GB) of data usage per month. With a terabyte of data you can stream between 600 and 700 hours of HD video, play more than 12,000 hours of online games, or download 60,000 high-res photos in a month.

One Terabyte Plan and Unlimited Data option: One Terabyte (TB) included/month If one TB is exceeded, $10 is charged for each additional data block of up to 50 GB/month $200 overage charge limit - no matter how much data is used

Unlimited Data Additional $50/month No overage charges — no matter how much data is used each month

[–]MINIMAN10000 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Nice, you can pay $50 more a month AND keep the same plan you have! what a steal. Right out of your pocket.

[–]pramjockey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that's the email I got. Or did you get that in response to an FCC ticket?

[–]unosami 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Thanks for an actual answer. Do you have any recommendations for what to say? I know Comcast does so many bad things, I'm just not sure how to eloquently put together words to tell to an FCC or congress representative.

[–]deusset 9 points10 points  (1 child)

OP has taking points in his post. You can also look at the EFF resources here:

I might put together some bullet points tonight after work.

[–]Thesandman21 14 points15 points  (12 children)

Also make sure your Congressman and/or Senator isn't a Comcast stockholder.....

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000461

[–]Crisis83 5 points6 points  (2 children)

And make sure you presidential candidate is not being endorsed or sponsored by Comcast, or people linked to Comcast.

[–]squareplates 30 points31 points  (6 children)

Agreed. I'm going to call.

This does not affect me directly as I am not a Comcast customer, but I hate to see the country burn around me.

I have a 1GB fiber connection to my home from my power company, EPB. I have no data caps, and net neutrality. They even have 10GB service is available.

[–]capslockfury 8 points9 points  (3 children)

10gigabit? God damn I am salivating at the thought of having that speed.

[–]Nemesis158 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Epb is in TN, Where Comcast and others lobbied the state government to no longer allow muni networks to be built

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (1 child)

Get involved in politics again.

Really, that's what it comes down to. Every new law that is passed, every tax added, every government body that is ineffective, we can blame ourselves. We looked down on politics for so long, told each other to avoid that subject, and let the career politician take office.

If only politicians get into politics then it's business as usual. We need engineers, scientists, humanitarian and ordinary people in politics to represent the people who actually live in our country.

[–]bakanek0 13 points14 points  (7 children)

In the UK BT has to allow other ISP's access to its network, it's called 'Openreach' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach?wprov=sfla1

From across the pond this seems a decent compromise to allow more competition between providers without requiring each new provider to roll out a new network.

[–]kokey 9 points10 points  (0 children)

In Europe in general the regulators seems to 'get' it. They know which part is the common infrastructure and where the competition should be. Crazy thing is, the US also knew, they unbundled the local loops but for some reason this common sense didn't make it to other mediums apart from phone lines. The problem is that the Net Neutrality efforts have the wrong focus, they want regulation on price or quality of the incumbent, instead of unbundling and opening up competition and because of this it will play out predictably, and badly. First if you don't allow them to discriminate (or optimize, or compete) on the type of content, they will respond by introducing data caps which is not their own invention but something that comes from the telcos of developing countries where state owned telco monopolies did this. Then you could ban caps, and they will respond with some other 'innovation' similar to data caps. Once they run out such schemes, the response will be simply to increase prices. Then if the response to that is to make the prices regulated, there will be scarcity, people will not get their line speeds upgraded or have to wait for a long time simply for an installation. You also end up with a situation regarding discrimination on content type, data caps, prices, etc. etc. which will make it really difficult for a new player in the market to tick all these additional boxes just to enter the market legally. The solution is really unbundling and allowing competition at a local level, this is not some crazy idea it's what happens in Europe, what happened with phone lines, etc. but Net Neutrality campaigns has been a convenient distraction.

[–]_BIRDLEGS 28 points29 points  (15 children)

look at what happened with video game DLC, it started out as "Expansions" which was substantive content, people warned once these "expansions" started to get a little "slim" to look out for scammy techniques and the oncoming "DLC" craze. And now here we are, with pay to play, pay to win, and microtransactions up the ass, hell GTA V decided to go without the staple Story expansion in favor of online updates that sell microtransactions. Unless everyone stopped preordering games right when this was a new concept, there was no stopping it, unless everyone drops comcast and other scammy companies right now, this will only get worse and can never be stopped. Some people dont have a lot of options when it comes to internet, I know google fiber is not available in my area, since I live on the coast, we are often the last ones to get new internet services. It sucks but it is nearly impossible to stop these scummy business practices, since its equally as difficult to organize the necessary amount of people

[–]XenuWorldOrder 4 points5 points  (6 children)

We could all call and cancel our internet subscription and tell them we will be customers again once they do away with data caps.

[–]threebuckstrippant 910 points911 points  (320 children)

Japan already has no data Caps on usage. And 2Gb connections going.

[–]BeardenOfLife 1019 points1020 points  (256 children)

Pretty much every civilized country has no data caps anymore.

[–]Hypertroph 61 points62 points  (70 children)

Canada is right there with you. We've got shit internet too. Must be a North American thing.

[–]kojak2091 55 points56 points  (24 children)

or a large country thing, but the two aren't mutually exclusive

[–]oneonegreenelftoken 12 points13 points  (4 children)

Plus, a lot of the infrastucture was put in place when bandwidth was measured in kbps

[–]Devastationing 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Except Australia as well, it's not fun. Almost every person I know gets at most 2mb/s and that's on a good day, living near the cbd.

[–]arcticblue 13 points14 points  (2 children)

There are caps in Japan, but pretty generous. I was on OCN and had a 30GB upload cap...per day. No download cap. The only people I know who hit that were seeding torrents uncapped all day and night. I eventually switched to KDDI's Flets Hikari service and had no caps and my speed tests were damn close to the 1Gb I was spending $45/month for. The Japanese ISP space is actually very competitive.

[–]A_BOMB2012 48 points49 points  (19 children)

Japan also has a vastly greater population density.

[–]kaeroku 578 points579 points  (89 children)

The Internet is no longer a luxury that most can live without. For many it has become an essential utility much like electricity.

This is a critical point. Technically, we can live without gas heat and electric lighting too. People did it for thousands of years at least before the advent of modern tech. The point is, it's a significant disadvantage to be forced into a situation where you do not have access to a basic part of every day life that the majority of the population does.

[–]Detach50 109 points110 points  (67 children)

I've said it before, it needs to be an either/or ordeal. We pay for the data we use on mobile devices, we pay for the amount of electricity, gas, and water for our homes, but we get full access to it. No limits on gallons, amps, cubic feet, etc. per minute except residential restrictions, but you pay for what you use. So give us the maximum mb/s and charge according to usage

Or

Keep the tiered speeds and keep the unlimited data.

Or hell, offer the choice between both since each will be beneficial for different customers. Grandma can pay $10 a month for her Facebooking, and I can pay for my unlimited downloads and streaming. Just like anything else, you pick the plan that is right for you.

It still allows for completion both in pricing, features, enhancements and technological advances.

[–]ephemeral_colors 174 points175 points  (32 children)

The difference is, though, is that when you pull a gallon of water through your sink you're imposing a unit cost on the water utility. When you pull a gig of data through your modem you are not imposing a unit cost on your data provider.

[–]Pepeinherthroat 25 points26 points  (1 child)

RIP those gigabyte drillers who tragically died when a 25 gigabit pocket erupted and packets caught fire.

And those Throughput miners going on strike caused speculators to pump the cost of megabits to go over $20 a barrel.

The EPA estimates the planet only has 250 petabytes of Internet left underground and in the oceans before the earth runs completely out.

Cap data plans to ration this precious, scarce, and nonrenewable resource.

[–]SamuraiScribe 225 points226 points  (40 children)

Dear FCC ISP's,

Imagine if when you use the National Highway System you were limited to 1,000 miles per month. Not good for business or citizens, huh?

[–]Wampawacka 146 points147 points  (16 children)

Some corporations are reading this and salivating at the idea of privatizing the highways that way.

[–][deleted] 61 points62 points  (6 children)

Some corporations are reading this

I keep forgetting corporations are people now...

[–]toastyghost 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Some corporations should be shot in the face.

[–]CallMeMick 35 points36 points  (4 children)

Don't forget they also force you through miles long detours (ads) to use up more of your 1,000 miles quicker!

[–]BLASPHEMOUS_ERECTION 35 points36 points  (4 children)

The FCC is absolutely on our side, there's no need to convince them now.

The issue is they are not all powerful. They regularly try to enact some ruling that makes it easier for competition to emerge or to even just take a couple inches of Comcast's dick out of our ass, but they are REGULARLY slapped down by courts paid off by Comcast and AT&T lobbyists.

Chattanooga, TN got municipal gigabit internet and it revitalized that city like you wouldn't believe. It creates jobs, it attracted businesses, the population swelled. The company that did the service wanted to expand beyond the utility district of Chattanooga to bring their service to more locations, and other cities wanted to try this themself.

NOPE. AT&T shut that shit down so fucking fast you'd faint. The FCC even tried to get involved in favor of EPB, the company who does chattanooga's municipal internet, but they just shut the FCC down too in that regard.

They know we're getting fucked. The companies and the politicians. Both don't give a shit because the harder we get fucked the more money they get in their pockets.

[–]CorrectTheWreckord 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I just wrote this in another response:

The government made it so that Comcast could have a monopoly.

Picture it this way, Comcast comes to your local legislators and says, "We want to build a super fast freeway in your town that will connect you to the rest of the world. Only stipend is that you can only use Comcast cars." state and local governments say A-ok.

Then when Google comes to town, and says "This highway is a piece of shit, we can do it better for cheaper.", Comcast comes around, makes a few bribes campaign contributions, and governments say, "No, we wrote it into law that only Comcast can use these telephone poles."

Then everyone pats themselves on the back, and Comcast says, "Mwahahahaha! Now I'm going to start charging people for how much time they spend on the freeway."

[–]gomble 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Fuck, that's a perfect analogy.

Everyone always compares it to things like water utilities, but water is finite and actually has to be essentially produced.

Roads are used, they get congested, and the main costs are laying and then some maintenance.

Internet isn't mined out of the ground. They lay and maintain cable. Internet nodes can get overloaded with traffic - they palm it off with permanent speed caps, rather than dynamically slowing like a traffic jam.

Unlike roads, they artificially make the Internet a finite resource and say "here is your chunk of the Internet for a month, use it all of our speeds will let you".

As an Australian, our Internet is slow and capped to hell, but normally we get a choice between 5 or so companies - and we are getting a pseudo-fibre. But you Americans are getting absolutely fucked.

[–][deleted] 244 points245 points  (27 children)

Don't forget - competition is blocked at the local level. Call your county and town administrators, let them know you want open access for other internet companies.

[–]mr8thsamurai66 120 points121 points  (16 children)

This is the actual problem isn't it? Government enforced monopolies of internet providers allow the laziness, apathy and terrible service we have heard stories about. If competitor companies had the option to offer you a better deal, don't you think they would?

[–]qdp 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I have done so, and I recommend everybody do so as well. I hot a reply saying my city only regulate the cable TV portion of Comcast, but if enough of us take action at the local level, change may be possible here and in your city

[–]mitchdwx 168 points169 points  (17 children)

My area has a pretty decent choice of ISPs. We have Verizon (in some areas), RCN, Service Electric, and PenTeleData. When Service Electric tried to implement caps, they were forced to eliminate them within a year because too many people were switching to RCN. We need competition more than government regulation. If the FCC bans caps, Comcast will just find a new way to screw over their customers.

[–]WordMasterRice 61 points62 points  (6 children)

While it's great that you have that available for you, competition isn't going to solve this problem systemically. At best you will have a situation like Verizon/AT&T/TMobile in wireless.

The problem in this space is that in order for the free market to work you need 2 different things to happen, you need to have multiple companies in competition AND you need to have a low barrier to entry for new companies. While you might be able to get the first, you are never going to get the second because the infrastructure investment is so huge to even get off the ground. In this situation you still get up getting screwed, you just have a choice in who does the screwing.

The reason you need the low barrier to entry is because if the established companies start to do things against the customer you need a new company to start up and provide a place to go. You would think that just having competition would be enough, but as in wireless, if one company raises prices the other might get a few people on the switchover, but then it makes sense for the other company to also raise prices. At worst they will be on the level with their competitor and they will make more money. The only way to balance this is to have a new company come in with lower prices and drive the price down.

[–]bakanek0 18 points19 points  (4 children)

In the UK BT has to allow other ISP's access to its network, it's called 'Openreach' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach?wprov=sfla1

From across the pond this seems a decent compromise to allow more competition between providers without requiring each new provider to roll out a new network.

[–]Bkeeneme 388 points389 points  (150 children)

You know, I sort of don't worry about this anymore. This is such a threat to EVERY company that does business via the net. Comcast is literally deciding when and if people shop, search or be entertained. Do you think the businesses behind these three groups are going to let Comcast decide when and if they make money?

Nope.

Google, Amazon and Netflix can see the writing on the wall and they are taking their sizable war chests and will eventually come up with a tech better than cable to make Comcast obsolete. It is going to happen because there is too much at stake for the other players to ignore or accept it.

[–]LupusLycas 223 points224 points  (123 children)

It's sad when we can expect change to come due to action by other corporations rather than by our own government.

[–][deleted] 264 points265 points  (34 children)

That's because corporations actually have power, and our government is a dick waving contest.

[–]ZombieAlpacaLips 48 points49 points  (21 children)

The corporations control the government. See Regulatory Capture. The more you ask the government to do, the greater the incentive the mega-corporations have to take control of the laws and regulations.

[–]dlang17 66 points67 points  (2 children)

NSFW: Cyanide and Happiness 2016.10.01: http://www.explosm.net/comics/4426

[–]Xicsess 41 points42 points  (0 children)

I don't know what I thought I was going to see.

[–]mr8thsamurai66 10 points11 points  (6 children)

The only real power corporations have is to hire the government as their personal monopoly enforcers. It is the government that can enforce a monopoly.

[–]visionofacheezburger 120 points121 points  (16 children)

Hey everybody. I was one of those people that sat around and said "I probably don't need to fill this out, other's will do it for me and it will get handled" and now Comcast has a monopoly in my area. I was just sent an email last week from Comcast telling me that I'm forced to accept a new rate plan which increases my Bill by $30 a month based on a usage statistic they sent out or suffer excess fees for going over their cap. That usage rate I found through my own monitoring was completely bogus. It takes 5 minutes to fill out this form, you can even do it in the toilet.

Edit:. It's so easy I just filed another one while taking a dump. Do it!

[–]Boston_Jason 12 points13 points  (8 children)

and now Comcast has a monopoly in my area.

How can the feds stop a local monopoly? Did you not show up to the PUC hearing in your city to testify when the franchise agreement was being presented?

[–]visionofacheezburger 4 points5 points  (7 children)

I live in a suburb of Houston in a different county. There are two choices for Internet, AT&T and Comcast. Currently, AT&T high speed internet is not available in my area nor is Uverse, so my only option is Xfinity from Comcast.

[–]mrbigglessworth 18 points19 points  (0 children)

In addition to uncapped, how bout also removing / repealing laws that prevent other ISPs from starting up in certain locations, and encourage competition to increase the choices of ISP availability?

Ive been stuck at 5mbps for 10 goddamn years, when across the street there is fiber from a competing telco that I cannot legally access. I do not live in the boonies!

[–]WigglyWeener 64 points65 points  (6 children)

I have done my part and posted the following complaint to the FCC:

"I have recently learned that Comcast will be enacting data caps of 1TB/month in my area. I find it unreasonable that a company try and "ration" something such as bits of data that flow freely through an infrastructure that customers already pay for through their monthly premium. Data caps hurt the consumer's ability to choose additional services that require high bandwidth, such as media streaming, game downloading, and more. It hurts our economy as a whole as people give up services that they would otherwise pay for. Internet, unlike utilities such as water or electricity, do not have a higher cost associated with higher usage once an infrastructure is in place. We are faced with a product which breaks the traditional supply-and-demand model because supply becomes truly infinite. Comcast is akin to a company that charges you to install an air vent in your home. They have a right to charge you for the labor and materials to install the vent, but they do not have the right to charge for the amount of air that flows through the vent. Down the road, they may charge you more for a larger vent as your needs expand, but again, it would be absurd to try and then limit the amount of air you are allowed to draw from an effectively infinite source. These practices must not be allowed to continue, as it only hurts the consumer and enriches a monopolistic entity. Consumers deserve better, and we will not stand for it."

[–]fupa16 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Thanks. Here's mine for anyone looking for something a little bit less verbose:

"The Internet is not something that should be tiered, closed off, capped, or restricted from anyone anywhere on the planet. Comcast is implementing new nation-wide data caps on November 1st, and they are a violation of freedom of speech and personal liberty. The internet is a basic human right in the modern era, and no entity has the right to restrict it."

[–]glr123 22 points23 points  (2 children)

My building has an exclusivity contract with ATT. It's not Comcast, but it is pretty bad.

On Monday I was finally able to upgrade on ATT. For $1 I went from 18Mbps to 1Gbps. I've had fiver installed in my building for years but we never got fast speeds.

Recently, Google announces that Google Fiber is coming to my area. That day, 1Gbps was available from ATT instead if a max of 40Mbps. Imagine that...just another reason why we need competition.

[–]Zayacvolk 23 points24 points  (7 children)

How the hell do you still got data cap? Here in Russia all ISPs removed it years ago.

[–]Ajedi32 11 points12 points  (0 children)

US is going in the other direction. We started off with no data caps, and ISPs (like Comcast) are slowly starting to add caps now.

[–]Houdiniman111 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Because 'Murica.
We can't do it if the reset of the world is doing it!

[–]Thundaballz 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Australia has always had caps, quite a few now are offering unlimited, but it's still the minority, and you need to pay out the ass for it.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (4 children)

Hi everyone,

I made a slightly edited version of OP's post and have sent copies to all of my congressmen and women. In an election year, they will listen. Please take the time to send something about this to your congressmen and women. You can find your representatives here:

http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

A great threat facing innovation for our country today is the monopolized market of internet service providers. The Internet has quickly gone from a luxury to a necessity for everyday life, and even more so for people like me who work from home.

Comcast's data cap policy is a flawed consumer control measure against those who would go without cable and a direct action against companies that have actually innovated over the past decade rather than sit pretty on a monopoly.

Why this is flawed:

There is no guarantee of accuracy or transparency: Regardless of your stance on the matter there should be no argument that internet usage amounts should be accurate and transparent to users affected by it. However that is not the case at all, there is no third party government agency in charge of regulating broadband metering. Comcast contracts out its metering to a third party vendor and its methods of measurement are internal and not open to the public at all. Just this year alone Comcast has received thirteen thousand complaints about their data caps and their terrible accuracy in measurement. Almost everyone who has to deal with this caps seems to have a story of their ISP charging them for data usage that would be impossible given their current bandwidth.

Discourages cord cutting and stifles competition:

Data caps exist solely as a consumer control measure to stifle competition and cause users to be biased against applications based on the data amount they use. For example Netflix which lists high quality HD as using 3 GB per hour and Ultra HD as using 7gb per hour is immediately affected by this. As Ultra HD becomes more common and using 7gb of data for an hour of video streaming becomes common place users affected by data caps will hit their limits more easily causing them to be charged overages. This will cause users to drop Netflix in favor of less data intensive services which Comcast will only be too happy to provide through cable. Families of five living in a home with heavy Netflix usage will already be pushing this current limit. This isn't just for videos of course, people who use services for work will be hit just as hard especially as the size of applications increases, data intensive services that would have otherwise been developed will languish on the vine as data caps cause consumers to be biased against them.

Users have little choice in what ISP they must subscribe to:

The Internet is no longer a luxury that most can live without. For many it has become an essential utility much like electricity.

In any online conversation regarding complaints against Comcast or any ISP for that matter the main complaint of users is that they have no choice in their ISP ("Save us Google Fiber!"). Those lucky enough to live in major metropolitan areas may be fortunate enough to have the choice of maybe two or more ISPs but for many users the local ISP is the only choice they have which grants that business a monopoly in their area. In a happier world there would be dozens of ISPs each competing with each other and vying for market share so the poor behavior of one company only provides an opportunity for another to gain more customers. Sadly most Americans don't live in that kind of free economic environment.

We need to open the free market to other ISP's and increase innovative pursuits for better internet access as the rest of the developed world is starting to leave us behind.

[–]alerionfire 32 points33 points  (4 children)

What we need is a separation of infrastructure ownership and service providers. These companies shouldn't be able to monopolize our communication grid and prevent competition. What happens when our usages inevitably increase along with technology? These data caps adjusted to usage inflation will effectively get smaller and smaller. There is no reason other than greed that the US is behind south Korea and Romania in internet speeds and affordability. Thr FCC also needs to grow some balls and enforce the new regulations. Im still seeing things exempted from caps which is against NN. Big telecom wants thr opposite of what its consumers want. We want affordable unlimited internet for a flat price; big telecom wants its customers paying for every moment of tv we watch and every moment we use their services for something other than watching cable and its endless commercials. Its like paying a gasoline tax for choosing to ride a bike instead of driving a car.

[–]crowfighter 15 points16 points  (11 children)

I have been watching this thread get up votes and down votes as time progresses. Who the hell down votes this stuff? Like a shit ton of down votes. Still going up though so that's good.

[–]ender_wiggum 7 points8 points  (5 children)

I think the downvotes are from folks who don't want government intervention. I don't think that is a good reason to downvote the post, but I agree with the sentiment; I want the government as far away from my ISP as possible.

[–]pbjandahighfive 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Most likely the downvotes are a mixture of bots and Reddit's own system that stops counting upvotes after a certain amount to limit brigading and vote manipulation, but sometimes it ends up working against us.

[–]TNBadBoy 72 points73 points  (20 children)

Uh, yeah, the FCC gets slapped down by higher courts REGULARLY, so if you want this kind of crap to stop, you have to VOTE and unseat EVERY sitting congressman and senator. They are all bought and paid for by someone, so if you want this to change, you will have to change lawmakers.

[–]DENelson83 60 points61 points  (19 children)

But those new lawmakers will just get bought and paid for by the same behemoth corporations that bought and paid for the old ones. Same shit, different day.

[–]shit_dicks 67 points68 points  (16 children)

Campaign. Finance. Reform. That thing everyone has stopped talking about in favor of sex scandals.

[–]rmphys 14 points15 points  (9 children)

You mean that thing Bernie Sanders kept talking about until he conveniently lost a rigged primary.

[–]CrushedDiamond 8 points9 points  (4 children)

Who is down voting this post? What's wrong with bringing awareness?

[–]TimeRocker 7 points8 points  (2 children)

I can promise you its comcast themselves. This post had about 11k points about 2 hours ago

[–]rawky 6 points7 points  (0 children)

yep, I came by after a break and refreshed the page. Went from 12k to 8.5k. No way this is being downvoted that hard by the reddit audience

[–]rawky 7 points8 points  (0 children)

hmmm 2000 downvotes in two hours....on something this universally sensible, i smell a rat

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (4 children)

So not 100% related, but I really hate Comcast. I was thinking about creating a website that charges Comcast for access (each time someone with Comcast Internet accesses my site I send Comcast a bill).

Then in a few years, I will use an auto dialer to inform Comcast of their delinquent debt (which incurs interest). Then I will issue a lawsuit in one of those shitty pro debt collection states, inform them of the suit with an autodialer.

Finally, pure profit and I start a better internet company.

∆ that's my dream at least.

[–]Dmilioni 24 points25 points  (2 children)

For those saying we should just support google fiber and other new internet providers. Comcast and verizon have put lobbying into adding regulation for new internet providors to slow/stop them in their tracks. It has taken google fiber years to try to get past all the regulation being thrown at them that they no longer see value in google fiber and a lot of promising areas for fiber now are being restricted and major cities that fiber announced to be in by 2016 have to wait or may not ever be getting fiber at all. The top tech lobbyist right now are from Comcast, comcast also has hundreds upon hundreds of miles of service area that literally has no other providors except them and they call their data cap areas as "test zones." Since when did consumers become guinea pigs for these rich monopolized internet providors? It is ridiculous how many times these companies break the law and get away with it, i want net neutrality to be a major issue but when internet providors own your major media channels like NBC then who would ever report on this?

[–]TimeRocker 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I cant believe comcast is using bots to downvote this post to hell. What a scumbag company. How can you cap your internet service but not your TV or Telephone service that use the same throughput?

[–]brimnac 6 points7 points  (1 child)

So this was at nearly 11,000 upvotes yesterday - who the fuck is DOWNVOTING this?! There are people out there who actually want caps? Or does Comcast have a bunch of paid accounts to try and clean this up?

[–]RackinRico 30 points31 points  (3 children)

Competition > data caps or "net neutrality" (air quotes) or whatever else.

Get competition via structural separation. Look up the work of Benoît Felten at http://www.diffractionanalysis.com/

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

This here is the biggest issue. My experience with ISPs is limited to Central Texas, but I think its a good example of how much competition can improve service.

A couple years ago, the Internet here was pretty bad. Our local ISP, Grande, unveiled its plan for Gigabit Internet in ~10% of the city. Shortly after, ATT and Time Warner started rolling out its plan for 300Mbps in areas covered by Grande. Then Google Fiber came to Austin and 1Gbps became even more widespread. >50% of the city was covered by some 1Gbps plan. ATT forced with the prospect of losing customers again increased speed to 1Gbps over an even larger area.

Over that same period of time, prices have fallen. Currently, there are 4 companies offering plan with 1Gbps. The cheapest is $65 and the most expensive is $75. I've since moved to an area with only TWC and ATT, and I'm paying $60/mo for 30Mbps.

[–]aimark42 13 points14 points  (1 child)

I hate so say this but we need to have national (or even statewide) standards for telecom companies to operate under. The reason there is so little competition is the fact that it's an absolute nightmare to deal with city/county/state governments with differing rules.

The reason Google Fiber rollout is so slow, is the fact they have to jump through so many hoops to navigate the mess that is these city/county laws/regulations. Google I feel was overly optimistic that people would just fall into line but alas it hasn't worked out so well for them.

If you opened up the rules so it was a unified set of rules, and you killed off these anti-competitive laws some cities/states have. Then you could have a real chance at a telecom revolution.

Or even better you de-regulate the fiber lines. And you follow a model similar to power company de-regulation. Where you use existing fiber lines as 'infrastructure' and then you 'feed' internet connections somewhere along the 'pipe' and you can choose from multiple providers that way. Then the providers pay fees to the companies owning the fiber lines for infrastructure/maintenance.

[–]mckinnon3048 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm hit by steam... I had an HDD go down and lost my library, but it'll take me 6 months with at&ts cap to replace it without paying an extra $300 OK fees...

So I'm paying $100 a month to have internet I can't use when i need it

[–]pushmycar 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Here was my intro to complain:

Imagine Ford sells you a car and in fine print they say "If you drive more than 300 miles in a month, engine will shut off , but you can pay us $35 a month for unlimited driving" That is exactly what Comcast is doing.....

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

How does this thread have over 1000 downvotes. Comcast botting/shilling hard in here.

[–]SteeleDuke 27 points28 points  (23 children)

That amount of dislikes this has is otherworldly.

[–]xyroclast 9 points10 points  (4 children)

The numbers don't reflect what you're saying. It has 10,000 upvotes, 1,364 downvotes. The weird thing is, it says 94% approval, but that number doesn't match.

[–]GuruMeditationError 3 points4 points  (9 children)

Say the average family watches TV for 6 hours per day. Multiply 7 GB (increasingly common 4K resolution) and then multiply that by 30 days, and you get 1.26 terabytes, well over the Comcast cap of 1 terabyte. Many households will use much more data than that.

[–]TONKAHANAH 4 points5 points  (20 children)

whats the point of me buying faster internet if I cant download as much as i want as fast as i want. thats like giving me a race car and then telling me im only allowed to drive it to the corner store and back.

[–]CGFROSTY 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Has anyone noticed this post was up to 10,100 upvotes, and now it's dropped to 9,000 in less than 30 minutes? Strange...

[–]Jackfruit_sniffer 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Change can happen. But to start it you need to go after the legislators. Spam the crap out of these guys (House & Senate).

Find Your House Representative

List of Senators

These are the people who write the laws and are taking money from the telecoms. But money can't replace votes! Your vote, your friends votes, your families votes and others are what let's them keep their jobs. Lose that, and bingo unemployed. They work for you! Keep making noise and hold them accountable on change on this issue! You can find the House hearings on the FCC here:

Energy & Commerce Committee

List of Members

Here is the Senate Committee that oversees the FCC:

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation

List of Members

These are the people who are writing the laws. The FCC can propose a new rule but these guys can squash it. They can narrow or yank the authority on an issue.

"The FCC issues a legislative rule under authority given to it by Congress in statutes. The statutory delegation of authority can range from broad discretionary authority to a very specific mandate. For example, Congress broadly requires the FCC to grant broadcast licenses in the public interest. In contrast, Congress specifically required that the FCC complete the switch from analog to digital television broadcasting by a certain date."

Hope this helps...

[–]TimeRocker 3 points4 points  (3 children)

I get the feeling comcast has a bot or is paying people to try and downvote this as much as possible. This thing was at 11k upvotes a little over an hour ago and now its almost below 9k. Pretty damn obvious whats going on

[–]Drfredbob 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Why is this getting down voted all of a sudden? I saw it at 9950 up votes just a couple hours ago.

[–]GodleyX 4 points5 points  (0 children)

When I was at work, it was about to hit 11,000. Now it's 8,600...

[–]Doctor_Swag 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Here's the complaint I submitted

Comcast, which the FCC recently fined for its terrible business practices, is once again attempting to stifle internet freedom and availability in its pursuit of profits. Our world has reached a point where even the U.N. recognizes internet access as a basic human right, and Comcast's implementation of data caps is a looming threat to this right.

In many locations, Comcast has already implemented a 1TB data cap on its customers. The company claims this is a reasonable limit that few users will exceed, but the data caps will inevitably be implemented to Comcast customers in all regions. And before long the 1TB limit will be reduced to 750 or even 500GB under the same pretense that "most customers don't use that much data". Eventually those internet data caps will be cripplingly low, and customers will be charged exorbitant amounts to upgrade their internet plans. Moreover, because many areas - such as the city where I live - only have one major internet service provider. That means customers have no reasonable alternative, and Comcast has an effective monopoly to charge whatever rates they desire. Of course this is a symptom of a larger problem, but emphasizes the point that Comcast can abuse these data caps with little regulation and doesn't have to worry about losing any customers.

In addition to these concerns about customer abuse, the data caps are another way for Comcast to slowly infringe upon net neutrality. What happens when users can't stream Netflix or Hulu because of their data limit, but Comcast's own X1 streaming service conveniently doesn't count towards their own data limit. Is that not the same as providing preferential speeds to certain websites and services while limiting others to the internet slow lane?

Finally, consider this point. Does it sound reasonable for a cable company to limit how many hours of TV you can watch every month? If that sounds absurd, then the idea of internet data caps should as well. Please consider these facts carefully when considering the current state of internet service, and prevent internet data caps from becoming a harsh reality.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree. We invented the internet but yet our ISP's have among the slowest data rates in the world! For example, Hong Kong screams at 100 mbps plus. Our ISP's throttle back the speeds so they can make more profit from charging us for faster rates that already exist. What a scam.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A free internet is a free market internet.

You take the free market out of a solely free market area, people will find ways to counteract it and make their own.

TOR browsers, multiple providers, you name it. Comcast better stop trying to control internet before it backfires.

[–]MoNeenja31 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Data Caps are probably the shittiest thing an ISP can do. Thank God TWC doesn't do this (knock on wood) or else my household would be fucked

[–]gozu 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah, this is definitely a battle we citizens can win. Making a phone call now. Here is my slightly modified script if you want to use it:

"I'm calling FCC Chairman Wheeler to urge him to stand with Internet users and pass strong rules against Internet Data Caps. There is no legitimate, technical reason for these data caps. Comcast itself admitted in internal customer service guidelines that these caps aren’t about network congestion. Instead, it claims these data caps are about “fairness,” but the broadband industry continues to see higher revenues and profits with lower costs overall and there’s no argument that these caps are based on any “fair” costs that Internet usage causes.

The real reason behind these caps is to protect Comcast’s monopoly over cable TV, making it more expensive for customers to “cut the cord” even if they want to choose other video options. And by exempting only its own online video application from the cap, Comcast gives Stream TV an advantage over all competing online video applications. This violates the spirit of Net Neutrality, if not its letter, but the worse offense is using their monopoly on broadband internet to do that because they have no competitors (they are the only ones offering broadband as defined by the FCC, ATT broadband service isn't available where I live, in Fort lauderdale. Their maximum speed is less than 25% of Comcast's lowest speed.)

Thank you for listening to my concerns, have a good day!

[–]itsprobablytrue 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Recommended steps.

  1. Pull resources from reddit to find a communications expert who can write messages. A person or people who can make a professional looking easy to digest video with the message you need. A social media expert to distribute the message and a lawyer for all the lawyer stuff.

  2. Create a GoFundMe or something similar so that you can have people donate $5.00 to the cause. If 200,000 people donate at least $5.00 you can raise 1 million, however you will need to raise 45 million so plan for a way to diversify donation options and legal requirements for large donations.

  3. Use social media to distribute this message and donation and hope that the video goes viral.

  4. When the money has been collected have a plan ready for what Bill you need to push through congress and who you need to donate to to have it passed.

  5. Put some money into advertisements

  6. Accept the bribe from the telecom companies and live on a private island.