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Comcast

If y'all're a Comcast customer, chances are yous're now operating under an effective 1TB data cap. This new program, dubbed the Xfinity Terabyte Internet Data Usage Program, restricts users to 1TB a calendar month of combined upload and download across 38 Comcast markets by November i. Comcast's new rules are as follows: You tin become over the 1TB mark twice before y'all incur additional charges, but you lot'll be charged $10 for each 50GB block of data you use after that. If you lot demand more information, yous can pay Comcast an boosted $50 for truly unlimited data — merely you have to commit to that fee in advance, not retroactively.

Given that Comcast executives have openly admitted their data caps are nothing but an endeavor to wring more money out of customers, it might seem odd they're still trying to make the example that these caps are fair and represent some sort of equitable billing practice. Yet, that's what they're doing. In April, when it debuted the plans, Comcast wrote:

In our trials, nosotros have experimented with dissimilar offers, listened to feedback, and learned a lot. That is what we said we would do when we launched our trials four years ago – analyze and assess our customers' reaction to the information plans, including beingness open to increasing them over time. We have learned that our customers want the peace of mind to stream, surf, game, download, or do whatever they want online. And so, we have created a new data programme that is so loftier that almost of our customers will never have to think about how much information they utilise. (Emphasis added)

The trouble with this argument is that information technology treats data like a finite resources. Consider a physical product like oil, for example. When a shallow oil well runs dry, you have to either dig a deeper well or find a different site for a new shallow well. The marginal cost of pumping more than oil rises because it costs more than money to deliver the additional oil the client wants.

Data isn't like that. The marginal cost of delivering the 500th gigabyte of information to my habitation over a xxx-solar day menstruation is exactly the aforementioned every bit the marginal cost of delivering the kickoff gigabyte of data. Much of the data on how much it costs to provide information beyond the actual internet is kept under NDA, merely transit pricing information is available. Transit, as defined on StreamingMedia, is "where one network agrees to behave traffic that flows betwixt another network and all other networks connected to it… Transit providers' routers lets other networks carry traffic to the network that has bought the transit and go a fee for that service. Information technology sounds complicated, but actually all the transit provider is doing is allowing multiple networks to exchange traffic with i another."

Here'due south how transit costs have changed since the late 1990s according to DrPeering.net, which has been accumulation and documenting these costs for nearly xx years.

TransitPriceDrops

In 2010, average transit cost was $5 per Mbps of bandwidth. In 2015, information technology was $0.63. That'due south 63 cents. Everyone seen any of that savings passed on to their cable bill? I haven't. While transit costs are merely 1 aspect of total network cost, the marginal price of additional data is tiny. What matters is how fast you want that data and when you want it — but that's not how Comcast bills its customers.

If Comcast wanted to really create a off-white payment structure, it would either bill people based on when they wanted loftier speed Internet (5-8pm might be more expensive for high-speed services) or it would beak them based on total network congestion. If I want to stream 4K video at 8 PM, that might cost more than streaming the same video at four AM, because the total network load is higher and I'one thousand consuming a adequately large pct of a stock-still resources (network bandwidth). It doesn't do this, partly because the complexity wouldn't play well with customers, and partly because it tin can make far more money charging for data.

These caps aren't about paying a off-white market charge per unit. They're just some other way the cablevision manufacture wants to line its pockets. We should besides point out that the accuracy of Comcast's data meters has been disputed in multiple cases, and the company typically refuses to reconsider its data meter readings until the person being screwed starts talking to the media. So, and only then, the visitor is willing to investigate the problem.

FCC fines Comcast $2.3 million for cramming

In other news, the FCC just fined Comcast $2.3 million for what's known as "negative option" billing. Negative selection billing (it's called cramming in the telephone market) refers to the practice of putting goods and services on a customer'southward bill that the client never signed up for. Information technology is then the responsibility of the customer to telephone call the visitor and dispute charges that should never have been on the bill to begin with.

"It is basic that a cablevision neb should include charges simply for services and equipment ordered past the customer—nix more and nothing less," said Travis LeBlanc, Chief of the Enforcement Agency. "We expect all cable and phone companies to take responsibility for the accuracy of their bills and to ensure their customers have authorized any charges."

The FCC notes that it received numerous complaints regarding Comcast's behavior, including unordered services or products, DVR rental charges, and premium channel sign-ups that were never authorized. The FCC notes that in some cases, customers were signed upward for these products despite specifically and repeatedly telling Comcast that they did not want either the products or services in question.

Hither'southward the FCC again:

Under the terms of today'south settlement, Comcast will pay the largest civil penalty assessed from a cable operator by the FCC and implement a five-twelvemonth compliance plan. Specifically, Comcast will adopt processes and procedures designed to obtain affirmative informed consent from customers prior to charging them for any new services or equipment. Comcast volition also transport customers an gild confirmation split up from any other bill, clearly and conspicuously describing newly added products and their associated charges. Further, Comcast volition offer to customers, at no toll, the ability to block the addition of new services or equipment to their accounts. In improver, the settlement requires Comcast to implement a detailed plan for redressing disputed charges in a standardized and expedient fashion, and limits agin action (such as referring an account to collections or suspending service) while a disputed charge is being investigated.

The terms of the agreement would accept more than teeth if they didn't involve such a petty amount of money. The ugly truth is this: $2.3 million may exist the largest fine the FCC has ever levied in this kind of case, only it's doormat change to Comcast. If the company managed to sign up a few thousand people for services they don't want through these tactics, the long-term earnings from the customers who didn't notice the difference and investigate the trouble is most certainly much larger than the $2.3 million fine.

Regulations only work if the visitor being regulated believes the penalty of doing wrong is larger than the perceived benefit of breaking the rules. If that'south not the example, breaking the constabulary is merely the cost of doing (highly profitable) concern. And if the penalty of breaking the FCC'south five-year compliance understanding is just some other $ii.3 million iii to five years down the line, Comcast will have little reason to actually change its practices.