
Comcast won’t give new speed boost to Internet users who don’t buy TV service - gok
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/comcast-wont-give-new-speed-boost-to-internet-users-who-dont-buy-tv-service/
======
rconti
I already have to subscribe to Comcast's "basic" cable (which is what used to
be called lifeline; it has nothing my antenna doesn't, not even the History
Channel/Discovery Channel type stuff that used to be on 'basic).

The reason is that they charge me less when I'm also willing to be a TV
'subscriber'. TV+Internet is cheaper than Internet alone. The cable box just
sits in its cardboard box in the attic, I still use my antenna because the
quality is better.

~~~
vitaflo
> TV+Internet is cheaper than Internet alone

Not true. Check your bill. TV+Internet might be cheaper when only counting the
base rate of TV, but when you get TV you also get tons of fees piled on. FCC
fees, Local Cable Access fees, Franchise fees, Cable Box fees, Taxes, etc. It
will be different depending on where you live, but when I added up all the
fees it added almost $15 extra per month just for basic cable.

It's still cheaper to just pay extra for internet without cable TV and get an
OTA antenna.

~~~
cptskippy
It really depends on the market. Comcast's prices and service can very
significantly based on your zip code. That's why they require you to put in a
house number before they'll even let you look at plans or prices. Also, if you
put in an address without Comcast service in your neighborhood you'll get very
different offerings than if you use your own address.

~~~
doubt_me
Used to be 90$ ish a month for years. Then they forced us into a promotional
thing that ran out. And now the bill is 150$ a month for tv+internet+landline.

The option to just outright buy internet doesn't exist in their plans. Didn't
give me any other options.

Theifs. Liers. Con artists.

I'm so fucking done with Comcast I'm building up a blueprint to help my town
get community owned fiber access.

Everything I keep running into says don't. It doesn't work. It costs to much.

I hope it costs to much. I want Comcast to burn in hell for eternity.

~~~
murjinsee
Are they the only provider in your area?

Every year when my contract is about to expire they tell me my rates will be
increasing from $60 to $90/mo., I call in and say I want to cancel and go to
CenturyLink unless there is a comparable retention offer, and they
continuously offer me a similar rate if I sign a new contract. It takes about
5 minutes, though I wish I didn't have to jump through hoops.

In a competitive market, they will do this for me within 2 calls usually with
no escalations.

My friends in places where there is no other option go all the way up the
chain with no results, since their threat to leave has no teeth.

It was crazy observing the difference in customer service when I moved to a
major metro.

What I'm trying to say is that I agree that they suck, but they do subsidize
the cities with higher fees in the country, and also that haggling is
important.

~~~
kgermino
> [comcast] do subsidize the cities with higher fees in the country

That may be true, but cities also cost less to serve than rural areas. Less
density means that equipment serves fewer customers, each customer requires
more cable to serve, technicians need to travel further between calls (or you
need more of them), etc.

------
zargon
"We've increased speeds 17 times in the last 17 years."

My experience is that they increase the speed, and then a few months later
they raise the price. Then I have to switch to a lower speed to get a price
similar to what I was paying before. It's dishonest and sleazy.

~~~
meesterdude
> It's dishonest and sleazy

It's comcast™

~~~
cptskippy
ic™

------
janaagaard
Why don’t cable companies charge by megabyte used, instead of by speed? That
way they would have an incentment to give you the fastest possible connection,
since that would potentially mean, that you would be consuming more data. They
might even give you a discount on your Netflix subscription.

Is the current pricing structure simply because consumers have become so
accostumed to playing a flat rate, or is there something else, that I am
missing?

~~~
CobrastanJorji
> Why don’t cable companies charge by megabyte used, instead of by speed?

Because "speed" sells, and the customers Comcast wants don't use much
bandwidth.

The #1 source of revenue for Comcast is the customer who has cable, has high
speed Internet, doesn't really use the Internet for much, and just pays their
cable bill every month without really thinking about it.

The family with 3 teenagers all watching Fortnite live streams or whatever the
kids are doing these days is Comcast's second worst customer, only superseded
by the guy streaming those videos.They're taking up a significant chunk of
their area's local bandwidth, and that costs real money to upgrade. Comcast
has no incentive to allow for this use case unless they can find a price tier
that makes you a good customer again (notice that for $50/month, Comcast will
remove the bandwidth caps).

It's effectively the same reason that Comcast doesn't let you sign up for
individual cable channels.

~~~
lsaferite
I have 1Gb + unlimited data right now. I regularly use 1.2-1.5TB of data every
month. I'm sure they hate me almost as much as I hate them.

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escherplex
Confirmed my suspicions. FWIW in SW Florida after severing Xfinity TV service
ties, the replacement with ROKU boxes, et al, DID result in significant
throttling of internet connections even after the speed increases were
announced by Xfinity. The home 'Blaster' package saw a reduction in large
.mp4/.zip file download speeds from 12MB/s to 5. That was coupled with
frequent connection drops while viewing ROKU content. And you could forget
about 4K content. Miraculously, when an Xfinity app was installed on ROKU
which required a supplemental CATV account, which conveniently Xfinity
marketed at a 2 yr. super discount to undercut the DirectTV app package, the
internet speeds increased from a throttled 5 to a consistent 15MB/s on non-VPN
downloads (using IDM on Win7, similar results in Linux Mint). And 4K viewing
was practical. Amazing! /s

~~~
OnMyPhone
Did you do any testing with a VPN?

When I was visiting someone in Atlanta GA, the speeds weren't good for what
they advertised, but once I put on a VPN the speeds almost tripled.

They just have internet through Comcast too, so I was wondering if something
was up.

~~~
escherplex
From here, a VPN with servers in Toronto yielded speeds of about 8 MB/s max
for IDM, uGET, and qBittorrent, which is about 1/2 what non-VPN connections
delivered. VPN servers in Netherlands delivered a little less than that.

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kpwags
This seems rather anti-competitive. It'd just be a matter of time until
Netflix, etc. only run well on the upgraded speed.

Here's hoping someone takes this to the FTC and gets this stopped. I wish I
were a little more hopeful.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> It'd just be a matter of time until Netflix, etc. only run well on the
> upgraded speed

I think you overestimate the bandwidth requirements of Netflix.

I only have a 30 mbps internet connection, and even that's more than enough
for Netflix's highest bitrates.

Source:
[https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306](https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306)

~~~
bitwize
Comcast will throttle traffic from Netflix to well below acceptable levels
unless you're on one of their approved plans.

Remember, net neutrality is no longer a thing.

------
mmanfrin
I am so, so excited that I will be able to leave Comcast for good in November.
Sonic, a local ISP, has been blitz building out fiber in the East Bay Area.
Comcast is abusive of their monopoly status in areas and their demise cannot
come quickly enough.

~~~
FullyFunctional
I switched from Comcast (@ 300 Mb/s) to Sonic (@ 30 Mb/s) just to support
them. I really wish Sonic well as they seem to be the last honest ISP left.

~~~
ProfessorLayton
I also have Sonic in the East Bay, and it has been pricy and disappointing. It
is rebranded AT&T FTTN, I'm subscribed to 50mbps but am lucky to get 24mbps
@90/mo after associated fees.

Still, its that or non-rebranded AT&T or Comcast with data caps.

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rb808
> Customers with 60Mbps Internet download speeds are being upped to 150Mbps;
> 150Mbps subscribers are going to 250Mbps; and 250Mbps subscribers are
> getting a raise to 400Mbps or 1Gbps.

I'd be surprised that any regular household would notice being upgraded from
60 to 150Mbps.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Unless it's fiber to the home, I doubt there's any difference. I assume they
just make up numbers or relax some constraints so you can get "up to" some
arbitrary bandwidth, but your latency will still be garbage, you still won't
have upload, and you're still sharing the same pipe with your neighborhood.

~~~
didibus
Ya, I went from 100 to 250, and saw no difference. While my old apartment had
30MB fiber, and damn that was fast, way faster.

Its all about consistency, ping and packet loss.

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fossuser
If you live in Palo Alto you can get a decent deal on gigabit internet service
from Comcast, but it's really hard to actually get (or at least it was when I
got it). It took multiple attempts since the phone sales people didn't know
what it was.

I wrote up detailed instructions here since there was very little information
available online at the time:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6xc5e4/bay_area_ge...](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6xc5e4/bay_area_gets_gigabit_comcast_internet_service/)

~~~
bradlys
If you can get it, go with AT&T. It's at least 500mbit up and down for only
$80. It rarely ever hits over 800mbit but it's not like you can really know if
it's AT&T or the other side (even when doing speedtests).

~~~
fossuser
I've lived in three different places around Palo Alto and I've never lived in
an area that has non-DSL AT&T - I'm not sure where this actual is available.

~~~
bradlys
I'm in San Carlos. Came available last six months.

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dawnerd
I almost switched to comcast this month since Frontier is charging me ~150 for
150/150 fiber. Asked comcast what their upload speed was in my area and they
didn't want to initially tell me, but eventually they said its only ~10mbps. I
get faster on my phone so that ended that discussion real fast. They also
seemed really confused why I thought 10mbps was too low.

Edit: I'm in the area that would be getting this "new upgrade"

~~~
aphextron
I would keep your symmetrical plan. Comcast upload speeds are anemic. I have
their "Gigabit" service and while I do get a solid 900+ down, they cap my
upstream at 50.

~~~
dawnerd
Yeah, that's what Im doing until there's a better option. It's sad frontier
doesn't want to actually offer symmetrical gig. They've got gig here, but it's
only at most 200 up for 300+ a month. Not a very good deal

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hedora
I’ve noticed the “increased” data speeds are basically just to speedtest.net.

We’re paying $75/month for >60MBit (can’t remember....) down, but we
frequently get less than 6 to amazon and netflix.

I tried to downgrade my service, and they said the lower speed data options
(without “blast” in their name) are only for low income customers, despite the
fact that they are clearly advertised if I’m logged out.

Also, it is not just us. The average measured speed of comcast connections to
netflix is 4mbps in the US. I don’t care that they’re ranked #1; it is well
over an order of magnitude lower than what they advertise:
[https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/country/us/](https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/country/us/)

I wish we had a decent WISP in Silicon Valley (sonic is through at&t here, so
you have to use a crappy at&t router that somehow breaks two-level NAT...)

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dcole2929
What I'm wonder is if Netflix has explored entering the ISP game. Google
experimented with this a bit but has apparently bowed out, but I could see it
maybe being a valid direction for someone like Netflix. ISPs are going to keep
squeezing customers, and companies alike until something gives, because it's
their one leverage point. They've all but lost the battle on cable television,
especially as all the major sports leagues have begun their own streaming
services. Netflix probably has the market cap to afford the upfront costs of
rolling their own fiber, and I'd imagine they'd save millions just from not
having to pay the cable companies fees for Fast Lanes.

~~~
joezydeco
If Google couldn't make it work, and by consequence made the other ISPs raise
their defensive shields, why would Netflix try?

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stanleydrew
Honestly I don't think this is that big a deal even though it is a crappy
thing for Comcast to do.

Most services that cord-cutters use heavily (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc.) are
built to operate normally on LTE connections, where average bandwidth is
something like 30Mbps. So 60Mbps is actually fine.

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turc1656
Doesn't this violate standard vertical tying laws?

 _" The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an
undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want
(the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The
company doing this bundling may have a significantly large market share so
that it may impose the tie on consumers, despite the forces of market
competition."_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_\(commerce\))

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bcheung
Not just high speed, I think I originally got the 40 Mbps plan and they made
me get TV cable service when I just wanted Internet. I really don't understand
why. They said they couldn't offer Internet by itself. The box isn't even
plugged in and hasn't been for years.

Everything is handled by a different department by them. I upgraded to the 1
Gbps cable plan and it wasn't just a different plan, it was a different
department. They had to take the old modem back and get a new one even though
it was already compatible with the newer speeds.

------
mi100hael
Cue the Simpsons meme:

"Am I out of touch? No, it's the cord-cutters who are wrong!"

Stupid tactics like this are only prolonging the inevitable (and signal
incredibly poor, visionless management).

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hourislate
I know this might be wishful thinking but I'm really hoping that 5G Wireless
Technology or Elon's Satellite Internet Technology will be an alternative for
people who currently don't have many alternatives and have to use some of
these able companies for providers.

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brobinson
I have a Comcast cable box sitting in my cupboard in the original packaging. I
had to get it as part of a deal to get 300mbps internet for $95/mo (1 year
contract). It's going to sit there in the original packaging until I cancel my
service and return it, I guess.

~~~
dver
Check your bill, we found a charge on ours for rental on the also unused box.
Took it back to the service center, and removed the charge.

~~~
brobinson
I'll check. Thanks for the tip!

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randyrand
You'd think they'd want to get the TV price/cost as low as reasonable to fight
cable cutters.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
Alternatively, they should be acknowledging that they're becoming more of an
ISP and less of a TV provider, consumers are less interested in traditional TV
service, and that they need to adapt in some way.

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ec109685
San Jose has AT&T gig fiber for 80 a month, with no cap. Way better deal than
Comcast.

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_RPM
I pay 19.99 for ~30 Mbps internet only, no TV.

