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Jul 15 / Ozymandias

Comcast Data Cap Policy News Coverage [Updated]

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[Thanks for visiting! There are five key posts to read around the Broadband ISP Data Cap issue. I’d suggest you read the first, the second, a wrap-up with tough questions for ISPs, an update with a complaint to the Attorney General, and then press coverage in that order. You are currently reading the press coverage post. In addition, I highly recommend you read my responses (published by VentureBeat) to the evasive responses we received to my tough questions to ISPs. I believe they highlight inconsistencies and deliberate attempts at obfuscation, and may prove useful to press and officials interested in advancing the conversation.]

[Edit: last updated 9/9/11 with additional coverage. Newest posts at bottom of page.]

I wanted to take a moment to summarize the news coverage Comcast has received since they cut off my internet for exceeding their data cap policy. I won’t repeat everything here, but you can read all the gory details in the links at the top of this post.

I appreciate the attention this issue has garnered so far, and have several more requests for interviews I’ll be wrangling in the next few days. I suspect we’ll see a bit more out of this news cycle before it settles. And that’s a key point — right now Comcast is desperately hoping media attention will move on. And it will — that’s the nature of the media beast. However, I also believe that people are grokking that Comcast’s data cap policy isn’t reflective of the reality of claimed bandwidth limitations, new cloud service offerings, customer access needs, nor real-world customer use. And so, to help the media interact with Comcast in the coming weeks and months I’m going to be writing up a little series that I’ll call I wrote up a little series of “Questions that Make Broadband Providers Squirm.”

[Edit: since writing this post, Comcast and CenturyLink have responded to the tough questions mentioned above, thanks to prodding by Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat. Those responses were (unsurprisingly) evasive, and I responded in turn so VentureBeat could publish and put them in the public record.]

In the meanwhile, here’s the list of media coverage that I’m aware of to date. If you know of media coverage not included here, please either mail me or comment on this post and I’ll add it. Thank you!

Related posts:

  1. Follow up: The Day After Comcast’s Data Cap Policy Killed my Internet [Updated]
  2. The Day Comcast’s Data Cap Policy Killed my Internet for 1 Year [Updated]
  3. A Cloudy Future [Updated]
  4. Update on Comcast Data Cap Situation (Including Complaint with WA Attorney General)
  5. Windows Phone 7 UI Design and Interaction Guide Updated
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  • drm

    I HIGHLY recommend you contact the Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org/ Their name sounds like they only deal with software but they actually have a great legal team that assists in things like this. I’d also contact the ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/

    • http://ozymandias.com Ozymandias

      Thanks for the suggestion. I actually have no legal issues in the slightest. Comcast is within their legal rights to set what policy they wish; my debate is that I believe they shouldn’t be able to set any sort of policy that cuts people off from the lifeline of the internet. But that’s not a legal issue… yet. :)

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  • Anonymous

    Hi! More media coverage for you:

    http://www.twit.tv/tnt282
     

  • Patrickurban

    Half way through the month and I’m at half the cap only using an xbox and 2 iPhones.

    The rules need to change

  • I Love Government Regulation

    I love it when libertarians are forced to come face to face with the reality of what it is they espouse for society. You want deregulation and for the market and private deals between consenting parties (i.e. your city and Comcast) to decide everything. Well buddy, this is what it looks like. This is ALWAYS what it looks like.. 

    If you had even the slightest acquaintance with the reality of  what deregulation brings  and what regulation brings, in any industry over the past 60 years from the auto industry to  airline industry to the financial industry to the health care industry then you would be so gung-ho for worn-out, libertarian tropes like  ”getting government out of our lives”.  

    So you can’t have internet. Boo hoo hoo. It’s libertarians like you who are slathering at the mouth to privatize things like  social security, which people need to just exist. Sure, let the predators and animals loose on the old people but oh Mr Government look at what the big bad cable industry did to my internet access !

    You should  be banned not just from  he internet, but from living in America too. Move to Somolia , libertarian, and see what life without meddlesome government really means.    

    • Edwin Herdman

      If the dude was a libertarian he would’ve named himself Rorschach. ;)

      Anyway…no more Ma Bells!  You’d think people would have learned the last go-around, but nope.  The ‘net is essential to everybody’s modern life and Comcast really ought to be slammed hard for grabbing the public dole with both hand while punting off paying customers.  Their policy makes no sense unless you attach a cynical rationale to it, unfortunately, so Occam’s Razor directs us to do just that.

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  • http://profiles.google.com/freescv Free SCV

    Good Luck buddy!!!! =D

    It’s a shame because these cable/dsl guys got territory they don’t cross and so no competition when the only game in town screws ya.

    I was thinking to myself, in the blink of an eye this could be me. I use Bit Torrent, Net Flix Canada, gaming, and other crap.

    Hopefully iVote ap will come out and people wanting competition for ISP lines can upvote the issue. (or, hell, out of this 3rd world net and onto fiber optic speeds for 30/month like Japan, South Korea, Ghana N Africa, Romania, Sweden, hell, even our own N American universities are often wired up….but not residents….hmmmm)

    http://www.opensourceg.com has an open vote link up top /w ideas. :)

    I’m sorry your hard earned customer dollars were mismanaged by your ISP as they also grabbed tax grants for upgrading the lines and never did……your suffering here is noted. Not yer fault you are the Fat guy at McDonalds tho. Yer just wanting more of their addictive product….lol.

    I’d say use some self control fatty, but then, when yer fed the mcnugget happy meal and the small milk and told that’s all, you can’t help but be hungry.

    I got Shaw, Surrey BC Canada here. Fast speeds but capped also.

    130/month and cable tv, phone and net are in for that.
    100gb/month cap I believe. I KNOW we go over it but are forgiven b/c of the extra 10 we kick them as extortion money from 50gb to 100gb cap…..

    …still not the 30/month 100x faster than our cable Japan & friends have…

    I think N America is really getting hosed when the damn fiber lines are already running down our streets! LOL

    Love to know how far you are from a backbone line, if not the very electrical poles running down YOUR street. You want to make it political, “where’s the upgrade money gone???”

    Ask em that! Cable/DSl should be for rural out of town people needing to be hooked up.

    Where is the expansion tax of 5-10 on every bill to forge ahead new lines for the rest of our people stuck in the back 40 but wanting cable net still???

    The tax grants for expansions like this never cover you and me, always wasted imo. Shame profits get in the way of service so often, good luck with your fight Ozymandias!!!

    FreeSCV good to go! You got my support!
    OSG4LIFE!

  • Saikrishna Arcot

    Another news article: http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2011/07/a-cautionary-tale-comcast-cuts-a-customer/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+houstonchronicle%2Ftechblogfulltext+%28TechBlog+-+Full+Text%29

  • DaveSimonH

    Good luck Andre, hope someone at Comcast see sense and reconnect you. But being able to cut off customers entirely, knowing full well they are the only provider of a decent speed service just doesn’t sit right, there should definitely be further discussion over such moves.