What is Digg?64 Comments
- logandurand, on 07/28/2008, -0/+51As it turns out, failing to provide service to paying customers is, in fact, illegal.
- HuskyPuzzle, on 07/28/2008, -1/+47I applaud any victory of consumers over these huge media companies. They are far too seldom.
- Boing, on 07/28/2008, -1/+35As a Comcast customer I'd like to say: THANK YOU!
- Mirhi, on 07/28/2008, -2/+32One step in a very long process of preserving net neutrality.
- cnot3, on 07/28/2008, -0/+22Nice to see Comcast on the receiving end of a ***** for a change. This ruling is comcastic.
- deathsythe, on 07/28/2008, -1/+18I would like to see some kind of reparations for their actions paid out in a result of this ruling.
- TheUngod, on 07/28/2008, -3/+17Is this for real? News saying Comcast can't screw it's customers? This sounds like a win, but I'm sure Comcast will fire back and just raise prices or something.
- inactive, on 07/28/2008, -0/+14As a former Comcast customer, I'd like to say: Thanks but it's too late. I've already switched to FIOS because you throttled my bandwith too much already.
- InorganicMatter, on 07/28/2008, -3/+15The little guy won for once? Something is very wrong in Washington...
- inactive, on 07/28/2008, -0/+9then why the ***** are you here. Just stay at ***** reddit.
- kaelyiesta, on 07/28/2008, -0/+9Neutrality legislation? No thanks.
Charge Comcast with the crime of breaching its legal contract with all its customers for not providing the services it promised.
Charge all the telecoms that recieved taxpayer money the federal government gave them to build out the infrastructure for monopolizing the tier 1 backbone.
Charge the politicians who voted to give them that money with breaking their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. Run an investigation to see just how much collusion there is between government and this industry while we are at it.
Lastly, continue to charge any telecom that engages in illegal anti competitive practices.
But please do NOT try to bandage up this huge problem with more bandaid legislation. It's what lead us to this ***** in the first place. No one can compete with these ***** while they hold sway over the infrastructure that we paid for. Fix that problem and I'll bet you the companies will start actually competing in price and service. - TheUngod, on 07/28/2008, -1/+10It's true, I would never go to Comcast now. They didn't stop the throttling because they wanted to, they did it because the courts told them to. That just means if they ever get a chance to screw the customers in some other way, they would have no problem doing it. I'd rather go with an ethical company than have to worry about someone finding a loophole in a law that would screw me.
- feliks2, on 07/28/2008, -2/+10No alternatives other than dial-up?
- flooz, on 07/28/2008, -0/+8"Cable and phone companies are experimenting with new ways to deal with people who use a lot of bandwidth..." Or they could just open their pipelines. Comcast's internal staff has been told they have the capacity for higher bandwith, the question is, "How can we rape the consumer the best?"
- Aadain, on 07/28/2008, -1/+9That's actually an interesting point. With the FCC ruling ISPs can't throttle some services, they may be forced to do away with "unlimited" packages and only provide capped connections. No more "15Mbps up/2Mbps down" services, but "100Gb per month" and "200Gb per month" type services. Then they could throttle the speed all they want since the customer is paying for total bits transmitted, not the speed they are transmitted at. The fight is far from over.
- Gndoab, on 07/28/2008, -1/+8well if you are distributing copyrighted materials, then you.
- diggydougie, on 07/28/2008, -1/+7I'll bet that if you read the agreement they have a clause saying that they can do whatever they want as long as you are hooked up to the internet.
- artfuldodga, on 07/28/2008, -0/+5one small step in the right direction, but in order for this to be any sort of victory all countries regulators have to be on the same page... we'll see if canadian regulators do the right thing in september, that said this is a global problem.
- knowitman, on 07/28/2008, -1/+6I find it interesting that even after the ruling stated that Comcast was in the wrong, Comcast still comes out and states that they had every right to do what they were doing.
- paulot, on 07/28/2008, -1/+6They are going to introduce plans to limit your bandwidth (cap it at 50GB-100GB/month). If you go over the limit, you're charged $1-$10/gig, similar to how cell phone companies do it with cell phone minutes. So sure, download all the movies and music you want - instead of paying the RIAA/MPAA, you'll have to just pay the Comcast fees. Oh, and their response to this will be.. "oh, you don't have to use Comcast. You have a choice between service providers." Yeah, my choice is Comcast or AOL dial-up (if they still even offer that), so I pretty much have no choice thanks to the monopoly Comcast has.
- lorductape, on 07/28/2008, -0/+4No more 5kbs downloading of... legit linux distros.... =]
- Jassman, on 07/28/2008, -0/+4If you are referring to the telecommunications/ISP industry with "no government intervention", then you're presenting a pretty ridiculous straw man argument. There are so many regulations and legal hoops to jump through that only the giant corporations can afford to go through all legal requirements, barring new start-ups and destroying any chance at competition. Then you are left with companies like Comcast with no local alternative in many places.
It's not a market monopoly, its a coercive monopoly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly#Gov ... :
"Undisputed examples of coercive monopolies are those that are enforced by law. In a government monopoly, an agency under the direct authority of the government itself holds the monopoly, and the coercive monopoly status is sustained by the enforcement of laws or regulations that ban competition, or reserve exclusive control over factors of production for the government." - AWBoy666, on 07/28/2008, -2/+6I like to believe he was seeding a torrent of Ubuntu, which is 100% legal.
- aspec, on 07/28/2008, -1/+5I enjoy the thought of Comcast's advertising: "Look at us, you can use us and download really fast"
But then they're like, "No, you can't actually." - sloppychris, on 07/28/2008, -0/+4Since when is government the little guy?
- spunalot, on 07/28/2008, -0/+4THIS IS THE END TO UNLIMITED PACKAGES!
- theconcretelion, on 07/28/2008, -0/+4if you are a monopoly you don't give a ***** about bad press.
- str3ama, on 07/28/2008, -1/+4One battle won, on a very long road to keeping the Internet free from becoming tiered.
If the FCC wasn't in bed with Comcast, they would make Comcast pay a penalty for even suggesting it. Honestly in the same way that these companies harass their customers, the FCC needs to make an example out of some of these telecoms, severely fine them for being so greedy and make a harsh example out of them to show that any greedy telecom up to shenanigans by packet filtering or throttling will be dealt with swiftly. - paulot, on 07/28/2008, -0/+3As a workaround, they already announced plans to limit your bandwidth to 50GB-100GB/month and charge you $1-$10/gig after you hit that limit. So you're free to watch whatever videos you want, but ultimately it would be cheaper to drive to Blockbuster and spend $5 on the rental and $5 on gas instead of paying the iTunes fee + Comcast fee.
- inactive, on 07/28/2008, -0/+3I think a lawsuit would work for being a monopoly. For instance if i'm on comcast and rent movies over itunes, or another service, comcast will try to prevent that by charging me extra for bandwith. Probably in hopes that i will switch to comcasts tv/on demand services. Anti competitive practices.
- Aadain, on 07/28/2008, -0/+3Yes, in a lot of markets, especially in lower population areas, there are companies that have monopolies on communication services (internet, phone, & TV). This is how they all want it so they don't have to compete with each other. When you start with this position, you don't really care about what your customers think about you since they don't have an option but to bend over and take it (or go without).
And we are talking about a ridiculous amount of potential money at stake here. If Comcast et al. are given the right to meter out bandwidth in any manner they wish (by individual customer and/or where they are try to connect), they can start charging both the customers & major web presences (Google, ABCNews.com, etc) for each connection. Imagine, they can charge you $40/month for a basic connection, but if you want to visit YouTube.com and be able to actually have the videos download fast enough to see more than one a month, that will be another $2.99/month. And if YouTube doesn't want their service to run at 300buad speeds through Comcast's pipes, they have to pay Comcast $1million a month. So Comcast gets to double charge for the content, which could reach billions in revenue. All the major ISPs are totally willing to create a little bad PR for that kind of scratch. - bbqsalad, on 07/28/2008, -1/+3The things Comcrap has been doing sort of blows my mind. because why would a company want so much bad press? Wouldn't hurting there reputation so much be a bad thing? Are they getting tons of money from other company's to do these sort of things? It is a big problem because so many people have only one choice when it comes to high speed coverage. In my area I have a choice of Cox or using some DSL plan. Cox has been fantastic for the 6 years I have been using them.. Fast speeds, great support, no screwing over there own customers, unlimited usenet access. I have recommended Cox to many people and they have gotten more money because of this. Wouldn't Comcast want this same thing? Why do so many people have only one choice? Wouldn't that be considered a monopoly? A few people at my work have no choice but to use Comcast and have had nothing but problems from outages to customer service to ***** instal jobs. It is about time the costumers take a stand against the greedy pigs.
- Dragon88, on 07/28/2008, -4/+6I'm using bittorrent at a coffee shop right now, because comcast SHUT DOWN my internet service for excessive use. When I called about it, first they denied doing that. Then they said they did it because they thought I had a virus due to the amount of traffic. (I use 200 kbs a second when downloading/uploading a ton. You can thank me for seeding your movies later.)
F-them. They're the only high speed provider in my area.
Who is the one really breaking the law comcast? - truespector, on 07/28/2008, -0/+2or just charge you per MB or GB of going over much like cell phone data plans.
- smnirven, on 07/28/2008, -1/+3Wow, a rare example of the federal government doing the RIGHT thing when it comes to technology
- diggydougie, on 07/28/2008, -1/+3Here's my problem with it: "if upheld, it would affirm the agency's right to play on-line cop" I don't want on-line cops thank you. It will only get worse from here.
- truespector, on 07/28/2008, -0/+2Good luck downloading videos with Hughes. They have a 'Fair Access Policy' where they monitor your traffic per hour. If you go over what they feel is right, they throttle you to dial-up speeds. Trust me, I know first hand.
- Gndoab, on 07/28/2008, -0/+2to quote:
"(I use 200 kbs a second when downloading/uploading a ton. You can thank me for seeding your movies later.)"
Unless Ubuntu is a new indy flick I didn't hear about. Even then, still illegal. - datacowboy, on 07/28/2008, -0/+2I hope this finding by the FCC roots deeply across all providers, starting with Comcast but also others that provide pipes as well as content. Right now, we are talking about BitTorrent. But what we are really talking about is the source and delivery of content, and the power of the ISP to funnel your choices. In a world where video content, from a source perspective, is exploding, you can imagine that cable providers see a world where initially their on-demand and payperview offerings are no longer the only choice. And further, what's to say streaming finally becomes marketable to the masses? A streaming device connected to a TV would put considerable pressure on cable's broadcast packages.
Like the phone companies, they could see their bread and butter vanish as happened with traditional phone services as VOIP has emerged.
It's not entirely unexpected to see Comcast throttle content from sources not in their business model. They want to drive consumers back to their system, to their on-demand and ppv, to where they generate revenue. So they can put the shady BitTorrent spin on it, or claim bandwidth management issues. But what it comes down to, what it really means is that when you get content from a source not tied to Comcast, they are missing out on revenue. You did not buy it from them, but you got it via their pipes.... and they'd like to re-shape your content purchasing behavior.
I don't use BitTorrent. But I download movie and TV content from Amazon Unbox directly to my TiVo units. This amounts to lost revenue that Comcast could have gotten from me. In a world where Comcast could shape bandwidth relative to BitTorrent traffic, couldn't they "shape" Amazon Unbox traffic? Traffic is traffic, right?
All is not lost for Comcast. But they need to embrace consumer demand and develop creative business models that will answer that demand and also sustain them as a business. Yet IT IS amazing to see that similar industries, industries that need to adapt as sources of digital content become so abundant.....it is amazing that they have not learned from the mistakes of the RIAA. - Jassman, on 07/28/2008, -3/+5I hate Comcast as much as the next sane human being, but more government intervention is not the answer. ***** the FCC and ***** the government.
- kibbledbits, on 07/28/2008, -0/+1"I just got internet from my staff that was sent yesterday, why? again the internet is not some truck!"
"it's a Series of Tubes" - flyinghippo, on 07/28/2008, -1/+2It's the FCC doing this that gives me a good outlook on Net Neutrality. Hopfully consumers will keep fighting.
- FikusErectus, on 07/29/2008, -0/+1Nothing has been won. What the mass media has doesn't mention is that the FCC has no legal authority to punish Crapcast or any ISP for acting in this manner. Read this little article and weep. The FCC has lost in court when trying to impose a fine or punishment for similar action.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10000821-38.html
On Friday the FCC will give Crapcast a stern warning knowing full well any type of fine or punishment will be greeted with a lawsuit that they probably won't win. Do you think Congress will then get involved. It hasn't happened yet. - thallium205, on 07/28/2008, -1/+2I would much rather have tyranny and oppression come from a corporation than a government agency such as the FCC... sorry guys but it is just a matter of time before the FCC begins controlling everything on the internet... maybe racist comments? maybe swear words? maybe some diversity requirements? maybe to control that there is 'fair' representation of both sides of a viewpoint?
Government will only grow more powerful and lose contact with the wishes of the people. (FCC officials aren't even elected, so they aren't even accountable to the people)
A corporation will fail if they lose contact with the wishes of the customer.
That is the difference... - dagamer34, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1Yep. Especially since they wouldn't be charging extra for pay-per-view movies, it's essentially a tax on their competitors' products. I think that's the loophole that will prevent "unlimited" packages from going away.
And especially when people start suing en masse for advertising unlimited packages but kicking them off if they use too much? Oh, that'll be the day. - moocow1452, on 07/28/2008, -0/+1As opposed to the end?
- ibeetle, on 07/28/2008, -1/+2Comcast will go to court. The court will tell the FCC that they are not the internet police and a private company can do what it wants.
Comcast will tell its customers, ***** you; If you do not like it go to another ISP.
Comcast is a multibillion dollar national company with a 100 lawyers that make $1,000 a hour. The consumer will always loose. - inactive, on 07/28/2008, -0/+1Apartment complex had a deal with Comcast and the only other alternative was DSL or dial-up until FIOS came through in March.
- naisanza, on 08/10/2008, -0/+1my internet = my neighbor('s)
- matx, on 07/28/2008, -0/+1...and what happens when you reach the limit, they throttle you.
-
Show 51 - 65 of 65 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is