Comcast Rep Informs User Usage Caps 'Required By Law' Comcast's making headlines again after a customer service rep informed a customer that the reason the user faces bandwidth caps is that they're required by law. In a SoundCloud recording first posted to Reddit, a customer in one of Comcast's usage cap trial markets calls to complain about usage caps being "archaic" and unnecessary, and is informed by a Comcast customer service agent that "every Internet service provider has data caps" and that "it is mandated by the law."

Of course most readers know that's not true. Usage caps on fixed-line networks are a symptom of limited competition, and used primarily to pad profits and protect TV revenues from Internet video. Comcast's slowly expanding its usage caps in only the company's least competitive Southern markets. While Comcast admits caps aren't required by law, they are telling news outlets like The Daily Dot that they don't actually have usage caps, something they've been falsely claiming for a year or so. Instead, Comcast insists that what they're offering is a "flexible data plan": quote: "This representative is wrong," a Comcast spokesperson wrote in the emailed statement. "There is no law requiring ISPs 'to have data caps,' and Comcast discontinued having a cap in May 2012. We are currently conducting trials of a more flexible data usage plan in a small number of markets, and this representative’s statements are not consistent with the training and messaging we provide. We will work to retrain this representative and will reach out to the customer to clarify this information." That kind of misleading hyperbole tacked on to a mea culpa regarding poor service certainly isn't winning Comcast any extra fans as it tries to win regulatory approval for its acquisition of Time Warner Cable. That kind of misleading hyperbole tacked on to a mea culpa regarding poor service certainly isn't winning Comcast any extra fans as it tries to win regulatory approval for its acquisition of Time Warner Cable.







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Most recommended from 66 comments

towerdave

join:2002-01-16

O Fallon, IL 2 recommendations towerdave Member I know Comcast has a horrible reputation but... One rep stating something on their own usually means they made it up or they believe it themselves, not because Comcast told them to say it. I do Tier 3 support for a Fortune 500 company and you wouldn't believe the stuff that Tier 1 and 2 tell people that is nowhere to be found in any documentation, training, etc.



We actually had someone tell a site during a PC rollout that their new computers were too fast for the servers and that's why they kept locking up. (We were rolling out new servers along with the new computers)



So while this makes for great headlines on this site, I pay little attention to the wayward actions of a single rep. Now if Comcast was training their reps to say this, that's a different story.



TD chrismitt

join:2012-07-09

Orange, CA 2 recommendations chrismitt Member caps Time warner cable has 0 cap and comcast should be required to discontinue caps in definitely for merger aprovel