Comcast is notorious for being a bunch of raging dickholes that we’d like cleave from our lives. But the company is also, you know, the largest internet service provider in the United States, one that has strong stranglehold on a big chunk of us and that loves to cap the crap out of the one service you need every day. Comcast is also super, duper scared of any and all competition.


Years after attempting to prevent a small city at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau from building its own gigabit network, Atlanta has become a particular source of terror for Comcast. That’s where the company is freaking out because Google Fiber will be infiltrating homes in just a few months.

First, there was Comcast’s announcement of healthy competition. Just some truly spectacular internet speeds that were heretofore unknown from Comcast. Oh—but the gigabit speeds are only available in markets where cheaper, better services were already providing gigabit data speeds or planning to provide them shortly. Atlanta is one of those markets.


Then Comcast blanketed the home of Coca-Cola in fliers that advertised how its fast new internet services are waaaaay better than that lame Google Fiber crap everyone is praising.

Okay...at least two of those claims are probably true. Source: Imgur

If you’ll notice way down at the bottom of the flyer there’s a note about Comcast’s claim of having faster wi-fi than Google Fiber. The test to determine speeds was performed two years ago, in 2014, by a lab that Comcast has done business with for years. Yeah, that’s probably accurate and unbiased.

Now, Comcast is finally deploying its gigabit service for $70 a month. That’s a fantastic price! That’s on par with Google Fiber! If you’re down with regularly dealing with the boil on the taint of America, it’s a fricking deal!


There is one hiccup. You have to sign a three-year contract to get the deal. Otherwise you’ll be paying $140 a month and facing a 300GB data cap—which you should smash rather quickly with your new firehose of an internet connection. You can pay to have the data cap removed, of course. Because capitalism is great. That will, however, bring your month bill up to $175 a month. And regardless, Comcast will probably hike up the price when the promo period ends, because that’s what Comcast does.

In a sense, though, this shit show is worth something. At the end of the day, Comcast is showing how healthy competition is for capitalism. It’s even playing a role in getting the government to intervene by creating rules to protect net neutrality and help end the age-old American tradition of telecom monopolies. So thanks for being a raging bunch of dickholes, Comcast. You’re making everyone else look like saints.


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[ TechDirt ]