Comcast Hikes Prices, Increases Sneaky Fees for 2018 Comcast is joining Dish, Cox and DirecTV in informing customers that they'll be paying significantly more money for the same service in the new year. Users in our Comcast Xfinity forum say they're being told that the company is preparing monthly price hikes of $1 to $5 for most of the company's pay TV services. Comcast's is also jacking up the price it charges for premium channels, as well as its monthly "Regional Sports fee" from $5 to $6.75 per month.

Users are also being informed that Comcast is bumping its misleading "Broadcast TV fee" from $7 per month to $8. The broadcast TV fee simply takes a portion of Comcast's programming costs and buries it below the line, resulting in users facing bill shock when they realize they'll be paying more than they signed up for. That fee was just $1.50 when introduced in 2013, and provides a wonderful way for Comcast to falsely advertise a lower rate. Comcast is facing several lawsuits over the misleading nature of both the broadcast TV and its regional sports fees. Even Comcast's streaming TV service Instant TV, barely a year old, is seeing price hikes. Users that subscribe to this service can expect to pay $3 to $3.50 more per month in the new year. And in case you were about to blame all of these hikes on broadcasters (which Comcast NBC Universal already is anyway), Comcast will be raising prices on most of the company's hardware rental fees as well. These hikes come after Comcast fought tooth and nail to scuttle an FCC effort to bring greater competition to the cable box. Modem rental fees will be bumped $1 to $11 per month, while missed payment fees are also being increased fifty cents to $10. This This full thread in our forum has a breakdown of all the looming changes.







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Most recommended from 54 comments



Economist

The economy, stupid

Premium Member

join:2015-07-10

united state ·AT&T FTTP

24 recommendations Economist Premium Member The new math 35% increase in sports fees?



10% increase in rebroadcast fees?



2.65% US inflation rate forecast for 2017, 2.38% forecast for 2018



0% justification for 10X inflation price increases...every year.



100% that more people will cut the video cord as a result of unjustifiable price increases stephend2

join:2012-11-22

Belzoni, MS 18 recommendations stephend2 Member Noone is talking about what the programmers are doing to cable providers... I'll give my perspective as a small cable operator...



This year on my retransmission consent renewals for locals, I had a 350-400% increase across the board and they would not negotiate very far. I know big corporations are getting better deals on programming and such, but in my case, it really hurts. I had to increase expanded basic rate $20 per month to stay in business another 3 years. Now with that said, I'll probably not have to raise rates in 2019 but what happens when the 3 yr contract runs out, what are they going to try to do to me at the end of 2020 ? At this time, I have a bunch of angry customers, but our price is still better than Dish/Direct even with their promotions for a similar package. I get that they are overcharging but there is no love for the small guys around here. We have a thriving business, and we save our customers by bundling voice and data with video. I see the big corporations charging more and more for internet access...its crazy...even at my scale of operation, bandwidth gets cheaper every contract renewal. I'm turning up a 10 gig pipe in January for less money than I'm paying ATT for 1 gig now.



I think people are just conditioned to hate cable. I mean I catch it all the time, "you're a small local company, you should charge less" Noone realizes that we pay more for programming than any larger operator. Yet we will offer a nice channel lineup for $85 out the door, with some channels in HD and a lot more coming soon, including 4 HD set tops as we're phasing in digital service now.



It just angers me a little that all the press does is bash the big guys, noone thinks about rural america and the little guys that make things happen there. We may not offer gigabit to the home (yet) but I think 100/25 for $70 in a rural market is more than fair, and so do my customers. What does Comcast charge for a triple play bundle by the time you add all the fees and such? I can tell you here it's $130/month out the door, no BS, nothing below the line, what you see is what you get.



I'm going to do a reddit AMA soon about all this, look out for it, same username

Anond8d80

@coasttelephone.com 10 recommendations Anond8d80 Anon Comcast "traffic shaping" SIP traffic!!! Before NN was put into place during the Obama Admin. Comcast would play this sneaky little game with my VOIP customers. They would traffic shape (block) port 5060-5070 randomly on modems through my service area. After realizing there was trouble, I would change the port numbers of the customers devices to a non SIP range and they could use their phones again. Within a week, someone would call or visit the location from Comcast Sales and attempt to sell them on Comcast Voice services. This had happened over and over again. I have already educated my customers using COMCAST as their connection that this SCAM is something to expect after NN is repealed. They have all been offered 2 month of free service IF they are contacted by comcast and they can supply me with the contact name and information that was provided about the visit/call. As of today I am here to report that COMCAST is back at it again. This time they are shaking it up a little bit different and they are MUCH faster with their SCAM. I have had THREE of my custom all report this week they were contacted. BY THE SAME SALES PERSON! Exactly three days AFTER the contact, these same customers experienced disruptions in their VOIP services. The nature of the marketing attempt was digging in to find out what these people were using and the benefits over my service. One of which is choppy audio and intermittent downtime as a result of it being an "INTERNET" connected VOIP solution and that Comcast was NOT VOIP but LANDLINE. I have also educated my customers that these connections STILL operate on Comcast over a SIP based network as my service is, with the only difference that their connection travels on a private MPLS type service and is subject the same choppy and intermittent downtime.



NOW my customers are reporting CHOPPY AUDIO and INTERMITTENT DOWNTIME. After changing the port numbers to something outside of the 5060-5070 range, services returned back to normal and the choppy audio ended.



I have ordered VPN routers for all of my customers using COMCAST and will implement measures so that COMCAST can no longer MONITOR traffic to or from my networks.



This is the same ANT-COMPETITIVE behavior these scum bag corporate pricks have played in the past, and I lost customers and hundreds of thousands in future revenue due to the tricks these asshats have played in the past. NOT AGAIN! I have already sent out an education e-mail to each customers as I mentioned above, and I am offering the free upgrades to our protected VPN connection or offering alternative delivery methods that are NOT COMCAST!



Isn't that COMCASTIC?

seaman

Premium Member

join:2000-12-08

Seattle, WA 6 recommendations seaman Premium Member Make 2018 the year to cut the cord I'm definitely dropping cable TV in Q1. And always looking for an alternative to Xfinity internet. Always! en103

join:2011-05-02 3 recommendations en103 Member Just cut the cord... While I still expect fees on Internet service - there's little good reason to keep TV service around - especially if they're requiring a 'broadcast' fee ontop of a 'basic TV' package.

srtdodge05

Premium Member

join:2011-10-16

Ypsilanti, MI 2 recommendations srtdodge05 Premium Member Old News This has been talked about for the last few months. Little late on this one.

FureverFurry

RIP Daphne: 3/12/05 - 6/19/12

Premium Member

join:2012-02-20

49xxx Zoom 5341J

ARRIS WBM760

Vonage VDV-21

2 recommendations FureverFurry Premium Member To paraphrase that Xfinity advert *spoken with nasally female voice*



"Is this a greedy company or a REALLY greedy company? It makes you wonder ... shouldn't we get our high speed internet and TV from differentcompanies?"



Nothing is certain except death, taxes .... and Comcast price hikes. I doubt that any amount of cord cutting will send a message as long as Comcast lures in new customers with too good to be true prices.

