

Most recommended from 131 comments



Rob

Premium Member

join:2001-08-25

Miami, FL 53 recommendations Rob Premium Member Comcast CEO... quote: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts dropped a telling anecdote this morning at the Business Insider Ignition conference in New York, informing the crowd that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once gave him the great idea to put Wi-Fi in cable boxes. At least, it might have been a great idea if Roberts knew what Jobs was talking about. "I went home and said, Whats Wi-Fi?" he told the crowd. It's no surprise that Comcast is America's least liked company. They continually perform poor on customer surveys, and 9 out of 10 times, any media spotlight on Comcast is due to a negative event.



Car manufacturers are working to improve gas mileage, while Comcast is working to diminish our Internet experience. The FCC really needs to stop this abuse from Comcast. According to this article Comcast CEO Roberts did not know what Wifi was until Steve Jobs suggested he include it into the cable boxes:It's no surprise that Comcast is America's least liked company. They continually perform poor on customer surveys, and 9 out of 10 times, any media spotlight on Comcast is due to a negative event.Car manufacturers are working to improve gas mileage, while Comcast is working to diminish our Internet experience. The FCC really needs to stop this abuse from Comcast.

sraz

join:2013-10-28

Tucson, AZ 46 recommendations sraz Member His examples have a direct correlation with cost Sure I can say internet is like gasoline, except it isn't. The cost to move 1TB or 100GB or 1GB is essentially the same, especially if it's over their own network. Moving data from a Netflix Open Connect server sitting in their own facility, over the network to your house, costs them virtually NOTHING. Running your air condition or filling up your vehicle or even operating a wireless network are all terrible examples because they have completely different cost structures. Either this guy is just stupid and doesn't know what he's talking about, or is deliberately attempting to deceive whoever is dumb enough to buy into it.

trparky

CYA! I'm gone!

Premium Member

join:2000-05-24

Cleveland, OH 37 recommendations trparky Premium Member The Asshole of the Year Award has been awarded to... Can I get a drum roll please.



*opens the envelope* Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

keithps

Premium Member

join:2002-06-26

Soddy Daisy, TN 37 recommendations keithps Premium Member No cost The reality is, even if you could directly compare data to gasoline or electricity, I don't pay for gasoline unless I use it. I don't pay for electricity unless I use it. I don't pay a monthly gasoline bill just for the option of buying gasoline, even if I don't buy any. If he wants to make that comparison, then cable service should be $5/month, then charged by usage. You can't charge $80/month, then charge on top of that.

TechyDad

Premium Member

join:2001-07-13

USA 32 recommendations TechyDad Premium Member Broadband Like Gasoline If broadband is like gasoline, then Comcast (and other cable ISPs) are like the only gas station in town who charges much more than what they should charge because you have no other places to fill your tank. jzmax73

join:2011-05-13

Tampa, FL 23 recommendations jzmax73 Member 'At least' hot air is in endless supply Amazing that Roberts felt that conference attendees needed to hear this nonsense. He should save it for customers. IanLee

join:2014-11-24

Woodland, WA 23 recommendations IanLee Member Here we go again... Seems these CEOs will do anything to try to keep their usage caps along with nickel n diming every customer to squeeze out an extra buck from everybody.



This crap needs to stop. I've pretty much lost faith in every major corporation, simply because money is the root of all evil it seems.

r81984

Fair and Balanced

Premium Member

join:2001-11-14

Katy, TX 16 recommendations r81984 Premium Member Very Sad, Stupid CEO It is sad that a CEO of an ISP has no idea how a network works or what the costs are to run a network.

Pathetic.

There are no costs based on usage.

maartena

Elmo

Premium Member

join:2002-05-10

Orange, CA 15 recommendations maartena Premium Member Caps are nothing but a money grab.... Cable TV is getting more and more expensive, and people are canceling cable left and right, to a tune of almost 1 million customers so far in 2015. They are afraid people are going to switch to streaming services for which they don't get any revenue, such as Netflix. Netflix has a bandwidth share of around 35% now according to an article posted earlier this week on this site.



Caps are a way to capture money from customers, NOTHING more. There is no technical reason behind it. What most people don't realize is that when you get an amazing "triple play" deal where the TV portion may total up to around $20, they would be making a loss at TV if that was a stand-alone price.... they simply defer the profits made on bandwidth (without caps included) to TV, and as a whole "triple play" package they still make profit, because the profit margin on bandwidth is already high.



With more people cutting cords and television costs continuing to rise due to the greed of media companies, Comcast is offsetting the bottom line. That is all this is, a new way to keep the profits flowing. Instead of having an actual backbone and standing up to the media companies, they just rape the customers some more because it is easy.



Thank god that one of the terms set by the FCC in the TWC/Charter merger deal is that they cannot implement caps for 3 years. And with AT&T gigapower finally ramping up, and Google fiber getting launched in more cities, I am just hoping that in 3 years (or more like 4 as the deal won't be approved till next year anyways) the caps issue isn't an issue anymore.



But Comcast is just raping their customers, that's all this is. It's revenge for a failed merger, and now they find ways to recoup the costs of the merger. Customers didn't want the merger, now they get raped in revenge.

Boooooost

@192.107.155.x 13 recommendations Boooooost Anon We're running out of bits! Can't you see it? We're running out of bits. We need to conserve bits or else there won't be any bits left!

TIGERON

join:2008-03-11

Boston, MA 1 edit 11 recommendations TIGERON Member Susan Crawford and Phillip Dampier are right people like Crawford and Phillip Dampier of www.stopthecap.com warned us this would happen and that douchebags like Roberts would try to find ANY excuse to justify these caps. Can we now stop pretending? Muni broadband is the ONLY answer.

IowaCowboy

Supermarket Hero

Premium Member

join:2010-10-16

Springfield, MA ARRIS SB6183

Netgear R8000

8 recommendations IowaCowboy Premium Member Then they should be subject to regulation Gasoline stations are regulated; they have to be inspected by the local sealer of weights and measures.



So is Brian Roberts wants to compare broadband to gasoline, then the Massachusetts division of standards should have the right to check the calibration of their usage meters annually and upon a receipt of a customer complaint.

Packeteers

Premium Member

join:2005-06-18

Forest Hills, NY 7 recommendations Packeteers Premium Member utilization vs consumption ISPs are built to meet peek use utilization, not total consumption - so what roberts says is hogwash.



if roberts was right, he'd charge less by time of day, just like many phone and electricity utilities would. CyberGuy

join:2006-08-21

Colbert, WA 7 recommendations CyberGuy Member Headline on MSN says, "Gas prices set to plunge!"

»www.msn.com/en-us/money/ ··· =BBnb7Kz

Maybe not the best day for such a stupid simile. swanlee

join:2013-12-05 947.4 37.9

4 recommendations swanlee Member Ugg So they want to say it's like a metered utility but they still want to charge a flat rate + additional overage charges?



Comcast you can't have your cake and eat it to. If Comcast charged us like a utility based on usage my bill would go up and or down based on my usage. For electricity, water, gas I don't have to pay them 100$ a month regardless of what I use.



If comcast wants to go down this utility path then they need to get rid of the monthly flat fee for internet and just bill based solely on usage whihc would mean my bill could be low if I used little internet

Flyonthewall

@teksavvy.com 4 recommendations Flyonthewall Anon One word - ASS Comparing usage that has no limit to a commodity like gas that has a finite amount based on availability is a fracking lie (c whut i did there?). That also being the case, could we please have the department of gov responsible for weights and measures to start tracking and forcing compliance with the metering system? They can't have it both ways, demand metering then not have standards for those meters to ensure they aren't defrauding consumers.

Economist

The economy, stupid

Premium Member

join:2015-07-10

united state ·AT&T FTTP

3 recommendations Economist Premium Member The cost structure isn't remotely close, but I will take that deal Brian



If Apple Store Stairs Roberts want to price like gas, then remove the tiers completely...all modems uncapped (since we would be charged by consumption), charge a $0 connection fee (since again, we would be charged on consumption) and take in the same 6.3% margin Exxon-Mobile gets (instead of 10.7), which would put the average monthly price for a Comcast HSI sub around $8.50 per month. Sounds like a plan genius!



»techcrunch.com/2011/07/2 ··· go-down/ Broadband is not ANYTHING like gasoline, unless you want to consider that Comcast's "cost of oil" is less than a penny per bbl.If Apple Store Stairs Roberts want to price like gas, then remove the tiers completely...all modems uncapped (since we would be charged by consumption), charge a $0 connection fee (since again, we would be charged on consumption) and take in the same 6.3% margin Exxon-Mobile gets (instead of 10.7), which would put the average monthly price for a Comcast HSI sub around $8.50 per month. Sounds like a plan genius!

TestBoy

Premium Member

join:2009-10-13

Irmo, SC 2 recommendations TestBoy Premium Member No cost? Think about that I see the 'it doesn't cost anything to use it' arguments already.

What makes you think the CMTS does not use electricity or that the guys pulling cable are free?

There IS a capital expense and ongoing maintenance costs.



'does not cost anything' to me means zero and that's simply not true.

it DOES cost something - just not what they say it does.



The cost per gigabyte is very low, but there IS a cost.

And no, it's not like gas.



He is grossly overstating his position but we should not overstate ours, which should be that it does cost something - just 95% less than what they say it costs.

WHT

join:2010-03-26

Rosston, TX 2 recommendations WHT Member Admission of Point of Conjestion If their own content is exempt from caps (because it doesn't contribute to conjestion), then their network infrastructure between *their* Content Delivery Network (CDN) egress points > regional and local nodes > last mile to subscriber is adequate.



So the conjestion must be between their network and the rest of the world or predominantly the peering points of CDNs they don't own - Netflix, Hulu, etc. Think empty sockets of unused ports.



Typo edit.