Consumer Complaints About Broadband Caps Are Soaring Consumer complaints to the Federal Communications Commission about broadband data caps rose to 7,904 in the second half of 2015 from 863 in the first half, notes a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency to obtain the data on complaints, which have spiked as a growing number of fixed-line broadband providers apply caps and overage fees to already pricey connections.

According to the Journal, the FCC has received 10,000 consumer complaints about data caps since 2015. The Journal quotes a number of customers who say they've had to cut back on or cancel streaming video services because they've begun running into these caps -- which is of course the broadband industry's precise motivation for imposing them: quote: Scott Jones, a 31-year-old Comcast customer in Fayetteville, Ga., says he dropped Netflix in March because his two young children’s streaming practices were putting him over his cap. “I love Netflix�but it makes no sense for me to pay for Netflix when I’m going to get charged by Comcast two or three times that as a result,” Mr. Jones says. Comcast meanwhile tells the Journal it is "actively considering substantially increasing” its usage caps, which in most of its "trial" areas currently sits at 300 GB per month -- and hasn't changed in years. The company also trots out the now-all-too-familiar excuse that what it's doing isn't just an aggressive price hike on uncompetitive broadband markets, it's an act of fairness: quote: Comcast says its aim is to ensure the heaviest users are paying more than lighter ones, since 50% of its bandwidth is consumed by just 10% of its customers. Comcast set up the trials to show “people who are consuming the most should carry more of the bill rather than raise everybody’s bill by the same amount,” says Marcien Jenckes, executive vice president of consumer services at Comcast. As we've Comcast meanwhile tells the Journal it is "actively considering substantially increasing” its usage caps, which in most of its "trial" areas currently sits at 300 GB per month -- and hasn't changed in years. The company also trots out the now-all-too-familiar excuse that what it's doing isn't just an aggressive price hike on uncompetitive broadband markets, it's an act of fairness:As we've long noted , Comcast's justifications just don't hold water. Most of the company's costs to provide broadband are fixed or dropping. And if heavy use is a serious problem by a tiny fraction of users, those users could be pushed on to business class tiers. Instead, Comcast is erecting a new pricing paradigm that impacts all its users. Why? Again, so it can protect legacy TV revenues from Internet video.It's likely the FCC, which so far has been useless and mute on the subject of usage caps, hasn't even begun to see a full range of complaints from consumers. Not only are users now paying more money than ever for the same connection, regulators don't monitor whether meters are accurate, resulting in constant instances of users saying their own networking hardware doesn't match the ISP's reported usage. And as large ISPs like CenturyLink AT&T and Comcast continue expanding their usage cap ambitions, complaints will only grow exponentially.







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Most recommended from 136 comments



zaxcom

join:2008-12-26

Charlotte, NC Netgear CM600

Asus RT-AC3200

Linksys PAP2T

51 recommendations zaxcom Member Comcast tried to pull this Comcast was claiming my son was using 3TB's of data per month at his home, but refused to prove it. They sent him a bill for $1600. They could not provide how, when or where the data was consumed. They just kept insisting that we had to "trust" them that the data was really used. Not one person at Comcast was willing to investigate, and even when we got an investigation ticket started, they decided to not actually do the investigation. This went on for three months with the bill increasing every month.



Only when I got some people in the media involved and the situation was about to go public did Comcast suddenly call my son up and say it was all a mistake on their part and they were dropping the entire charge.

buzz_4_20

join:2003-09-20

Biddeford, ME (Software) Sophos UTM Home Edition

Ruckus R310

36 recommendations buzz_4_20 Member Again... The power company bills me around $6 if I use little to no power.



My ISP charges me $90 a month. And soon they want to charge $90 a month PLUS usage.

Seems like a bad deal to me.



Not to mention that data transport costs keep dropping lower and lower. buzz_4_20 30 recommendations buzz_4_20 Member Ultimate Goal. Dear ISPs.

I'm not a video subscriber.

Making it more expensive to use OTT video by turning your Internet service to junk, will not get me to be a video subscriber again.



Nothing you can ever do will make me pay for ad-filled broadcast video content ever again.



That ship has sailed, stop shooting the future of your business in the foot to preserve the past. mikesco8

join:2006-02-17

Southwick, MA 15 recommendations mikesco8 Member About fairness... Dear Comcast,

Ok, if is about fairness, you can charge those 10% of customers who use the most, an extra $30 a month, if you discount the 10% of customers that use the least amount of data, the same $30 a month. Kuro

join:2014-10-01 13 recommendations Kuro Member Accurate readings If they want to keep caps they need to improve how they measure it. I know for me the numbers that comcast says I use monthly vary wildly with little to no changes on my day to day usage. TheDoc46

join:2010-06-08 13 recommendations TheDoc46 Member Not enough complaints Only 7904 complaints ?? Really. What a croc. There has to be a lot more than less thank 10k of unhappy customers taking it up their derriere.



If Comcast ever roll this out to my area. I'll just phone them up and pull the cord from my triple play package.. Will it make a difference, absolutely not ! but what else can we do.. If everyone was like me, there would be no cap ! cos we'd all go on strike from being a customer !

Toshpoint0

@att.net 2 recommendations Toshpoint0 Anon Wut? Let's be honest, "soaring" isn't really the word I would use here.... When you have over 100 Million Broadband Customers nationwide across all of the ISPs, 10,000 isn't even 0.1 of 1% of the customers.