Sling TV Boss Says Comcast Usage Caps Hurt Competition Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch in an interview this week stated he's been warning regulators repeatedly about Comcast's slowly-expanding usage caps to no avail. Comcast recently expanded its usage caps into 300 more markets. Caps that are neither financially or technologically necessary are troubling enough to net neutrality supporters, but then Comcast raised hackles last month by announcing it would be exempting its own streaming service from those caps.

Lynch notes that's a real threat to competing services, who'll suddenly find themselves at a disadvantage. "We see concerning things happening if you look at cable companies like Comcast now instituting data caps that just happen to be at a level at or below what someone would use if they’re watching TV on the internet – and at the same time launching their own streaming service that they say doesn’t count against the data cap," noted Lynch in an Interview. So far the FCC hasn't said a word about the practice, which most consumer groups say is a troubling precedent. Comcast however claims that because its creatively-named Stream service is an "IP cable service delivered over our managed network to the home," network neutrality doesn't apply. "It’s something we’ve been warning Washington about for years, and it’s a risk to OTT in general," states Lynch. "We’re Net Neutrality proponents, and want to make sure that rules are implemented so that it really is a level playing field for new players like us." Though the lack of a DVR option (due to broadcasting rights restrictions) limits Sling TV's appeal, it was considered the opening salvo in what's expected to be a much broader assault on Comcast's cable TV turf. Comcast's response so far is obvious: deploy usage caps to protect its legacy cable TV revenues, then exempt its own streaming alternatives from those arbitrary caps to give itself a leg up in the marketplace. It should be interesting to see just how long the FCC naps on the subject. Though the lack of a DVR option (due to broadcasting rights restrictions) limits Sling TV's appeal, it was considered the opening salvo in what's expected to be a much broader assault on Comcast's cable TV turf. Comcast's response so far is obvious: deploy usage caps to protect its legacy cable TV revenues, then exempt its own streaming alternatives from those arbitrary caps to give itself a leg up in the marketplace. It should be interesting to see just how long the FCC naps on the subject.







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Most recommended from 115 comments



karlmarx

join:2006-09-18

Moscow, ID 18 recommendations karlmarx Member Just the beginning Whats next comcast. Are you going to 'exempt' the new 'comcast facebook' and 'comcast youtube', and 'comcast amazon' from the caps too?

The issue here is REALLY that they are exempting THEIR services, while everyone else is subjected to a data cap, which costs the CUSTOMER more money. This is CLEARLY anti-competitive behavior, because EVERYONE ELSE who is on the internet WILL cost the end user MORE MONEY.

This is NO DIFFERENT than say 'toyota' coming to an agreement that THEIR cars are exempt from paying tolls on a toll road. If you buy a toyota, you can use the toll roads for free, but every other car has to pay to use the road. This is comcast USING their effectively monopoly power to rape the customer for even more money. mikesco8

join:2006-02-17

Southwick, MA 14 recommendations mikesco8 Member Sling is the perfect company to speak out. They have the best argument for getting the FCC and FTC to act.

SmilingBob2

@google.com 8 recommendations SmilingBob2 Anon Yup He makes a good point. We are "cord cutters" who have OTA, Sling TV, Netflix and Amazon Video. Last month we used 471GB on Performance Starter, one of the "slow" Comcast tiers at 10Mbps / 2Mbps. This was probably 80% Sling TV usage at the highest quality 720p setting which displays 3.7Mbps bandwidth in the app. Not even HALF of our slow connection is being utilized and yet we are using far more than the current cap. Good thing caps in our area are still suspended but I am ready when they go live. We will not be paying extra for "unlimited," but will instead throttle our online streaming bandwidth to 480p on all devices. I wish we still had DSL access, as 3Mbps DSL with unlimited data is far preferable to capped data at any speed (IMO). Unfortunately, Comcast is the only game in our area unless you want satellite or LTE. We may consider even dropping service down to Economy Plus at some point once caps hit.

w0g

o.O

join:2001-08-30

Springfield, OR 1 edit 8 recommendations w0g Member The public may think the prices unnecessary But a corporation and investors do not give a shit about the customers. Their business model is a gravy boat of raising prices far beyond cost or value to the maximum levels they can collect, depriving users of quality, and timely service improvements (ie moving from copper to fiber) and paying all the money collected to wealthy owners and investors in the company instead of those things. The idea of charging for going over a certain number of bytes is essentially to increase revenue stream to investors even further. Its like mining and sucking up oil from a well, but the well is actually tapping customers bank accounts and they want more and more, sucking all the money out into investors hands.



The actual facts show that cable is so profitable because it was a build once run with virtually the same lines forever model. The current cost is about $1.23 per customer to operate the system no matter how much people use it. They charge $50 dollars a month or whatever. Now they will tack on fees for per gigabyte usage adding on another $35 to the bill. When they were charging $50 they were making 97% profit .. Now they will make like 98% profit or whatever.



The source on the cost of operations versus the price charges to customers comes from the Huffington Post.



Video services and telephone services are similarly very lucrative.



Society has a choice to fix the problem. Either lobby for price regulations and forced upgrade and maintaince rules (ie must offer a cheap fiber to the home service within t years) which is allowed by law, or build your own fiber networks and set it up as either city owned, a non profit or as a non profit co-op.



Prices will immediately go down and service quality go up because cities, non profits and coops don't send the money to investors but reinvest in the service as needed and reduce prices to actual cost of operations so society gets to keep its money.