Comcastic – hardly

February 13, 2008

Well, I’ve bitten the bullet and dropped Verizon as my DSL provider and DirecTV as my entertainment source. I’ve gone with Comcast. BUT, just after I pulled the trigger on this purchase/service change, I heard from Jim Storer that Comcast was continuing to step on its customers and pervade the marketplace with its deceptive practices.

Here’s the article in the NY Times.

I made a comment on that site that went as follows…(I urge you to do the same and help all consumers find a way to keep these businesses in line)

I may have missed this, but is there any legislation or initiative that allows consumers the ability to speak up about this issue?

I’ve heard verifiable testimony about packet shaping (slowing down Internet access) for gamers, online telephony applications and other uses and I want to ensure that we’re not headed down a road where this is approved conduct.

I would also like the companies providing us with their services to have to provide clear apples to apples paperwork on what is and is not approved use of their network access. Right now it’s an arbitrary mess where if you use ‘too much’ bandwidth you are slowed down, booted off the Internet or ‘fired’ as a customer.

But all the marketing and communications materials tout the ‘unlimited’ access tagline (this is for Verizon AND COMCAST) which is not truly unlimited. It actually means that you can access the network whenever you want, but it doesn’t mean unlimited uploads and downloads.

And finally, SPEED. For years all these entities have promised one speed and then have provided far different speeds in reality. If you buy four tires at a dealership, you get four tires, not two. If you pay for a 60-minute parking space, you get the entire 60 minutes, not a portion thereof that you then have to share with another car that comes along to park in that spot.

Clarify the terms.
Give us a voice.
Deliver what is paid for.

That’s all we ask.

Jeff Cutler
http://www.bowlofcheese.com

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Finally, you’ve probably heard about the site that really lambastes Comcast for all it does wrong. If not, here’s the link. It’s called Comcast Must Die. Enjoy!

More to come…