Comcast sues FCC for not letting it own anything it wants

Given Comcast's notoriously shady service, we're not exactly in favor of the company being allowed to ruthlessly torture service any more markets than necessary, but we can see why it might be a little frustrated with the FCC, which has allowed all sorts of giant phone companies to merge in the past few years, yet still recently decided to block cable companies from owning more than 30 percent of the market. Comcast and the FCC have butted heads in the past on similar regulatory issues, but this one should be particularly interesting, since FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is currently the focus of a congressional probe into his handling of the agency. We can actually sort of see Comcast's point -- the FCC probably shouldn't allow giant telco mergers while arbitrarily capping cable ownership, but really we'd prefer a lot more competition and a hell of a lot more focus on customer service from all of these companies instead of yet more lawsuits and paperwork.

[Via TechDirt]

[peacebyanymeans (AKA: Moorio) @ Mar 14th 2008 6:25PM]

Comcast v. The Government.

Geez, I wonder who is going to win...

[Darkest Daze @ Mar 14th 2008 6:30PM]

Please let it be the government.(Feels weird saying that) In fact, I hope they also force Comcast to not suck while they're at it.

[oGMo @ Mar 14th 2008 6:49PM]

The problem is when "the government" (by which I mean "lots of politicians") win by letting Comcast win.

It would be poetic justice, of course, were they to get some judge who was pissed off by his comcast service. I'd pay to see that.

[Totalfixation @ Mar 14th 2008 6:54PM]

I'm for a free market with little government involvement, but since the cable companies are divided into districts and each territory has one cable company operating it. The FCC should have the right to tell what the cable companies should do to maintain fairness to its consumers.

[SteveA @ Mar 15th 2008 12:00PM]

Or just deregulate the cable market so more than one cable company can operate in an area, you know, like how a free market is supposed to be, not this pseudo version we currently have.

[phanbouy @ Mar 14th 2008 6:29PM]

Anyone use their BLAST!!!!!!!!! service or whatever they call it in SF or the bay area? I'm happy with my cheap ATT DSL for now (well sorta, the modem drops its signal for ~10s every time the land line is used. Same with my friend. Yes we use filters). And anyway, torrents down seem bandwidth limited typically but latency (?) limited?

[UKNigel @ Mar 14th 2008 8:49PM]

You should give earthlink a whirl then, if you can. I had the connection dropping issue with AT&T also, but with earthlink there is absolutely no slowdown when somebody picks up the phone. Good latency too, and I've never had 1 single second of downtime (that I know of, obviously).

[npowell @ Mar 18th 2008 5:09PM]

are you using your line filter?

[Mathew @ Mar 14th 2008 6:32PM]

The problem here is that any company can get access to the telco hardware and offer service through the same infrastructure. But with cable, there is only one company that is delivering service in my area...if cable opened up their infrastructure to anyone who wanted to offer service, then I would be fine with these mergers...and would have a choice beyond time warner or getting a dish. Somehow the cable companies are not considered a monopoly, but I have never lived anywhere that had the option of more than one cable provider.

[z0phi3l @ Mar 14th 2008 6:34PM]

God I wish they would go bankrupt


They have THE worst service and it seems that no matter where I live they are generally the only company I can get High Speed from ><

PA needs to let Verizon hook up their Fios service across the whole damn state and watch as Comcrap shrivels up and dies since at least in PA, we seem to prefer Satellite to the only other option

[Mike @ Mar 14th 2008 9:34PM]

I agree w/ you 100%. I moved to State College, PA a year ago and comcrap is really the only option i have except for Sat. I'm just waiting for Fios to make it way to my area so i can give comcrap the boot!!!

[Mikee @ Mar 14th 2008 9:40PM]

It's not just Comcast that sucks in PA. Blue Ridge Communications also sucks hard. They have virtually no competition in this area.

We really want Verizon to come here with FiOS and give BRC some good competition.

[MRCUR @ Mar 15th 2008 9:43AM]

Now although I completely agree that Comcast has absolutely no true competition throughout most of PA (I'm in Southeast PA, Embarq area), I have no issues with their internet, phone, or cable (for the most part).

I don't know about you guys, but my Internet is very fast with Comcast and I ALWAYS get 100% of the speed I pay for (8/768).

[Greg @ Mar 14th 2008 7:04PM]

Who cares? Comcast sucks, and they don't like net neutrality. For once, I'm rooting for the FCC... I think a part of me just died.

[Ocho Cinco @ Mar 14th 2008 7:07PM]

comcast's broadband is nice; however, they have TERRIBLE customer service and their rates and promotions (and ADs for that matter) are shitty.

[happy_penguin @ Mar 14th 2008 7:11PM]

If it wasn't for my need for internet I would boycott Comcrap altogether. I thought deregulation was supposed to bring competition. Comcrap can suck it.

[mark lee @ Mar 14th 2008 7:41PM]

That's right, screw those monopolistic coporate giants!

[ethana2 @ Mar 14th 2008 10:08PM]

they should kill the 30% cap. monopoly breeds hatred. hatred creates fierce competitors.

Look what happened with windows and linux. You think we'd be anywhere if windows and osx had 30% market share caps? no.

~ubuntu user

[Zorque @ Mar 15th 2008 12:43AM]

Ethana, since you refuse to stop making everything about yourself and your "superior" OS, I'm going to follow suit and make everything about you too. For example:

"I get my music mostly from Jamendo.com nowadays. Are they going to show up there anytime soon? The truth they've realized is the first step. See, I value freedom a lot. Through Christ, we have freedom from sin, through open source software, we have freedom from the EULA, and through creative commons, we have freedom from the Music and Film Industry Associations. :) [e-mail]"

There's a lot more where that came from. And by the way, there is an EULA on open source software. Ever heard of the GPL?

[GLMcPheligan @ Mar 15th 2008 12:08PM]

@ethana2

30+30=60 right? 100-60=40 right? Wouldn't Linux already be in the lead at 40% by your logic? I might be wrong though as this MEST mathematics makes no sense to my Cleared mind.

[barry heaver @ Mar 14th 2008 7:41PM]

am i missing something as to why comcast sucks? i've had their catv and high speed internet service for about 5 years now and i can only remember one instance where their internet was down (june '04 system was hacked, i think) and with their catv service you get tons of channels plus on demand. i do think the are expensive, though. but as they say - you get what you pay for... solid internet connection and a vast array of catv channels.

[genaldar @ Mar 14th 2008 8:58PM]

Apparently Comcast loves you. My comcast service crashed 6 or 7 times the first year after they took over for Roadrunner. And every time I called I got attitude. Plus when I was on RR I got 8 mbps+ and it was rock solid. Comcast cut my speed down to 6 mbps (off peak times) or 4 - 5 (peak times).

And at one point if I was downloading a torrent my internet would slow to a crawl, no matter how fast the torrent was coming down or going up. Nothing is more frustrating than paying $55 plus a month for 6+ mbps service only to see it load like dial up if you're getting a torrent 5k a second and uploading at 0.

Not to mention that they charged me a rental fee on a modem I owned. Road Runner gave away modems when I signed up (no monthly fee and if you have service for over a year you own the modem). I told Comcast this and they said they'd fix it. Nope. They moved that charge to the back side of my bill instead. And since my roomate (who pays the bills) never checked there we didn't know we were still paying a rental on a modem we owned. I called a second time to get it fixed and the woman accused me of lying and then when I offered to fax over a copy of my original contract that explains the terms for owning the modem she claimed I was falsifying documents. Then she wouldn't connect me with her supervisor. I asked her where I could bring it because I would just buy a new modem and bring them back the one I had been using for years. She gave me an address to bring it to. I would've called back but it took 20 minutes on hold to get that bundle of helpfulness the first time. After I bought a new modem I called to verify the address, turns out she fucking lied and gave me the wrong address.

Or there was a time I was trying to contact my senator becuase of an action alert I got from one of the activism mailing lists I'm on. The page wouldn't load on my computer. But loaded fine on my Wing on T-Mobile (EDGE). It also loaded fine the next day from work.

Here (Minneapolis) they know our options suck so they treat us like shit, at least in my neighborhood, in whiter areas their service is fine. We've tried DSL (slower) and the new municipal wifi (extremely slow). If it gets any worse I'll be switching to Speakeasy and paying an extra $30+ a month for the same speed. But I'll be sure that I get the speeds I pay for. And lets not forget the invisible cap.

[z0phi3l @ Mar 15th 2008 12:24AM]

When they bought out our local company our rates went up, we actually lost channels and my internet service started going bad. They finally "fixed" it but it was never as good as it was before, it is still spotty and even the HD channel line up was lacking and would drop down to SD from time to time.

I'm stuck with them for a little while, I'll get Satellite soon and if Verizon can get their act together and get FIOS to where I live, I will dump Comcrap like a bad habit.

[genaldar @ Mar 15th 2008 6:43PM]

I forgot to mention the action alert was of course about how Comcast screwed over their customers. And I never had a problem loading any other action item on that site, but the one time its against Comcast it doesn't work. Happy coincidence, for Comcast that is.

[happy_penguin @ Mar 16th 2008 5:00AM]

Comcrap has been involved in one too many scandals. I think for me it has to do with the cost of the service and the lack of good customer service. The icing on the cake is what they did when they bought out TechTV and the way they treated those people. That particular bit was inexcusable to me. And for what? G4? What a piece of shit station. TechTV already had great programming for gamers. There was no need to dedicate an entire network to gaming when they already had a great tech station with great programming such as The Screensavers and Call For Help as well as great programming for gamers. TechTV catered to the newbies as well as the more technically inclined as well as the gamers. Why fuck with a good thing? Obviously they fucked it all up because you can see in the way their lineup has so drastically changed from when they took over. I loathe Comcrap for what they did to us the consumer as well as what they did to the staff of TechTV. It makes my skin crawl every month when I pay them for service for which I have NO alternatives. They're a bunch of twats.

[TrueGrey @ Mar 14th 2008 7:45PM]

Hey - look at the bright side - maybe they'll take it to the street and finish each other off. Then my least favorite 2 organizations on the planet will be gone and we can dance in our rainbow-stuffed utopia.

[Comcast Steals @ Mar 14th 2008 8:06PM]

I filed a complaint against Comcast with the BBB for deceptive business practices. They quoted one price for installation on their website and gave me another over the phone citing a "new promotion" as the reason. Yet, several weeks later, the "old installation price" is still being quoted on their website.

[DaLa @ Mar 14th 2008 8:17PM]

You Comcast Haters are uneducated on this matter.

Facts:

Yes typically, most municipalities have only one franchise agreement and thus, one cable company.

Verizon and ATT are >10x the size of Comcast. Together they are bigger than the whole industry of Cable.

Verizon is expensive for plain telephone.

Telecom owns the FCC, Congress, and Kevin Martin. Congress is investing Martin

ATT was broken up in 1984 to stop one telephone company. Now theres like 4 major ones, the two are giants.

Cable is the reason Telecom has new services to mirror.

Content Cost is the reason for all services are so high for tv.

Cable competes with Telecom, and Satellites. within each's industry, neither really competes with itself.

Cable is a large pool of companies. Teleccom is not

[Matt @ Mar 15th 2008 6:49AM]

None of that made a whole lot of sense.

[Predator.Z6 @ Mar 14th 2008 11:13PM]

So you're telling me that the only reason cable is expensive is that the content costs a lot. Makes sense. Now explain why rates increase like crazy every year, and (for example) AT&T U-Verse can offer the same Craptastic!® service (if not better) for maybe $20? a month cheaper. Don't they have "content cost"? Or do they get free channels? And by the way, cable is about the same size pool of companies as "Telcom". All I can name off the bat are:
1. Time Warner (what we get in Ohio)
2. Insight
3. Cox
4. Comcast
5. Charter

"Cable competes with Telecom, and Satellites. within each's industry, neither really competes with itself."
You're saying that DirecTV and Dish Network don't compete with each other? AT&T and Verizon don't compete? Sure, only one company services residential areas at a time, but what about business customers?

[DaLa @ Mar 14th 2008 11:25PM]

RE: Predator.Z6

6. Bresnan Communications
7. Bright House Networks
8. Cableone
9. Insight
10. Cablevision Systems

Mediacom LLC
Midcontinent Media Inc.
Millennium Digital Media
Northland Communications
RCN Corp.
U.S. Cable Corp.

There's a lot more Cable companies than Phone Companies. And these are the multi state ones.

Content cost rising, inflation, and energy costs are the reason all communication services rise each year.

Verizon and ATT do offer cheaper basic packages, but they all go up after a period to equal about the same.

And what I was saying is that Cable does not usually compete with Cable. Nor does telecom compete with telecom. Satelitte competes with both and itself.

What I am insinuating is that the giant is telecom and Cable is the one spurring the industry to this point. The government is way to in favor of the mega comms, not cable which adds good service and innovation.

[z0phi3l @ Mar 15th 2008 12:26AM]

And yet the Telecoms and Satellite offer me a cheaper and better experience than the Cable companies, wonder why?

[Ian Whelan @ Mar 14th 2008 8:30PM]

Cox Communications FTW! Omg their Orange County area service is great! They add about 3 new HD channels a month, and their high speed Internet is great, I have very small ping time and I am pretty much always the party leader in Xbox Live matchmaking (best connection gets party leader).

[brassready @ Mar 14th 2008 8:40PM]

I 2nd Cox Communications FTW!!

Don't live in orange county though. Vegas baby. Got there 10 mb service and for whatever reason i always connect higher than 10mb? thought it's suppossed to cap at 10. whatever, not gonna call them about it though. lol

[Ian Whelan @ Apr 1st 2008 7:19PM]

Yeah, their internet is great. They have PowerBoost set up in my area, so I get around 10 mbps as I usually don't use it during peak hours. The Digital Cable works great with my TiVo HD, too.

[AlphaTeam @ Mar 14th 2008 8:38PM]

Hopefully Comcast will lose, be fined $1bil for wasting tax dollars, go bankrupt.

[omoks @ Mar 14th 2008 8:47PM]

Silly! You better hope Comcast doesn't loose else your rates will just go up. It's business 101.

[AlphaTeam @ Mar 14th 2008 10:34PM]

LOL.... Well I should point out I have DirecTV

[thatkidmattt @ Mar 14th 2008 9:10PM]

My Comcast service kicks ass...

I guess thats because I live in Philadelphia, and this is Comcast Country.


I didn't realize that it sucked everywhere though, I thought they just didn't care about Pittsburgh (where I go to school) because it's Pittsburgh and no one should care about it.

[Mike @ Mar 14th 2008 9:33PM]

Hey man comcrap blows here in State College too...

[Izzy @ Mar 14th 2008 9:55PM]

I don't see how allowing them to control MORE than 30% of a market increases market competitiveness. it would seem that they could wipe out the competition.

[jablamma @ Mar 14th 2008 10:20PM]

yo Comcast is evil. I type this on a suposed 10MBPS line and I can't even check my email in like 5 seconds. Comcast is dirty and the ONLY reason i will give them a nickle is against my will due to my roommate's cable tv addiction and availability. Comcast wants to rape us--more than the next guy.

[producerism @ Mar 14th 2008 10:49PM]

want to hear something crazy? comcast has been trying to collect money from me for almost 2 years now. Actually, they've already got debt collection started on me twice.

The crazy part is, I have never been a comcast customer. they got my name from some company they swallowed up, and then who knows what happened.

Comcast has screwed over my credit, and I wasn't even a customer. I can only imagine how bad it is for people that are under a contract with them, yikes!

[Eric @ Mar 15th 2008 12:06AM]

THAT is the best headline. EVAR!!

[JaceFace @ Mar 15th 2008 12:48AM]

I'm going to add that my Comcast service is actually pretty stellar. I'm in SLC, Utah and it is BY FAR the best service offered. The only other comparable (speed and cost) is QWEST DSL and it is awful.

Now, as far as Comcast and the Sandvineing that has been going on, I'm not too keen on that. But as far as Comast holding up their end of our relationship, they have certainly been more then adequate. And just to put a number on my use, I'd estimate that I transfer no less than 25GB a month in and about 75% of that back out.

[Michael @ Mar 15th 2008 2:49PM]

I don't understand this hatred of comcast. They offer the best packages, programming, and fastest internet in my area. Although I don't watch much cable, I would much rather have comcast's cable internet over anyone elses.

[Allen @ Mar 15th 2008 3:05PM]

I hope it doesn't actually evolve into a court case until our next President. The regulate-absolutely-nothing Bush administration hasn't exactly done us a lot of good these past 8 years...

[ryan @ Mar 15th 2008 6:07PM]

I foresee comcast being crushed and forced to only have 20 % share and to stop lying in their commercials :P

[genaldar @ Mar 16th 2008 4:30AM]

Their overlords (the telcos) are feeling pressure from Cable and satellite so they have to go after someone. And since there have been more then a few petitions calling for Comcast to be investigated, plus news stories, they are an easy target.

[Rilesman @ Mar 16th 2008 2:50PM]

Since the Justice Department have taken the shackles off of the Teleco's to include unbelievable mergers (only two markets left for AT&T to conquer) it would only be fair for our competition based market to remove the franchise regulations for the cable operators.

If government is going to regulate, they need to regulate in "fairness" which is not the current case.

(btw, I am not a COMCAST fan as they are using middle-man hacking to improve their network efficiency as opposed to promoting new tools and protocols.)