Posted on 06/16/2012 5:31:05 AM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
The Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether Comcast and other cable operators are purposely and illegally trying to squash competition from rival streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu.
That's according to articles by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News.
The Justice Department won't comment on the reports, but the newspaper say the department is probing whether the cable ops are charging extra if their Internet subscribers exceed their data caps in using the rival streamers. Justice investigators are also examining if the cable operators are giving preferential treatment to their own streaming services by not charging extra for them.
The investigation seems to have been triggered by complains from Netflix that Comcast plans to charge subscribers extra if they exceed their data caps when using Netflix on the Xbox 360. However, Comcast has said that subscribers who use Comcast's Xfinity VOD service on the Xbox will not have their data caps affected.
Swanni Sez: Analysis: The Justice Department opens investigations all the time without ever even releasing a report, not to mention filing charges. This could be one of those cases. Comcast's data cap policy appears to be one-sided, but not necessarily illegal or anti-competitive.
But by launching the probe, the Justice Department may be sending a message to cable operators that they better be cautious in how they govern Internet use for streaming and related services. If Comcast or any other cable operator decides to be more aggressive in trying to squeeze the competition, it could trigger a more serious probe and possible criminal and civil charges.
With streaming still in its infancy, the Justice Department wants to ensure that competition flourishes and consumers can use a variety of services without being gouged by their Internet service providers.
COMCAST XFINITY = wireless COMCAST “services” = control over streaming = crushing of NETFLIX
They do not need more capacity. We need cable a-la-carte program selection instead of all channels bundled.
You have good points. I had not studied the operation enough to understand the process you describe. I am just so sick of having stuff shoved at me. That was my only complaint with Netflix. I like non-commercials and the continuity of episodes. I’ll give it another look. Thanks.
At first I was disappointed as their channel selection, outside of Netflix and HULU, seemed pretty lame. I had already milked Netflix of all their golden oldeies and see nothing interesting in the new releases. HULU is mostly old sitcoms that I never watched anyway.
Somewhere I found THIS SITE , which changed my perspective. LOTS of goodies - foreign news channels for one and I am still exploring. As with anything else, lots of dreck out there also, but you have the ability of saying "no thanks".
I wonder will such a suit even have meaning within ten years. Thanks to the rollout of IPv6 and superfast broadband (over 100 megabits per second download speeds), pretty soon even your cable channels will be nothing more than TV quality streaming videos, each sent from its own unique IPv6 address.
Apple will soon transform the home entertainment industy the same way they did with the music industry (iTunes, iPad) and the cellphone industry (iPhone).
Not saying that's a bad thing. Innovation is good. The cable industry has been stagnant for a long time and their overall content gets worse and worse. I'm sick of supporting MSNBC, CNN, MTV and all those godawful cooking shows with my monthly cable bill. I only want to support programming that I actually watch. We need a new business model and a la carte is the way to go.
It is a shame what Comcast is doing. but netflix has its own problem. read a lot of complaints last year when the service increased fees. Most of them were about the quality of the service and justifying the increase with out improving the service. There are alternatives though. Like RedBox and Amazon pipe. I am sure the Comcast thing affects them too.
Meanwhile the data caps thing is very controversial. Time Warner’s roadrunner had to stop a test of it in 2009 after negative feedback. I’m on a service with data caps but as you yet have not gone over the monthly limit. So far things are working out well for me. It is a high enough limit that I don’t do enough to go over.
Google is a rival of Apple these days after a public betrayal. Google is cooking up a few things. They have just entered the market of offering internet, tv and phone. But the talk about them creating new streaming channels was all hot air from what I found so far. I thought they were really going to roll out with free online channels. But they were wrong. It seems to be more like youtube “channels” or rather accounts with video clips. Not what I wanted. Unless I am confusing things.
I left the service Clear for AT&T after they began throttling my usage and slowing down video streams and downloads. Clear even got sued.
Good point. And all those things cost Comcast twice or thrice as much as they would cost you if you went out to buy them!
Yes. You share bandwidth with other subscribers. Assumption is each will use maybe a half dozen gigs per month. Then you come along and soak up a hundred times that. Yeah, upgrading the infrastructure to accommodate you is going to cost them.
I dont think in the terms of channels. I think of in terms of shows.
Channels are a waste of time, carry vulgarity and do not have room in my house.
Shows that I choose, OTOH, they are welcome.
Quest where I live is all switched digital now, that basically makes all channels demand channels I guess. With UnDecillion unique ip addresses anything that plugs in can have one. Big Brother is much more perverse than Orwell could have imagined.
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