Posted on 06/11/2003 10:35:00 AM PDT by Pro-Bush
Comcast's two-tier pricing angers broadband-only customers
Bay Area Web surfers who use Comcast for their Internet connection are finding they have to pay a premium if they do not also take the company's cable-television service.
Internet-only customers have seen their monthly bills jump from $46 a month to $60 recently. By contrast, cable modem (news - web sites) users who also buy cable-television service pay just $43 a month for Internet access.
Comcast says it is simply rewarding customers who bundle services. But Internet-only customers say they are being punished for not wanting or needing cable television.
"I feel taken advantage of," said Jill Singleton of Fremont, whose family does not own a TV. "Being able to have broadband is important to us, and it's not like we really have another choice."
Comcast announced the rate increase in December, shortly after the Philadelphia company acquired AT&T Broadband. Company spokesman Andrew Johnson said the company gave its customers ample notice about the rate change.
The new prices began to appear in customers' bills April 1; the specific date varies with their billing cycle.
"We're rewarding people who take more services from us," Johnson said. "Just like other companies. It's a tried-and-true concept."
Johnson would not say how many Bay Area customers take only cable-modem service, but the number is "very, very, very small," he said.
Natalie Munn of Fremont said she never heard about the increase and did not notice any change until Comcast debited her checking account in May.
Happy with satellite
Munn said she switched from cable TV to satellite years ago because of problems with her former cable provider, Viacom. She is happy with the satellite service, she said, and has no plans to switch back to cable.
"It's blatantly unfair," Munn said. "They're using their monopoly position to force people to subscribe to cable."
Johnson said that even with the price increase, broadband-only customers are still getting a good deal. He said Comcast's pricing is competitive with the only broadband alternative, digital subscriber line, or DSL.
Comcast's $60 cable-modem service, with download speeds of up to 1.5 megabytes per second, is comparable with an SBC Yahoo DSL package offered at $59.95, Johnson said. Comcast customers can save $3 a month if they provide their own cable modem.
"We still believe we have a superior product in value," Johnson said.
The two-tier pricing structure, which Comcast uses nationwide, has attracted the ire of consumer groups.
Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate what they called "anti-competitive" behavior. They are taking aim not at the higher-priced cable-modem service, but at the low-priced TV-Internet bundle.
Bundled pricing
The groups argue that Comcast's bundled pricing is so low -- less than $60 for both Internet access and basic cable TV -- that it amounts to giving away the cable-TV service for free. The goal, they said, is to "shrink the market" for DirecTV satellite television, Comcast's only real competitor in most markets.
"What they're doing, in my view, constitutes predatory pricing," said Chris Murray, legislative counsel for Consumers Union.
Murray said the bundle could be considered anti-consumer.
"If you're looking for a bundle, it's a great deal," he said. "But what about the person who only wants one service? For some people, this is the difference between being able to get broadband and not being able to get broadband."
How about satellite with satellite internet? (I have no idea about relative costs or speed of satellite internet. Just asking. ie. DirecTV with Direcway satellite internet service.)
I'm not yelling - I just put emphasis on a few (i.e two) words. I have ComCast Cable, but use Verizon DSL - ComCast sent me something asking if I wanted their Broadband Service at a discounted rate - however, reading the fine print, I noted that the reduced rate was good for a few months, and then would be HIGHER than my current service. Since my cable bill went up when Comcast took over, I decided that they would NOT be getting any more of my money...
I guess the cable companies just can't allow a natural price advantage work in their favor - with DSL, you have to have a phone line in service, so it's going to cost you at least $16-17 for the basic line in addition to the DSL charge.
I had a house in Old East Dallas (renting it out, now) that has had SBC DSL for ~3.5 years. TCI / AT&T / Comcast have never made cable internet available in most of Dallas, being content to wire all the 'burbs who had separate cable systems prior to the TCI / AT&T buyout, and only wiring a few very large apartment areas & 1 or 2 affluent neighborhoods in Dallas proper.
To this day you can't get any info out of Comcast regarding possible availability dates. Methinks it has something to do with Dallas' cable infrastructure - has to be the last burg in the universe with dual-coax cable. Gonna cost a lotta $$$ to pull the fiber-o, and SBC already has a significant portion of the city covered with DSL, having concentrated their Project Pronto in Dallas a few years ago.
I'd have probably gone with cable in Dallas, had I had the opportunity - the speed dfference is just too great to ignore, for essentially the same price. Gotta admit, tho, wondered many times as my cable TV went down (on a very regular basis) if my inet would have been down as well. Fiber-o would probably help that, but it's gonna be a long time coming in Dallas.
One $$$ savings tip not mentioned yet - if you have cable, and are not married to your land line, ditch the Telco phone line (assuming you can use cellular instead, like so many ppl are doing these days). Little known factoid of the cell phone number portability issue is that it will allow you to change your old home number over to your cellphone......
How do they know?
The only way they can know is by the NIC address of the first network device connected to the cable modem. Routers can be told to clone the address of the computer that used to be connected to the modem.
I suppose I got Earthlink DSL because they don't play that game. Their tech support even helped me set their modem to an undocumented configuration designed to work with a router.
I suspect that you mean MAC address??
Of course, Comcast gets to use this to inflate their "number of subscribers" count for advertisers...
BTW, one should note that the cloning of a MAC address (done via the router) is only necessary if you have a box on the inet side of the router, aka DMZ. Seems to be far more common for cable folks to need to clone the MAC.
"Seems to be far more common for cable folks to need to clone the MAC."
I guess that's because the cable co's record the MAC of the NIC they give you, and build that into your profile? The NIC MAC must then be cloned to the router to allow you to obtain an IP?
"BTW, one should note that the cloning of a MAC address (done via the router) is only necessary if you have a box on the inet side of the router, aka DMZ."
So this would be wrong - if the approved MAC is outside the router, no need to clone. It's only if approved MAC is behind the router where cloning becomes necessary.
This gets complicated and depends on who you get the service from. Earthlink gives you a logon/password screen the firs time you connect. Then it remembers your MAC address. If you switch computers or install a router, you have to log on again.
Bellsouth DSL records your MAC address when you call them to set up the service. They do not have a logon screen, and you have to call them if you change cards. Bellsouth also tried for a long time to prevent sharing by giving customers the option of an internal modem or a USB modem, so you couldn't use a router. This became kind of futile when Windows provided internet sharing as a standard feature. My sister has a second network installed, attached to a wireless access point. The computer acts as the router.
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