Comcast, is making attempts to leverage their power as one of few ISPs that offer high speed broadband connections to make customers who consume more, pay more. In theory, this proposal makes sense. If a consumer consumes more of a product, they should pay for it. However, this problem is a bit different in the realms of the internet, net neutrality and oligopolies. Since Comcast is one of the few providers of high speed broadband internet, it makes sense that users who pay for their service tend to consume larger amounts of data per month. Comcast has been measuring intakes of data from those that they consider to be "excessive consumers". Once users hit a certain amount of data consumed, Comcast limits the speed of their connection. This is not standard practice, yet, and can potentially violate the laws of net neutrality. By monitoring user habits and punishing certain users, slowing their connection speed down and/or charging them more for the continued high consumption, Comcast is denying a level of usability to the Netflix consumer and Netflix. Comcast prioritizes other connections over that of those who binge watch. This action directly violates the laws of net nuetrality. The FCC has made it illegal to do what is called throttling, or slowing of an internet connection: "A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is
so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content,
application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network
management." (FCC, REPORT AND ORDER ON REMAND, DECLARATORY RULING, AND ORDER). As this is a direct violation of the rules laid out by the FCC, Comcast is in the wrong for throttling the user's internet speeds and measures should be taken to allow the free and unhindered use of the internet.
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-28/comcast-draws-customer-ire-by-putting-netflix-addicts-on-a-meter
Since Comcast is one of the few ISPs that offer high speed broadband connections, they have a lot of control over the prices they charge customers and how much they are willing to give to their customers for the prices they pay. I think the article missed a major point of providing how much all of this costs. This includes the costs of each amount of data provided by Comcast, as well as the amount of data consumed that Comcast will then limit the speed of these customers’ connections. I agree with Comcast that users who use more data, should pay more for their services. However, I think that if the customers are willing to pay for the data that they use, they should not be punished if they need a large amount. Comcast should just continue to charge these customers a competitive price for the amount of data they use. By slowing down the speed of the connection for the users who have reached this limit, it is also hindering their use on other websites that they use Comcast to access. Customers could now complain to these other companies that their connection is slow, but it is really Comcast’s fault and responsibility. Why should Comcast have the power to limit users to how much they are able to do on their network? Customers all over the world use Comcast’s services for many different things and Comcast should not have the power to control what these customers use their network for and how much they use it. Comcast is now violating the laws of net neutrality and should be stopped before they take advantage of this law or their customers. Therefore, I think customers have the authority to take up this issue with Comcast and demand that their speeds not be throttled because it goes against the laws of net neutrality and internet traffic. Additionally, since Comcast is such a major company that offers high speed broadband connections, it would not be ethical to take advantage of the system by not providing their paying customers with what they are promising, “high speed connections.”
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense that Comcast would want to limit the amount of data that "excessive consumers" use, because it is a huge expense to their company. However, they are going about it the wrong way. By violating net neutrality, they are breaking the law and putting their company at risk. They should explore options that allow them to follow the laws of net neutrality without sustaining a loss due to some customers' excessive data use. For example, cell phone companies, like AT&T, have come out with data packages for their customers. The more data that their customers use, the more money it costs. If Comcast could find a way to implement something like this into their rates, they could minimize losses. One way that they could do this would be to shrink their rates a little bit and have it act as the fixed cost, and have an additional cost for every significant milestone you reach in the amount of data used. Therefore, the people who use a small amount of data aren't paying the same amount as people who use a lot of data and the service can remain neutral. At the same time, the customers who use endless amount of data won't create a loss for Comcast. This change would be appealing to people who use a small amount of data because they won't have to pay as much and it will be appealing to people who use a lot of data because their connection won't slow down when they use more data.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense that Comcast would want to limit the amount of data that "excessive consumers" use, because it is a huge expense to their company. However, they are going about it the wrong way. By violating net neutrality, they are breaking the law and putting their company at risk. They should explore options that allow them to follow the laws of net neutrality without sustaining a loss due to some customers' excessive data use. For example, cell phone companies, like AT&T, have come out with data packages for their customers. The more data that their customers use, the more money it costs. If Comcast could find a way to implement something like this into their rates, they could minimize losses. One way that they could do this would be to shrink their rates a little bit and have it act as the fixed cost, and have an additional cost for every significant milestone you reach in the amount of data used. Therefore, the people who use a small amount of data aren't paying the same amount as people who use a lot of data and the service can remain neutral. At the same time, the customers who use endless amount of data won't create a loss for Comcast. This change would be appealing to people who use a small amount of data because they won't have to pay as much and it will be appealing to people who use a lot of data because their connection won't slow down when they use more data.
ReplyDelete