City by city, Comcast is continuing its quest to make the switch to digital cable for an increasing portion of  its cable programming lineup.  Although the majority of subscribers will encounter letters from Comcast switching only a portion of the analog cable lineup, it’s a safe bet Comcast is looking to an all-digital future sooner or later.

Coming less than a year after the switch to digital broadcast television, the march to digital cable is causing confusion for subscribers who don’t understand the difference.

Analog cable television has been around for more than 20 years in most American cities.  It’s the kind of cable television that doesn’t usually need a converter box on top of the TV.  Just plug the cable line into the back of your television set, let the TV find and map available channels, and you can use your standard TV remote to enjoy basic or enhanced basic cable television.  Of course, if you subscribe to premium channels like HBO or Showtime, a box is required to descramble the encrypted signal.

Cable operators began launching “digital cable” in the 1990s, expanding the lineup of programming with hundreds of new channels that are compressed into a digital format, with a half dozen or more digital channels fitting in the same space used by just one analog channel.  Space on the cable line is getting increasingly crowded as cable systems launch new HD channels, support telephone service, and expand broadband service and speeds.

To make room, several of those old school analog channels have to go… digital.  If you already have a set top cable box — you probably won’t even notice the changeover.  But if you don’t have one of those boxes in your home, and your television doesn’t support CableCARD technology, Comcast has some bad news for you.  Sooner or later, you’ll either have to get a set top box or lose an increasing number of channels on your cable dial.

Comcast's digital adapter doesn't support HD channels

Comcast’s digital cable expansion is their solution to the traffic jam on their cable lines.  Some other cable companies take a different approach.  Knowing that many customers hate cable boxes, they’ve left analog channels alone, instead transmitting digital channels only to those homes actually watching them.  If nobody in your neighborhood is watching Current or Fox Business News, why waste the space to send those signals down the line to… nobody.  Time Warner Cable doesn’t for many of their digital channels.  If one lives in an eclectic viewing neighborhood, there are problems with this approach.  Potentially, if enough homes want to watch these lesser-viewed networks, and Time Warner runs out of the space it sets aside to carry a certain number of these channels, the subscriber will see a video busy signal — a message stating the channel is temporarily not available, at least until someone nearby changes channels, making room for the network you want to watch.

Comcast's digital solution is a problem for those who hate "the box" for weaving a rat's nest of cables behind one's television.

In most communities, Comcast will provide up to three digital adapter boxes at no charge, if you install them yourself on each television in your home.  Additional boxes are usually $1.99 per month.  That’s fine if you are still using an older television set and don’t care about HDTV programming — the digital adapters Comcast provides don’t support HD.  If you do want HD channels, you’ll need Comcast’s traditional converter box, which runs about $7 a month per television, or a CableCARD, if your television supports it.  Comcast also has elaborate instructions for customers with multiple TV inputs to support both standard and high definition signals, some through the digital adapter, others not, but it requires a lot of cables.

Customers who loathe boxes and don’t want to pay for them are upset by all of the changes, and either must cope with the new box, or gradually lose more and more analog channels as the conversion continues.  Broadcast basic customers getting only local channels from Comcast are unaffected by all of this, at least for now.  Owners of modern HD television sets aren’t impressed either — their sets, capable of receiving QAM digital cable channels without a box are no help because Comcast encrypts its digital cable lineup in many areas.

But the company still thinks of the project as a service upgrade for its customers, even dubbing it Project Cavalry on their company blog. When one customer wondered why the new equipment wasn’t available in his area yet, a company blogger responded, “We will not be “cherry picking” … all our systems will get the benefits. The Comcast Cavalry just hasn’t swept through your area yet, stay tuned.”

When asked why the devices don’t support HD channels, the response:

The DTA was designed as a low-end, basic device to do one thing and one thing only … convert digital signals back to analog for display on an analog TV. That’s all, no higher end outputs, no VOD, no HD, no interactive guide. Keeping the device simple as described is what kept the price down enough that we can provide so much free equipment to our customers. Also, the RF output makes it compatible with the absolute maximum number of TVs, which is critical to the program. As a digital device, however, it does offer dramatically-improved picture quality over analog even through the RF output.

Watch Comcast’s tutorial on installing their Digital Adapter. (4 minutes)

Watch a coast-to-coast series of news reports detailing the Comcast transition to digital, starting with the message customers see on their now-missing favorite channels. (15 minutes)

The elusive Dell 10v Netbook promised to new Comcast customers back in August is MIA for hundreds who took advantage of the promotion

Five months after Comcast ran a promotion for new customers including a free Dell 10v netbook, many customers across the country are still waiting to receive the computer.

Back in August, Comcast matched a Verizon FiOS promotion promising a netbook to new customers signing a two-year service contract for a $99 monthly “triple play” package of telephone, broadband, and cable programming.

Visitors to Comcast’s website were offered:

HD Starter Triple Play

NEW SUBSCRIBERS: Get a free Dell 10v Netbook with the HD Starter Triple Play for only $99 a month for 12 months and a 2-year minimum term agreement. Plus, you’ll continue the savings the following year with a price of just $10 more per month.

• Free HD – no HD access fees or equipment fees.
• Over 80 digital cable channels.
• Thousands of On Demand movies and shows.
• Internet downloads up to 15 Mbps, uploads up to 3 Mbps with PowerBoost®.
• Unlimited local and long-distance nationwide calling – rated #1 in call clarity.
• Voice Mail and 12 popular calling features including Caller ID, Call Waiting and more.

The campaign apparently shared something else in common with Verizon’s promotions — customers left high and dry wondering when the promised bonus will arrive.

Customer attempts to contact Comcast have met with a wall of excuses and broken promises, and often still no netbook.  Other customers were told they failed to “qualify” for the promotion for not precisely following the terms and conditions that were never explained to them.

Comcast representatives have told customers they lost out because:

• They failed to return a copy of the signed contract committing to two years’ of service, despite insistence from customers who claimed they had;
• Comcast had two promotions running at the same time that were nearly identical, though one offer did not include a netbook. Customers were told they were signed up for the promotion that didn’t include the netbook.
• Customers had to make three or four consistent payments for service, before the due date, or they would forfeit participation in the netbook promotion.
• The customer waited too long to complain about the missing netbook.
• The customer was now a TV customer, and therefore didn’t qualify for the promotion.
• Tri-Star/Checkmyrebate.com, the third party fulfillment center handling the promotion didn’t receive/rejected the customer’s promotion request.
• They lost the paperwork.

Although some customers began receiving the promised promotion more than 120 days after signing up for Comcast, hundreds more are still waiting, and complaining.  A few managed to obtain service credits up to $299 (the retail cost of the Dell 10v) and told to “go buy your own.”   One Seattle television station intervened to help a Kenmore resident finally secure one in January, despite hopes it would have arrived before Christmas for re-gifting.

Escalating the matter to executive customer service is usually the best way to cut through Comcast’s red tape and secure the promotion customers are entitled to receive.

Darren, a Comcast customer who waited months for the cable company to make good on their offer gave some advice:

I started posting on Facebook and Twitter and immediately received a twitter from @ComcastMelissa and @ComcastBonnie. They told me to email: we_can_help@comcast.com and provide my account information so they can get me my netbook. I received an email from Sherri Carson, (Sherri_E_Carson@cable.comcast.com) at the corporate office – national customer service. On January 7th, 2010 she said “This is going to take about 2 weeks at the most. Sorry, I know you should have received some follow up, but I’m on it.”

The kicker: I emailed her yesterday to say hey, two weeks is almost up and I haven’t heard anything. Here is her response: “You should be receiving your netbook no later than 2/19 at the latest. I will get you a tracking number as soon as I get one. You can check this site in about two weeks.

Just don’t get your hopes too high for a Dell netbook.  Many finally receiving their promotional gift report an Asus Eee PC arrived instead.  Comcast put that in the fine print as well  — it reserved the right to make substitutions.

KING-TV Seattle helped this Kenmore, Washington viewer finally get her promised netbook after signing up for service in August, 2009.  A Comcast executive personally pleaded for her to stay with Comcast, despite the promotion problem, in this report.  (2 minutes)

Your Bill from MTN - Internet Overcharging Gift Wrapped

South Africans using the wireless services of MTN may be in for quite a shock in the coming weeks as the company attempts to collect for customer data usage charges it forgot to bill last fall.  Some customers have discovered the company automatically debited their checking accounts for thousands of dollars of “back usage” customers deny using.  Once again, when choosing whether to believe a faulty usage meter and billing system or the customer, Internet Overchargers believe the meter that fills their pockets with customer cash.

Benzi Kornizer is one customer impacted by the data discrepancy.  Despite using MTN’s data service for several months without incident, the company is trying to withdraw R10000 ($1,321 US Dollars) from Benzi’s checking account.  Kornizer pays R600 ($79) per month for 3GB of wireless data usage.  MTN’s usage meter, after the installation of a new billing system, claims he used more – more than $1,000 more.

“I received a letter from MTN, with no reference number, no date, no details of the problem and now I am having trouble getting my problem resolved,” Kornizer told ITWeb.

MTN believes in their usage meter, which it is using as justification to back-bill customers, despite admissions of ongoing billing problems.  Affected customers are receiving letters signed by customer relations executive Eddie Moyce admitting prior under-billing.

“MTN is in the process of re-processing the used data and customer call data records and will debit the affected customers’ accounts accordingly,” the letter states.

MTN’s billing practices, now a story in the South African media, resulted in a statement released by the company.

“We are extremely sensitive to the fact that billing errors have had an impact on the pockets of our subscribers. We will not suspend any voice or data contracts as a result of this error, and MTN will credit the accounts where double-billing errors occurred. MTN subscribers will also retain their loyalty points accrued over this period. MTN will investigate and evaluate every query on a case-by-case basis,” says Moyce.

He explains that the trouble stems from an upgrade of the billing system the company is using. “We have invested millions in a new billing system, which went live at the end of 2009 and is proving to be successful. However, we are still working hard to rectify the fallout from the previous system.”

The company admits the complete transition to the new billing system may take years to complete.  That leaves customers like Kornizer playing broadband usage roulette, never certain what the company’s meter will finally read, even months after the billing cycle ends.  Although MTN claims their meter is “proving to be successful,” customer complaints are pouring into consumer protection agencies and websites.

Kornizer is threatening to sue MTN in court.

Eddie Moyce, customer relations executive, spoke with MoneyWeb about the billing problems experienced by MTN. (5 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

A sampling of the complaints from just the last 48 hours about MTN’s Usage Meter on consumer site HelloPeter, which has logged more than 9,000 customer complaints thus far against MTN:

“My December bill for my MTN Data Contract suddenly hits R3000 despite an normal usage of +-R320. I call the Autopage Accounts only to be told that there is a billing problem. However, any reply from MTN that this is a backbilling issue can be refuted. On my itemised billing, it shows that on Christmas day I used 1.2GB of data in 2 sessions a few minutes apart! Now, my modem is a 1.8Mbps but downloading 600MB in seconds is absolutely incredible!”

“Last month I received a data usage bill for R1901 which I thought was insane as it has always been R249 per month.  I queried it and a itemised bill was sent though, which showed the ‘usage’, so I could not argue, then on the 23rd I received an SMS saying MTN incorrectly billed customers for that period and we would get a full credit for the incorrect amount. Then I check my account and another R2693 was debited from my account.”

“My average monthly MTN bill for internet access via a modem is R271.27 which was boosted by a November bill for R521.20. I paid this amount even though it looked very high. I was astounded by my December bill for R 5395.48! I spoke to [customer service] who tells me that I must wait 25 working days for my query to be assessed! In the meantime I must pay the R5394.48 or else my [service] will be suspended! MTN insists I must pay before they audit my account.”

“I migrated my internet from a 500 meg to a 3 gig package, completed the paperwork and was assured that everything is in place and will be faxed through for the migration. After receiving an account for over R11000,  I was informed that the migration was never made. I do not have the forms, but the personnel remembered the transaction and called the accounts department. Answer, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake and did not do the migration for you, but you did use the data so you must pay the account’.”

“Since October 2009 I’ve been billed R 16000 mostly for data use. My account was suspended three times without notice….  [The company won't send me] proof of the amount used.”

“My bill from MTN ranges between R1200 and R1400 a month – In October, November and December 2009, I received bills between R11 000 and R14 000 a month! When I queried these bills the answer was always the same: These are amounts that were not billed ‘forgot’ to bill me this amount and ‘there was an error’ on their system and this usage was not billed for. When asked for proof of some kind – seeing as I have not been using the account in December 2009, they told us they could not provide this. Nor would the call centre agent put me through to a Manager to discuss or sort it out. The last time we spoke to someone, they told us to ‘just pay it’ or make a payment plan to pay it off. I have no intention on paying any amounts due to their system faults and without proof of how I could use between R11 000 to R14 000 a month. Inconsistent billing, no service, no response to messages left, no responses to emails and faxes. I had no choice but to change service providers.”

“I am presently on the 500MB package for internet service, cost; R239/Mth. Yet my bill arrives stating just over R1400. I know I have not exceeded my allowance as I check it before and after each session and I only use it to Skype family back home, plus some VERY minor surfing on the odd occasion. This has been raised twice now with MTN, both times I have been greeted by a ‘it happens often’ mentality, told they can not find a reason why the bill is so high and the billing dept will get back to me in 21 days. This is going to be AFTER the money is taken out of my account. Evidence on this website indicates that grossly overcharging their clients is hardly an isolated occurrence here and there, but a standard procedure. This they seem to find an acceptable way to treat their customers. I wonder how they would feel if their clients all decided to settle bills in 21 days or at their leisure, through no fault of their own. To the present time this problem remains unresolved and not taken seriously by MTN.  TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.”

Just a quick note for those who dislike getting through the longer pieces here — thanks to a broken collarbone received last Friday, I’ll be writing considerably shorter pieces for awhile as I cope with one arm in a sling.  Thankfully, it appears things should heal on their own without a cast or pins, but physical therapy in about a month will likely be in the cards.  Thanks for being a regular reader and for your understanding.

While the United States argues over broadband speeds, pricing, and usage limits, a broadband speed war is breaking out in Mexico which could deliver millions of Mexicans better broadband service at lower prices than what providers in the United States and Canada offer many of their customers.

The first shot came from Telmex, owned by media tycoon Carlos Slim.  They announced a more than doubling of their company’s DSL speed from the current 2-4Mbps to more than 10Mbps.

Telmex is Mexico’s leading Internet Service Provider, and typically bundles its broadband service with a calling package.  Telmex currently sells up to 5Mbps service, bundled with a phone line with unlimited local and long distance calling, plus 200 minutes of free calling to the United States, other calling features, free wi-fi access in more than 120,000 locations, and a free wireless modem/router for approximately $78 a month.  New subscribers get a bond worth approximately $39 when they sign up for service.

Televisa’s Cablevision, a cable provider, announced over the weekend it would match Telmex.

“Cablevision will offer this year more than 10Mbps service across Mexico City and surrounding areas at very affordable prices,” Televisa Executive Vice President Alfonso de Angoitia tweeted.

Televisa has been playing catch-up to Telmex, but the cable company’s “triple-play” phone, broadband, and video package has been attracting considerable attention.  The Mexican authorities currently prohibit Telmex from offering video to customers because of market domination fears.

Cablevision standalone pricing for their current 2Mbps service is about $23 a month with a term contract.  Additional discounts are provided for bundled service — $40.33 a month for both broadband and telephone service.

The price war broke out because of anemic growth in the landline telephone business, and the potential revenue expanded broadband service packages could bring Mexican providers.

A selection of ads from Cablevision and Telmex. (3 minutes)

The battle between Cablevision and Scripps over the carriage of two popular cable channels has been resolved, but customers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are now wondering where their refunds are for three weeks of interrupted viewing.

“Why are we paying for two channels they’re not delivering,” asks Stop the Cap! reader Alvira in New Jersey.  Many others are wondering the same thing, now that Cablevision is billing customers for January service that delivered an incomplete cable lineup.

The town supervisor of Ramapo, in Rockland County, New York, is demanding rebates for customers.

“We want a refund,” said Christopher St. Lawrence.  “We have over 10,000 [customers] right here in the town of Ramapo.”

WABC-TV New York reports on customer demands for refunds from Cablevison. (2 minutes)

The resolution over the carriage dispute came last week, after negotiations finally achieved an agreement restoring the channels.

“This is the resolution everyone wanted, and to have achieved anything less would have been a profound disappointment,” said John Lansing, executive vice president of Scripps.

Scripps had demanded about 75 cents per month from each subscriber for the two networks.  Cablevision formerly paid 25 cents per month.  In the end, industry watchers suggest the two companies ended up agreeing on about 45 cents per month.

Time Warner Cable Speed Test Results (Turbo)

The Rochester-Finger Lakes Division of Time Warner Cable has upgraded upload speed for Road Runner Standard service customers, up from 384kbps to 1Mbps effective over the weekend.  Stop the Cap! reader Sergey first noticed a change on Thursday evening, but it took the weekend for the upgrade to make its way across the region.  Standard service is now 10/1Mbps in Rochester, although the Powerboost feature, also included for all Road Runner customers, can create speed test results showing 20-25Mbps download speeds, at least at the start of a file transfer.

The upgrade may make Road Runner Turbo less valuable, as no corresponding increase in upload speed for that package has been noted.  Turbo provides Rochester Road Runner customers with 15/1Mbps service and remains at those speeds.

According to Time Warner Cable’s website, the increase brings Rochester closer to the speeds other nearby cities have.  Buffalo enjoys double the upload speed, however.

• Buffalo/Western NY:  Standard: 10/1Mbps   Turbo: 15/2Mbps
• Syracuse/Central NY: Standard: 10/1Mbps  Turbo: 15/1Mbps
• Albany: Standard: 10/1Mbps  Turbo: 15/1Mbps

If you are not receiving improved speeds yet, unplug your cable modem briefly and plug it back in.

Road Runner Customer Speed Test

DC Circuit Court

Once again, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is proving to be the best friend corporations have to unravel regulatory policy and consumer protection laws that might violate corporate free-speech or trade rights.  It has become a favored venue for telecommunications providers who want to be rid of pesky prohibitions or reasonable regulation.

After a series of arguments, universally considered disastrous for the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate broadband, the cable operator may want to send flowers to the Court… a lot of them.

Earlier this month, attorneys for the FCC defended their right to tell Comcast it cannot throttle its customers’ broadband speeds.  The FCC maintains it has regulatory authority over broadband service, claiming such power could be inferred from Title I, Section 230(b) of the Communications Act, which states that it is the policy of the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet” and “to promote the continued development of the Internet.”  From that the FCC wrote a policy statement stating it was, “necessary to ensure that providers of telecommunications for Internet access or Internet Protocol-enabled (IP-enabled) services are operated in a neutral manner.”  That was the basis for their crackdown against Comcast’s speed throttle.

After the arguments between Comcast and the FCC concluded, court-watchers believe the Commission’s days of broadband oversight are numbered.

Ars-Technica’s Matthew Lasar documented the probable train wreck for those who seek to rein in provider abuses.

At issue is whether the FCC has been granted direct legal authority for Internet regulation by Congress. Comcast, and as it turned out many on the Court, believe the FCC is relying on policy statements, not written law, for their regulatory authority over Internet Service Providers.  The Court transcript says it all:

Randolph

“In looking this over I found a good many situations in which Congress has instructed the FCC to study the Internet,” said Justice A. Raymond Randolph, [appointed to the Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990], “and taxation of transit sales transactions on the Internet, and this, and that, and the other thing. But what I don’t find is any congressional directive to the FCC to regulate the Internet.”

It wasn’t hard for [Comcast attorney Helgi G.] Walker to summon a response to this observation. “That’s right,” she declared.

And with that, Comcast had won. Even before the FCC’s attorney got to the bench, the judges were doing Walker’s job, swatting aside arguments on behalf of the agency’s Order sanctioning the ISP. Pro-FCC briefs to the court had noted that the Supreme Court recognized the Commission’s ancillary authority in its Brand X decision, a crucial ISP access case. Randolph threw this bullet point into the trash icon, referring to the “offhand statement” in Brand X. “And the Supreme Court has moved so far away from that kind of an analysis in today’s modern jurisprudence,” he added, “it seems antiquated.”

By the time Commission lawyer Austin C. Schlick began his rebuttal, Randolph moved in for the kill.

“May it please the Court,” Schlick began. “Ms. Walker hasn’t attempted to defend the actual network practices that were employed here, and so I won’t spend time just… ”

Sentelle

[Justice David] Sentelle cut him off. “Well, her position is that she doesn’t have to,” he tersely noted. “She’s here to say that you don’t have any business inquiring into those practices, ergo we don’t either.”

That’s true, Schlick conceded. “Right,” Sentelle warned. “So you may want to move on to something that’s at issue then, Counsel.”

And that was largely that.  The Court is very likely to hand down a ruling that strips the FCC of its ability to regulate or oversee broadband service in the United States.  Even Schlick knew what has forthcoming:

By the end of the discussion Schlick was bargaining with the judges. “If I’m going to lose I would like to lose more narrowly,” he confided. “But above all, we want guidance from this Court so that when we do this rule-making, if we decide rules are appropriate we’d like to know what we need to do to establish jurisdiction.”

“We don’t give guidance,” Randolph grumbled, “we decide cases.”

Comcast should have bought lunch for everyone.

So now public policy groups and advocates of FCC oversight over broadband, particularly as it relates to Net Neutrality, are scrambling to figure out what to do next.

It comes down to four possible outcomes:

1. One of the parties appeals the case;
2. Corporate control of broadband without oversight is assured, as the FCC is stripped of any regulatory authority;
3. The FCC manages to find some other wording from laws Congress passed that justifies lawmakers wanted the agency to oversee and regulate broadband services;
4. Congress passes new laws specifically enacting broadband regulatory authority for the FCC.

Of course, today’s bland authority over broadband comes as a result of legislative compromise from the great regulatory battles over telecommunications during the Clinton Administration.  Providers argued less is more, and have grudgingly accepted limited FCC authority over some of their services, except when a challenge threatens to cost them control or a lot of money.

With a hostile reception at the Court, and the FCC’s “surrender first, fight later” legal argument, an appeal may only delay the inevitable.  The FCC does have plenty of Congressional directives to review which may permit it to enact Net Neutrality protection, but another provider lawsuit opposing Net Neutrality is inevitable.  In fact, without the passage of a clear, concise federal law providing the Commission with explicit broadband regulatory authority enacting Net Neutrality and other protections, the aptly-numbered “2″ is the likely outcome for consumers.

Thankfully, Rep. Edward Markey’s (D-MA) Internet Freedom Preservation Act would solve much of this problem, by forbidding Internet service providers from doing anything to “block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade” access to any lawful content from any lawful application or device.

Getting it passed in a Congress mired in division is another matter.  The best way to overcome that is a strong showing of support for Markey’s legislation in calls and letters to your members of Congress, and that you are carefully watching their votes on this issue.

The issue of copyright enforcement is a thorny one, and Stop the Cap! doesn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it, except when it sneaks its way into our issues.

CNET News started a brush fire yesterday when they quoted a Verizon representative who claimed the company had been kicking off users who use peer to peer (typically torrent) software to exchange copyrighted material.  The gist of the piece was that Verizon has been receiving copyright infringement notices from copyright enforcers and they’ve been notifying their customers to stop or risk service suspension.

“We’ve cut some people off,” Verizon Online spokeswoman Bobbi Henson told CNET. “We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don’t throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing. Verizon does not have bandwidth caps.”

With that purported admission, the story was off and running.  We received several news tips about it from readers.

But this morning, Henson claims she was misquoted and the company has not actually suspended anyone’s account, but reserves the right to do so.

For now, anyway, it appears there has been no policy change at Verizon.  The company dispatches canned e-mail messages to account holders targeted in copyright complaints asking them to stop the infringing activity.  Verizon claims most don’t have to be warned twice.  That’s a commonly found policy at most providers.

The movie and music industry have reduced the number of lawsuits it brings against alleged violators, but that doesn’t mean they’ve given up the fight.

Instead, both industries have launched lobbying and astroturf efforts to inject copyright protection into the broadband expansion and Net Neutrality debates.  The Arts+Labs “think tank” was a perfect example of that, trying to conflate Net Neutrality with piracy in the music industry’s dog and pony show performance at the New York City Council Technology In Government Committee hearing regarding Net Neutrality.

The industry hopes it can insert something akin to a “three strikes” provision into telecommunications law that would bar repeat copyright violators from having Internet access. Unfortunately, history has shown that the bar has been set so low as to what represents “proof,” a mere allegation under these policies could be sufficient to put your finances and potential broadband access in peril.