Recent Headlines
October 2, 2009
Be Sure to Read Part One: Astroturf Overload — Broadband for America = One Giant Industry Front Group for an important introduction to what this super-sized industry front group is all about. Members of Broadband for America Red: A company or group actively engaging in anti-consumer lobbying, opposes Net Neutrality, supports Internet Overcharging, belongs to […]
October 2, 2009
Astroturf: One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is “Astroturf lobbying” – creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to […]
September 27, 2009
Hong Kong remains bullish on broadband. Despite the economic downturn, City Telecom continues to invest millions in constructing one of Hong Kong’s largest fiber optic broadband networks, providing fiber to the home connections to residents. City Telecom’s HK Broadband service relies on an all-fiber optic network, and has been dubbed “the Verizon FiOS of Hong […]
September 23, 2009
BendBroadband, a small provider serving central Oregon, breathlessly announced the imminent launch of new higher speed broadband service for its customers after completing an upgrade to DOCSIS 3. Along with the launch announcement came a new logo of a sprinting dog the company attaches its new tagline to: “We’re the local dog. We better be […]
September 23, 2009
Stop the Cap! reader Rick has been educating me about some of the new-found aggression by Shaw Communications, one of western Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, in expanding its business reach across Canada. Woe to those who get in the way. Novus Entertainment is already familiar with this story. As Stop the Cap! reported previously, Shaw […]
September 22, 2009
The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail. [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s] proposal – to codify and enforce some […]
September 21, 2009
In March 2000, two cable magnates sat down for the cable industry equivalent of My Dinner With Andre. Fine wine, beautiful table linens, an exquisite meal, and a Monopoly board with pieces swapped back and forth representing hundreds of thousands of Canadian consumers. Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw drew a line on the western Ontario […]
September 11, 2009
Just like FairPoint Communications, the Towering Inferno of phone companies haunting New England, Frontier Communications is making a whole lot of promises to state regulators and consumers, if they’ll only support the deal to transfer ownership of phone service from Verizon to them. This time, Frontier is issuing a self-serving press release touting their investment […]
September 7, 2009
I see it took all of five minutes for George Ou and his friends at Digital Society to be swayed by the tunnel vision myopia of last week’s latest effort to justify Internet Overcharging schemes. Until recently, I’ve always rationalized my distain for smaller usage caps by ignoring the fact that I’m being subsidized by […]
September 1, 2009
In 2007, we took our first major trip away from western New York in 20 years and spent two weeks an hour away from Calgary, Alberta. After two weeks in Kananaskis Country, Banff, Calgary, and other spots all over southern Alberta, we came away with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good Alberta […]
August 31, 2009
A federal appeals court in Washington has struck down, for a second time, a rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the size of the nation’s largest cable operators to 30% of the nation’s pay television marketplace, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The 30% rule, designed to keep no single company from controlling […]
August 27, 2009
Less than half of Americans surveyed by PC Magazine report they are very satisfied with the broadband speed delivered by their Internet service provider. PC Magazine released a comprehensive study this month on speed, provider satisfaction, and consumer opinions about the state of broadband in their community. The publisher sampled more than 17,000 participants, checking […]
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Yep, this isn’t about “your old modem isn’t capable of the wonderful new speeds we’re providing to your service tier”, it’s about “we know your customer-owned modem is capable of up to 38Mbps, but we’re deliberately capping it below that until you rent one of our modems so that we get our customer equipment paid off by YOU and considerable profit after that! – Thank You For ‘Chooooosing’ Comcast!” It’s what TWC is doing to me this moment even after recently raising the Standard tier to “up to 50Mbps”. I get just 21Mbps now, though my modem used to provide… Read more »
I believe that there are issues intermixing DOSCIS 2/3 modems on a node. It’s been about 5 years since I’ve worked with a CMTS so I am by no means an expert but I believe It’s similar (although by no means the same) as mixing wireless standards on your home router. That one wireless b/g laptop might be dragging down that fancy new laptop of yours. Another way to think about it is a highway. Cable has an advantage of having several lanes (6 MHz channels) to drive on. Just because you are on a 5 lane highway doesn’t mean… Read more »
Hey, Phillip – While not related to Comcast directly — I rent my modem from TWC, and while I’d rather buy one outright, there’s one big factor that’s stopping me: I’ve had a number of service problems over the years, often intermittent problems, and Time Warner’s first response (even with leased equipment) has been to blame the modem. In fact, in one case, I went through two replacement modems before Time Warner were even willing to consider there might be a problem on the line. The technician who finally rectified the issue told me “Oh, yeah, a lot of your… Read more »
James, my suggestion would be to switch to TWC rental modems, and fry 2-3 of them over the course of several weeks by running 24v AC into the coax connector. That should make you even for 2 modems THEY fried! A friend of mine has a similar problem with voltage too high on his coax. I have a nice thrift store modem right here that he could use to save a lot of money, but he’s afraid to take it knowing it’ll only last a few months. I’m not sure if those coax “surge suppressors” built into some power strips… Read more »
Frank Sinatra is dead.
I went out and bought a new doc sis 3 compatible modem…now they are still trying to charge me the 10 dollar fee and my account is showing two modems, both the one I bought and the older rented one, which is ridiculous since I spent 20 minutes on the phone with them setting up the new one, they are well aware that the rented modem is no longer hooked up, when I called and chatted online , they told me I needed to return the modem I already disposed of. The letter and representatives told me they couldn’t take… Read more »
My numerous letters from Comcast about the upgraded modem did not inlcude – the ordering by telephone would be charged fees. I logged in to my Comcast account and a pop-up said the modem would be shipped. I had questions, I called customer service- what a joke- Comcast offers no true customer service. Some lady in India – no speak English could not assist me at all as she did not know English. I returned the modem – along with the bill with the charges for shipping – sent a check for the monthly bill, less the shipping charges. Rec’d… Read more »
I didn’t order the new modem yet and suddenly I could not connect to any websites. Strange, I checked Firefox no connection, I checked Explorer, no connection, I rebooted my wireless router, still can’t connect to anything. I finally reset the modem and everything works again. Although it’s been extremely sloooooow. Really sloooooow. I explained all of this to my husband and he says, “Comcast is doing it on purpose”. I agree. It’s a scam so they can get their $10 per month extra that I don’t have to pay now for the old modem. I ordered the new modem… Read more »
We used to have adelphia Comcast took over we were grandfathered in at 135.00 a month for cable TV and internet all the HBO”s show time all the channels and then somebody at Comcast don’t know who flipped a switch and said we have no past history with you your new bill is now 235.00 a month we were having problems with all the western satilite channels I unhooked all the cable boxes and the modem that was 7 years old and gave them all to the technician when he showed up bye bye Comcast only to have Comcast call… Read more »