Comcast Monday announced it was exempting its new Xbox streaming video service from the company’s long standing 250GB monthly usage cap, claiming since the network doesn’t exist on the public Internet, there is no reason to cap its usage.

Net Neutrality advocates immediately denounced the cable operator for violating Net Neutrality, giving favorable treatment to its own video service while leaving Netflix, Amazon, and others under its usage cap regime.

Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn:

“The Xbox 360 provides a number of video services to compete for customer dollars, yet only one service is not counted against the data cap—the one provided by Comcast.” Sohn said. “This is nothing less than a wake-up call to the Commission to show it is serious about protecting the Open Internet.”

Stop the Cap! believes Comcast also inadvertently undercut its prime argument for the company’s 250GB usage cap — that it assures “heavy users” don’t negatively impact the online experience of other customers:

We work hard to manage our network resources effectively and fairly to ensure a high-quality online experience for all of our customers. But XFINITY Internet service runs on a shared network, so every user’s experience is potentially affected by his or her neighbors’ Internet usage.

Our number one priority is to ensure that every customer has a superior Internet service experience. Consistent with that goal, the threshold is intended to protect the online experience of the vast majority of our customers whose Internet speeds could be degraded because one or more of their neighbors engages in consistent high-volume Internet downloads and uploads.

The threshold also addresses potential problems that can be caused by the exceedingly small percentage of subscribers who may engage in very high-volume data consumption (over 250 GB in a calendar month). By applying a very high threshold on monthly consumption, we can help preserve a good online experience for everyone.

Comcast argues around the exemption of the Xbox service by reclassifying it as somehow separate from the public Internet.  The company then tries to claim the Xbox app functions more like an extra set top box, not as a data service.  But, in fact, it –is– a data service delivered over the same cable lines as Comcast’s broadband service, subject to the same “last-mile congestion problem” Comcast dubiously uses as the primary justification for placing limits on customers.

Cable providers who limit broadband use routinely use the “shared network experience” excuse as a justification for usage control measures.  Since cable broadband delivers a fixed amount of bandwidth into individual neighborhoods which everyone shares, a single user or small group of users can theoretically create congestion-related slowdowns during peak usage times.  Cable operators have successfully addressed this problem with upgrades to DOCSIS 3 technology, which supports a considerably larger pipeline unlikely to be congested by a few “heavy users.”

Comcast’s argument the Xbox service doesn’t deserve to be capped because it is delivered over Comcast’s own internal network misses the point.  That content reaches customers over the same infrastructure Comcast uses to reach every customer.  If too many customers access the service at the same time, it is subject to precisely the same congestion-related slowdowns as their broadband service.  Data is data — only the cable company decides whether to treat it equally with its other services or give it special, privileged attention.

Even if Comcast argues the Xbox streaming service exists on its own segregated, exclusive “data channel,” that represents part of a broader data pipeline that could have been dedicated to general Internet use.  The fact that special pipeline is available exclusively for Comcast’s chosen favorites, while keeping usage limits on immediate competitors, is discriminatory.

Comcast customers who have lived under an inflexible 250GB usage limit since 2008 should be wondering why the company can suddenly open unlimited access to some services while refusing to adjust its own usage limits on general broadband service.

Stop the Cap! believes Comcast has forfeit its own justification for usage caps and network management techniques that can slow customer Internet speeds.  We have no problem with the company offering unlimited access to the Xbox streaming service. But the company must treat general Internet access with equal generosity, removing the unjustified and arbitrary usage cap it imposed on customers in 2008.  After all, if the company can find vast, unlimited resources for a service it launched only this year, it should be able to find equal resources for a service it has sold customers (at a remarkable profit) for more than a decade.

Anything less makes us believe Comcast’s usage caps are more about giving some services an unfair advantage — violating the very Net Neutrality guidelines Comcast claimed it would voluntarily honor.

Stop the Cap! strongly believes usage caps are increasingly less about good network management and more about controlling and monetizing the online experience, seeking marketplace advantages and new revenue streams from consumers who already pay some of the world’s highest prices for broadband service.  As we’ve argued since 2008, Internet Overcharging through usage caps and usage based billing is also an end run around Net Neutrality.  The evidence is now apparent for all to see.

[Thanks to our readers Scott and Yannio for sharing developments.]

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPRI Providence What Would You Give Up for the Internet 3-22-12.mp4[/flv]

What would you give up to keep the Internet?  WPRI in Providence ponders what people would be willing to sacrifice if it meant they could keep broadband service.  A new study from a Boston consulting group proves that Americans increasingly depend on immediate, fast, and affordable access to the Internet.  Providers aren’t asking for you to stop showering, give up sex, or throw in the towel on family vacations.  Some just want you to pay more for less service at a time when a lot of people treat the Internet as their primary means of communication.  (Loud Volume Alert!)  (6 minutes)

West Virginia continues to be broadband challenged, with or without the help of Frontier Communications’ DSL service, which continues to be criticized for being woefully “oversold.”

Now some of Frontier’s most frustrated customers have found Facebook, and hope to encourage the company to deliver better speeds through their Fix Frontier DSL Now page.

Customers are especially peeved in areas where they are sold “up to 12Mbps” service, but cannot break 1Mbps during peak usage times when inadequate infrastructure cannot support customer usage demands.  Some are taking their complaints to the West Virginia Public Service Commission:

I am a long-time subscriber to Frontier Communications’ “High-speed Internet Max” DSL service. I live in the Frankford, West Virginia, telephone exchange (304-497-XXXX), which is an area that has always been served by Frontier. We never had Verizon service at my home.

When Frontier installed DSL service in our area, we immediately cancelled our satellite Internet service and signed up. Initially, we had business-class DSL which was very satisfactory. Later, we discontinued our business operation and downgraded to the residential “High-Speed Internet Max” DSL service. That remained quite satisfactory until about a year and a half ago, when service quality deteriorated to the point of being unusable.

During the evening hours, we generally log download speeds of anywhere from 150kbps (0.15MBPS) to 450kbps (0.45MBPS) , with around 300kbps (0.3MBPS) being the norm. This is barely adequate for accessing a static web page, and is totally inadequate for common tasks such as watching a video on YouTube or even streaming music. Speeds do improve, sometimes into the range of 1500kbps (1.5MBPS), in the middle of the night and the afternoons, when we are generally asleep or at work, but are consistently unusable during the evening hours when we are home.

Customers pay around $40 a month for this level of broadband service, and customers calling for assistance are being told to wait:

I have called Frontier’s tech support and opened numerous trouble tickets. Each time, a technician will come out to our house, test the line, pronounce it “perfect” from the house to the switching station, then explain that the problem is lack of bandwidth. Sometimes they say the bottleneck is in Bluefield. Sometimes they say it is between Marlinton and Ashburn, Virginia. In other words, Frontier does not have enough bandwidth available to meet customer needs.

The last time we put in a trouble ticket, the technician didn’t even come to our home. He just called and said he would put the ticket on the stack with all of the other ones, and perhaps the problem would be solved in a couple of years. A couple of years? Yet, I am constantly bombarded with ads asking me to buy Frontier’s high-speed DSL service at rates as low as half of what I pay.

As Stop the Cap! has reported previously, Frontier has acknowledged the problems in West Virginia and promised backbone upgrades to handle the influx of new customers, particularly those adopted from Verizon Communications in 2010 when the company purchased their landline network in the state.  But a schedule of promised upgrades disappeared off Frontier’s website, and according to our readers, continues to be overdue.

The loudest complainers are offered $5 monthly service credits for their troubles, but customers don’t want the money, they want something that actually qualifies as “broadband service.”

Here is how you can tell where your problem might be:

Technical Line Fault Symptoms (these can be corrected by a local technician’s service call to your home)

1. Consistently low speeds that do not vary much with time of day or on weekends;
2. Weather-related service interruptions or slowdowns – poor quality cables, fittings, and other problems are often most visible during the wet spring months;
3. Loud hum or static on your voice line when making or receiving calls;
4. Hearing conversations from other customers on your phone line;

Oversold Broadband (these problems require Frontier to regionally address problems that affect a much larger group of customers)

1. Dramatically reduced speeds during evenings and weekends that consistently speed up later at night or during the workday;
2. Similar speed-related issues affecting friends and neighbors in the same neighborhood or community;
3. Pages that do not load completely, time out, or require refreshing to load properly;
4. “Tracert” reports that indicate certain upstream connections Frontier uses to connect to its national network are timing out or require multiple attempts to get through.

The Republican takeover of the North Carolina legislature in 2010 was great news for some of the state’s largest telecommunications companies, who successfully received almost universal support from those legislators to outlaw community broadband service in North Carolina — the 19th state to throw up impediments to a comfortable corporate broadband duopoly.

Dialing Up the Dollars — produced by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, found companies including AT&T, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and the state cable lobby collectively spent more than $1.5 million over the past five years on campaign contributions.  Most of the money went to legislators willing to enact legislation that would largely prohibit publicly-owned competitive broadband networks from operating in the state.

North Carolina consumer groups have fought anti-community broadband initiatives for the past several years, with most handily defeated in the legislature.  But in 2010, Republicans assumed control of both the House and Senate for the first time since the late 1800s, and the change in party control made all the difference.  Of 97 Republican lawmakers who voted, 95 supported HB 129, the corporate-written broadband competition ban introduced by Rep. Marilyn Avila, a legislator who spent so much time working with the cable lobby, we’ve routinely referred to her as “(R-Time Warner Cable).”

Democrats were mostly opposed to the measure: 45 against, 25 for.  Stop the Cap! called out those lawmakers as well, many of whom received substantial industry money in the form of campaign donations.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Community Fiber Networks Are Faster Cheaper Than Incumbents.flv[/flv]

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance pondered broadband speeds and value in North Carolina and found commercial providers lacking.  (3 minutes)

*AT&T’s total includes contributions from BellSouth in 2006 and 2008 and AT&T Mobility LLC. **CenturyLink’s total includes contributions from Embarq Corp.

According to Catharine Rice, president of the SouthEast Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, HB 129 received the greatest lobbying support from Time Warner Cable, the state cable lobbying association — the North Carolina Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCCTA), and CenturyLink.

Following the bill’s passage, the NCCTA issued a press release stating, “We are grateful to the members of the General Assembly who stood up for good government by voting for this bill.”

CenturyLink sent e-mail to its employees suggesting they write thank you letters to supportive legislators:

 “Thanks to the passage of House Bill 129, CenturyLink has gained added confidence to invest in North Carolina and grow our business in the state.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CenturyLink Frustration.flv[/flv]

A CenturyLink customer endures frustration from an infinite loop while calling customer service. Is this how the company will grow the business in North Carolina?  (1 minute)

Consumers Pay the Price

In North Carolina, both Time Warner Cable and AT&T increased prices in 2011.

After the bill became law without the signature of Gov. Bev Purdue, Time Warner Cable increased cable rates across North Carolina.  CenturyLink’s version of AT&T’s U-verse — Prism — has seen only incremental growth with around 70,000 customers nationwide.  The phone company also announced an Internet Overcharging scheme — usage caps — on their broadband customers late last fall.

Someone had to pay for the enormous largesse of campaign cash headed into lawmaker pockets.  For the state’s largest cable operator — Time Warner Cable — another rate increase handily covered the bill.

In all, lawmakers received thousands of dollars each from the state’s incumbent telecom companies:

• Lawmakers who voted in favor of HB 129 received, on average, $3,768, which is 76 percent more than the average $2,135 received by the those who voted against the bill;
• 78 Republican lawmakers received an average of $3,824, which is 36 percent more than the average $2,803 received by 53 Democrats;
• Those in key legislative leadership positions received, on average, $13,531, which is more than double the $2,753 average received by other lawmakers;
• The four primary sponsors of the bill received a total of $37,750, for an average of $9,438, which is more than double the $3,658 received on average by those who did not sponsor the bill.

Even worse for rural North Carolina, little progress has been made by commercial providers to expand broadband in less populated areas of the state.  AT&T earlier announced it was largely finished expanding its U-verse network and has stalled DSL deployment as it determines what to do with that part of its business.

In fact, the most aggressive broadband expansion has come from existing community providers North Carolina’s lawmakers voted to constrain. Salisbury’s Fibrant has opted for a slower growth strategy to meet the demand for its service and handle the expense associated with installing it.  Wilson’s Greenlight fiber to the home network supplies 100/100Mbps speeds to those who want it today.

In Upside-Down World at the state capitol in Raleigh, community-owned providers are the problem, not today’s duopoly of phone and cable companies that deliver overpriced, comparatively slow broadband while ignoring rural areas of the state.

Key Players

Some of the key players that were “motivated” to support the cable and phone company agenda, according to the report:

Tillis collected $37,000 from Big Telecom for his last election, in which he ran unopposed. Tillis was in a position to make sure the telecom industry's agenda was moved through the new Republican-controlled legislature.

Thom Tillis, who became speaker of the house in 2011, received $37,000 in 2010–2011 (despite running unopposed in 2010), which is more than any other lawmaker and significantly more than the $4,250 he received 2006–2008 combined. AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon each gave Tillis $1,000 in early-mid January, just before he was sworn in as speaker on January 26. Tillis voted for the bill, and was in a key position to ensure it moved along the legislative pipeline.

The others:

• Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger received $19,500, also a bump from the $13,500 he received in 2008 and the $15,250 in 2006. He voted for the bill.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown received $9,000, significantly more than the $2,750 he received in 2006 and 2008 combined. Brown voted in favor of the bill.
• Democratic Leader Martin Nesbitt, who voted for the bill, received $8,250 from telecommunication donors; Nesbitt had received no contributions from telecommunication donors in earlier elections.

The law is now firmly in place, leaving North Carolina wondering where things go from here.  AT&T earlier announced it had no solutions for the rural broadband challenge, and now it and other phone and cable companies have made certain communities across North Carolina don’t get to implement their solutions either.

What You Can Do

1. If you live in North Carolina, check to see how your elected officials voted on this measure, and how much they collected from the corporate interests who supported their campaigns.  Then contact them and let them know how disappointed you are they voted against competition, against lower rates, against better broadband, and with out of state cable and phone companies responsible for this bill and the status quo it delivers.  Don’t support lawmakers that don’t support your interests.
2. If you live outside of North Carolina and we alert you to a similar measure being introduced in your state, get involved. It is much easier to keep these corporate welfare bills from becoming law than it is to repeal them once enacted.  If you enjoy paying higher prices for reduced service and slow speeds, don’t get involved in the fight. If you want something better and don’t appreciate big corporations writing laws in this country, tell your lawmakers to vote against these measures or else you will take your vote elsewhere.
3. Support community broadband. If you are lucky enough to be served by a publicly-owned broadband provider that delivers good service, give them your business.  Yes, it may cost a few dollars more when incumbent companies are willing to slash rates to drive these locally owned providers out of business, but you will almost always receive a technically superior connection from fiber-based providers and the money earned stays right in your community. Plus, unlike companies like CenturyLink, they won’t slap usage caps on your broadband service.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Cable – Fiber Spot.flv[/flv]

What do you do when your company doesn’t have a true, fiber to home network and faces competition from someone that does?  You obfuscate like Time Warner Cable did in this ad produced for their Southern California customers. (1 minute)

In the era of today’s “triple play” package of voice, data, and phone service, satellite television providers have been left at a competitive disadvantage.  Both Dish Network and DirecTV can sell you all the television signals you want, but their satellite-based distribution limits the options to include broadband and telephone service in the package.  Now Dish wants to convert some of their satellite spectrum to sell voice and data service over a network of land based wireless towers that will put the company in direct competition with AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen hopes to avoid making the same mistakes that threaten to kill a similar venture — LightSquared, because of interference concerns.

Dish’s spectrum is way, way up the radio dial, above 2,000MHz.  Other spectrum users in the neighborhood are primarily low-powered, line of sight communications, often satellite-based.  LightSquared’s service would have operated at around 1,500MHz, had it not obliterated reception of global positioning satellite services (GPS) in certain instances.  Whenever new spectrum users begin to move into a neighborhood, those already there feel threatened, primarily from the fear of interference problems.

Both LightSquared and Dish’s proposed services operate at considerably higher power than other incumbent users, and interference to existing services is a proven problem when sensitive reception equipment is unprepared to deal with signal overload.  The Federal Communications Commission found just cause to deny LightSquared operating permission for precisely that reason.  Ergen hopes to sell the FCC on a plan he says will avoid those interference problems.

Ergen

Ergen’s spectrum doesn’t sit immediately next door to other, existing users.  His frequencies are comparable to living the next block over, and there is a protective fence keeping the neighbors apart.

“It’s not as close to GPS, so it’s unlikely to interfere,” Matthew Desch, chief executive officer of Iridium Communications Inc., which operates more than 60 satellites, told Bloomberg News. “But the approval is going to take some time. The FCC is going to make sure they don’t have another LightSquared problem on their hands.”

Mike Marcus, director of Marcus Spectrum Solutions LLC adds Dish has some space between its frequencies — known as a guard band — and other users.  Marcus believes Dish won’t have an interference problem unless existing wireless carriers market handsets and other equipment insufficiently selective to reject interference from higher powered users nearby.

But whether Dish will ultimately spend the billions required to build a nationwide satellite and land-based broadband and phone network to accompany its existing satellite service remains unknown.

Bloomberg reports Wall Street analysts may prefer Dish sell its spectrum assets for a quick profit.  Barclays Capital estimates Dish’s spectrum could net the company about $7.3 billion.  If AT&T or Verizon Wireless were buyers, it would also protect them from new competition in the wireless market.

Regulators may be prepared to limit any such sale, however.  Industry analysts note a similar license for LightSquared required government approval before leasing capacity (or selling the network outright) to AT&T or Verizon Wireless.  The government may seek the same limits on Dish Network’s spectrum.

Ergen may have the final word however.

Vijay Jayant, an analyst at ISI Group in New York:

If the government sets rules that limit how Dish can use the spectrum, Ergen may choose to hoard it, said Jayant, which could be antithetical to the government’s mission of promoting wireless competition.

“Dish isn’t a patsy for the government,” Jayant said. “Dish’s attitude is, ‘Make the rules fair and we’ll do the right thing. Make them unfair and we’ll sit on the spectrum,’ and it will be another black eye for the government.”