On a morning conference call with Wall Street analysts, Comcast continues to misrepresent its vision of broadband usage caps and usage-based billing, claiming customer preferences echoed through Comcast’s performance in the marketplace will tell the company what is “best for consumers,” and guide Comcast how to realize the most value for shareholders.

Wall Street is very interested in usage caps and usage-based billing because cable operators can protect video revenue threatened by cord-cutting and boost revenue earned from customers who exceed their allowance.

Vijay Jayant, and analyst at Evercore ISI, quickly zeroed in on the potential loss of anticipated revenue from Comcast’s recent decision to boost its data cap from 300GB to 1TB, something Jiyant characterized as a “hurdle” for future usage-related charges.

“Well we have one terabyte. We moved it up from 300 gigabyte to one terabyte in 14% of our markets where we have usage-based pricing,” responded Neil Smit, Comcast Cable’s president and CEO. “We think we’re going to continue to adjust and look at it as the market evolves and as usage evolves. We have different pricing models, some based on speed, some based on usage, and we’re going to be flexible and kind of let the market tell us which way is best for consumers and how we add the most value. We continue to add speeds. We’ve upped speeds 17 times in 15 years. We’ve built out the fastest Wi-Fi. So we’re going to continue to invest in the network to stay ahead of things.”

Smit’s response was incomplete, however.

Smit

Comcast’s usage and speed-based pricing models are hardly “flexible” and do not co-exist in the same markets. Customers are compelled to obey Comcast’s usage cap, face overlimit fees up to $200 a month, or pay an additional $50 a month to buy back their old unlimited use service. In Comcast markets without usage caps, the cable company only sells speed-based internet tiers with no enforced caps.

Comcast has consciously avoided allowing customers to choose between speed-based or usage-based tiers, because years of experience among other cable operators quickly proved customers intensely dislike usage caps of any kind. In fact, the largest percentage of complaints filed with the FCC about Comcast are about its compulsory usage cap trial and the fees associated with it.

One reason for that hostility may be that Comcast’s broadband prices do not drop as a result of the introduction of usage caps in a service area. The customer effectively receives a lower value broadband product as a result of its arbitrary usage limit, and the potential exposure to overlimit fees or a very expensive “insurance” plan to avoid the cap altogether. Earlier trials offered some customers a small discount if they kept usage under 5GB a month, a difficult prospect for most and in any case not much of a revenue threat for Comcast.

If Comcast was seriously interested in what its customers think about its usage cap trial, it need only review the FCC’s complaint database. According to a Freedom of Information Law request from The Wall Street Journal, nearly 8,000 complaints received by the FCC in the second half of 2015 were about data caps, and most of those were directed at Comcast.

Comcast’s claim it will let the marketplace decide only delivers a distorted view about usage caps, because many Comcast customers have only one other competitive choice, and there is a significant chance that provider caps customer’s broadband usage as well. AT&T, for example, caps its customers at a level even stingier than Comcast. Those caps have not been enforced with overlimit fees on customer bills (except for AT&T’s DSL customers), although AT&T suggests it is getting serious about collecting future overlimit fees. If Comcast gains new customers leaving AT&T to avoid smaller caps, Comcast executives seem to believe they can claim consumers have ’embraced’ Comcast’s usage billing. But we know that is about as credible as an election in North Korea.

Time Warner Cable has been one of the few honest players about usage billing, giving customers the option of keeping unlimited or switching to a capped plan for a discount. More than 99% of customers have chosen to stay with unlimited and only a few thousand have chosen to limit their usage for a small discount. An honest market test from Comcast would extend a similar option to customers. Keep unlimited or voluntarily limit usage for a small discount. Given this kind of test, we expect the overwhelming majority of customers would keep unlimited at all costs. Doing so would hurt shareholder value, however.

The only value Comcast is concerned with is how much more money they can charge customers for broadband service. In America’s broadband duopoly, where speed-based broadband pricing is already outrageously high, usage caps and usage billing are nothing more than a greedy cash grab. When money is at stake, reputation comes in a distant second at Comcast, as the company continues to prove its poor reputation with American consumers is well-deserved.

Broadband life in Alaska is usually a choice (if you live in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau, or another significantly sized city) between usage-capped cable operator GCI or slow-speed DSL (if you can get it) from Alaska’s two telephone companies – ACS, where unlimited service is still available, or MTA, where a 10Mbps Internet plan starts at $50 and offers up to 50GB of usage a month.

GCI has traditionally been the fastest option, but the company’s usage caps and high prices have brought scores of complaints from customers over the years. A basic 10/1Mbps internet plan costs $59.99 a month and only includes 40GB of usage. Many Alaskans who want faster access with a more reasonable allowance have to spend $84.99 a month for 50/3Mbps access to get a 150GB usage allowance or $134.99 for 100/5Mbps service with 300GB of included usage.

Late last week, GCI announced it was boosting the usage allowance for just one of its plans, the premium-priced, limited availability 1,000/50Mbps plan ($174.99), which until recently included a 750GB usage allowance. The new usage allowance is 1TB (1,000GB).

“In today’s connected society, people are demanding more and more access to data at incredibly fast speeds,” said Paul Landes, GCI’s senior vice president/general manager of consumer services. “GCI is proud to have a product that keeps our customers connected in ways people in Boston and LA can’t even receive. Even better, we are able to provide these upgrades at no additional cost to our loyal customers.”

Alaskans face high prices for internet access from GCI, the state’s largest cable company.

Gigabit customers like Stop the Cap! reader Dave Langhorn certainly hoped so.

“This is long overdue,” said Langhorn. “For $175 a month, there shouldn’t be any data caps, considering unlimited gigabit plans in the lower-48 often sell for $70-80 a month, which is less than half what we pay and still get capped.”

Our reader Michael Horton is incensed that GCI managed a usage allowance boost for its most premium internet plan, while leaving everyone else with the same old service.

“We shouldn’t be allowing any ISPs to restrict usage on their networks,” said Horton. “You should be paying for the speed that you use and nothing more.”

Horton considers data caps anachronistic at a time when the digital economy is moving towards online distribution of products and services like movies, games similar to 벳엔드 사이트, software, and other digital products. Even Windows 10 has been more often installed from a download than from physical media.

GCI has promised to address at least one of Horton’s concerns, stating they are planning speed boosts and allowance upgrades for all of their internet plans at an unspecified time later this year.

GCI says the allowance boost comes in response to customer requests from surveys and “listening sessions.”

Horton and Langhorn both believe that those voices would be heard much louder if GCI had more significant competition.

“ACS is the only alternative if you want unreliable speed,” Horton writes.”They don’t have bandwidth caps, but you will be unable to use their service efficiently if you are a gamer or watch Netflix a lot.”

Video programmers that want to avoid the problem of usage allowances that can deter internet video streaming have a new way to make an end run around Net Neutrality, distributing their content “cap-free” through “virtual cable channels” that are distributed over broadband, but appear like traditional cable TV channels on a set-top box.

This morning, Fierce Cable noted Wurl’s IP-based streaming cable television network platform was here, offering cable operators new cable channels that are actually delivered over the customer’s internet connection. The Alt Channel, Streaming News Network, The Sports Feed and Popcornflix will appear on set-top boxes and onscreen guides like traditional linear cable channels, starting in August. Wurl claims at least 51, mostly small and independent cable operators, have already signed up for the service, which could quickly expand to 10-12 channels in the future. But Multichannel News has confirmed only one partner so far — Fidelity Communications, a small cable operator serving parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

What makes these channels very different from the other networks on the lineup is that they are delivered over the customer’s internet connection directly into a cable set-top box, and will generally be exempt from any usage allowances or caps providers impose on broadband usage. Wurl acts as a distributor, obtaining content from “popular online studios” that “until now has only been available on computers and mobile devices.” Wurl’s partners can get their content exposed on traditional cable TV to a potentially greater audience, who can watch while not worrying about using up their monthly internet usage allowance.

The first series of bracketed channels are Wurl-TV broadband based channels, while the second are traditional linear cable networks delivered by RF or QAM. Both integrate seamlessly into the cable set-top box’s on-screen program guide.

Wurl’s unicast approach relies on its own content delivery network to provide one internet stream for each set-top box accessing its programming, which also allows for support of on-demand programming. But every cable customer watching a Wurl channel is effectively streaming video over their internet connection. Cable operators usually blame internet video for consuming most of their available internet bandwidth, necessitating the “need” for usage allowances/caps or usage based billing to manage and pay for bandwidth “fairly.” Yet Wurl’s networks consume just as much bandwidth as traditional online video. But because Wurl is partnering with cable operators, that content is not subject to the usage caps Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Video customers have to contend with.

Wurl claims its approach is so cable-operator friendly, “there’s no reason to say no,” said Sean Doherty, Wurl’s CEO and co-founder.

Cable operators are offered Wurl channels for free, with no affiliate fees or upfront costs, and no significant technology costs since the channels are distributed direct to the set-top box over broadband, not RF or QAM. A video player is embedded into the virtual cable channel, which allows viewers to pause, rewind, and fast forward programming.

In the future, cable systems are expected to gradually transition to IP-delivery of all of their video content, turning the cable TV line in your home into one giant broadband connection, across which television, internet access, and phone service are delivered.

But cable operators are still making distinctions between services that are gradually becoming different in name only. If a customer watches a Wurl channel over the internet on their desktop, that would count against their usage allowance. But if they watch over a cable-TV set-top box, it won’t, despite the fact the journey the channel takes to reach the viewer is exactly the same. That gives certain content providers an advantage others lack, representing a classic end run around Net Neutrality.

To be fair, that is not a distinction Wurl has made in any of its marketing material, but the fact preferred content can be managed this way is just one more reason the FCC should ban usage caps and usage-based billing on consumer internet accounts. Wurl’s own marketing material tells operators the cost and impact of its video streaming on the cable operator’s existing infrastructure is next to zero… because Wurl’s content comes across broadband platforms already so robust, they can easily accommodate the potential of thousands of viewers all watching Wurl channels without any issues. That reality undermines the cable industry’s own questionable arguments about the need for data caps or usage billing.

The European Union believes every home in the bloc should have ready access to at least 100Mbps broadband speeds within the next decade.

Regulators in Brussels want uniformly fast broadband across the continent according to a report from the Financial Times, and is expected to adopt new telecom rules in September to get it. It is part of the EU’s ambitions “Gigabit Society” initiative that will assure every school and business will have access to gigabit speeds, while homes will now receive at least 100Mbps.

Private telecom companies are skeptical Brussels will kick in substantial aid to finance broadband upgrades, despite assurances it would be a public-private initiative. An initial estimate pegs the cost to upgrade the continent at $171 billion. At least 80 percent of that budget will cover the infrastructure installation costs, such as stringing fiber on poles and underground and bringing connections to homes and businesses.

A potential issue for Brussels is dealing with one of Europe’s most powerful telecom companies – Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, which wants to use vectoring technology to improve copper-based DSL service in Germany instead of upgrading to optical fiber technology.

This morning, Brussels gave partial approval for DT to go ahead with vectoring upgrades, so long as it doesn’t inhibit competition. As a result, the German phone company will offer DSL upgrades as fast as 100Mbps and offer all of its rivals access to the same network, allowing consumers to choose different ISPs delivering service over the same copper network.

Like in North America, analysts say there is little interest among companies to build rival networks, especially in areas already served by a cable and telephone company. The alternative is to open those networks to competitors, who can use them to reach customers with their own internet service plans.

Comcast announced last week it will invest $100 million in fiber optic and coaxial cable to expand its network for businesses and residents across the Chicago region, but not before it slaps a usage cap on Chicagoland internet users forced to join its compulsory data cap “trial.”

Beginning Aug. 1,  customers who exceed 1 terabyte of data usage per month will face a nasty overlimit fee of $10 for each 50GB of additional usage they rack up over the course of a billing cycle. Customers who want to keep the unlimited broadband plan they have today can, if they are willing to pay an extra $50 a month.

Comcast’s PR department has christened the incoming data cap the “Terabyte Internet Experience,” suggesting customers will now have the privilege of using up to 1,000GB each month without facing extra charges. But the plan customers have until the end of this month already allows that, and more, without facing overlimit fees that will top out at $200 a month.

Customers like Greg believe Comcast has a different agenda imposing data caps.

“We’ll teach those cord cutters a lesson,” he wrote. “We’re going to get your money one way or another. Comcast is just greedy, they want to extort as much money as they can from people. I’m paying $90 for internet, with the option to charge more based on their conditions. Remember when consumers had options?”

Other residents looking for an opt-out of the “trial” are out of luck.

“Got the email this week we get to be part of this data cap ‘trial,'” shared another customer. “How lucky are we? And what do we get for being part of this trial? Absolutely nothing! And can we opt out of this trial? Heck no!”

Comcast claims almost nobody will be impacted by the terabyte cap, predicting as few as 1% of their customers reach that level of usage. But 25% of Comcast customers nationwide have now received email and other notifications about a data cap plan “trial” Comcast has spent time, money, and resources trying to explain and implement in a growing number of cities in their service area. Many ask if so few are affected, why make the effort?

The FCC received 11,812 complaints about Comcast in 2015, mostly about its data cap trials. That is at least 5,000 more complaints than AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable received combined. That would seem to indicate a significant percentage of Comcast customers are concerned about data caps, even if they are not among the “1%” Comcast now claims will be affected by caps.

Comcast’s plan to invest $100 million in Chicago, primarily on fiber expansion, may not placate customers who do not appreciate their internet usage being capped at the same time Comcast’s network capacity continues to increase. Most of the upgrades may be targeted to benefit Comcast’s business customers. The expansion will string 50 miles of fiber cable across seven square miles of downtown Chicago, including the Loop, River North, and River West. Additional expansion will target the city’s Back of the Yards and Bridgeport neighborhoods at in the Peterson-Pulaski business district near O’Hare.

Comcast claims the upgrade will expand internet, video, voice, and home security/automation services for residential customers. They will just need to make sure not to use them too much.