CenturyLink is planning to trial usage caps on its broadband service later this year, not to reduce congestion or to bank the extra money for service upgrades, but to boost revenue and profits.

Stewart Ewing, chief financial officer at CenturyLink, told Wall Street analysts the company was on board with usage caps and usage billing primarily because its biggest competitor (Comcast) is already implementing a similar program in many of its markets. It’s that kind of “competition” many customers say they could do without.

“Regarding the metered data plans; we are considering that for second half of the year,” Ewing told investors on a morning conference call. “We think it is important and our competition is using the metered plans today and we think that exploring those starts and trials later this year is our expectation.”

No details about the test markets or range of usage allowances were made available by Ewing, but CenturyLink is under pressure by Wall Street to improve its revenue after raising prices and tightening credit standards on its customers. The combined impact of rate hikes and a tighter credit qualification policy led CenturyLink to lose 22,000 broadband customers during the last quarter, many who simply stopped paying the bill.

CenturyLink has been under pressure by Wall Street to put usage caps and usage pricing on its broadband service for over a year.

David Barden from Bank of America called data caps “an opportunity” for CenturyLink to rake in more dollars from customers by using misleading pricing to trick customers.

Post

“We have been seeing a lot of the cable companies experimenting with data caps and metering higher-end usage,” Barden told CenturyLink executives on the conference call. “It seems like the FCC is not pushing back on this and it feels like it could be a big opportunity for telcos to, if nothing else, price underneath the cable umbrella and start to raise rates from high-end users.”

In plain English, Barden wants companies like CenturyLink to make customers believe they are getting a better deal from a lower price, at least until customers actually use the service. Then, the rate increases from usage caps and overlimit fees begin.

Glen Post, CEO of CenturyLink, is still committed to believing CenturyLink is in a good position to add broadband customers, despite the forthcoming trials of usage caps and overlimit fees. He defines 40Mbps broadband from CenturyLink as the speed that will “address most of our customers’ actual needs.”

CenturyLink now has 940,000 households connected to its Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON), many for its Prism TV service. Another 490,000 businesses also have access to CenturyLink’s GPON network, primarily for broadband. Post claims more than 30% of the company’s service area is now served with broadband speeds of 40Mbps or greater.

In 2016, CenturyLink expects to spend $1.2 billion on upgrades for its broadband network and capacity. In comparison, in 2015 CenturyLink spent $1 billion repurchasing shares of its own stock and another $1 billion on dividend payouts – both to benefit shareholders.

At present, CenturyLink has around a 15% market share in its GPON-enabled markets (the company didn’t say what its market share was where legacy copper wire infrastructure still dominates). Post believes that gives the phone company enormous room to grow, assuming its customers can pass credit checks and do not mind their broadband service data-capped. Like many phone companies looking for the biggest return on investment, Post noted CenturyLink will pay extra attention to wiring Multiple Dwelling Units (MDUs) — apartment buildings, condos, etc. — where the company can bring fiber service at a lower cost than wiring each home and business.

Comcast customers in Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, Detroit, and Miami will be the first to get Comcast’s new DOCSIS 3.1 modems and faster Internet plans likely to accompany the introduction of the latest cable broadband standard.

Multichannel News reports after field trials in Pennsylvania, Northern California and Atlanta, Comcast is ready to deploy the newest cable modem standard for residential and business class customers to deliver gigabit broadband services delivered over the company’s traditional hybrid fiber-coaxial cable network.

The company expects to begin distributing new modems to customers early this year, starting in Atlanta and Nashville. Comcast is still finalizing pricing on its fastest gigabit-range plans, but the cost is expected to be less than Comcast’s Gigabit Pro offering, which is delivered over fiber-to-the-home service. The cable company now charges Gigabit Pro customers $299.95 a month for the gigabit fiber service with a two-year contract. It is likely Comcast will have to price its cable gigabit offering under $100 a month to compete effectively with Google Fiber and AT&T’s U-verse with GigaPower. Google and AT&T are readying gigabit networks in both of Comcast’s first launch markets.

Comcast exempts Gigabit Pro customers from its growing field trial of data caps, but the company had nothing to say about whether its DOCSIS 3.1-powered plans will receive similar treatment. If not, customers can expect a 300GB monthly allowance.

During the second half of this year, Comcast will expand DOCSIS 3.1 to Chicago, Detroit and Miami. Beyond that, Comcast would not say when the rest of its customers across the country would be upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1 service.

Customers who own their own modems and do not plan to upgrade to a faster plan can continue to use that equipment. Customers looking to upgrade will have to lease a modem from Comcast or buy an authorized DOCSIS 3.1 capable modem, which is expected to cost 30-50% more than traditional DOCSIS 3.0 equipment.

Stop the Cap! has received a growing number of complaints from Comcast customers in Georgia who are paying the cable company an extra $35 a month to get back unlimited Internet access that is performing worse than ever before for online video streaming.

J.J. LaFrantz in North Druid Hills reports his Internet speed for streaming videos dropped from 60Mbps under Comcast’s usage cap regime to less than 20Mbps after agreeing to pay for Comcast’s unlimited use insurance plan.

“Right after I paid The Great Satan their extortion to get unlimited service back, my Internet speeds dropped,” LaFrantz tells Stop the Cap!

LaFrantz has been in touch with Comcast several times about the speed degradation, with each representative providing a different excuse:

It’s the cable modem. “Comcast loves to blame customer-owned equipment for Internet problems, urging the unknowing to pay endless rental fees for Comcast equipment that supposedly fixes everything,” said LaFrantz.

It’s the holidays. “With the kids home from school, apparently Comcast cannot manage to handle the strain, or so they seem to suggest,” said LaFrantz.

It’s everyone but Comcast. “If their speed test performs adequately enough for them, it is no longer their problem, it is yours.”

Mysteriously, after Comcast “reprogrammed” his cable modem, his speed returned to normal.

Jakfrist posted a similar complaint on Reddit after he signed up for Comcast’s $35 insurance plan:

The speed test shows slower than I am paying for but still a reasonable speed but videos that previously started instantly are now saying I have to wait an hour to start so it can buffer out (iTunes Movies on AppleTV).

Like LaFrantz, a call to Comcast eventually led to the company reprogramming Jakfrist’s modem, which also made the video streaming issues disappear:

How much will your next broadband bill be?

After calling Comcast the first guy had no clue what I was talking about and I got escalated to another guy. The new guy tried to tell me that it was because I was using my own modem and it would be resolved if I used their modem.

I explained that I had opened a terminal window and was running a ping to google, Ookla (the speed test org), Bing, Netflix, Hulu, and iTunes. The only two experiencing issues / delays were iTunes and Netflix so my modem appears to be fine. They also asked if I had tried their video streaming service to see if it was slow as well. I just kinda laughed and said no thanks.

He asked me how old my modem was and tried to convince me my modem was bad again and all would be solved if I just leased a modem from them. I insisted my modem was fine that it doesn’t choose to filter out video content. He then told me that they would send a tech out to look at it.

I insisted that everything inside my house was fine and if they wanted to send someone out to check the things outside my house that would be fine but I wasn’t going to take a day off of work to have someone take a look at something I know is set up correctly.

He sighed deeply and said that he would see if he could update some settings in my modem. All the sudden my speed test went from 20Mbps to 60Mbps.

I ran the test on Netflix and told him even with the 60Mbps I was still only pulling 720p on Netflix and iTunes was even worse. He put me on hold for a couple minutes and reset my modem again and afterwards Netflix and iTunes seem to be functioning perfectly.

Customers not paying Comcast the extra $35 a month to rid themselves of usage caps are not getting off scot-free either.

Jeff Wemberly reports his Comcast usage meter is recording unprecedented levels of usage he has never seen on his broadband account before the caps.

“We were well aware of Comcast’s new 300GB usage cap and began closely monitoring how we use our broadband service,” Wemberly writes. “We even have the kids streaming 100-150GB of streaming videos from a grandfathered Verizon Wireless unlimited data/hotspot account every month instead of using Comcast (serves Verizon right for jacking the price up – now we’re going to use it until we drop). We have three years of usage data from our router and we were certain we’d be using no more than 225GB a month after making that change.”

Instead, starting the same month Comcast’s cap went into effect, their reported usage more than doubled.

“Their meter is absolute bull—- reporting more than 700GB of usage every month starting after the caps went into effect,” Wemberly writes. “They aren’t just putting their finger on the scale, they are sitting on it!

Wemberly’s router reported the expected usage drop, with the family turning in 217GB of usage in November and 189GB so far this month. But Comcast’s meter reports 711GB in November and 748GB so far this month.

“We started getting the usage warning 11 days into November and 14 days in December,” Wemberly tells Stop the Cap! “It recorded 63GB of usage on Dec. 19, a day the family was out Christmas shopping. If someone was into our Wi-Fi, the router would have reported it. It doesn’t.”

Next month, Wemberly expects to begin getting bills that run $80 higher after Comcast’s overlimit fee grace period ends. Comcast told him its meter cannot possibly be inaccurate.

“You are forced to pay the extra $35 so you don’t have to pay $80,” Wemberly said. “The Gambino crime family must be kicking themselves wasting time with loan sharking and shakedowns. They should have learned from Comcast and extorted people legally with data caps.”

Wemberly intends to say goodbye to Comcast when AT&T’s U-verse with GigaPower arrives in his neighborhood.

“Paying AT&T $70 a month is cheap compared to Comcast’s endless greed,” Wemberly said. “We can’t wait to cancel.”

When a CEO tells customers they should just get used to data caps and stop being paranoid about them, it would not a stretch to assume the top executive of the nation’s largest cable company has no interest in hearing the views of his customers on the matter and has stopped listening.

But just how many took complaints about usage-billing above the head of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to the Federal Communications Commission has been a mystery, until today.

A website that promotes cord cutting filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC that now reveals at least 13,000 (and counting) Comcast customers took time to file formal complaints with the federal regulator about what CutCableToday calls Comcast’s unethical practice of imposing data caps.

A review of the complaints shows the FCC was generous in its response, including a significant minority of complaints that had nothing to do with data caps. But among the majority that did consider data caps to be unjust, it was common to see Comcast described as an “extortionist,” a “monopoly,” and “abusive” to customers.

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“Comcast should be performing damage control, but the corporation considers itself too powerful for that,” says David Mumpower of CutCableToday. “They wouldn’t ‘win’ so many competitions as the Most Hated Company in America if they cared what customers thought. The power brokers of the cable industry believe that they can charge whatever they want for Internet access because people can’t function effectively in society without it.”

Last week, Roberts claimed only 5% (8% and rising Comcast later admitted) of Comcast customers exceed what is usually a 300GB usage allowance before paying an overlimit fee of $10 for each additional allotment of 50GB. But CutCableToday’s efforts easily turned up several bill shock horror stories from customers stuck with hefty bills after Comcast unilaterally implemented data caps as part of a seemingly-endless “trial” that has spread to a growing number of its service areas.

One Nashville customer got the shock of his life when he discovered he owed a total of $400 in overlimit fees, the same amount he typically pays for six months of Internet service from Comcast.

“Comcast just surprised me with a bill that shows that I owed $180 for over cap surcharges,” the customer wrote in his complaint. “I called the same day I got the bill, and they also let me know that I owe another $220 for over cap surcharges. (That’s right, a surprise $400).”

Despite Comcast’s claims that practically nobody would be affected by their data cap, more than ten thousand went the extra mile, learned how to file a complaint with the FCC, and followed through, further eroding Comcast’s already poor reputation.

A customer in Plantation, Fla., which became subject to Comcast’s data capping this fall, called it like he saw it:

“I object to this new policy of forcing customers to pay more for exceeding pre-established data caps by this greedy corporation. The caps will be exceeded even by moderate users of the Internet due to forced video ads on pretty much every single web page that one loads into a browser. This is not right. These cable companies are already charging us too much for Internet service. Now Comcast wants to charge us a $30 av month fee to prevent them from charging us even more fees. This is a rip off. The government needs to do something to stop this practice of capping. If they are going to meter our internet usage like an electric power company then we should be charged only for data that we call up. This means a ban on all forced Internet advertising. PLEASE do something. We have no one to protect us!”

The volume of complaints has been so great, CutCableToday notified the FCC it would consider its FOIA request adequately fulfilled after nearly 2,000 complaints were initially made available in response. The group put those 1,929 complaints together into four huge PDF files you can download and review yourself:

• Comcast Data Cap Complaints Part 1
• Comcast Data Cap Complaints Part 2
• Comcast Data Cap Complaints Part 3
• Comcast Data Cap Complaints Part 4

Despite the volume of complaints, Roberts has continued to reassure investors that customers are “neutral to slightly positive” about Comcast’s data caps, a claim that might run afoul of Securities and Exchange Commission rules requiring frank admissions about company practices that could affect shareholders’ investments in company stock.

Roberts’ claims could lack credibility as the company has offered no verifiable evidence that customers are even slightly positive about having their Internet usage put on an allowance.

Based on the FCC’s bulging file of complaints, it is more likely most customers either don’t know or understand Comcast’s data caps and as one Knoxville customer who did know described it: It is more of “their f***-you level of customer service.”

“The data caps that Comcast is putting into place are going to end up making people choose between enriching their lives and learning more, and paying more money to a local monopoly,” the customer added.

“This corporate arrogance – some would say malfeasance – has driven many broadband users to the breaking point,” writes Mumpower. “At best, the choices for Internet service are oligopoly sized; at worst, a monopoly exists. How can customers expect their viable complaints to be taken seriously if they have no leverage? That’s why it’s imperative that you file a complaint to make your voice heard.”