Comcast Broadband dispute

February 18, 2009

2009-02-18T17:56:00.002-07:00

It seems Comcast recognizes with competition it stands to loose heavily. And 2009 sounds like a year it hopes to get past quickly.

I can't say I blame them. And it doesn't help with investors leaving them. Companies like my other favorite are divesting themselves of Comcast stock.

Mr. Roberts has earned a new title besides CEO of Comcast. He's been called in many articles I've been receiving recently "The Dark Lord of Broadband". A guy who's as disconnected from reality as I've seen. And just when he thought 2007 and 2008 were going to be banner years for Comcast, people as myself rebelled and called them to the mat. Involving the FCC and other Government agencies. It's been a mess.

Yet there's a stunning disconnect between how fellow chief executives view him and what customers think. They see Comcast as arrogant, unresponsive, and overpriced. The company has managed to place last or close to last in just about every survey of customer service.

By blocking BitTorrent—in effect discriminating against those packets—Roberts had opened himself up to accusations that he was a censor and a monopolist who wanted to limit citizens' access to the Internet. He was painted as power-mad, unable to restrain himself.

"I honestly don't think we're bad people, and we have no evil intentions," he says. "We helped invent broadband."

Let me guess. Comcast gave Al Gore the idea for the Internet now? My how history has changed. Read the article. It was a good read.

I guess they really hate the Internet.

Cable’s costly infrastructure, optimized for hundreds of channels, can’t adjust to a world where entertainment is downloaded. They have to tame the Internet to survive.

People are looking at services which don't require cable TV. From Vuze to Hulu and more. Downloadable content takes control away from these guys. If you follow the money, those customers are bad for business.

Streaming video of everything from classic movies to hit TV programs to screaming music videos of '80s hair bands is available free at online portals YouTube and Joost, as well as Hulu.com (a joint venture of NBC and Fox) and the networking site MySpace, which is owned by the same company as Fox.

And now it seems by 2012 Korea will have an average Internet of 1 Gig putting American Internet providers to shame!

In America we think Charter's 60 Mbps Cable is fast, well in Korea the entire country will have 1 Gbps service by 2012, that's 16 times faster than Charter's fastest 60Mbps highspeed service. Currently, Koreans can get speeds up to 100 Mbps, which is still nearly double the speed of Charter's new 60 Mbps service.

Someday people here will wake up. The Internet is as important as public roads. Don't expect to succeed without improving the infrastructure.

Another reason our economy is a shambles.

January 10, 2009

2009-01-06T18:01:00.007-07:00

Happy New Year!

Two years later I find it interesting that Comcast has been working to resolve some serious issues with their Internet product. Two years ago Comcast really screwed up and created a PR disaster for themselves. So now it seems they are working to resolve a few things, with their product at least.

The Old Comcast vs The New Comcast?

- "We can't divulge to the customer usage limits" vs "You have 250 Gigs a month now"

- "You are responsible for monitoring your usage" vs "We're working on a bandwidth monitor for you"

- "Hello customer service, we can't help you" vs "Frank on Twitter, maybe we're an improvement"

Ok perhaps that last one isn't really an improvement though I've heard stories of some people able to resolve issues with the company where customer services is Epic Fail. Nothing I can confirm and I've asked around. Still the other issues are important steps. Would I consider going back to Comcast?

Are you Crazy!

I don't support companies with pathetic attitudes. Microsoft, Comcast, errr.... you get the idea.

Speaking of Comcast, its interesting how far a company will go to prevent competition. Too scary I guess. Oh and I guess they succeeded in slowing the exodus to a better product in Philly at least.

Ha, wow. This stuff is too rich to make up. We already knew that Comcast was blowing smoke by claiming that it had more HD material (than Verizon) that mere mortals actually cared about, but this is just incredible. A new report straight from Philadelphia makes clear that a practically imminent vote to give Verizon a 15-year lease to wire the city up for FiOS TV has been abruptly halted, and Comcast is largely to thank. Purportedly, lobbyists for the carrier swarmed the council chambers yesterday and managed to convince them to take another month or so to reconsider. Among the issues brought up were that another carrier wouldn't necessarily lead to lower prices and that Verizon would likely wire up higher income neighborhoods first / only. Thanks Comcast -- we bet even Adam Smith would agree that no competition is better than competition you find unfavorable.

This stuff is unreal. Even a fiction writer couldn't make this stuff up. I guess with surveys like this Comcast should be worried. Then of course there are other concerns. Maybe some day they will learn from their mistakes. I almost feel sorry for the company. Hey I'm not stupid. My family and I still remember (and notes help) what happened. Maybe someday they will grow into a company like Amazon.com. Now there is a company we've spent thousands of dollars with and come back regularly.

Comcast's top tier accounts it seems also has 250 Gigs as their limit also. Upgrade to a business account you say? When I spoke with their sales I was told "you get just more bandwidth" with a business account. So how much more? Unless they have announced it and I missed the press release you have no more bandwidth available than a NON Business account. Period. After looking at my notes from two years ago, I wrote a note from a conversation with Sarah (from Comcast's escalation department) that in residential area's you don't have a separate network they can connect you to.

Then of course there is Utopia. If we ever get it in West Jordan we can choose from the basic 100 Gigs a month with upgrades in 100 Gigs increments up to 500 Gigs.

Oh, and before I forget, Comcast is working on the bandwidth meter for it's customers. It's about time they decided to leak this. I'm amused though. I heard about it two years ago and here it is. Yeah, like I've mentioned before. It's interesting the things I learned about the company. I just wish I could talk about it without getting in trouble... then of course I can't prove any of it either other than my notes with dates written :-)

However here is something I suspected would not change. I guess when you have a monopoly (or at least VERY little competition), you can make products that benefit the company and not the customer.

A couple more notes and then I'll quit... for now :-)

Fiber is the future. Rather than running copper wire tech from the 1800's. Comcast either fixes their copper fetish or motley fool's prediction comes true. After all, we're already stressing what copper wire's can do while we have yet to learn how far fiber cables can be pushed. Good thing too since demand for online videos have jumped 34% in the last year alone! I'm sure products such as this are a cause for concern. LG TV's with Netflix movies in HD through the internet. Sounds like us. We stream Internet TV through Mythtv to our TV. It's really cool the content available online.

And people aren't stupid. Read through the Digg.com comments. The people know with all this talk about bandwidth limits that Comcast isn't what they want for Internet service. Here's a few I found after a couple minutes searching.

So too does the number of people being banned from Comcast as "heavy users?"

In a years time I'd be interested to see a comparison of number of videos watched and number of comcast users throttled. Online video is eventually going to stagnate once more ISPs begin to throttle bandwidth.

CONcastic hates Hulu. I mean people now watch TV over IP. Times for the telephone companies to crush cable. I use a digital projector to get a big image when I want to see a movie over the web.

Things are not all bleak. I'm urging everyone to write to President Elect Obama and let him know how we need NII and the fiber to the home it promised under Bill Clinton in 1994. Seems he is talking about renewing our information highway. I'm curious how serious he is and how far he will go.

"In our 21st-century society, having a connection to a fast and affordable Internet is no longer a luxury — it's a public necessity," said Free Press' executive director Josh Silver. "Obama's broadband stimulus must deliver Americans the infrastructure they need for economic growth and social opportunity."

Obama did not specify the cost of the public works program, but various analysts' costs estimates place it from $400 to $700 billion, and possibly higher.

But broadband advocates such as Daily say plans such as his "Rural Fiber Fund" would enable expansion of broadband Internet access for a small fraction of the total cost.

"$30 billion should get the whole job done," Daily said. "But $10 billion is enough to be a game-changer and set the wheels in motion."

Sure why not. The Government has no problem bailing out companies like AIG. May as well spend the money to get home businesses the infrastructure they need to be successful in our flat world. You need to read the book "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman. A buddy at my last company lent me the book. Very insightful read IMO.

After all, isn't it small businesses driving our economy above all other businesses? Seems to make sense the economy won't recover very easily without a proper infrastructure in place.

November 20, 2008

2008-11-20T17:33:00.002-07:00

Now that the voters have spoken, it's interesting to see more and more we're hearing Government is talking about building a National Broadband policy. There have been many interesting articles the last couple of weeks including this one. I'm curious where this is going. Many have also said it will take $100 Billion to upgrade our infrastructure to Fiber to the home. Fortunately they have over 200 Billion already in their pockets through taxes for over 14 years through the NII.

I'm encouraging people everywhere to write to President Elect Obama and remind him of these facts and to encourage him to influence those in authority to either make it happen or return the money for service not rendered.

I had an interesting email from a blogger recently. Talking about the AT&T caps and sharing this article about it. He had an interesting statement to make which I just have to share with you

Hmmm, Let's see. If I pay for 6 Mbps connectivity, if I used it 24 hours per day for a month, I could download almost 2,000 GB. The ATT plan would give me the first 80 GB
free and then I would pay $1,920/month for the rest? If I only get 80 GB in a month, then I think I'm only getting 240 Kbs connectivity or so. This type of logic is like offering cellphone service pricing where you get unlimited minutes of connectivity but only 5,000 words per month.

Puts it all in perspective as Comcast rolls our their new services. Sure they are offering more than AT&T, so double the numbers and you roughly have an understanding of how bad of a deal it is. Oh and don't forget, you risk reaching your usage cap faster with those speeds. No, you don't get more bandwidth. I haven't heard of any tier services available either. It's pretty silly actually. These caps are like saying you are driving your car too much even though you paid for the car, insurance and the gas. Yes you have a full tank but you should only use 1 gallon then get off the road. Seems many other's agree with this opinion

Here's what Comcast should have said:

"See, we've got this legacy cable business. That wouldn't be so bad if innovators weren't making it easier to stream video over the Web. Microsoft 's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Silverlight helped bring you the Olympics. So did Limelight Networks (Nasdaq: LLNW), and it's also behind Netflix 's (Nasdaq: NFLX) Watch Now service. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is working on chips for Web TV. These technologies will improve over time and, as they do, they'll demand more bandwidth. We're not big fans. In fact, we'd prefer you ignore these innovations and watch TV and video the traditional way, over our cable network."

It's amazing how many articles in the last month have come out against bandwidth caps. The proponents are ignoring something they seem unable to grasp. That's ok. Perhaps in the near future they will become as inconsequential as the buggy whip if technology keeps advancing. Something like this (should it materialize) would make Copper cables and even reduce the need for a public fiber infrastructure. Very impressive IF it appears.

One more note. I found this article interesting.

What Comcast didn’t mention, however, was that it had reached a settlement with McCollum’s Economic Crimes Bureau to pay $150,000 to the state to resolve “concerns over disclosure issues related to bandwidth use policies,” according to an Aug. 29 news release issued by the McCollum’s office. The settlement was the result of a state investigation of Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) in which Comcast “allegedly did not inform consumers of a specific bandwidth limit” for customers to be notified of “excessive use, which could lead to a customer being kicked off the service.

Sounds like the top 1000 customers are kicked off regardless of usage each month if I"m reading this correctly. Doesn't matter whether a customer was affecting the network adversely or not. That wasn't part of the criteria.

When consumers asked Comcast to specify a cap on usage, “Comcast did not provide consumers with a specific bandwidth usage limit, stating that the consumers’ service would be at risk if they remained among the top 1,000 bandwidth users and directing them to the AUP and frequently asked questions explaining the AUP’s excessive use policy,” according to the settlement document.

That wasn’t good enough, as the Attorney General said that “a ‘top 1,000’ criteria, as previously applied, did not clearly and conspicuously disclose to the consumer the specific amount of bandwidth deemed to be excessive under Comcast’s subscriber agreements.”

Personally I'm surprised Florida was the only state to actually take this to court. Sounds like fraud but that's just my opinion.

August 31, 2008

2008-08-31T08:43:00.002-06:00

There has been quite the flurry of articles about Comcast's recent policy change regarding bandwidth. Some hail it as the greatest thing since sliced bread while others condemn it as just another way for the company to force their customers to use less bandwidth. Some are asking if 250 gigs a month is enough.

Comcast says that 99% of their customers use the internet well under this limit. Personally I dispute that unvalidated statement. When my families Internet was terminated for 12 months we started asking around and noticed two others in our neighborhood ALSO were terminated within a couple months. Those are odds I'd love to take to Vegas.

Will this be a good thing for Comcast customers? Time will tell. I have several questions which I haven't found answers to. Perhaps someone here can answer them.

First, Will this limit include Comcast traffic as well as Internet traffic?

Second, Will Comcast customers be able to validate they are using that much traffic when they get "The Call"?

Third, if more than 250 Gigs per month are consumed, is there a higher tier available with more bandwidth?

Fourth, In the event of a mistake, what process is in place to challenge Comcast's findings. Is there an escalation process basically?

Fifth, how much really is too much bandwidth?

Unless Comcast answers these questions I don't see how much has changed other than the bandwidth limit is now stated like all other ISP's. Also, in today's age of Internet Innovation, we see full HD movies coming to the web browser. That's right, Internet providers don't have just P2P and downloads to worry about. From what I'm hearing, P2P has leveled off last year and HTTP traffic is the growing problem.

I decided to check and was stunned to learn TV shows such as Heroes, South Park and other's are all available online. And this was from companies such as NBC.COM, South Park Studios and so on.

Internet bandwidth usage will ONLY increase in the coming years.

Speaking of which, I was pleased to hear our Government is beginning to realize just how badly America is in need of a national broadband strategy. I haven't heard much from the Republican side regarding what they plan on doing however the Democrats seem to be coming around to the idea that it should be treated like Infrastructure.

The Democrats' position on broadband is to treat it more like critical infrastructure--like roads, bridges and the water supply. From the Party Platform: "We will implement a national broadband strategy, especially in rural areas, that enables every American household, school, library and hospital to connect to a world-class communications infrastructure."

It continues: "In an increasingly technology-rich, knowledge-based economy, connectivity is a key part of the solution to many of our most important challenges: job creation, economic growth, energy, health care and education."

At the current rate, we won't catch up to Japan for about 100 years without help.

"We need high-speed Internet for our homes, schools, hospitals, and workplaces," the authors of the report recommend. "Speed defines what is possible on the Internet. It determines whether we will have the 21st century networks we need to create the jobs of the future, develop our economy, and support innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and public services to improve our lives and communities."

I recall a speech by President Bill Clinton regarding NAFTA. He mentioned we will be transitioning to a technology economy in the years to come. That was over a decade ago! Without the infrastructure in place, I wonder how we can expect to complete that move? BTW, I've been searching for a reference for that statement. If anyone has found one please share :-)

One more comment about broadband. It seems Comcast isn't alone with the 250 Gig monthly limit. Seems Qwest 'may' also have set limits as well.

We’ve wrote before that ISPs are looking for new ways to manage their network by introducing bandwidth caps and metered plans. Although we’re not in favor of it, we have to applaud Comcast for being open about it. Most other ISPs have similar policies, limiting their unlimited services, but they seem to get away with it. One of these ISPs is Qwest, one of the larger Internet providers in the western United States, who forces customers to accept an invisible 250 GB cap.

Indeed, as we have said before, ISPs should think ahead. To most “normal” customers 250 GB may sound as a lot of bandwidth, but this might be totally different in the future. Making an online backup of your harddrive is pretty much impossible with a bandwidth cap like this, so will HD-streaming. It hinders innovation while it’s ignoring the real problem. ISPs should invest in their network instead, but I guess it’s not only the entertainment industry that finds it hard to adapt to technological change.

So we have a new (capped) future before us. Seems Internet Providers are deciding to limit innovation rather than build out their Infrastructure. I have yet to hear what happened to the NII money from 1994. So after a brief search of tools to monitor usage, I came across this article. Some of the tools looks decent enough.

Personally I like vnstat for linux. It was nice to see Ubuntu had the package already available. After a minute of setup I can see hourly, weekly, and monthly totals. It even gives a 'guess' of what my total consumption of the month may be. I recommend vnstat. And especially if you want a GUI there is PHPvnstat. Creates a nice web page with some nice graphs.

Speaking of Ubuntu. I was surprised to hear of Comcast giving the cold shoulder when a customer mentioned they were running Linux. I'm glad they are running ok now but the response was inappropriate.

the support agent refused to give her the case number, restating the fact that Comcast does not support Linux. He even went as far to say that the company supports Windows, Mac OSX, and even Unix (note that both Linux and OSX are a form of Unix), but not Linux. Needless to say, Mrs. Gorman was not pleased with this response. I would not want to have been the Comcast employee during the resulting conversation. For the next several minutes, she chastised the employee about the evils of discriminating against a customer due to their choice in operating system. Once thoroughly chastised, the employee was more forthcoming with the case number.

I was amused at least. You have to go higher up the food chain until you found someone who understood how lame that statement was. For the record, I ran Linux on the Comcast network for years without issue.

Speaking of which, I've been running Ubuntu on my new computer for the last few weeks without issue. The P180 Antec case, Artic Cooler CPU fan and 120 mm case fans make this computer whisper quiet and yet it's very powerful. I'm running several programs in WINE including Counterstrike Source, Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4. All run just great on my Nvidia 9800 GTX with their proprietary driver. The ONLY problem I've had is chatting in my steam friends list. I'll have to work on that. Otherwise I highly recommend scrapping Windows and moving to Ubuntu.

One more note. I had to share this article with you :-)

It's funny to see Comcast's numbers have changed.

* Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
* Download 62,500 4 MB songs (at 4 MB/song)
* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
* Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

What I want to know is how many gigs is that in DAT cartridges ;-)

Ok I'm kidding. Still it's unrealistic. Standard definition video's isn't the future boys. Everybody is going high def. And 2 Gigs a movie is low from what I'm seeing.

July 23, 2008

2008-07-23T17:30:00.005-06:00

Well... I've received quite a number of messages about Qwest and their FTTH articles. Seems Qwest has done it again by bending terms a bit. Perhaps it was unintentional. Thing is I spoke with people who work there and they also said FTTH along with an email I received from Qwest as well.

I apologize for adding to the confusion. Since I've been contacting them again asking for confirmation. I'm hearing it's Fiber to the Node which isn't the same thing.

Here is a part of the email I received

Thank you for your recent e-mail inquiry to Qwest regarding the
high-speed Internet upgrades. I apologize for any confusion or inconvenience you have experienced as well as the delay in responding toyour e-mail.

We now offer Fiber to the Node in some areas. The upgrading process has begun and will be completed over the next several months across the 14 state region. I apologize for any misinformation you have received previously.

So there you have it. But I have to ask why? They don't want to provide video service and it seems they don't want to build out the infrastructure they were supposed to have under NII.

It looks like Utopia is moving forward with U-CAN meetings. Basically working with the public and learning more about what's going on with Utopia. Great place to give them feedback. I'll have to see if I can break away to chat with them at the next meeting.

I've received several notes on web sites people may be interested in. I'm checking them out when I have time. One of interest is Internet for Everyone Seems there is a growing interest here in America to make Internet access a basic right along with other services we've pushed the Government to provide. They also have a nice map of where broadband is, and where it isn't. I've contacted them to learn more about their organization and hopefully will be able to give an update. It certainly makes sense as most other developed countries are already moving forward. Leading the way so America can follow. Someday...

One more item and a bit offtopic. I've been working heavily with WINE under Ubuntu Linux (8.04) and have been able to fix the In game voice problem with CounterStrike Source. Until now people have been grumbling that they couldn't hear me so I had to use Vent or type my messages. When I started it up the other day everyone was complaining that their ears were bleeding and to turn the volume down ;-)

Gotta Love Linux!

Soon I'll be free of Windows at home. All my gaming needs handled by WINE or Linux. May even purchase a Nintendo Wii later this year.

It's going to be a good year :-)

July 8, 2008

2008-07-08T23:07:00.004-06:00

Thought I'd share this tidbit with everyone. After over a year it looks like we'll be getting FTTH but of course no install date. That's because it 'may' be Utopia or Qwest installing it.

That's right. I'm not fooling. I received an email plus had a couple of conversations with a couple of buds who mentioned Qwest is serious about bringing FTTH in Salt Lake Valley. Would be nice to see what their roll out plan is. Here is a tidbit from one of the letters I received from them

Fiber to the home is available in some areas of Utah. We have no target or completion date to provide for you at this time, but Qwest is actively upgrading this option. The best advisement is that you re-check with us in the upcoming weeks and months for information regarding the progression of this area of development.

They are talking about 20 Megs up / down which would be perfect for us. We're thinking about moving our business to the web at some point. I have written the code we'll need but it's beta so far.

So Concast - 0 Consumers - 1

How's that for the ending of a story...

Here's an article about the rollout.

I'll post a few more things in the future. Sites I frequent which may be of interest. Also we're thinking of transcribing some of this to youtube. I've had people say they were too lazy (their words) to read about the story however would be interested in a vid or two explaining what happened.

So perhaps we'll roll something like that out. We'll see :D

BTW, it's nice being with an ISP (xmission.com) that has a clue how technology works vs a provider who tries to dazzel people with technical nonsense

To make its case, the group attempts to dispel the "technical-sounding nonsense" put forth by Comcast and its allies. If you've been following this debate at all, you already have a good sense of what Comcast's position is: upgrades are too expensive, BitTorrent traffic would instantly consume any upgraded bandwidth, and the only way to properly manage traffic is to discriminate against specific protocols.

Eve the White House is confused on what is a good broadband policy

Crawford added that what America needs is "access to a general communication structure that is open with universal access," a notion characterized by Russell as a "tragic mistake" and invoked an image of a single, regulated monopoly.

Here's an interesting article on the problem of bandwidth

No, p2p is no longer the single biggest traffic whore, responsible for only 20 percent of total traffic. It's streaming video, like YouTube and Hulu, which is now 50 percent of total traffic. During peak congestion—the times when Comcast will slow you down for hitting the pipe too hard—70 percent of it is http.

Which explains Comcast's flip on network management and why it's a total smokescreen. P2P is no longer the number one leech on networks, it's streaming video across regular old http. So they don't need to throttle p2p exclusively anymore—they need to slow the whole pipe down, hence the new "protocol agnostic" scheme.

Another good article about Broadband

Despite the repeated claims of the current administration that our "broadband policy" is working, the US actually has no broadband policy and no aggressive and inspiring goals (think "moon shot"). The EDUCAUSE model suggests investing $100 billion (a third comes from the feds, a third from the states, and a third from companies) to roll out fiber to every home in the country. Whether the particular proposal has merit or not, it at least has the great virtue of being an ambitious policy that recognizes the broad economic and social benefits from fast broadband.

Here's hoping that the next president, whoever he (or, possibly, she) is, gives us something more effective—and inspiring—than this. It's telling that the current administration's official page on the President's tech policy hasn't had a new speech or press release added since... 2004.

And finally, a thought validated about Concast speeds. What you really are paying for.

Reader Peter is one such atypical customer. He wants to cooperate with Comcast, but he can't get a straight answer as to how much downloading he's allowed to do. He can't even get an estimate. Since he pays for the highest tier of access from Comcast, he figures that he should be able to download more than a "typical" user. Not true, says the Comcast "Abuse" department. Since his internet is "faster" he's simply paying more for the ability to reach the bandwidth limit sooner.

Wonderful.

Thank God FTTH is coming. That would quickly impact that lousy company in my area.

March 8, 2008

2008-03-08T14:46:00.004-07:00

It's been a crazy couple of months. Between the FCC Hearings into Comcast's fake "Network Management" practices and the 2008 Utah Legislative sessions, it's been a crazy roller coaster ride.

I'm sure by now my Representative is tired of hearing from me along with several other Senators and Representatives. They've been hearing what I've had to say along with other's who are interested in an Internet free of MegaCorp manipulation. If we don't tell our politicians what we want then they will go the wrong way in passing crazy bills.

Take for instance Representative Craig Frank and Senator Stephenson's bills on Utopia. While they successfully left committee, they were killed before going to the State Legislature because people called and wrote complaining. Eventually they listened and simply dropped it. Sure there was the risk they would pop up in another bill somewhere.

Which is why many people were involved in searching for anything that might effect it in some way. Now that it's over, it seems we may have dogged a bullet. Time to make good on it by pushing for Network Neutrality and a fiber infrastructure as the NII promised us in 1994. Speaking of which, I thought you all might find this video of interest.

President Bush I understand has suggested we have a broadband strategy and it's working great. I brought this up on a slashdot discussion and it was amazing the arguments (from both sides) that came up. One guy mentioned "It's a very competitive business, ravenously so". The response from another slashdot poster says it all

Yeah, 2.5 options make for a very competitive market. You (or other monopoly) own my phone lines, while my cable monopoly owns my cable lines. High-latency satellite connections, slow-ass dialup (still over the monopoly's lines, BTW), or "unlimited" (5GB cap) cell data plans are the rest of the .5 options.

I think a lot of businesses would be quite happy to have such an absence of competition in their markets.

Even Brian Roberts (CEO of Comcast) once mentioned in an article that they have no competition and don't consider DSL even close to competition. If anyone finds that article please forward it to me. It was I believe in 2005 or 2006 but I can't find it after massive searching.

So can the consumer use the bandwidth he PURCHASED as he pleases? According to the FCC filing from Comcast, you cannot.

The question that many users are probably asking themselves right now is, "But didn't I pay for a certain level of bandwidth? Can't I use it however and whenever I want?" To which Comcast says, simply, "No, you cannot."

The argument here is that "if the most bandwidth-consumptive users are allowed to place whatever burden they wish on the network, whenever they wish, then bandwidth can become insufficient to enable other users... to access all the content, applications, and services that they want at the level of performance they demand and deserve."

From another conversation on slashdot I found this comment of great interest since this guy is in the business of providing Internet Access.

Since I admin a smallish ISP, I can tell you that it's already the next
killer app. We've been monitoring network demographics with NTOP for quite some time.

This past year, we've seen a 10% increase in subscribers and a 60% increse in traffic. That increase is almost entirely http. P2P protocol usage, on the other hand, plateaued last year. It is becoming more and more insignificant.

You can watch 20 episodes of Lost commercial free in "HD" full screen at nbc.com. I watched the Sarah Conner Chronicles [fox.com] (brought to you by Cisco, the irony..) at home last night and monitored my bandwidth consumption, which saturated at around 3Mb. This isn't youtube, the picture is great. It's very impressive, and easy to do. It was a 10 second pluggin install on my Windows machine.

People are rapidly finding this. An informal survey of our CSRs reveals that they are getting increasing volumes of calls where the subject comes up.

Never bet against the Internet, as they say.

And dont forget one of my favorite P2P file sharing sites Vuze.com. Apparently they have major concerns with Comcast's monopoly tactics.

In a conference call, Vuze's general counsel Jay Monahan drew the starkest analogy. What Comcast is really doing, he said, wasn't at all comparable to limiting the number of cars that enter a highway. Instead, it was more like a horse race where the cable company owns one of the horses and the racetrack itself. By slowing down the horse of a competitor like Vuze, even for a few seconds, Comcast makes it harder for that horse to compete. "Which horse would you bet on in a race like that?" asked Monahan.

And yes, I've submitted my testimony about Comcast to Vuze to present before the FCC. I have uploaded a copy of it to youtube to make it easier for people to find it.

From the huge deluge of articles people have been emailing me I found this article interesting. Especially the discussion about how Comcast goes about forging packets. Something I learned is VERY easy in my SANS 2007 Security training classes in Las Vegas last year.

Daniel Weitzner, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Decentralized Information Group summed up bad traffic management with: “Maybe it’s a bit like the old adage about pornography ‘I know it when I see it’. In this case I know what Comcast is doing is in the camp of unreasonable. These are techniques that hackers would use to deny service to any application on the web, very similar in that regard. It might be interesting to hold a panel of security experts to talk about those kind of mechanisms, I’m certainly not one. But, forging data on the internet is probably outside of the realm of reasonable, and any standards body would deem it to be.”

Representative Mackey is pushing through a bill to preserve the Internet from these silly games. I've written him letters and encourage everyone to pitch in. With the crap going on with screening mail in Washington D.C., he recommends (from his web site) everyone write letters to him at his MedFord address.

Medford
5 High Street, Suite 101
Medford, MA 02155
781-396-2900

So I'm still alive and kicking and getting down to business :-)

Seems a report came out suggesting increasing our Internet Infrastructure even a little would make a huge impact on the economy. With all this talk over a recession, perhaps we should say it's high time to start building.

A broadband stimulus package would pump nearly as much money into the U.S. economy as an economic stimulus package recently passed by the U.S. Congress, said Brian Mefford, Connected Nation's CEO. A proposal being considered as part of a farm bill before Congress would allow immediate depreciation for investment in broadband infrastructure and "provide a jolt to the nation's economy in the near term," Mefford said.

Finally I leave you with this article talking about the Class Action lawsuit against Comcast. From the article

"This lawsuit demonstrates that consumers are rightfully outraged over Comcast's secretive bait‑and-switch tactics," said Markham C. Erickson, the Executive Director of the Open Internet Coalition. "The company's behavior already has attracted the attention of the FCC and Congress. Now the courts are involved. If Comcast doesn't change its behavior, the word 'Comcastic' is going to become a synonym for fraud."

January 20, 2008

2008-01-20T08:47:00.001-07:00

Welcome to 2008! Glad you all had a great Holiday Season but now it's time to hunker down and get serious with building our future. Either Utopia or something else. Doesn't matter to me but ignoring what the rest of the world is doing is just plain silly.

Before I start, it seems the FCC is investigating Comcast's strange behavior with P2P. There are many articles flying around including this one. Oh and if you wish, the FCC is looking for public comment regarding Comcast's behavior here. On the top right corner select "Submit a filing". I strongly recommend everyone submit their opinion of the companies practices. It's the only way change will happen for the better.

You must submit your comments before February 13 I believe so don't delay! Even Vuze is complaining about Comcast's P2P antics. They are one of the biggest P2P services I use. Can't say I blame them for complaining.

After all, it seems Network Neutrality and a fiber Infrastructure are more and more becoming issues for us. Even AT&T is talking about not staying Network Neutral and throttling traffic. Good Heavens! Obviously this is becoming an issue we need to address or risk loosing the Internet for something controlled by megacorps.

BTW, it's been a year since Comcast terminated my families Internet. I've been asked if I'm going back now that it's over. What do you guys think? Stay with an awesome ISP who honestly advertises their limits OR go with an abusive company who doesn't give a crap?

Well.. I wasn't idle. I've been making some youtube videos and finally posted one the other day. Here's my response to Comcast's mailed advertisements over the last few days. And I thought I was on their do no call list (Comcast's not the FCC). Only two days and 170 views. Not bad :D

I guess the real reason why we've had so many hits without really advertising is people are very dissatisfied with the company. So how many are unhappy with Comcast? Well.. it's a guess but I thought this article insightful. The article is titled "The "Tiny Percentage" of Dissatisfied Customers Turns Out to be 44%". That's tiny?? WOW!!

Just realized that other's are getting the message and talking about it. In fact a prediction for 2008 is that Internet surfing will slow. Seems the main complaint is video and audio downloads. From downloading to streaming services. Here's a cool story about the NFL pushing video over Broadband.

It's a big business and nothings been done to address the infrastructure. Other countries are showing just how much of a ripoff our Infrastructure really is as in this article.

Hong Kong residents can now enjoy their own fiber optic connections from Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited… which happen to be a fraction of the price and many times faster than what we can get here. Yes, HK residents can now get a whopping 100Mbps fiber optic connection for a mere $48.50 a month. And that's the entry-level package.

One more note. Seems the bills of Senator Stephenson and Rep. Craig Frank have been killed after leaving committee. Good job to everyone! This could not have happened without everyone's help. The Government is our servant and not the other way around. We still need to push the Community Broadband Act of 2007 to ensure our State Legislature doesn't mess up Utopia.

Utopia proponents aren't here to see it fail. We're here to make this work. Problems can be resolved. In fact it's interesting to see the changes being made now that people are seeing potential issues pop up and questions are being asked by many including myself. Much of the problems have been discussed at FreeUtopia.org. Why not head over there and put your two cents in :D

December 10, 2007

2007-12-10T18:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Holidays!

To start off, I apologize to Steven from Pennsylvania for waiting soo long to post this. Apparently I somehow missed a bit of news about Verizon. Seems they used to advertise Unlimited Internet and were punished for their false advertising by the Attorney General of New York. The amount is a pittance. Only $1 million along with a couple other things like not marketing "unlimited" when it's obviously not unlimited. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I did send a letter to their AG asking if they were looking at also going after Comcast for violating the law. It should be interesting to see if any other AG's (maybe Utah's?) are interested in fraud. There are dozens of us here in my neighborhood who signed up. It should be interesting. And yes, I have filed with them.

I'm told that Qwest may be pushing their Internet Service to a whole new level here. 20 Megs and potentially up to 40 Megs to the home with fiber! With Salt Lake potentially seeing it in the near future. You heard me. It seems Comcast and Utopia are pushing soo hard that Qwest is beginning to wake up and talk about building the Infrastructure American's have already paid for. Yes, I'm talking about the 200 Billion in taxes shelled out to ... where? And don't forget, that's the conservative number here.

After all, without a proper foundation, how can we expect to thrive in the new tech future? I've heard it said many times that Internet Bandwidth is the new currency of the future. Those who have it will do well. I even ran across a new tech term. Internet Brownouts. I had no idea what people were talking about until I read this article. If I read this right, in a nutshell the Infrastructure here in America won't be able to handle our needs in the next 2 or 3 years. Now that's a frightening thought.

Here's another problem. People are using the Internet soo much that web sites were seeing problems on Cyber Monday. So the Internet might be important after all.

So how to solve the "last mile" problem. Seems a guy in Korea already did that. Well.. sorta. Basically instead of the traditional fiber he's worked out a plastic substitute. There are limits. 2.5 Gig bandwidth but that's far better than what copper can dish out if I am comparing the two correctly.

I've been watching a bill crawl around Congress these last few months called The Community Broadband Act. I'm hoping it's as good as it seems. So far I haven't seen anything that worries me. It basically would prevent (for example) the Utah State Legislature from messing with Utopia and giving companies such as Comcast an unfair advantage. I encourage everyone to contact their Congressmen and Representatives. Tell them what you think about this bill.

Found this while researching. Seems Comcast has quite the fan club and it's not the good kind. People want customer service as well as products from a company. It's been very insightful to see how many people are posting and complaining since the company doesn't seem to care.

So is Comcast going the way of the Dinosaur?

For a short time, Comcast will be able to sit on the customer base it has developed and sap money from customers that could receive better products at a more competitive price. But, just like AOL, once people get a taste of where technology is heading, that pile of money will deplete to nearly nothing…unless Comcast can step up, stop functioning like a monopoly, and start being competive.

It goes to show you, when you're a monopoly, you can make products that suit you, not your customers.

November 12, 2007

2007-11-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

The last month or so there has been great debate about what Comcast is doing with Peer to Peer. As I don't use their service I haven't spent much time investigating them however other's have. It's been heavily discussed on Slashdot several times and the Consumerist. All very insightful.

There has even been talk about a lawsuit against the company. This should prove interesting. I'll be watching this with great interest. Especially since In my opinion the company is deceptive in what they are really doing. Yeah I know. Strong words there but I'm not an idiot. I know what an RST packet does. If Comcast wants to spin a story, they should hire a PR department that can spin a better story to those who understand tech. As I understand it, it breaks the RFC and is considered harmful.

In a TCP Packet, RST packets basically close a network connection. One gentleman emailed me the following during a conversation.

RST packets do not slow things down. RESET is an abrupt termination that can be done. This requests an immediate termination of the session and can be initiated by either of the hosts talking. Once a RESET has been received and acted on, there is no subsequent communication by either side either to acknowledge the
RESET or to close the other side of the connection.

I'm not a network engineer but I do have some exposure to how things work. Sounds about right. So rather than slow things down, it basically stops the communication by impersonating the other side.

So the company first denies it was doing anything goofy with torrents, then it said they are slowing things down, now they are defending it saying people who excessively use their network need to be managed. Great company you got there guys. I understand the need to manage network traffic however they need to define the terms of the contract far better before something like this will work. I'm not the only one who has this opinion btw. From the link I read comments such as this

imanogre... When choosing an ISP, most consumers can only base their choice on what the corporation tells you. I have no problem with comcast choosing how to run their network how they see fit, but to lie to their consumers about their product... that in my book is akin to fraudulent business practices.

or this

Simba7... It's my internet. If I pay $$$ for their fastest connection, I better get that speed no matter what I do with it.

Some people are even saying that Comcast is no longer an ISP as we currently define it. 92% of the readers who responded to his poll stated they don't believe Comcast is an ISP either. Very insightful.

Joe sent the following article which suggests this is a symptom of a far larger problem.

There’s an interesting situation that ISPs face — a lot of their consumers who have a broadband want to use their broadband connections in a variety of ways. People are also participating in media distribution in ways that they haven’t in the past … and most importantly they’re also sharing content — they’re acting as distributors. The way the networks have been implemented are in direct conflict with all of those trends and ISPs are going to face some scaling problems as applications evolve that tax those connections. So what you see between BitTorrent and Comcast is actually a symptom of a larger problem.

I've heard some argue that media distribution is the same thing as running a server so Comcast has the right to manage as they see fit. Granting Comcast a monopoly with rules that are poorly defined or not defined at all makes no sense. It's been months since I've looked at the Comcast TOS/AUP. At the time I didn't see anything that even hinted p2p would be a problem.

So now the FCC may be getting involved. Seems there are complaints being filed (yes, I filed one too) left and right over this. Speaking of which, I didn't realize that Comcast was blocking Lotus Notes traffic also. Why on earth would they do that??? So much for their PR statement about not blocking access to web sites or applications.

One more note. I simply had to share this with everyone. From Slashdot -- Enjoy!

When Google calls Comcast (Score:5, Funny)
by sherriw (794536) {snip}
*Comcast phone ringing at head office*

Comcast Secretary: Hello, thank you for calling Com-

Google Big Cheese: This is Google Inc. calling, I want to talk to whoever's in charge. Now.

Comcast Secretary: I don't know who you think you are but-

Google: Go visit google.com right now.

*secretary visits google.com, google recognizes the comcast head office IP range and serves up a pdf of a lawsuit document (Comcast as defendant) instead of the google homepage*

Secretary: Oh my, one moment please I'll transfer you.

Comcast Big Boss: What? I'm busy lining my socks with money and throwing darts at customer photos.

Google: This is Google Inc. You know why I'm calling.

Comcast: *stutters* y-yes, but we have the right to do whatever we need to, to ensure that our networks....

Google: Seriously?

Comcast: Seriously what?

Google: Seriously, you want to mess with us? Are you sure?

Comcast: *Long pause, and painful griding noises of "thinking"* Well... I think you overestimate how powerful you a-

Google: You have a lot to lose 'my friend'. You have 823 employees using Gmail. 138 office locations on Google Maps, 2,345 website pages indexed by the google search engine that recieve a collective 546 thousand search hits per day from Google Search. You currently rank first for the search term "cable internet" and nearly all your press releases are picked up by Google News. Do I need to go on?

Comcast: *speechless silence* ... Uh, um, I- I'll talk to our engineers about getting this straighted up right away... sir.

Google: That's right. And be quick about it. *snaps fingers*

October 25, 2007

2007-10-25T16:27:00.000-06:00

I had the opportunity to attend the meeting at the State Capital today discussing Utopia and it's future. Needless to say I left the meeting and was disappointed with what I was hearing. For blow by blow you can read about it in Freeutopia.org and comment here or there. Jesse did a great job in documenting it with a more complete summary I understand to come soon. I understand the minutes and audio will be available soon.

What I don't understand is why the same questions keep coming up over and over again. I mean after reading the minutes from prior meetings, why are the same questions asked? I was thinking perhaps Senator Stephenson was expecting a different answer to the questions. Sorry but I don't get it.

Now here is the amusing part. You WANT to be sitting before reading this. Oh and don't drink a beverage... You'll be sorry if you do :-)

Through the entire 5 hours sitting there, the Chairman (Senator Stephenson) in going through the agenda would bring up the agenda item, there would be a discussion then he would ask for committee comment then ask if there was public comment. Over and over through all 5 agenda items.

Utopia was item number five, just after lunch. So he brings the meeting to order with his gavel, calls Mr. Shaw and Roger Tew of Utopia, talks at length about the same items from last month's discussion, asks for comment then closes the meeting after a brief discussion among the committee members when they can meet again. I was stunned. I missed my opportunity to speak in committee?

Yeah, I thought you might find that amusing. Oh and no, I didn't just leave. Are you kidding? I had the chance to speak with Senator Goodfellow and Senator Niederhauser. I also spoke for nearly an hour with Representative Craig A. Frank.

While we didn't see eye to eye on the issue of Utopia, I believe he understood Comcast terminating Internet accounts without ANY way to either resolve the issue or any guidelines on what is acceptable use was inappropriate and unprofessional. No, he didn't say that and yes, I'm stating what I understood from the conversation.

He did say he was very concerned about Utopia folding in the future and the cities getting stuck with running a socialized internet service. He used the term "socialized" often here but before anyone get's upset just think about it. He's right! Under that scenario that's exactly what would happen. iProvo, remember that? If not google it. We've talked about it ad nausem so no need to rehash it.

He also mentioned that many of these countries installing fiber infrastructures are also socialistic countries. Again, I can't fault him here. Japan I didn't realize was not a democracy. Yeah, I had presumed forever they were but I was wrong. Very wrong (Yeah, I admit it when that happens). Japan is a Constitutional Monarchy. So not a Democracy. Most European countries are also not Democracies. Yeah I know, some are close but there are differences how they work.

I've talked about Australia and learned they are close. They are a Parliamentary democracy. Like the United Kingdom. Very insightful. I really appreciated speaking with him and realize he has important business to be about. Still, this is an issue I've dug deeply into and he was a great help in giving me some additional food for thought.

Do I think Utopia is a bad idea now? No, it's not the "gold vein" going under our houses but I never believed it was perfect either. I did speak with the Mayors of Midvale and Murray (Utopia cities). They were very enthusiastic and were kind enough to give me their insights.. but more on that later.

I still believe Utopia makes sense. I believe there are questions to be answered, just not the same questions answered month after month (I've been reading previous meeting minutes). I also believe we can't ignore what other countries are doing with their Internet Infrastructure. Ok, so they are socialistic and we're not. We also invented the thing and we're finding ourselves more and more unable to compete in the world market with this old copper infrastructure. So what do we do?

A document with several legislative proposals were entertained. Items 1 and 2 were bad. There was a discussion about Utopia having an unfair advantage over private companies but I believe these items basically give these private companies a strong advantage (remember, they are already monopolies or duopolies if you are lucky).

#1 Prohibits new non pledging members from joining Utopia. This means if you don't put any money up (such as a bond) then you can't join. A non pledging city basically says Utopia has to put up the cash as the city won't. Not unusual since that's exactly what private companies do... right? Of course I'm not taking about the tax incentives private companies like this normally receive from Government. It's how municipalities encourage companies to come in... I've been reading about it a lot lately online in AP Press.

#2 prohibits adding a new member until the "build out" is complete. HUH??? So basically if I'm reading this right, when all 14 cities are fully built out, then other's can join? How is any of this better than SB.66? Unless I misunderstood which is entirely possible. Are any other companies under such prohibitions? I doubt it.

So that leaves #3 which says (and I prefer this one), Require vote by registered voters to add a new member. There are details to this of course. But it seems if several cities wanted to join Utopia then each city would have to vote on it. I'm under the impression that Representative Frank was in favor of this and I agree. It solves In my opinion two problems.

One, I've had lunch with a few people working for Utopia cities and they have frequently mentioned residents simply didn't know they had Utopia already available. There is a lack of advertising. The city doesn't tell people about it (is this right?), Utopia is admittedly weak with advertising where they are. From personal experience, I've had trouble getting in touch with Utopia reps calling their main number. Only by being a pain in the butt and calling over and over was I able to get in touch with someone which led me to Roger Black and a couple others. This was over a two month period btw. Yeah, like I said, they aren't perfect :-)

Because of a lack of advertising, people were unaware so the lines sit unused. Representative Frank made an excellent point regarding City Council's committing great sums of money to something that could go broke. No I don't believe that's the case. We're running a home business and there are costs to starting up. Don't I know it!

But when there are only a couple people making policy on something that could adversely impact the city, it's something that should go up to a vote. Representative Frank I felt was making it clear he wasn't in favor of socialistic ventures. I believe this makes the most sense. It get's the word out about Utopia, hopefully people will ask questions, get educated so we can make decisions whether this is something wanted or not. If the city doesn't use it, why install the fiber lines? This I can agree with. At least with a vote we'll have a better idea if it will at least have the minimum needed in signing up and eventually achieve profitability.

So it's not pretty but I'm rooting for number 3. After all, we're a Democracy :-)

As a side note, I was sent this article regarding a Congressman telling Comcast to stop messing with Bittorrent. I've suspected this may be why Comcast terminated my Internet as I've used it along with many other services (IPTV, Internet radio, etc...) in the past.

Here is an interesting quote from the article... and yes, I do agree with it. After all, isn't that what other companies do? You use more you pay more? To Comcast I can only say DUH!

Unfortunately for fans of Net neutrality, the congressman said he was not ready to go down this path and instead stressed market-based methods of fixing the problems. Instead of tinkering with packets, the congressman said that in the short term, Comcast should "simply tier their offerings and engage in a pricing structure that allocates more bandwidth to those who pay more, and less to those who pay less."

I would never have started the blog and this would be a non issue.

I also found this comment amusing

Comcast's name is surely to come up in any future discussion of Net neutrality - which has gone from a theoretical "what if companies did this kind of thing" debate to something more akin to "do you want every Internet company to start acting like Comcast?"

And finally one more quote

However, he said "the long-term answer is to deploy more capacity. That is what municipal broadband and other telecom companies are doing. Ultimately, the cable companies will have to deploy fiber to the house."

One way or another it has to happen. Just imagine a world without public roads? Yeah, I know it's hard but think about it. Who built that infrastructure and why?

Then I believe we will come to agree upon why fiber to the home and business is important. It's the economy of the 21st Century that will be affected by our actions, or inaction.

Oct 11, 2007

2007-10-11T09:45:00.000-06:00

Well, seems Japan is leading the way when it comes to Internet speeds and price these days. Either the Internet is important or it's not. And since our visitors are reading this over some Internet provider, it must be important.

Seems John Kerry is spending some time talking to people about this issue. While I personally have not supported him in the past, I'm curious what he plans on doing about it. I've sent him a letter along with other's to encourage our Politicians to pay attention. We're already in 16th place and falling behind awfully fast. I encourage everyone to contact John Kerry and let him know how important the Internet is to you.

So, is Comcast disrupting Bittorrents? Seems the Jury believes so. Personally I had NO problems with the company over four years as a customer. Now they seem to be purposefully causing havok with torrents. That's sad.

I occasionally had the outage which nobody in my neighborhood had complained about (according to Comcast's CSR's). Two years ago I even had to show the Customer Service Rep how to diagnose a problem I noticed with one of their switches. It took him over an hour just to figure out how to submit a ticket to Comcast Internal! I guess I should have charged them for my time after I spotted the problem :-)

BTW, as I suspected, 200 Gigs is the unofficial Comcast bandwidth limit. Personally I don't see how I could have used even half that. Xmission.com has RRDtool running and my reports have been WAY lower. I haven't broken even half of my monthly allotment (100 Gigs a month). I think they simply don't know how to use the new tools they have in place. But that's my guess why they are stepping up terminations.

Bandwidth is becoming such an issue these days. Received this via email and just had to share. iPlayer is going to be a BIG problem in the coming year. Seems ISP's are complaining it's using too much bandwidth. Based on IPTV tech. I see this as a real killer unless we have an Infrastructure that can handle it. Oh and copper was developed in the 1800's. I don't believe it can handle anything close to what fiber can do. Look around the world. Does anyone see countries really investing in copper?

One last note. I noticed they canceled the subcommitte meeting for next monday. The next meeting on October 25th (and possibly the last) falls on another day I'll potentially be out of state... again. I swear somebody has been leaking my schedule out ;-) Yeah that was a joke.

I took this week off to catch up on pulling house wiring and putting up sheet rock (yeah, I have many skills beyond computers ::grinz::). I'm making calls and sending letters out today to keep S.B. 66 dead. I'm sorry but some technologies must die. I'm sure the buggy whip manufacturers were upset when companies started to sell cars in their region. But that's the way it must go.

September 21, 2007

2007-09-21T18:53:00.000-06:00

My time is short and so much to do. I'm preparing for a business trip so I won't be easily available for the next week. I'll have limited email access though. Don't know how my wife is going to handle it with 6 kids by herself. I'll have to make it up to her when I get back :-)

As much as I need to go, I wish I could stay. I just learned there is a meeting next Wednesday to discuss Utopia in the State Capital. I understand Comcast and other's will have reps there. I certainly have something that needs saying. So I'm writing letters and contacting as many people as I can to get there if possible and sign up for the Citizen Comment period at the end of the meeting. Speaking of writing, I'm finishing up a few letters to several people including Senator Howard A. Stephenson and Representative Frank, Craig A.

Sen. Howard A. Stephenson is the Senate Chair and Rep. Craig A. Frank is the House Chair.

Here is their contact information.

Utah Howard A. Stephenson (R)
Email 1038 East 13590 South
Draper, Utah 84020 Office (801) 972-8814
Home (801) 576-1022

Write to the following address to make sure he gets any correspondence.

W115 Capitol Complex
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
801-538-1035

Frank, Craig A.
825 E 1300 N
PLEASANT GROVE, UT 84062
cfrank@utah.gov

But write to this address for Frank

W030 State Capital Complex
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
801-538-1029

I heard a rumor that SB 66 may be revived. Bad Idea. Why on earth would we want to push a technology invented in the 1800's is beyond me. Especially when fiber's limits are simply not known and we certainly know the limits of copper wires.

Please tell everyone you know to attend or write. I'll be there in spirit. If someone could take notes and let me know how it turned out I'd really appreciate it.

Sept 16, 2007

2007-09-16T19:28:00.001-06:00

Before I dive into the latest, I'd like to ask if anyone from the New York Metro area has been disconnected by Comcast "for using the Internet too much", to please contact me as soon as possible. Or if you know of someone, I would count it a personal favor to contact me. There is a reporter who is interested in speaking to someone locally.

I have several people in the East coast interested with interviewing but they are a little further than the reporter would like. Simply post a comment on the blog with your email or phone number. I will NOT post it and spread your information beyond what you allow. Thanks!

Ok, so what does the Government say Broadband is?

I was stunned to learn the FCC considers anything above 200K to be Broadband. Most countries these days are looking at a minimum of 2 Megs before something can be called that. My guess is they don't understand this was Broadband when everyone had 2400 baud modems or slower.

Several people I've spoken with the last couple weeks suggested Broadband isn't important. That the US has all it needs and then some. I don't agree. In fact other states (such as Ohio) have signed initiatives to build a fiber infrastructure and countries are getting the jump on us. Australia for instance is looking to build an Infrastructure which 99% will have Broadband within two years! From the Australia article:

The joint venture, known as OPEL, would contribute a further 900 million US dollars to provide broadband of at least 12 megabits per second by June 2009.

"What we have announced today is a plan that will deliver to 99 percent of the Australian population very fast and affordable broadband in just two years' time," Howard said.

An expert group will also develop a bidding process for the building of a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network, funded solely by private companies, in major cities.

And in Ohio, they seek to save money and build an affordable system available to everyone:

The order directs state agencies to use the Broadband Ohio Network rather than the patchwork of public and private networks agencies presently use, allowing the state to realize cost savings and efficiencies.

“By fully utilizing our state broadband network we will be making efficient, responsible use of our public dollars,” Strickland said.

I wish them well.

One more note, looks like Farmington City Council may not be moving forward soon with Utopia. At least those are the rumblings I'm hearing. I hope in their September 18th meeting they will at least investigate it before making any decisions.

The decision to move from pledging to non-pledging was motivated by risk tolerance; the council just doesn't feel comfortable with being on the hook in the rare instance that UTOPIA can't make the bond payments.

I haven't heard of any cities complaining about money being an issue. Only iProvo is cited as an example of what not to do. Fortunately, iProvo is not Utopia. I've been told they sublease Utopia lines and it's a service the city provides to residents. Utopia doesn't provide services, only the lines. A big difference there.

Personally, I've thought about my future home purchases. It's very unlikely I would consider a second purchase here in West Jordan unless a change in the climate occurs. In purchasing a second home, I'm looking only in cities in which Utopia is available or will be. West Jordan is a great city however the same services can be found in other cities as well. Either the Internet is important or it isn't. Can't have it both ways.

Sept 11, 2007

2007-09-11T16:57:00.000-06:00

I just had to share this with everyone. As I was driving home from work today, I heard a most awesome Clark Howard minute on KSL 102.7 FM. He basically went through the whole issue with Comcast terminating customer accounts for violating their "Invisible Bandwidth" limit. What really amused me was how he reported it, calling the company "Arrogant" and a Monopoly. It felt good to hear his comments. We basically brought this upon ourselves. He then quoted what Japan has for Internet services. Generally about 9 times faster than what we have here in America at a fraction of the cost.

As I understand it, they interviewed people from Atlanta Georgia area several months ago. I don't know who they are but I'm very pleased they came forward with their story.

If anyone was able to record it please let me know. I'd love a copy of it. If only I wasn't driving :-)

I'm getting contacted by reporters in Europe now. I apologize for not keeping up with my email. Articles are popping up in Germany, Italy and other countries and I've interviewed with several of them. There may be an article from France soon. Thank goodness for the Internet. I know a fair amount of Portuguese, a little Italian (still learning it) and no German, there are free tools available. Simply put your Internet address or text, select how you want it translated, then press the translate button. It's simple and does a fair job of translating.

I hear we're in the Washington Post! Several have posted here or emailed me the link (Thank You!) I unfortunately don't know of anyone in Washington DC who was terminated. If you or someone you know in the area has been terminated by Comcast please let me know. I'd love to send your contact information to them with your permission of course.

I've asked several people in recent conversations to come forward and speak with reporters. More and more are telling me they are afraid of retribution. Don't be afraid. YOU are the customer. The more who come forward and complain of this ill treatment the more power we all have to make a change. Whether it's Comcast to give up it's outrageous abuse policies or replace them with a national infrastructure as was pushed in the 90's by Clinton and Gore (NII). Comcast has already terminated services. They can't legally do anything more. It's done. Many have already come forward and even posted here.

Speaking of HighSpeed Internet, I recently came across this article about Japan. At least now I understand part of the reason why they've been able to leap frog America... again. Nothing wrong with competition. But when we deliberately hold ourselves back? Something certainly needs to be done. This is why I'm telling people to contact local Representatives and every Politician until they get a move on.

Another article of interest. Internet pipes in the YouTube Age. Very insightful.

"Unless we ensure an adequate supply of quality bandwidth at reasonable prices, many current and future business models will be stranded, which will have serious implications for economic growth and national competitiveness in the Internet sector," Kleeman writes.

Someone recently posted stating they like to be social and go out, talk with people. I'm fine with that. I do it all the time. However the article very clearly mentions we'll have problems with economic growth without the proper infrastructure. Time to get rid of the buggy whip :-)

One more note. Is Comcast violating the law by filtering P2P?

Many states make it illegal for an individual to impersonate another individual. New York, a state notorious for its aggressive pro-consumer office of the Attorney General, makes it a crime for someone to "[impersonate] another and [do] an act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another." (See: NY Sec. 190.25: Criminal impersonation in the second degree).

Also from the article

Comcast is perfectly within its right to filter the Internet traffic that flows over its network. What it is not entitled to do is to impersonate its customers and other users, in order to make that filtering happen. Dropping packets is perfectly OK, while falsifying sender information in packet headers is not.

I completely agree with this. While I believe they need to manage traffic(QOS: Quality of Services), I'm curious where this would go and if the AG's are looking at investigating the company. I'm curious where the FTC is with investigating the company. It's been many months since I filed a complaint citing unfair business practices. Time for me to follow up.

August 27, 2007

2007-08-27T11:27:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note during my lunch hour...

Breaking News!

We've been Slashdotted!

I was wondering why our traffic was up so sharply. Thank goodness we're running this under blogspot otherwise we'd suffer the usual Slashdot effect. Google Rocks! (Yes, I know they aren't perfect but...). I also appreciate the high interest in the story. It's a problem that nobody in my neighborhood knew existed. My neighbors thought they still had "unlimited use for a flat monthly fee". At least that's what the advertisement said when we signed up.

My mail box is pulverized however. So many responses to read through. Please don't take it personally if I don't respond. Believe it or not, I do have my time away from the keyboard despite some opinions to the contrary :-)

Oh and it seems West Jordan will not be joining Utopia. Just received an email from our Mayor. I'm being told there are no plans as the City Council isn't convinced they should join. Citing iProvo's screw ups. Of course there are other cities doing well (Murry, Midvale, West Valley and so on). I'm curious, any ideas on what would convince a City Council we should investigate Fiber to the home?

Please post your thoughts. I'm curious what other's would do short of trying to replace them (It might come to that unfortunately). I really do believe a Fiber Infrastructure would have kept an abusive company such as Comcast from terminating people's account with next to no warning. A single phone call then your gone is poor customer service at best.

Newsflash to Comcast. There will always be a .001% top users list. There will never be a time where they no longer have a .001% top user list. Ever. If it's only .001% then why are there neighbors down the street terminated for heavy usage? One lady with 9 kids around the block received "The Call" and canceled on the spot. She didn't want to deal with the company after hearing of my experience the month before.

I have some new info that's come in about the $200 Billion American's have paid for Fiber to the home. I haven't reviewed it yet but if any of it's verifiable then I'll post it here in the next few days.

Thanks again for your interest and keep spreading the word! Several calls from reporters have come to me and other's unsolicited because of word of mouth!

Chow

August 22, 2007

2007-08-22T17:22:00.001-06:00

Before I begin. I want to say I really appreciate the high interest and all the comments posted over the last few months. Both Pro and Con. I don't mind a dissenting voice. What a terrible place it would be if we all thought and spoke the same. I would like to say that lately I've received a number of dissenting posts with Adult language in it.

I'm uncomfortable with accepting those posts and haven't figure out how to edit them here (I've looked). If you have an opposing opinion please post but without the vulgarity (FU this and so on). I will reject those posts every time and would like to accept it. Even if I don't agree with it. Thanks!

Now on to our program...

I don't know what to make of it. Comcast says nay, and future ex-Comcast subscribers say yea.

Are they messing with bittorrent? I did find this so I'm willing to bet they are doing something as others have also noticed something going on.

Oh and in response to Comcast's cut/paste bandwidth response, I posted my analysis of their numbers in the February 20th post In an attempt to translate their response into English :-)

Their response makes no sense but I digress. I've already kicked that one around so enjoy!

From the Fedora article

If Comcast is allowed to continue cutting off even one protocol we’ve already lost. Voice your opinion. Contact your local office. Complain. Make some noise. Switch providers.

Until then I’ll be getting these two Comcast connections switched to a competitor. It may be a slower internet (in my area) on DSL, but at least its the whole internet.

I'm afraid it won't matter. I believe we've already shown how the company doesn't address consumer issues. It's bizarre but that's reality.

Comcast has been treating its customers so badly that even Clark can’t believe it. Customers are receiving letters from the company, warning them that if they use their high-speed Internet too much the service will be cut off. But Comcast doesn’t tell people what “too much” means.

It seems change only comes with running it through the courts as in this example. Yes, there are many other's but this one I found particularly interesting. I've wondered why our Attorney General doesn't investigate. Maybe someday (or elect a new one).

For those of you without alternatives I strongly encourage you to speak to your local Government. City Council, the Mayor, your Governor. Everybody. And keep speaking until something is done about it. It's your right and privilege as an American.

August 19, 2007

2007-08-19T10:42:00.000-06:00

Looks like Comcast is making friends today. A reader sent this to me today. While I understand why they are doing it, I don't believe this is the right answer. Bit-torrent relies on upload and download bandwidth being available. Sending RST to terminate the upload (while creative) is only alienating their customers even further. Personally I don't believe they really care. They simply want you to send them their money and read 130,000 email's every month. Or better yet, just send them the money and don't use the service. It's better for everyone that way :-)

Services such as Zudeo would be affected by this stunt. BTW, if you are a Star Wars fan, download "Dark Resurrection" from them(it's in Italian with English subs). It's awesome!

If Bit-Torrent is such a problem, here's another protocol which could finish the job of trashing the Internet. Internet Television is becoming VERY popular especially in my house (along with Internet Radio).

A recent report urges restraint to nurture growth of the Internet. I thought this part of their report was very interesting

The think tank, the New Millennium Research Council, released an 18-page report that called on Internet policymakers to avoid new regulations that could restrict Internet investment by the private sector and to find ways to encourage investment to handle the coming Internet onslaught.

How well has this "Hands Off" approach worked? Any guesses? Just read the above article on P2P for the answer. Oh, and for those who think fiber to the home isn't possible because of all the fiber we'd have to run across the country, check this out

The report said investment in network capacity by ISPs typically involves activating fiber optic cables that are already constructed but still dark; connecting the fiber to higher speed routers; dedicating circuits to Internet traffic; and expanding end user access lines where needed. Notably, 75 percent growth in the average traffic on the world's Internet backbones in 2006 outpaced the 47 percent growth of capacity, the report said, citing TeleGeography Research. That trend had continued for the third straight year.

Dark Fiber in other words. I believe we have the infrastructure already in place for the long runs people frequently bring up. It's the last mile which is the problem. This is why I support Utopia's efforts.

Finally I leave you with this thought.

The average IPTV user will likely consume about 224 gigabytes per month, he added, at a monthly cost to carriers of $112, a giant leap from the less than $5 attributed to Internet use. If that content were high-definition video, the average user would be consuming more than 1 terabyte per month at a cost to carriers of $560 per month. "Clearly that's not what the average user is going to pay per month for their video service," Kafka said. "That's why we need help."

Now I think I understand the knee jerk reaction and the fear companies such as Comcast display. The future doesn't look very bright without a fundamental change in either the habits of their customers or investment in the infrastructure.

Starting in the early 1990's, the Clinton-Gore Administration had aggressive plans to create the "National Infrastructure Initiative" to rewire ALL of America with fiber optic wiring, replacing the 100 year old copper wire. The Bell companies - SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest, claimed that they would step up to the plate and rewire homes, schools, libraries, government agencies, businesses and hospitals, etc. if they received financial incentives.

• By 2006, 86 million households should have already been wired with a fiber (and coax), wire, capable of at least 45 Mbps in both directions, and could handle 500+ channels.
• Universal Broadband: This wiring was to be done in rich and poor neighborhoods, in rural, urban and suburban areas equally.
• Open to ALL Competition: These networks were to be open to ALL competitors, not a closed-in network or deployed only where the phone company desired.
• This is not Verizon's FIOS or SBC's Lightspeed fiber optics, which are slower, can't handle 500 channels, are not open to competition, and are not being deployed equitably.
• This was NOT fiber somewhere in the network ether, but directly to homes.

We already paid for it in taxes. So why don't we have it? Does anyone else feel like fraud occurred somewhere?

• Costs to Customers - We estimate that $206 billion dollars in excess profits and tax deductions were collected - over $2000 per household. (This is the low estimate.)

• Cost to the Country - About $5 trillion dollars to the economy. America lost a decade of technological innovation and economic growth, about $500 billion annually.

• Cost to the Country - America is now 16th in the world in broadband. While Korea and Japan have 40-100 Mbps at cheap prices, America is still at kilobyte speeds.

• The New Digital Divide - The phone companies current plans are to pick and choose where and when they want to deploy fiber services, if at all.

• Competitor Close Out - SBC, BellSouth and Verizon now claim that they can control who uses the networks and at what price, impacting everything from VOIP and municipality roll outs to new services from Ebay and Google.

Next time you are told you didn't pay for it, remind them they already grabbed over 200 Billion from Americans under Clinton. It's time to cough up the benefits of our investment.

August 15, 2007

2007-08-15T18:16:00.000-06:00

Apparently companies such as Comcast terminating their customers accounts is a bigger issue than I had realized. This last month I've had a couple of unsolicited interviews with reporters for a couple of magazines about my experience. They were also very interested in speaking with anyone who had similar experiences. I gladly passed along contact information I had permission to give out. Hopefully those worked out for everyone. I'll admit, I felt kinda silly when asked for a photo shoot by one magazine. I guess I asked for it when I began speaking out. It's not me as I've never been comfortable with public speaking.

When the articles pop up I'll post the links here if they are available online. Speaking of which, I received this from Google Alerts just a while ago. No I didn't interview with them... I think :-) Basically the article talks about more and more cable companies running into the lack of bandwidth issue. It's a good article. I highly recommend reading it.

The last section of the article had a link to IPTV. I'm wondering if this is part of the reason Comcast selected me for their ex-customer club. I was getting into this a little before they cut me off. IPTV is sweet and IMO something Cable companies need to fear if bandwidth is an issue.. More products are coming out which use IPTV. It's only getting worse not better. In fact with my VERY high interest in MythTV, I can see fun products such as Myth causing some to panic and over react (Note to Brian Roberts: Get your people Customer Service training. They could use some).

One more note. I've had some people say America's Internet is totally awesome compared to the rest of the world. That may be true in some very isolated parts of the country. In general however we've a lot of catching up to do. Countries such as Japan and Korea beat us when it comes to average Internet speeds. An average of 4.8 vs. 61 Mps is pretty sad IMHO.

The last paragraph says it all.

The sad truth is that broadband connections of any speed can still be hard to come by in some parts of the country. The US consistently ranks relatively low in comparison with the rest of the world in both broadband availability and speeds. We also consistently pay more for our slower connections than those in other countries. As long as the government continues to make decisions that seem to work against consumers in this area—for example, not requiring cable and DSL providers to share their lines—Americans will continue to be stuck with subpar broadband speeds and prices.

I think it's time for me to speak before our City Council again. They might want to learn how far behind we are. Only projects such as FioS or Utopia will catch us up in a timely fashion.

August 2, 2007

2007-08-02T09:38:00.000-06:00

The White City Council meeting went well. The level of interest in Utopia is very high. It seems they will be joining Utopia far in advance of West Jordan if things continue. Both my wife and I attended and had the chance to chat with people. Since White City is a Township, they had a Council member assigned to them by Salt Lake County. We had a wonderful conversation with the Councilmen about Utopia and it's many benefits. They were very surprised to learn of our Comcast termination story and had many questions which I was pleased to answer.

Another gentleman I spoke with made a comment before the meeting if perhaps Comcast or Qwest would be a better choice for the area. He and others were stunned when I mentioned that Comcast is terminating Internet accounts in such a bizzare manner with inadequate notification for violating an undocumented bandwidth limit. Needless to say, it's unlikely Comcast will find much sympathy here.

Jesse (who presented the Utopia idea) mentioned Comcast was plastering the area with an advertisement he said they were loosing money on big time. I found it amusing the ad came only days after S.B. 66 died.

In the meeting I mentioned the one thing the Township needed to remember is once Utopia comes, they must advertise! When I spoke to a tech for the City of Murray I was told people had Utopia fiber and didn't know about it! They were looking to sign up with another service costing far more than Utopia. I'm hoping they will keep that in mind when it comes to the area.

Next we're on to Draper Utah. There has been a great deal of discussion in bringing Utopia there. Also I'm speaking with my City Council again about bringing Utopia here to West Jordan. It's ironic. Roger Black, COO of Utopianet lives in West Jordan and can't get the awesome service his company provides. Go figure.

Just received this notice. I strongly suggest everyone who doesn't wish to give up their legal right to sue Comcast to opt out here. You simply need your name, address and Comcast account number. As far as I can tell it's legitimate.

One more note. Looks like the State of Ohio has decided they want the ability to compete in the 21st Century and more importantly, save money. Now who doesn't want to save more money :-)

From the article

“This is the first step in bridging the digital divide in Ohio, and I look forward to working with industry providers, businesses and our local communities to take additional steps to provide superior broadband access to all of Ohio’s 88 counties,” Strickland said.

Please encourage your local and state Government to bring broadband which will allow American's to compete. America is already in 24th place in broadband penetration and in 7th place with technology and science. We're no longer number 1. I don't know about you guys but I find that disturbing.

July 11, 2007

2007-07-11T16:25:00.001-06:00

Today I'll be attending a Community Council meeting to discuss plans to bring Utopia to the masses. No, not here in West Jordan (though I'm still talking to people about it). I'm visiting White City today (they are just south of Sandy). It should be interesting to hear the arguments, pro and con. I'll update the blog if anything of interest. You never know. Basically I'm there to lend my support for expanding Utopia (now that the legislation has expired).

I never would have done something like this a year ago. It's amazing how poor customer service can get someone really motivated. Speaking of which, a recent post from autoguy mentioned Comcast is working with customers when bandwidth issues arise.

Comcast has issued an official response claiming they will try and work with their customers regarding this very issue. Not so in my case, regardless of the extensive effort I made to work with them. They threatened me with a 12 month suspension of services.

If anyone has seen such a response could you please email the link to me? I'd like to examine whether it's an improvement or just CYA. Also, I strongly recommend that anyone receiving "The Call" begin moving email's and your address book over to something like gmail. So far people are usually terminated regardless of what they do within 30 days. At least that's what I've gathered in speaking with former Comcast HSI customers.

I recently came across freeutopia.org. Very well kept and up to date site discussing Utopia, Internet and other items along that route. Might be something of interest to check out.

One more note. There are only 4 more days left to comment to the FCC regarding Net Neutrality. Take a few minutes and let them know your thoughts. Also check out this cool YouTube video about the internet and Net Neutrality.

June 25, 2007

2007-06-25T18:57:00.001-06:00

I received a number of letters from various Politicians the last few weeks. It's interesting as many say the same thing. Politicians are aware of a growing concern by their constituents that the Internet is in trouble. Yet they seem to move rather slow in fixing the problem. If we had our roads privately held and problems were cropping up every week, we would see decisive and immediate action. I'm not talking about the infrequent pot hole here.

People in and out of Utah are contacting me stating they received "The Call" and asking what can they do. I'm asking everyone whether a resident of Utah or not to contact Senator Hatch, Senator Bennett and Representative Chris Cannon. Tell them how you feel about the problems with monopolies (in some cases duopolies). Don't forget to remind them it's important for our future as a country to have high speed Internet everywhere.

Finding your Senators and Representatives is easy. Tell him how you feel. In many cases you can easily send them a letter quickly online from their web site (the web sites are usually linked to their name, try it). It's your right and privilege to tell them what is on your mind. After all, America just dropped in broadband penetration from 12th place to 24th place. We're losing ground fast. Countries such as Australia understand how important the Internet is.

I think Orrin Hatch is closer to understanding that people are being harmed and discriminated by some private companies.

So, without further comment.

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about network neutrality legislation. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond.

As you are aware, S. 215, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, was introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan on January 9, 2007, and referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. S. 215 would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to establish certain Internet neutrality duties for broadband service providers, including not interfering with, or discriminating against, the ability of any person to use broadband service in a lawful manner. This law is intended to promote competition and ensure consumers are not harmed by the actions of large telecommunications companies.

As a longtime advocate for competition and fairness to consumers, I believe competition yields several important advantages to consumers, including lower prices, higher quality services, and more responsive customer service. Our nation has always placed a premium on the many benefits made possible when companies compete on a fair playing field.

I believe it is important for telecommunications providers to ensure they do not and will not discriminate against consumers. I am hopeful the Federal government will not be forced to take too active a role in prescribing what can and can't be done on private networks around the country as I believe in fostering competitive integrity in the offering of broadband and video services. However, telecommunications companies are deregulated and are therefore subject to antitrust laws which regulate anti-competitive behavior in the U.S. Should these laws prove to be ineffective at protecting consumers, I will not hesitate to take action, especially if market imbalances begin to manifest themselves. Again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

Orrin G. Hatch.
United States Senator.

May 31, 2007

2007-05-31T17:40:00.000-06:00

In the middle of my push for Utopia Fiber in West Jordan, I came across this tidbit on the Save the Internet web site. Apparently companies like Comcast want to be the "gatekeepers of the Internet". Personally that worries me greatly. We already can't trust them to be fair with their customers. Every week I'm hearing from somebody in the U.S. who has been disconnected for violating their fuzzy Abuse policy. NOW they want to discriminate against web sites who don't pay more for service they are already paying for?

It's been argued that companies such as Google (for example) are not paying their fair share of the bandwidth they are using. I beg to differ. I've spoken with a few buddies working at Google and it's certainly not a free lunch (unless you mean lunch at their wonderful cafeteria). Companies and customers are paying for the services offered. This is basically another excuse to hike the rates without calling it a rate hike.

Do you want to "trust" an abusive company with the Internet? Contact the FCC and let them know what you think by June 15th (end of the public comment period). It's important they understand that a common carrier shouldn't be allowed to restrict what web pages you visit or how fast they might load compared to a competitor who paid extra.

One more note. I've received an interesting email from my Representative Chris Cannon about his views regarding the Internet. It's basically the opposite of what I've been hearing from him these last few years. Here is part of the letter I received.

Thank you for contacting me regarding the important issue of Net Neutrality. I appreciate your letter, and it is a pleasure to respond.

Currently in Congress there is a heated debate as to whether or not legislation should be enacted to prevent phone and cable companies from charging for preferential network access. As you may know, "Net Neutrality" refers to the idea that access to the Internet should be on a free and open basis for all.

The Internet continues to be a vital source of economic growth. The idea of a free and open Internet is what has allowed it to prosper and flourish into the fertile breeding ground of innovation it is today. It is my belief that Congress should stay out of the way of innovation and allow the Internet to continue to grow without the restrictive hands of over-regulation and control. For this reason I voted in favor of HR 5417, the Internet Freedom and Non-Discrimination Act, and for an amendment on the House floor that strengthens the anti-trust laws against those who attempt to degrade or impede legitimate Internet content.

In my time in Congress, I have led the way in keeping the Internet free of taxes and have always been a proponent of its ability to launch and sustain businesses of all sizes, but mainly small businesses. In addition, I am a cosponsor of HR 1684, the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act of 2005, a bill that would make permanent the ban on state taxation of Internet access, to make sure your email is never taxed, and that you will not be taxed on your connection to your Internet service provider.

I am proud of the fact that Utah is one of the nation's technological leaders, and I assure you I will vote to protect Utahns in their freedom of choice in their Internet access and that I will fight for the founding principles that have made the Internet the success it is today.

BTW, HR 5417 can be viewed here.

Seems we have more in common than I thought :-)

May 11, 2007

2007-05-11T18:09:00.000-06:00

Just received an amusing email from the BBB today. I couldn't resist sharing. Basically Comcast sent them another response and mailed a copy to our house now. I'll bet nobody could guess what the company said. Any takers??

No, don't hold your breath. Comcast apparently isn't able to do much more than cut and past their reply over and over again (and over and over and over....). It's quite funny actually. You would think a company able to push 150 Mps across a copper wire would be capable of something a little more ... original?

Before I get into that, here is their response

And here is mine.

So now I have a list of compromises. The middle ground is NOT getting the answer and resolving the issue. We'll see what the company does. Any guesses??? :-)

I'm curious if the company will improve as a result of this. The Abuse department I hope has some understanding of how dangerous Social Engineering can be. Ever hear of a guy named Kevin Mitnick? Yeah, it's a bigger problem than people realize.

People get a phone call and wonder if it really is Comcast calling. I've heard some say this could potentially turn into some way to scam people. Call around and ask for personal information. Hey, don't look at me that way. Comcast is the one who said Unlimited doesn't mean unlimited anymore. None of this has made sense from the beginning.

Ok. So I've received a bunch of email's about Comcast's latest test over copper wire. They did accomplished something very impressive. I doubt anyone will see 150 Mps but at least they are starting to catch up with the fiber. I hope nobody is really kidding themselves. Copper is 19th century tech and we're talking about moving into the 21st Century with fiber. They are basically investing in technology which really doesn't have a future. Fiber is the future. The potential is much higher. When a gig connection is made over a cable modem then I'll change my opinion :-D

May 5th, 2007

2007-05-05T12:28:00.000-06:00

We're at 25,000 visitors! Thank You all for your interest in this issue and getting the word out. According to Sitemeter, we have visitors from Australia, Germany, the UK, Brazil, Thailand, Japan and Israel to name just a few countries. I've received links to articles around the world. This is quite the accomplishment after nearly 4 months of operation. With people such as you spreading the word, we may make a positive change yet.

So here we are. The next 30 days with DSL. This month I needed to pull down more iso's than usual. I'm developing some code and needed to pull down RedHat AS3, AS4, and AS5. Binaries and source. That's on top of our normal usage. So here are the screen shots.

Here is the usage chart.

And here are the numbers.

Why do I show these? Because I was very suspicious when the Abuse department stated we were using 250-300 gigs a month. I simply couldn't believe we were hitting those numbers. I only wish I was monitoring it at this level back then. I have spoken with a couple dozen people who have captured their usage. In every case so far, the Abuse department's quoted numbers do not match what terminated customers monitoring software reported. Since Comcast doesn't provide any way of monitoring usage, you simply have to take their word for it. This reflects poorly on the company. With as much money as the company made last year, they can spend a few bucks and figure this problem out.

BTW, If I don't respond to an email or post please don't take it personally. I do have 6 kids and a wife to spend time with. Not to mention my employment and after hour activities keep me busy. I'll do the best I can to respond.

UTOPIA UPDATE

There are also a few other things of interest I've been working on. I'm trying to get together with the City Council's and especially the Mayor's of cities with Utopia. At least a couple of them to discuss how things are going. I'd like to copy what they did in the City of West Jordan. I've heard plenty of scary stories about iProvo. With 14 cities adopting Utopia, I figure somebody had to do it properly. Once I have something to report I'll post it here.

A little over a month ago I had a pleasant chat with Jason Porter and Pete Ashdown, CEO of Xmission.com. That conversation I felt was very helpful. Pete is very excited with Utopia and we walked away with a laundry list of things to do. More on this in upcoming posts.

I really appreciate Jason's help these last few months. In researching why we are not allowed to join Utopia at this time, Jason discovered the following legislation which spells it out. Fortunately part of it goes away after July 2007 (yes, this year). I've been sending letters to the legislature and my representative. I strongly recommend everyone to do the same. Make them aware of what they could be getting themselves into and encourage competition.

Here are a few other links Jason provided. Very insightful.

If you have a story, please feel free to post it here or email me.

Keep up the great job of getting the word out!!

April 13, 2007

2007-04-13T21:37:00.000-06:00

Happy Friday the 13th!

I wasn't planning on updating the blog for several days as I have a lot going on these days. I received an alert from google which I simply could not ignore. Just noticed we're now in the New York Times

I really appreciate The New York Times in helping get the word out. The Internet has become very important over the years and simply terminating Internet access after a single phone call isn't reasonable. One correction to the article. Comcast didn't send me a letter warning we were violating their "Acceptable Use Policy".

Had we received such a letter it would have been proof enough we were in contact with Comcast and it wasn't a prank. Degrading Comcasts systems isn't something reasonable people would want to do especially when Comcast (at the time) was the only provider of High Speed Internet (HSI) in my area.

The last part of the article I thought was great.

But Russell Shaw, a blogger at ZDNet, writes that while suspending service might be an overreaction, “these bandwidth hogs are abusing the system.” His idea is to “hit ’em with a surcharge” (blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony).

Most HSI providers actually do this and/or provide some system in warning their customers so an informed choice can be made. Heck, my ISP Xmission provides multiple tiers of service. Service up to 500 Gigs consumption for about $250 a month I believe. Sounds reasonable to me. I can't help but wonder why Comcast doesn't go this route. After all, their Abuse department tell's people to reduce usage or upgrade to a Business account which we did try in January 2007.

Here is page 1 and page 2 of our contract with Comcast for a business account.

I did press Comcast's Business CSR however they were unable to give me any additional details. He simply said there is more bandwidth for business accounts but couldn't say how much we were purchasing. Sounds like a broken record huh?

Related articles in the New York Times had a very insightful poll on their page. 55% of the respondents (as of today) said Comcast should either let bandwidth hogs through as everything balances or a surcharge should be added (after 268 responses).

Occasionally I read Broadbandreports.com. An article I read by a fellow poster said he was tired of this subject coming up over and over again. His comments were not flattering to people who fully use the HSI purchased. I've never heard of this problem before with an "unlimited use for a flat monthly fee" residential account, I figured somebody needed to raise the issue.

Update - April 15, 2007

Fox has picked up the story for a quick update here in Utah. Here is the link regarding tonights broadcast. Click to watch tonights video. I really appreciate FOX 13 with being so accommodating and helping get the word out.

The internet is discussed these days as if everyone has High Speed Internet (HSI) available everywhere. Almost like it's a public utility. Everyone has water or roads accessible to their home. It's not often where it's not available. Perhaps the Internet should become a public utility. At least the infrastructure.

April 5, 2007

2007-04-05T22:46:00.000-06:00

It's been a Comcastic month! No really. We've been Comcast free for over a month and have been using DSL for 30 days. Several people have challenged me to keep doing what we've been doing when we had Comcast then post our usage.

Well, my ISP (xmission.com) provides a stats section where I can see exactly what I'm consuming. The numbers are shocking. I've learned we are actually using much less than Comcast told us. I could post what my firewall is telling me but hey, I might have faked it right? After all, I'm a bandwidth hog. Or am I?

Ok. So downloading 4 movies, a few iso's(I had to pull down fedora 5, Ubuntu and OpenSuse) a couple different versions of each for a variety of projects I'm working on. I'm messing with 0.20 of mythtv, some gaming, this blog and so on... here it is.

The chart.

The totals.

A reminder. Since I now can run servers, we have a LAMP server I've been experimenting with providing a forum for my family across the US (and some in Europe) to share photos. I'm even experimenting with video publication. Kinda a youtube or spikedhumor thing.

So what do you guys think? 300 Gigs a month a posibility?

Sure, I could be toning it down. But then let's see what the next 30 days bring :-)

BTW, came across this poll asking should ISP's advertise the terms of use they wish us to stay within while on their services?. Rather interesting. It's not just a few people who believe Comcast should disclose their limits. That small unscientific poll clearly shows it. People are demanding to be told what they are purchasing.

I wonder who the 14 people who said no are and if their employer resides in Philly. Nah, couldn't be :-)

April 4, 2007

2007-04-04T17:55:00.000-06:00

I was recently contacted by Chloe Albanesius at PC Magazine. Here is the article online for your viewing pleasure. I really appreciate the opportunity to clarify a few points and explain my view on this issue. People have the right to know what they really purchased and silence will only encourage the company to continue abusing it's customers.

I'm concerned that Comcast is disconnecting people with next to no notification. One phone call should not be considered sufficient. If you had an issue with a company, who would you call? Most people I've asked that question say, you guessed it, Customer Service :-) With Comcast who should you call? The Abuse Department. Don't ask Comcast Customer Service if you get one of those calls. They don't know a thing about problems with your account until after you are terminated. Your Comcast bill only has Customer Service listed btw.

At least that was my experience. I've uploaded my phone records from T-Mobile as proof that my wife and I called them multiple times on December 12 and 13 (I have been keeping detailed records of this experience just in case). They even called me back on December 13th to tell me it wasn't Comcast calling that it must be a prank!! You will also find my online chat with Comcast which I took screen shots for your review. They said the same thing. When asked if there were bandwidth limits their online CSR said "No.". I believe this can't be any clearer.

That being the case, Comcast really needs to resolve a few internal problems. I don't care really how they do it but it's obvious to the dozens of disconnected ex-Comcast consumers I've spoken with that they have a problem which needs fixing.

I've finally received a response from Comcast through the BBB regarding my complaint. They said (you guessed it) "abusers using 100 times the norm", "13 Billion email's a month" (ok, they really said million...), "256,000 photos, 30,000 songs", blah blah blah. Ugg. Microsoft Cut and paste to the rescue.

Comcast needs to speak to their technical people and ask THEM what on earth their response means in english. I've provided my analysis of this in February. Comcast's response translates to 1.3 - 2.7 Gigs consumption a month. This means if you download 2 movies from Amazon.com's Unbox then you could be the next lucky customer to switch to DSL (or Verizon FiOS or Utopianet). Each HD-DVD is around 2 Gigs and costs about $10 for a 2 hour Hollywood video. Cheaper than paying $30 for the same thing.

Here is my response to Comcast through the BBB

I'm sorry to sound so harsh as that's not my style. I thought it was interesting to see Sara provide a number to call. No thanks. I don't need another quote for a commercial account (I received a second verbal quote of $10,000 to connect and up to $2000 a month). I did find it interesting they didn't send me a written quote. Pity. I'd love to post it here.

Sara did mentioned something I thought rather interesting. They "Proactively contact customers violating acceptable use" (one call is proactive???), they "value the business of all high speed internet customers" (Huh? You mean before you disconnect them right?), and they "work with customers to find a more appropriate Comcast product". Hmmm.... Comcast Business had us back on for about 10 minutes on January 23rd until the Abuse department noticed we were back online.

Ryan and Larry in Comcast's Sandy office clearly stated we could upgrade to a business account and despite the issues with the Abuse department, we will be ok as they are seperate from the residential side of the business. For the record, Ryan and Larry went to bat for us. These guys were awesome. Somebody please contact them and give them a job. Their Customer Service is second to none!

So, here is a scanned copy of the business contract Comcast violated

It was signed and faxed to them. In essense breach of contract is what I'm seeing here. Yes I've spoken with a couple of lawyers. Is it worth the trouble? Not really. At this point I'm saving $30 a month going with DSL and Dish Network. My Counter Strike / Team Fortress game has seriously improved now that my uplink is 896k instead of only 384k :-)

What do I want?

I want the truth. Define Acceptable Use and be done with it.

March 20, 2007

2007-03-18T17:20:00.000-06:00

It seems the issue of Comcast disconnecting it's Internet customers is popping up nearly every week. The latest in a post from JT Rockville, The Register has picked up the story. JT Rockville also found a very amusing commercial from Southwestern Bell which had me in stitches.

Sounds like there are some who are getting the message. I do wonder though. The Register article mentioned they wonder why DSL providers aren't working hard to capitalize on this problem with Comcast. I'm guessing they may be. I find it very interesting that DSL is available in my area about 6 weeks after Comcast disconnected us. Quite the coincidence wouldn't you say :-)

One more thing. I'm encouraging everyone to check out this web site for Net Neutrality. It won't help people with being disconnected by Comcast however in my research I've seen this pop up frequently. Net Neutrality as I understand it will prevent a company (such as Comcast) from picking who they want over their pipes and who they don't want. Choosing Google over MSN Search vs. altavista and so on.

Common carriers shouldn't be able to pick who get's service over their lines. It ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest Web site. I encourage everybody to check it out. You should have a choice over which web sites you wish to visit.

March 12, 2007

2007-03-12T16:24:00.000-06:00

Today the Boston Globe published an article on Comcast terminating HSI services. It was good to see other's are coming forward about this. I guess the company has changed their policy of not terminating customers who exceed their undisclosed limits. FYI, Comcast will always have a top .01% :-)

BTW, this issue isn't going away anytime soon. As much as I don't care for Bill Gates, he does make some insightful comments about the Internet and what we can expect from the future. From the article:

The Internet is set to revolutionize television within five years, due to an explosion of online video content and the merging of PCs and TV sets, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said recently;

{snip}

At the 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates said, "I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," he told business leaders and politicians The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set.

I've recently learned another resident just a few doors down has been disconnected by Comcast for "using the internet too much". She received the call from Comcast's abuse department threatening to disconnect her broadband service if usage wasn't drastically reduced. Comcast however was (again) unwilling to say exactly what acceptable use is.

Rather than guess what was acceptable, she decided that if it was such a problem that Comcast needed to threaten termination, she decided to cancel her broadband on the spot. She mentioned that her kids did use the Internet heavily. The funny thing about this is the abuse rep began to backpeddle saying they didn't need to terminate HSI, only use it less. So now they are without HSI however she began asking for details about DSL. Personally after a week I'm surprised to see very little difference in performance. I'm making a point of telling everyone about Qwest DSL.

Came across this article recently. A fellow blogger determined if you use only 7% of your connection you can be terminated.

Here is a very interesting article on public ownership of a fiber infrastructure. A pdf copy of their report is available.

This is where we are going as a society. Public Libraries are getting into these services and companies are bringing TV from all over the world steaming to your home.

Finally, from the Boston Globe article:

"Legitimately, everybody's going to be a bandwidth hog sooner or later, because that's what the Internet is, going forward," said Linda Sherry of Consumer Action.

Seems this is how .01% got into trouble with Comcast. We simply got there first :D

Update
Seems slashdot is now running with the Boston Globe story . I'm pleased to see the word is seriously getting out as people have the right to know they didn't purchase "Unlimited Use for a flat monthly fee".

March 8, 2007

2007-03-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

It looks like Comcast came over this past weekend and disconnected the Cable TV. A flyer was left on my door to notify us. Oh and it was dated 3/1/2007. I guess they got the hint that I was serious. Still no word if they will charge us till March 13th and give us a credit. The way these guys have treated us I wouldn't be surprised to see a bill. I'll post a scan of the flyer soon and any future bills I receive (I said I keep everything didn't I ::grinz::).

Here's something else of amusement. This last week I've received 3 phone calls from Comcast Customer Service asking if I'd like to take a survey of my satisfaction with Comcast after our last phone call. I said sure. They asked how I would rate them, blah blah blah.

Got to a question about how do I like my Comcast service. I said "Great, we disconnected you guys a week ago and it's awesome to be a Comcast free house!". She asked what we are doing for service now. I said "We went to one of your competitors and are much happier thanks". She said "oh, well have a good day" then hung up after that :-)

The last call was around 6:30 last night and lasted a few minutes. At least they are calling me less these days. We've received several calls already but at least they are slowing down now.

I've asked Comcast several times over the last two months to be put on a DNC list but I guess they don't honor it. I think I'll start recording my conversations with them and post them here for fun. We've been thinking about creating several YouTube videos. We'll see. I've learned Utah has no notification requirement. So I'm kinda hoping they call again. I could really have fun with this.

When I picked up the Comcast flyer on my door I noticed something else. A flyer from Qwest advertising DSL is now available in our area and a number to call. I'm encouraging everyone in my neighborhood to "Hang up on Comcast" and go DSL. Already many have asked about my experience with Comcast and have stated they are switching. Customer Service means more to people than the fake "unlimited use for a flat monthly fee" advertisement.

March 5, 2007

2007-03-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Still no word regarding Comcast charging us for services we don't want and haven't used for the last week. Last I heard, we'll get a credit for the next two weeks however they won't say that in writing. I guess they are careful with doing that these days. Might explain why they no longer send letters for customers using the Internet too much. I received a screen shot of the order from the Comcast rep. It's interesting to see the Business account mentioned as a "downgrade". It does show we tried. I received this screen shot from Sue at Comcast. Instead of showing the credit and 0 balance we received this. We'll see what happens. I'm amazed at the games this company plays.

The business account was on for about 10 minutes. I'm also surprised the replacement of our Cable Modem in November wasn't in the history. We had an outage in September which is reflected in the history then nothing until January 19th. What's really interesting is multiple calls to Comcast in December are not in the history. Fortunately I keep records. Notice the call from (801) 485-0500 on December 13th in my phone records below. That's an incoming call from a Comcast CSR I spoke to 30 minutes earlier (8:13am). According to the CSR, all calls to Utah are trunked through this number. This is why he told us to ignore the call. Apparently he didn't know the Abuse Department doesn't go through this trunk. You see an 856 number when they call. Somebody should teach what unlimited means. If they tell you to ignore it, don't believe them as they are clueless. So here is part of my phone record:

DSL will be installed March 5th. I'm looking forward to it. Oh and yes I've modified my firewall to include monitoring among other things now. I've decided to go with MRTS and some perl scripts I wrote for some detailed reporting and am working on a PHP tool to provide me with some pretty graphs. Not like I'll really need it since Xmission provides every DSL and Utopia customer with a web page displaying their usage. Still, it will be nice to have my own records even though I trust Xmission. I had them for years over ISDN before Comcast.

Friday we dropped off the Cable Modem. I was somewhat surprised to see how many people were there returning equipment. Despite my opinion of the company, I didn't expect to see the lobby full of people lining up (we went to the Murray building). Most were cable modems, some DVR's and a few VoiP phones. Of course there were people paying bills or doing other things. I couldn't resist asking why people were leaving Comcast.

There were a variety of reasons. Most were simply tired of Comcast's poor customer service and have switched to either DirectTV or Dish. A few received "The Call" and were very upset with Comcast's new "Customer Service" (Abuse Department). It was amusing how frequently this is happening here in Utah. When I spoke with an Xmission Sales rep about upgrading to DSL, we briefly spoke about Comcast. Seems sales is hearing more and more people are being dropped.

While chatting with other satisfied ex-Comcast customers, I learned many had heard of Utopia however they "thought" Utopia provided the services or that cities had to maintain the infrastructure. I straightened them out of course. Utopia is a lot like DSL. You can snap in different providers through DSL lines. Also, the infrastructure is maintained by Utopia and can be used by other companies to provide services. Heck, even Comcast or Qwest could join Utopia and provide services through Utopia's superior infrastructure if desired.

The last week at work I can't go anywhere without someone saying they saw me on FOX or Gephardt. Most are amazed. Many are switching now to DSL or Utopia citing they want to know what they purchased. A few even said they were afraid to use their Internet for fear of being disconnected. I've been recommending dumeter or RRDtool lately. Even sent a note to dumeter with my story. I figure they might want to know how much their tool would have helped had I heard of it just a month earlier.

A final note. Just received a link to check out from a blog poster. Very insightful . The title is "Comcast -- The Worst Company in America". Go figure.

February 28, 2007

2007-02-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

As of this morning we're a Comcast free household. Yesterday Dish Network came in and installed their dish on our roof, installed their DVR and with local channels and we're paying only $39 /month locked in for 18 months. Oh and we have the American top 100 package. Has everything we really enjoy including Sci-Fi, Disney, Nick, Food Network and so on.

At least it's cheaper and crystal clear compared to the static and snow we enjoyed with Comcast. I'm only sorry we couldn't have the dish placed so it was viewed from the street. I'd love each Comcast truck going by to look up and see Dish on the roof.

We were planning on replacing our TV this year because we thought it was going out. It never occurred to me it was the cable service. So we're looking at purchasing an HDTV next year and taking our $1800 (for the new TV) to the bank. I'm thinking the prices should be much better by 2008 (still a little pricy)

I'm amazed Comcast won't terminate the cable service. My wife was told the soonest they can come by to disconnect us is March 13th and they will need to bill us for the next two weeks. The only thing they are willing to do is suggest we may be able to get a credit for the next two weeks but so far have been unwilling to put that in writing.

I beg to differ. The pro-rated bill will be sent to the Attorney General's office and a suit for fraud filed if this happens. We've already called them 3 times just today to terminate the service and send either a fax or email to verify we're free and clear. The next call will be to the FCC as they regulate Cable and Telephone.

We always paid in advance every month for about 4 years. We're paid up until today and I'm unwilling to renew the monthly contract with them for any portion of March. I am under no obligation to continue the service. It feels like I'm dealing with AOL or something (I've heard the stories). We can't get HSI from them and can't get rid of Cable! Incredible!

My wife was very amusing today. When she was transferred to their cancellation department, the first words out of her mouth was "You're Fired!" (apologizes to Donald Trump). She couldn't resist. I only wish I was at home to hear the conversation.

DSL is now available in my neighborhood as of this morning. My wife spoke with a Qwest tech checking out the DSLAM yesterday. He was performing the final checks when she caught him. We signed up for the 7 Meg DSL service. It will cost $15 for the line and $22 for Xmission (the ISP). Again cheaper and faster than my old Comcast HSI service. I've had dozens of people in my neighborhood asking when this will be available. Guess Comcast will have plenty of bandwidth in our area to spare :-)

Utopia is still on my target for the long run. After my comments on the 20th to the City Council, I learned there were financial roadblocks to making this happen. After speaking with several people outside the City Council Chambers, I understand Qwest, Comcast and other's heavily lobbied the Utah Legislature years ago to pass a bill that prevents public funds to be used for projects such as this. The bill has a sunset provision set for June 2007. Roger Black (the COO of Utopia) was at the West Jordan City Council meeting that day and explained this a little more. I am very appreciative of his insight and experience.

So it seems I'll be back online next Monday. The DSL modem has been ordered and this time we're going for a business account and will be running a web server to share family photos. I figure I can do that now. In two years I should be ready to test code and move my wife's business to the Internet. Comcast was right. We do want to move the business to the Internet. They were just two years too early.

One more note, it seems there are many people here in Utah who have seen the FOX13 and KUTV/Gephardt spots and passed the word along. I've received emails and calls from journalists in California, Florida, Massachusetts and recently Georgia. I appreciate the opportunity to interview with them and provide my analysis of Comcast's statement describing what the top .01% are consuming monthly (13 million emails a month? come on. Nobody talks like that). I've only asked to be made aware when they publish their article as I'd like a copy to share.

That's it for now. I've heard rumblings of a class action lawsuit and would interested in learning more. While technically it may be legal for Comcast to terminate services according to their fuzzy Acceptable Use policy, I doubt a Judge would accept a one sided contract with undisclosed terms to stand up in court.

February 20, 2007

2007-02-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

I would like to express my appreciation for John Klemack of FOX 13 and Gephardt of KUTV/2 in airing the TV spot regarding Comcast terminating customer Internet accounts this past Tuesday. I believe it's important people understand what they really purchased from the company. BTW, I've had a busy week. I've given a few interviews with several journalists this week about the situation. As the articles are published I've asked for copies so I can keep track of what's going on and make people aware here and via direct email when I feel it's appropriate. So far I've found articles from the UK to Australia about this. Sitemeter has been very helpful these last couple weeks in tracking this :-)

So after watching the TV spots, I began thinking about several people in my neighborhood who regularly download over 200 Gigs and above month after month and I've warned them to be careful as they will be on the radar if it hasn't happened already. Since I'm no longer in the top .01%, they are next :-)

At the end of each TV spot, I began thinking about Comcast's copy/paste response which they provided to everyone including the Mayor of my city (more on that later). Comcast says we use 100 times more than the average Comcast user. We are in the top .01 percent. Comcast gives the following examples of what that means:

According to Comcast, the top .01 percent download something like

256,000 photos or
30,000 songs or
13,000,000 emails

(does this sound familiar to anyone?)

So this means 99.99% of their average users use 100 times less than my family which means:

2560 photos a month
or 130,000 emails a month (yes, that's 130 thousand emails a month for the normal Comcast user)
or 300 songs a month

Some basic assumptions I made to fill in the gaps. In my wife's business she creates photos and mp3's using “The Gimp” for photos and “SonicFire Smart Sound” for Royalty free music (I highly recommend it btw). So here are some averages we've seen after 5 years in business. I also generated a text email with 3 paragraphs and saved it to the hard drive.

avg song around 4-6 Megs for mp3
avg jpg = 512 k (and they do go much higher)
avg bmp = 1m (same here, this is a low number)
avg email = 10k

Ok. So that means

2560 Jpgs = 1.31 gig
2560 bmp = 2,.56 gig
300 mp3s (at 6 Megs size) = 1.8 gigs
130,000 emails (at 10k) = 1.3 Gig

So according to Comcast, 99.99% of their customers hardly use their Internet connection for anything but the most basic of needs. Multi-Media includes anything dealing with video, audio and photos. According to the letter FOX 13 posted from Comcast's spokesman Ray Child:

“99.99% of our customers use the service as intended, which includes using it to download and share video, photos and other rich-media. Customers are notified of excessive usage typically consume more than 100 times the average national Comcast Bandwidth usage”.

(transcribed by me from the FOX 13 TV spot):

So no Internet TV, no Internet radio, and not a lot of photos or graphics. If you hang around YouTube or Spikedhumor as we frequently did, you will surpass the average which they say 99.99% of their customers use. If these numbers are typical as Comcast claims, then Comcast customers are using the service for basic email and web browsing. Movies downloaded from Zudeo.com, Walmart or Amazon.com will in a day consume more than their average customer. If you don't purchase and download movies from those services then DSL and wireless provide far cheaper solutions with adequate bandwidth.

Now the translation to what we do according to Comcast, they say we download:

songs = 180 Gigs
jpegs = 131 Gigs
bmp = 256 Gigs
email = 130 Gigs

So yes, we fully use the 6 Meg pipe we purchased and those numbers make sense. Streaming TV from Portugal or Internet radio takes more bandwidth than you normally would see :-)

Something else I noticed, we don't see anything in the agreement which states we purchased High Speed Internet with "acceptable use" of 40, 60, 80 gigs or more (hint hint). If this is what Comcast is selling their customers then it would be reasonable to advertise those limits and provide a solution so their customer can make an informed choice to meet their individual needs.

Here is a comment I recently received from a member of my local Linux Group (SLUGG):

- A 1600x1200 (3 Megapixel) digital photo as a JPG is about 1.3MB average in my experience.
- A 128kbps MP3 file is about 1MB per minute, so a 3:30 song is 3.5MB
- The average email is probably what, 5K-10K, depending on if it is plain text, html, or both?
For the photos, 2560*1.3= 3.33GB per month
For the songs, 300*3.5 = 1.05GB per month
For the emails, 130,000*5-10K = 650MB-1.3GB per month

The only place I know of at the moment that publishes quotas on usage is UTOPIA, which is 100GB per month. 1-3GB per month is way lower than that. Even back when XMission had quotas on DSL, it was 100GB/month, not including their unmetered times or within-network traffic. That usage expectation is ridiculously low.

I have to agree with his assessment. It sounds like Comcast needs to come up with realistic numbers of what their customers are really doing. 1-3 Gigs monthly is very low and not realistic in the least.

Oh and about our Mayor. It seems when he called Comcast he was given the impression they thought we were using our HSI connection for our business. I explained to him our business is very small and in two or three years will be using the Internet in accepting orders with video and photos. I haven't started writing the code yet but it looks like we'll be using PHP and MySQL. Occasionally a customer emails my wife for pricing information. Average is about a 12 email's for a busy month but I doubt this would be a problem for Comcast.

So how do we work with our customers? Here is our secret business model

- We receive via Fed-EX, UPS or US Post a package with negatives, photos, slides or perhaps video's
- We scan / import the media to our computers and render the movie
- We burn a DVD and create labels and/or DVD inserts
- We mail it back (insured) to the customer.

That's it. Comcast's role is... well... nonexistant.

I understand the Mayor is making a few more calls. It will be interesting to see what transpires. I'm hopeful he and the City Council will understand my situation isn't all that unusual as I've found over a dozen people in the Salt Lake Valley just in the last 4 weeks who were with Comcast. I'm also hopeful they look at bringing Utopia or something similar to our area. It won't happen this year or next year, but it will happen and people will join is en mass.

February 14, 2007

2007-02-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know I recently posted however I received some rather interesting email's today. It seems recent posts on a Comcast forum tries to explain their position on download caps and network traffic. I've learned something new but before I get to that let me address a statement "Jason1" on the Comcast forum made.

Your first link above discusses a blog entry which is completely one person's opinion and should not be taken as an official Comcast response. So please take caution when reading the info in the article as it is not completely accurate.

Yes this is a blog and NOT a Comcast web site. I do not represent Comcast in any way. We can also agree I am an individual posting my personal opinion of Comcast regarding an issue I believe was handled poorly. I hope to make Comcast aware of the problem along with it's customers and potential customers.

I have documented as best I can the events from day 1 and have presented them in the only way I have available. People deserve to know how things "could" turn out. If there are ANY inaccuracies then I expect Comcast to contact me directly and let me know where I am in error.

I will retract anything I can't prove or haven't documented through this experience. I would also publicly post a sincere apology. I don't wish to "get back at Comcast" as some have suggested as I consider that shallow. As stated at the top of the blog, I intend to get the word out of what happened to me and to encourage wider competition. I believe competition is what makes mega corps take stock of what they are doing wrong compared to their competitors. I hope Jason1 after writing "Re: Comcast has made news world wide - and not for good reasons" or another Comcast rep posts here or emails me to explain where I failed to be accurate. Otherwise I would argue his statement is simply innuendo and should be dismissed. I have done my best but I am not perfect.

If their usage is several times greater than the average Comcast HSI customer, they will be notified of the issue and their service may be terminated if the excessive use continues and service to hundreds of other customers is degraded. This usage may be around around 200-500 GB/month or it may be up to 800 GB/month - the actual amount you download is not what initiates the termination due to excessive downloading so it is not what is focused on.

So then calling someone a bandwidth hog isn't accurate. Interesting. This would explain why they say there isn't an official cap. Downloading up to 800 GB/month is suggested and may be perfectly fine depending where you live. I believe this may be why Jason1 is suggesting my comments are not entirely accurate. Ok. I can accept that. What I don't accept is the harsh manner a HSI account is terminated so quickly after multiple phone calls are made to Comcast CS to try and resolve the issue (see the live chat posted last night). There should be a little more leeway than the "You get a call then you're gone" response as Geovanny from the Abuse department stated.

If a customer is terminated due to excessive downloading, they will generally be given an estimate on how much they downloaded but this amount should not be called the download cap amount.

I'm back to confused now. Despite the confusion over whether Comcast or an ID thief called my wife in December, we reduced our usage (though we had no idea what number we should target) and were terminated the next month despite our reduction. Given an estimate? MRTG and RRDtools give you exact numbers in 5 minute increments. RRDtools will do it faster but industry best practices for monitoring have suggested 5 minute intervals are typical. I'm wondering if this is why they say it's an estimate rather than an actual number.

Yes, the download amount makes a nice easy way to visualize to the customer on a quantity that they used over the month but again, the issue is that the customers connected to a node is exceeding the capacity that node can provide so everyone connected to that node will suffer a bad connection.

My research suggests a node provides service for about 1200 homes. Still it's a crap shoot. A Comcast customer is left guessing how much is too much and risks termination even though they reduced their usage. For example, an Editor for the "Deseret Spectacle" was disconnected in July 2006, called Comcast later that day and had the HSI restored and promised to reduce usage by 50% but was terminated again in August 2006.

They were directed to the Abuse department as their account had been flagged by the CSR's system. The Abuse rep stated "even though you cut your usage in half, it's still too much. You have been terminated for 12 months". The editor posted his experience on their online magazine and moved to DSL (lucky bum). I've found dozens of other's who have been disconnected over the last few months, several here in the Salt Lake Valley. Many were fortunate to have alternatives (such as Verizon's Fios), Utopianet or DSL.

In my opinion, people generally are reasonable and willing to help (well, aren't they?). If Comcast is the ONLY real solution around, would anyone really continue pushing the network and risk termination? I couldn't have been more surprised with how poor this situation was handled. I would expect a better customer service experience.

These bandwidth abuse notifications and terminations are a way of ensuring that one individual is not responsible for degrading the service to hundreds of others.

It sounds like there is no way for a Comcast customer to make an informed choice whether he is adversely impacting Comcast's network or not. Might I suggest Comcast take a portion of their record earnings from 2006 and upgrade their infrastructure to reduce this possibility. I respectfully request my HSI be re-enabled and I will be paying VERY close attention to my usage. It's not like I can't monitor traffic or throttle it. I say that here only because I've been completely unsuccessful in finding someone at Comcast who can do anything to solve the problem. Somehow I doubt this is what Brian Roberts meant when he said Comcast was responding to what consumers want. He should have added "Customer Service" to the list.

So again, the bandwidth abuse notifications/terminations you mention here are not based on the content of what you are downloading.

I don't recall suggesting it was based on content (maybe he is referring to another disconnected customer). After speaking with the Abuse Department, I may have mistakenly understood there was a bandwidth cap. Now I'm thinking the bandwidth I could use when I had HSI is even more of a variable if 200-500 Gigs could be considered “normal”. It sounds like he is saying it depends where you live and how many are connected in your node.

If this is accurate blink twice. Once if I'm still not accurate. Or perhaps Comcast should just do what many HSI providers have turned to and set a cap so we can all be happy. Comcast wouldn't do something like this with Cable TV. If today I have 100 channels and tomorrow I have 30, the next day 40. How do I know I'm getting the service I paid for? After all, it's very difficult to be a good customer when the terms of the agreement keep changing.

I found this petition some time ago. I'd like to suggest people sign up and respectfully send Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast their opinion on the subject. I also found this petition online. If so inclinded please at least read what they have to say. Even though Jason1 is suggesting there is no cap and I'm beginning to think perhaps this really is company policy, my conversations with Geovanny in the Abuse Department suggested there is.

So there you have it. I still don't know what to make of these guys.

Update

In speaking with a buddy working at Qwest, I'm told not to worry, DSL is coming to my area very soon. My wife the other day noticed a DSLAM box going in 2 blocks from our house. Been hearing this for months but maybe it will really happen now. We'll see. If this situation isn't resolved in the next couple weeks I'm dropping the remaining Comcast services and going with Dish or Direct TV plus DSL. I'm ready to deal with top notch customer service after this experience.

February 13, 2007

2007-02-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

When I arrived at work this morning I received an IM from a buddy who is closely watching this situation. He pointed me to this link mentioning I really needed to read it. Seems Comcast has responded after all. Or did they? BTW, Before I get into it, a BIG thanks to The Consumerist.com for following up on this story. It's way beyond the call IMO!

After spending a few minutes going over Comcasts response my heart dropped. It's the same old story I've been hearing these last few weeks. While I appreciate Comcast taking the time to cut and paste their response, It doesn't address the core issues. It's very possible I haven't been very clear. So here is what I've been asking them. IMO these are normal questions people would normally ask. Ok, geeks like me :-)

1. When calling Customer Service, why are the Comcast CSR's not aware of a problem with a customer account? Geovanny of the Abuse department mentioned the CSR's don't have access to the Abuse database for "our protection". A flag is currently in our account and the CSR's point me to the Abuse department if I call them today. A similar flag would have been VERY helpful in December. Even live chat failed to catch the problem. I'll post that conversation below.

2. When changing the terms of service from "Unlimited Use for a flat monthly fee" to something else, shouldn't the "new terms" be just as clear? After all, when I go to a Sizzler (for example), and order the "All you can eat Shrimp", it's pretty darn clear what I'm ordering.

3. If there is a limit I am required to follow or risk termination, why is the limit not made public? Is there a link I can view my monthly usage? Ok so that's two questions. Other companies providing HSI already have this capability. I was with Xmission for years before Comcast came to our area. I had ISDN then (yeah I know it's expensive but dialup? ugg).

Xmission advertises their cap openly. DSL subscribers can view their totals here (login required) and Utopianet subscribers don't have any at this time. They also provide detailed information about their network usage for geeks like me. No really, I've used it years ago when troubleshooting issues back then when I was with xmission.. Heck, almost two years ago I even called Comcast to let them know they had a switch messed up. The poor CSR didn't know how to put in a ticket once I showed him how to find the problem ::grinz:: But I'm a geek what can I say :-)

I think they are using MRTG. I highly recommend it if interested. I've been using it for years. They even have 3rd party perl scripts that will give you the monthly totals Comcast customers need to make an informed decision about their usage. MRTG is great but I recommend RRDtool . It's Next Gen.

4. When we were advised by the Abuse department to upgrade from a residential to business account, why was the service turned on for 10 minutes (give or take) then shut off again after the upgrade? Either we were supposed to upgrade to a Business account or we weren't. Which is it? Ryan H. of Comcast did say he would take care of the bill. I am concerned somehow I'll get charged for services even though Ryan said it was resolved. Don't misunderstand, my experience with Ryan has been top notch, It's the rest of Comcast I'm unsure about. (can you blame me?)

BTW, when I first spoke with Ryan about our situation and our willingness to upgrade to a Business account, I understood they were a seperate division and not under the Abuse departments jurisdiction. He said it would be no problem for us to switch over. After we signed the contract, Comcast re-enabled the connection for about 10 minutes. Ryan and Larry (his boss) were baffled when service was disconnected (again).

5. Does Comcast normally advise small businesses to upgrade to a Commercial account? $1700 connection fee and $1000 monthly sounds a little extreme to me.

I think that basically covers it. (::whew::)

On to more interesting topics. Several people have asked how to file a complaint against Comcast for unfair business practices. You can easily do it here. It takes a couple minutes and they will email you a reference number. It takes a long time for this to get some traction so be patient.

What is this Utopianet I keep talking about? In a nutshell it's a fiber infrastructure which would provide unbelievable services to residents of Utah. Heck, I'm surprised Comcast hasn't figure it out yet and jumped on the Utopianet bandwagon. Comcast actually sent a rep a few years ago to argue against it in a City Council meeting. If I recall their argument properly, they said it was unnecessary as they would take care of our needs. If Comcast would join Utopianet, I believe they would be able to provide incredible services to our area but I suppose that would mess up their monopoly here. A customer such as myself would be able to drop Comcast and go with another provider if desired.

Here is the live chat from December. I guess I could have pressed the CSR harder. When asking if there are any bandwidth limits and they say no, what else should I think he means? Don't forget, at this point I still thought everything was ok with our account and believed they understood what Comcast offered.

February 10, 2007

2007-02-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

I really appreciate the work of the Consumerist and Digg in getting the word out about Comcasts practice of terminating HSI service.

I've been accused of many things these last few weeks. Let's be clear. The reason my HSI service was terminated was because I violated a monthly download limitation which Comcast is not willing to disclose. People online have mentioned they were happy to see me gone as I was a "bandwidth hog". Those same people however have been unwilling to post what they believe a internet user should be using monthly. In my research I've found people terminated for downloading anywhere from 60-100 Gigs. The number seems to change depending which state they live.

When I signed up, here is the advertisement I saw on Comcast's web site. They stated they were offering "Unlimited Use for a flat monthly fee". This was many years ago. If you speak with someone from their abuse department, they will tell you "it's not unlimited use, it's unlimited access. "It's true they currently don't advertise unlimited use anymore and I'm ok with that. If there is some limit I am required to obey then they should state what it is. Other companies are not afraid to disclose the limitations. It should be noted that Cox Communications fought for some time to hide the limits until consumers forced them to disclose.

I've been asked why not fire Comcast and go with another provider (like DSL or utopianet). I'd love to. Unfortunately it's either Comcast HSI or a 28.8 dial up connection. Comcast has 90% coverage of the Salt Lake Valley and Qwest keeps pushing DSL availability back month after month. In my research I've learned that Comcast isn't Clark Howard's favorite company. I found an article here and here which clearly shows how he feels about them. The issue he has seems to be their "very strange and unprofessional way to let customers know." For those who don't know who is he, Clark Howard is a self made millionare who is involved in consumer advocacy. I've been listening to him for years on KSL radio 1160.

So here we are. According to Jackie and Sara of Comcast's escalation department (did you guys know they had one?), we don't qualify for a residential OR a business account. Our only option now is to sign up for a Commercial account. For only $1700 and $1000 monthly we can have Comcast HSI back to our home. Of course I've been asking for a quote for the last week and am still waiting. In all fairness, the one guy who could provide the quote was away most of last week. I'll be following up with him on Monday.

February 7, 2007

2007-02-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

I've been busy these last few days and have much material to post. So much that it's difficult to decide where to start :-)

I believe I'll begin with a couple of short links.

Ed Foster and I have discussed the problem of Comcast disconnecting it's customers from HSI. He wrote a nice article here.

And then there is the online magazine "The Deseret Spectacle". Seems Comcast disconnected one of their editors for downloading too much. The amusing thing is he was told to reduce his usage in half (which he did) and yet the Abuse department disconnected him anyway . Needless to say he's a little peeved Utopia isn't in the area thanks to Comcast's heavy lobbying. It's pathetic the company is this transparent. Building it's monopoly in the area, promising to take care of everyone, then kicking off the top 20% so they can get more bandwidth.

No I'm not 100% certain that's what they are doing. I've discussed the Comcast issue with a few people. I'm 90% certain this is what they are doing. Oh and here is one such person who also believes it.

Finally, did anyone know that Comcast was getting into providing movie downloads? I'm seeing a pattern here. But of course they want to compete with companies such as Amazon and Tivo. Especially since today's annoucement of Hollywood movies available for download.

I look forward for further comments. Let's try to keep the ad hominum comments to a minimum. I'd rather discuss the issue myself :-)

Feb. 1, 2007

2007-02-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

My wife's conversation with Sarah, head of Comcast's escalation dept. about 10 am.

Me- Hello
S- I'm looking for Frank or Elizabeth
Me- I'm Elizabeth
S- This is Sarah from Comcast ...
Me- Oh yes you called last night and I tried to call you back and left you a message.
S- I know, I had to leave early yesterday.
Me- Ok, So what's going on?
S- Well we aren't able to give you residential or business acct., but we can give you a commercial acct.
Me- What is that?
S- It would be a direct line for your own use connected to your house.
Me- Wow, how much would that be?
S- About $1700 to install and then about $1000 a month service fee.
Me- What the? Are you kidding me, we can't afford that!!
S- Well that is your only option.
Me- Why not the business account?
S- You use to much to be eligible for those accounts and since you have a business that uses so much broadband, you need to have your own direct line.
Me- We have a very! Small business and have had it for 3 + years and never had this kind of usage as has been the last few months. That is a ridiculous thing to suggest and doesn't make any sense. We have 6 children and a budget. This is outrageous and I can't believe you would even consider suggesting such a thing. Would you do it?
S- No, I don't need it and you have a business that apparently does use that much.
Me- Haven't you heard anything that we have been saying as to our ideas of why the usage was so high. Like the spyware that my husband found on his machine that was piggy backing and downloading through our line. Also it isn't a coincidence that the same month our modem was switched that the usage went through the roof. That would cause it if it wasn't capped.
S- We have never had that happen before. It was checked and it doesn't seem to be the problem and as to spyware you should be using an application to detect such things so you don't have those problems.
Me- He does have those and it still can happen and did, and as to the modem I don't believe you could have checked it, since it isn't running right now and it is too much of a coincidence to ignore.
S- What is done is done, we can't reverse it, but you can get the commercial line.
Me- No we aren't going to do that. There is no way we could afford that. You are basically leaving us without any real options and that is unacceptable. We don't have any other ways to get high speed internet and DSL isn't in our area. But that doesn't matter to you.
S- I understand how you feel but we can't do anything about it.
Me- I don't think you really do understand or you wouldn't be doing this to begin with.
S- I am sorry you are having this problem, but you ignored the warning.
Me- Are we back to that again. As far as I am concerned you all are responsible for our loosing the internet acct. If the customer service had actually confirmed to us that there was a problem we would have looked into it and tried to resolve it last month. We wouldn't have ignored it. We rely on internet a great deal. My husband needs it for work and we wouldn't have wanted to jeopardize that.
S- We are sorry that the customer service didn't deal with you properly and we are dealing with that. All the same you were called and you were given a direct number to call the abuse team directly.
Me- We tried with what we had and just got messages and so we tried to call customer service to help us. They told us it was probably a hoax and to ignore it. They should have had some kind of note logged in our acct. to confirm a problem. Based on what they told us, what were we to seriously think. Want to talk about confusing.
S- I can understand how you feel and they shouldn't have said that.
Me- It seems to me that you all should take responsibility for your part in this mess. Your customer service should have given correct information to us. As a result you should be dealing with the result and be apologizing and trying to rectify the problem.
S- I understand how you feel, but we can't do anything about it.
Me- You know thinking about it, when I did talk to the abuse team that they even had suggested a business acct. upgrade and based on what you are saying we wouldn't have been able to do that either.
S- They shouldn't have suggested that. Based on your usage the business acct. would have been to light for your use.
Me- So they gave us the wrong information too. So how can we be blamed for something you all are telling us. How are we supposed to know what to do?
S- Well you should have limited your usage for starters.
Me- We don't normally use that much. We have been with Comcast for about 4 years and have always been doing the same thing, nothing has changed and now we have excessive usage. I just don't see how that is possible. We need a residential or business acct. We will make sure we don't go over our limits, whatever those may be.
S- I understand your dilemma. But based on recent history, you would be back to square one and we can't take that chance of reversing the acct. and letting you back on to do the same thing again. You will have to wait til Jan 2008 to get reconnected.
Me- I don't think you are getting it. Aren't you caring at all about the predicament you have put us into? There is no way we can wait a year and you know it. That is nuts.
S- We apologize for your inconvenience, but you should have dealt with it.
Me- It seems to me we are just running this around in circles, not getting anywhere. So it doesn't matter our reasons and no matter what I say nothing will change your mind. Is that where we are at?
S- That is right, we can't help you at this time.
Me- (Looooooonnnnnnngggggg pause, trying to keep from crying). I finally say, well I guess there isn't anything left.
S- I'm sorry.
Me- I'm sure you will be. Bye
S- Thank you and have a nice day.
Me- (mumbling and rolling my eyes) yeah right.

Both hang up.

At this point my wife calls my cell and gives me the run down.

We decide it's time to get the word out and tell everyone what Comcast is doing. Neighbors are shocked to hear what's going on and express concern. I called Bill Gephart, spoke with Matt at the news desk and will be working with him to setup a time to be interviewed. He said “I'm not blowing you off but we have the next few days booked. Give me your Comcast account number so I can call them and start investigating this”.

Gave the number ... “Ok. I'll call them and find out what's going on”. What would like like them to do?

I said “turn on the service as I'll be watching it and throttling anything that would cause problems. I also promise once their competition visits West Jordan I'll be jumping ship. This has left a bad taste in my mouth”.

Matt. “I understand... I'll get right on it and thanks!”

So now it's time to bring competition to West Jordan Utah and time to get even more involved with my cities politics. It's time to bring UTOPIANET.ORG to West Jordan.

January 31, 2007

2007-02-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

So it's been nearly two weeks without internet. I've had family and friends calling my cell these last few days wanting to know if we were ok. Heck, my Mother called the other week all worried if we were still alive. These days people depend on their internet service. Watch TV and see how many commercials go by with a web site or something to learn more about their product. At least 65% is what I'm seeing so far.

After reassuring family/friends and explaining the situation I've had a few more people switch to DSL or UTOPIANET.ORG if it was available. Just last night I had a couple of neighbors come by with concerns that their emails to me were bouncing. They are concerned (as they should be) they are next. One uses over 200 Gigs every month and everybody wonders what happened to the "Unlimited Use for a flat monthly fee" we all signed up for. BTW, you can still see the advertisement at archive.org. It took me some work but I was able to find / print it for my records.

Oh, and what do I do to download so much data in a month? Here is a break down. Notice I don't mention running ANY servers (which is what they were accusing me of over and over again):

* Email
* Internet browsing
* Download DVD's from services such as MSDN (for example)
* Downloaded DVD images for Linux and other OSS applications
* Download movies from "The Fan Network" (www.theforce.net/fanfilms)
* Download DVD movies from bit-torrent services such as www.zudeo.com (I highly recommend reign of the fallen DVD but don't download it if you are a Comcast subscriber. It's about 4 Gigs!).
* Team Fortress/Counter Strike Source gamer (very heavy gamer)
* Youtube, spiked humor, internet radio...

and the list goes on. Needless to say I'm not a light internet user despite the fact Comcast reps say the above doesn't explain the heavy utilization. I guess they need to take a computer class and get a clue how the internet works.

So there you have it. I've tried to keep good notes and keep a timeline as things happen. No call back from Comcast yet. Personally I don't expect them to be professional. Oh they will speak patiently with you... at least most of them will. At this point I'm ready to write off Comcast and have become very politically involved in getting UTOPIANET.ORG in my city.

Funny how when this went to a vote, Comcast was there and said it wasn't necessary since they already provide broadband internet to us already. UTOPIANET.ORG was voted down as a result of their testimony and promise to support the residents.

Now I'm attending city council meetings (held 3 times a month), speaking with the City Council members to establish a relationship with them, I've visited UTOPIANET.ORG's new headquarters and spoke to their engineers for 1 1/2 hours (very impressive technology guys), and I understand after my wife called City Hall the other week they are receiving hundreds of calls from my fellow citizens for broadband diversity and choice.

I'm in it for the long haul now. I'll do everything I can to see Comcast's monopoly significantly diminished or eliminated. They know they can't compete against the UTOPIANET.ORG infrastructure. And now after all this, so do I.

More tomorrow. I'm hoping Comcast will call as promised and provide a positive resolution. I'm not holding my breath though...

Update - 2/11/2007

I've received several comments and emails about how bittorrent is a "server" and I was in violation of the TOS/AUP. Realize uploads were disabled and I wasn't accused by Comcast for running a server. They accused me of using too much bandwidth. It should also be noted that bittorrent is a common protocol used by companies such Blizzard (for example) to submit patches. WoW patches (for example) are pushed through bittorrent.

January 30, 2007 .. that evening

2007-02-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

Later that evening. . .

I can't believe it. Scott from the Abuse department actually called me! In my voicemail to their answering service I told them not to bother unless they can provide a positive resolution to this. He said "well... you did leave a message and we're required to call back". I asked if anything has changed since our conversation. "Nope...". I asked what bug crawled up Geovanny's @#$@#. He asked "Why did he call you?". I said "Because he wanted to let me know we were terminated... 10 hours after you and I spoke ".

He apologized for Geovanny's abrasiveness. I said "No your not, you don't give a flying crap". At this point I was yelling at him. I had it with these people. The gloves were off. After yelling at him for 3 minutes telling him if they worked closer with customer service this would never have happened and they had no @#$% clue there was a problem. I then hung up. Man that felt good :-)

January 30, 2007

2007-02-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

Received a call from Jackie in the escalation department. She said either her or her boss will give me a call to work out the details. They apparently were still trying to figure out what to do with me. There are concerns they can't meet my bandwidth needs. I carefully explain to her that I'm building a new linux firewall with bells and whistles so I can monitor my traffic. I mention I'm a Sr. Systems Engineer with 17 years professional experience :-)

Running Debian Linux with rrdtool for the firewall. I can monitor my traffic and throttle it with other linux tools. I should have done this years ago. I don't have a clue what my monthly usage has been and of course Comcast doesn't provide a link for me to check (unlike other companies with a professional staff such as Xmission.com). They could be lying and I wouldn't know. If this doesn't work out with them, my next ISP I'll be watching closely. Just in case.

We discussed other options which in my mind sounds doubtful they will pan out. At this point I'm losing confidence in Comcast's ability to deliver anything but frustration. What truly amazed me was she tell's me I was using the entire bandwidth for my neighborhood's node. I'm very surprised a 6 Meg pipe can saturate a segment of their network (called a node) unless Comcast “forgot” to cap my cable modem when they replaced a faulty cable modem in November 2006. It seems this is when they began to complain about my traffic.

My wife shows me a bill from Comcast for a business account. I emailed Ryan asking why did I receive a bill for a business account if I'm not getting the service? He said he would "take care of the bill" and it should be no big deal. While I respect him, I can't help but feel I'll be getting a call from a collector asking for their money. So far Ryan has (I believe) been treating me with respect and honesty which is a far cry better than I can say about his company. I'm almost positive those collectors will be telling me I should have taken the bill seriously. Don't laugh. You never know with these guys.

I also mentioned to Ryan I'm telling people everywhere about my situation. By now I've had a dozen people who were considering Comcast, decide go with DSL or UTOPIANET.ORG which was available in their city (lucky them!!). Ryan must be twitching every time he hears the phone ring and sees my caller id :-) Poor guy. If someone is looking to hire a customer service oriented super salesman then please hire Ryan and his boss Larry. They deserve to work for a better company than Comcast.

At this point I'm ready to call Bill Gephart back and get that interview scheduled. I've now filed complaints with the FTC, FCC, City Hall and the BBB. I'm done being a nice guy. Before all this I left a message with the Abuse department (they are properly named as they are good at abusing people) and basically tell them I'm filing complaints against their "unfair business practices". At this point I'm even looking at replacing their cable service with Direct TV or Dish. Just wish I had something available for Internet. Dial up isn't acceptable.

January 29, 2007

2007-02-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

No call back from Comcast about the
investigation. Emailed and called Ryan.
He's got a great attitude despite the
frustration in my voice. He says he will find
out what's going on. Seems there were a
couple of conference calls to discuss the
situation but he doesn't know the details.

January 26, 2007

2007-02-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ryan calls and says Comcast needs 24 hours
to investigate this situation. I reluctantly
give the go ahead. Something tells me that
Comcast is under the control of a small group
frightened to publish their policies. Yes I've
read the AUP and TOS. Guess what? They are
worthless unless you are a lawyer.

I leave Matt with KUTV news a voicemail to update
him on the situation. Personally I believe
this is simply an opportunity for them to
CYA in case it goes bad.

January 25, 2007

2007-02-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Several calls to Ryan today. Left a few
voicemails to find out what's going on.
He eventually calls back. Both him and
his boss are having trouble getting in
touch with the "Policy and Abuse Department".
Apparently a Ted or Tim (didn't write
the name down) is the roadblock here.

More to follow.

January 24, 2007

2007-02-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

I'm hearing we may have a problem getting the
business account now. Lots of comments about
my bandwidth usage. Against whatever the cap they
won't disclose is. Nobody has a @#$@ clue or
can't divulge it! Amazing! Ryan H. is awesome
and goes to bat for me. His boss Larry S.
I understand spends hours calling to find
out what's going on. I'm told it will be
resolved quickly.

Later that day and after several calls to
and from Comcast business. I quickly learn
the "Policy and Abuse Department" has emailed
these guys telling them NOT to give me a
business account. WTH! Something really stinks
here.

Frustrated I email Bill Gephart at kutv.com/consumer
and start researching avenues of filing complaints.
This company is frustrating to work with. How
did I stay with them as a customer the last
four years?

Received a call from Matt working with Bill Gephart.
He wants to interview me if the business account
doesn't work out. I mentioned I'll let him know
once I hear the final word.

January 23, 2007

2007-02-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

So I contact Comcast's business sales and explain
my situation to Ryan H. Very nice gentleman who
explains they can resolve the problem. I receive
an email to my gmail account, signed the paperwork
and figure I'm following the recommendation of
Comcast's "Abuse and Policy department". After
all they did say I needed to upgrade to a
business account right?

Everything will be back to normal now right?

Guess again.

January 22, 2007

2007-02-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'm on and off the phone with a variety of people
at Comcast. It's a convoluted mess trying to
find somebody to help resolve the situation.
I didn't realize they were this difficult to
deal with. At lunch I search the internet
at work and learn just how difficult Comcast is.
I hadn't realized just how bad their
customer service was.

I save a few links of interest to my hard drive
for later printing. I'm amazed to learn this problem
has been going on for years. I also notice Comcast
has changed their advertisement and removed after
we signed up the statement
"Unlimited use for a flat monthly fee". They still
need to educate their customer service. Apparently
they still don't know this. I gladly educated
a few along the way.

January 19, 2007 That evening

2007-02-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

Later that same day at 7:52 p.m., I received
another call from the Comcast
"Policy and Abuse Department". I spoke with
Geovanny for several minutes going through
my situation. At first he interrupted me
every other sentence then he became abusive
and rude as I tried to remain calm (no small feat).
After a couple minutes of unsuccessfully trying to
bring the conversation back to a civil tone I
became annoyed and told him to chill.

Here are some highlights from our conversation
as I was taking notes:
...

Me: Can I please speak with a manager. I
would like to escalate this and find a resolution.
Geovanny: There is nobody available. I'm the
only one in the department and my word is final.
Me: I thought Scott was also part of the
"Policy and Abuse Department". So you have more
than just one employee. I'd like to speak with
whoever writes your checks.
Geovanny: It's just me here.
Me: Even the CEO of the company has to account
to somebody such as the board of directors.
Geovanny: "As far as you're concerned, I am the CEO"
Me: I understood Brian Roberts was the CEO of
Comcast? If a complaint was directed to him and the
board they would need to take action in resolving
this problem. We did not receive sufficient
notification and your customer service was clueless
to the problem with our account last month.
Geovanny: He would just bounce the complaint to me.
Me: I'm looking at the caller ID number. It says
you are calling from 856-638-4000.
Customer Service last month said I shouldn't see an
856 number if it was a legitimate call from Comcast
to my state.
Geovanny: "We're an up and coming department
and don't go through the normal Comcast lines".
Me: So how do I know it's not some guy trying to
gather information on me. Ever heard of
Identity Theft??"
Geovanny: "I don't know. You should have taken
the call seriously however"
Me: "You have to be kidding me". People can spoof
a caller ID phone number easily (I checked Google
in December). So how can I take it seriously? I would
have expected a letter or something.
Geovanny: We prefer to make a phone call to
personalize the communication.
Me: That being said, how come Customer Service
didn't know of the problem with my account?
Geovanny: Customer Service doesn't have access to our database.
Me: Why the @#$@ not?
Geovanny: It's to protect our customer information
Me: Somehow I don't feel very protected. Your
customer service has access to my name,
phone number, address and other personal
information when we signed up. Your organization
has failed miserably. Don't you understand. I have
no other options for internet without Comcast. Not
even DSL is in the area? Had I known there was a
problem I would certainly have taken action.
Geovanny: There is nothing to be done now.
Me: In my research I've learned that
Cox Communications had the same problems
as you guys and in 2003 they caved in to customers
demanding they post the bandwidth/data caps...
and it will happen with you guys sooner or later.

...

At this point Geovanny was very combative, made
some obscure remark and hung up on me.
Good riddance. In my opinion he wasn't very stable
and needs to take a sensitivity class or something.
I didn't appreciate his rudeness one bit.

January 19, 2007

2007-02-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

Woke up early to check my email. I was
amazed it wasn't responding. In fact I
noticed the cable modem lights blinking
in a bizarre manner. Seems I've somehow
lost my connection to the service. Power
cycled the cable modem and went to work
thinking nothing of it. I've had Comcast
for years and occasionally I've had problems
with their service.

That afternoon...

My wife called Comcast customer service for
support to figure out why we still didn't
have internet access in the afternoon.
It seems now they had a note in our account
for us to contact the "Policy and Abuse Department".
They provided a number which is basically
an answering service. They have to call
you back if you want to speak with someone
and it can take up to 24 hours so the message says.

My wife calls me and asks me to also follow
up. So I also call the number and leave a
message. I also called a number of other
times. Customer Service has no idea why we
have been flagged but reassure us it will be
all resolved soon.

Both my wife and I receive a call from Scott.
He was very cordial as I learn the call in
December was a legitimate contact and we're
now suspended for 12 months. He said the
decision was final and we had no recourse,
no escalation available nor supervisor we
could speak with. He said we had used
(downloaded) 305 Gigs in November and
297 Gigs in December. If usage is exceeded
2 times in a year the account is suspended.
I explained I didn't see how that's possible.
Our internet habits have not changed in the
4 years we've been with Comcast. He was
unwilling to give more information at this
point. I was baffled.

I've used online services such as Azureus Zudeo
to download movies for example as
"Reign of the Fallen" (both the film and later
the DVD). I don't run a server and have been very
happy with the service until now. It didn't
matter. We're without broadband for
12 months. Period.

Update... Seems Scott gave different numbers
to my wife when he spoke with her that same day.
We're using 305 Gigs in November and 250 Gigs
in December now. I'm wondering which number
for December do we believe? My wife said to
Scott "Doesn't this show we had reduced our usage?".
Scott mentioned we were to cut it back drastically.
My wife asked what is the limit? Scott said
"I'm sorry but I cannot divulge that information".

But wait... the story get's more bizzare.

Dec 13, 2006

2007-02-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Still not convinced I jumped to Comcast's live
chat and took screen shots of the whole
conversation. Again I was told there were
no limits to my residential account. I asked
maybe it was something like a phishing attempt
at which the service rep agreed.

I called Comcast Customer Service a final time
(yes I'm paranoid but I needed to be sure
everything was ok). They said they would look
into it and see if there was any department
with the reference ticket my wife received
in the call. He called me back a few hours
later from 801-485-0500 and told me we were
ok. I mentioned "I understand I sound paranoid
but I depend on high speed internet access".
Again I was reassured by the rep who said if
we receive a call from Comcast it will be
trunked through the 801 number. Otherwise
it's not legitimate.

Finally I asked what an upgrade would cost us
should we decide to do so. The rep said it was
an additional $10 a month. Funny. The guy
who called my wife said $20. Something is
not right here. Maybe I am being paranoid.
I stop calling and don't give this any further
thought until we're disconnected on
January 19, 2007

Dec 12 2006

2007-02-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

Remember that day when Comcast came cheerily
knocking at your door advertising
"Unlimited Use for a flat monthly fee"!
I found it amazing that my definition of
"Unlimited Use" matches their customer service
definition but not the Comcast "Policy and Abuse department".

It seems after we signed up years ago that Comcast
has silently changed the terms of the agreement.
I've setup this blog to warn people and tell my story.
The nightmare started on December 12, 2006...

Dec 12 2006 ... in the afternoon

My wife calls me in the afternoon wondering
if we had a problem with our Comcast account. She
mentioned someone claiming they were a Comcast
employee called telling us we were using the
internet too much and needed to upgrade to a
business account or cut it back. I found it strange
that Comcast would call about something like this.
After all, we have unlimited use as advertised right?

I spent half an hour on the phone with Comcast
customer service trying to understand what's going
on. I was reassured it was probably someone
working some identify theft angle (it's been in a few
newsreports recently) and we could safely ignore it.
I told them we were instructed to call 856-234-3025
with a reference number they provided to my wife
(2278555). Comcast customer service checked the
phone and reference number. Again they reassured
us we were ok and nothing was flagged in our account.