ISPs Are Now Forcing Cord Cutters To Subscribe To TV If They Want To Avoid Usage Caps

techdirt.com/articles/20160512/05492234421/isps-are-now-forcing-cord-cutters-to-subscribe-to-tv-if-they-want-to-avoid-usage-caps.shtml

ISPs Are Now Forcing Cord Cutters To Subscribe To TV If They Want To Avoid Usage Caps
from the damned-if-you-do dept

We've noted time and time again how broadband usage caps on fixed-line networks are arbitrary, unnecessary, and harm innovation. They're also a useful weapon against streaming video competitors, and the natural evolution of TV competition. Caps can be used to either punish users who try and cut the cord with higher prices, but they also allow ISPs to exempt their own streaming services from said caps (something currently being done by both Verizon and Comcast), thereby giving these services a distinct and unfair advantage in the market.

But broadband ISPs are now coming up with a new way of attacking cord cutters: forcing them to subscribe to television if they want to avoid usage caps.

Back in January, AT&T announced that the company would be happy to remove usage caps on its wireless network, but only if you subscribe to DirecTV or U-verse TV service. Then last month, AT&T carried this idea over to its fixed-line broadband network, announcing that it would be imposing new usage caps on its broadband users starting May 23. While AT&T says it will generously allow users to pay $30 more per month to avoid usage caps entirely, it also announced that users who subscribe to its TV services will be able to avoid usage caps entirely.

cont.

This month, an Oregon company by the name of Bend Broadband followed suit, informing its users that it would be happy to remove its usage caps (ranging from 150 GB to 500 GB), but only if users subscribe to television service. Bend offers up a misleading explanation for why caps are necessary in the first place in a company FAQ:

"The continued migration of Netflix usage from mailed DVD to Internet streaming/download, as well as other data intensive uses of the Internet, are impacting all providers of high-speed Internet service. While we certainly acknowledge and appreciate that content rich services like Netflix make our high-speed offering more valuable to the end user, the volume of data associated with this content drives significant incremental investment in the network and the need to purchase more bandwidth in order to maintain the user experience and this must be funded."

cont.

>mfw ISPs got fucking tricked

Thanks for the free TV, assholes

Right, but that's bullshit. U.S. residents already pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world; money that any earnings report will clearly illustrate is more than enough to offset what at this point is only modest network upgrades. As one cable CEO recently noted, most of the heavy investment is over, and the name of the game now is milking these uncompetitive markets for all they're worth until either broadband competition magically sprouts from the ether, or regulators wake up from a deep slumber and shut down the price gouging party.

Usage caps on fixed-line networks are nothing more than rate hikes on uncompetitive markets, and anybody claiming otherwise either has been swindled by a good salesman, or is selling you something themselves.

There's absolutely nothing good about this trend. ISPs are using a lack of competition in the broadband space to impose usage caps. They're then using caps to force subscribers to sign up for TV services they may or may not actually want. It's a mammoth, misleading and anti-competitive abuse of two markets simultaneously, all sold to consumers under the lie that ISPs need even more revenue to keep funding unprecedented investment and innovation. In reality, the entire push may just be one of the largest cons ever perpetrated on consumers in the modern communications era.

FIN

The best defense against this shit is to live in highly populated areas where competition prevents anybody from pulling this.

Dont wanna pay an extra $30/month for internet?
Move somewhere you will have to pay an extra $500/month in rent!

>tfw i live in a pretty rural area and have 25Mb/s download

...

>tfw i live in one of the most densely populated areas in the country and have 15mb/s

>tfw live in Finland where data caps on fixed line networks are almost unheard of
Braise Tengri

who?

>Back in January, AT&T announced that the company would be happy to remove usage caps on its wireless network, but only if you subscribe to DirecTV or U-verse TV service.

I had AT&T U-verse last year; $50.77 for a 15Mbps Internet (350 GB cap IIRC, which I never came close to hitting) with Basic-Basic cable tv (i.e. just broadcast channels and QVC garbage) that came with free HBO for one year and free Cinamax for 3 months.

Right off the bat I regretted the decision, as it took them 6 HOURS to wire up my house to get the system up and running.

Then for the first three months of the one year contract, they tried to bill me $78.72 and I had to call them each month to straighten them out.

When I called to tell them I didn't want Cinamax after the free trial period expired, they tried to tell me I’d also lose HBO.

When the year was ending, I called to tell them I didn't want HBO after the free trial and they told me if I didn’t pay them $16 per month for it, they’d jump up my bill by $20 per month.

When I asked how much it would be to drop the cable tv altogether (which I never wanted in the first place) and just get Internet service, they said it would be the same $50.77 I was already paying.

When I told them I’d be shopping around for a new ISP, they let me walk.

Now I get weekly (sometimes twice a week) letters from AT&T begging me to come back and I even had a guy from AT&T coming knocking on my door (despite the "NO SOLICITORS" sign, fuck wad!) trying to get me to sign up with them.

Fucking morons…

Problem, goyim?

America is so cucked.

>tfw I pay for 50mbps and get 2.5

JUST

>finland
whats your opinion on sweden

i dont' get it

>b*lgaria
>100mb/s net for $10 a month
>literally no one in the country uses the cap plans for the home net
>also got ranked as #2 internet in the whole world (speed)
>ALSO have one of the biggest torrent trackers in the world that's only accessible by bulgarian IPs and is actually impossible to be taken down due to our government's incapability of pulling it off

sadly the only thing to be proud of in this shithole

>"The continued migration of Netflix usage from mailed DVD to Internet streaming/download, as well as other data intensive uses of the Internet, are impacting all providers of high-speed Internet service. While we certainly acknowledge and appreciate that content rich services like Netflix make our high-speed offering more valuable to the end user, the volume of data associated with this content drives significant incremental investment in the network and the need to purchase more bandwidth in order to maintain the user experience and this must be funded."

I ain’t the most tech savvy guy and I’ve heard that the excessive bandwidth usage claims by cable co’s are bullshit and that it doesn’t matter how much bandwidth an individual uses, the cable co’s are just gouging consumers because they can.

Is this accurate? Because it would seem to me that more people = less bandwidth per person, right?

fucking americans lmao

LAND OF THE FREE

>i dont' get it

Cable co’s are going to continue over charging the fuck out of consumers; if you refuse to pay $XXX for cable tv, they’ll make you pay $XXX for "bandwidth".

"""""""""""""""LAND OF THE FREE"""""""""""""""

WELL looks like I'm gonna give T-Mobile an extra 20 bucks a month and use my phone as an unlimited 4g hotspot. I typically don't accept calls anyway, so no interruptions for me.

Meanwhile Yuronazis are literally going to prison for not having a tv license

Which is weird, because I hear you can opt out of that if you don't use the TV or something.

Dodged that bullet.
But watch out for the coppers after you for your butter knifes

I fucking hate American ISPs