Comcast didn't have a very good week last week, once again finding itself on the receiving end of an Internet hate storm after expanding its usage caps into significantly more markets. Things were then only compounded by a leak customer support script in which the company admitted for the first time in print that usage caps had nothing to do with congestion. That's because, as most customers are aware, they're about raising rates on broadband to counter TV revenue losses from Internet video.
Unfortunately, Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas is being forced to stick to the company's
ongoing claim that these rate hikes are about "fairness."
In trying to downplay last week's bad news, Douglas tells Fierce Cable the caps are an attempt to "create a more fair approach, where the heaviest data users pay a little more and the light data users get to pay a little less. It means the heavier data users will pay a little more for us to re-double capacity on our network every 12 to 18 months."
The problem with that narrative continues to be that nobody gets to "pay a little less" under Comcast's new pricing model. Comcast customers already pay some of the highest rates in the developed world for broadband (OECD data), and as households increasingly consume Internet video (and soon 4K streams), Comcast is well aware that the changes effectively mean higher rates for all customers.
In fact, in areas where customers now face new usage caps, they're being told they can now pay $30 to $35 more for the exact same service they enjoyed yesterday. Fairness doesn't much enter into it.
The company's refusal to listen to its customers on this issue runs contrary to the cable giant's repeated claims that it wants to improve its showing in customer satisfaction studies, most of which rank Comcast as among the
least liked companies in any industry. Hitting customers with massive new rate hikes, then insulting their collective intelligence by claiming it's
only fair likely isn't going to help matters.