Today’s lack of blogging is brought to you by Comcast. For the third goddamn time this year Comcast has decided to jack up my bill. Why? This time, just as the last two times, they are claiming I was receiving a discount that has now expired. What record do I have of receiving this discount? None. It was never listed on my bill, I was never told about it, and I never received a mailer alerting me to it. Apparently Comcast is in the business of giving discounts without telling you. Or, you know, they’re lying sacks of shit. Either way, I was wasting time on the phone with them and will end up wasting more time on the phone either getting my bill back to the way it was or disconnecting the service and finding another Internet provider (or which I have, maybe, two other options).
To further prove Comcast hates you the company also announced that it will be issuing data caps:
Cellphone users watched with dismay in recent years as unlimited data plans became nearly extinct, thanks to the growing demand for video. Now, many Twin Cities residents will see data caps coming to their internet service, too.
Comcast, in an e-mail to customers Thursday night, said it will place a limit on internet data use for its residential customers in Minnesota, starting Nov. 1.
As a business class customer I don’t believe this will effect me. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until this shit applies to business customers as well.
And while the 1TB cap sounds very generous everybody needs to keep in mind that 4K video is becoming more popular and it sucks up bandwidth. 1TB won’t be much in the near future, which Comcast is banking on:
For serious online gamers or 4K video streamers, unlimited data is still available — for $50 more a month.
Otherwise, what happens if you go over 1 terabyte in a month? Comcast will charge you $10 for every 50 gigabytes over the limit, up to a maximum of $200.
What a bunch of gouging fuckers. Let’s all take a moment to thank the State for providing protections to Comcast so it can do this kind of shit without much worry of losing customers to competitors.
Funny coincidence: the exact same thing happened to me less than a month ago: my Comcast bill jumped mysteriously by $30, and when I called, they said some short-term discount had expired. I dumped them.
I don’t even have the choice of anything as good as concast at home, I have very slow and unreliable DSL, my other choices are cell or satellite, or dialup on shitty phone lines.
I took a speed hit: DSL in my neighborhood is only 1.5 mbps, pretty pathetic. Fiber optic at 1.0 gbps is supposedly on the way by the end of the year, though, so I’ll limp along till then.