These things happen when you have a monopoly on internet providers.
Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
81–90 of 97 posts
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't. I am not a fan of Comcast for many reasons. This fee isn't very consumer-friendly and it should be described more honestly as an "upgrade fee" or similar. But no, there's no reason it has to have anything to do with the "work" required to do the upgrade. Is Adobe obligated to make the price of Photoshop commensurate to the cost of burning a DVD or downloading a file?
"Is Adobe obligated to make the price of Photoshop commensurate to the cost of burning a DVD or downloading a file?" Of course people who have never run a business and don't understand the total cost of running a business will always relate "cost" to one thing what you pay for a particular item which when factoring a host of other things is either not relevant or not easily determined. I just read where Tesla (an HN…
> Of course people who have never run a business and don't understand the total cost of running a business...
Can you please stop with the flamebait? It's not conducive to productive discussion.
To address your point, not everything should (ethical judgment) be priced based on value. Do you not see the difference between a Tesla and internet service? What about electricity - should PG&E charge based on how much value they provide? Have you ever tried living without power? Because it's certainly worth more than the $50 a month I currently pay. What about medical treatment? What if the ER charged 10% of your lifetime future income for lifesaving treatment? That seems commensurate with the value provided, doesn't it?
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't you find that it should be at least somewhat commensurate with the work required though? $250 to set the value for speed rating from 50 to 105Mbps on the backend service menu and then reboot the router; doesn't that seem a little bit like they might be playing on peoples lac of knowledge of the systems involved?
"Don't you find that it should be at least somewhat commensurate with the work required though?" Business doesn't work that way. You make hay when the sun shines. And there are cases when you can't charge. Because of things your competitors are doing. In a restaurant they don't charge you for napkins and water although they could. (Actually they do charge for premium water but that's a fairly recent invention). The i…
> Business doesn't work that way. You make hay when the sun shines.
The idea of a "fair deal" IS part of business, if customers decide it's part of business. Once you factor in our basic sense of ethics and fair dealing, it's clear that Comcast has none.
The problem here isn't that ethics aren't part of business, but rather, there is no competition. Customers have no choice, therefor, there's no reason for Comcast to behave in a way that better serves their customers.
Aren't you a domain squatter? That would explain a lot about your way of thinking.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't you find that it should be at least somewhat commensurate with the work required though? $250 to set the value for speed rating from 50 to 105Mbps on the backend service menu and then reboot the router; doesn't that seem a little bit like they might be playing on peoples lac of knowledge of the systems involved?
No, I don't. I am not a fan of Comcast for many reasons. This fee isn't very consumer-friendly and it should be described more honestly as an "upgrade fee" or similar. But no, there's no reason it has to have anything to do with the "work" required to do the upgrade. Is Adobe obligated to make the price of Photoshop commensurate to the cost of burning a DVD or downloading a file?
Right, because PhotoShop implements, tests, documents, and maintains itself via... magic.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go back and watch a VHS tape recording of an over-the-air broadcast TV show. You will be amazed at how colossally crappy the quality of it is because you're now used to various levels of high-def TV. The quality we get used to is only going to go up from here. I agree with your conclusion, but not necessarily your reasoning. By contrast, when I watch an actual DVD, it makes me wonder why we put up with the awful comp…
Don't cellular providers now support wideband audio calls with certain handsets? For example, the Nexus 5 and iPhone 5(c|s) on T-mobile. How does wideband audio compare to a land line? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideband_audio
Traditional digital voice telephony is astonishingly good compared to anything we now use on mobiles. The problem with mobile has never been with the bandwidth, it's the packet loss. You can have as wide a band as you want but if you are dropping half the frames or they arrive at random times then it still sounds like shit. Isochronous circuit switching basically works perfectly, as long as the path can be established (busy signal is the failure mode here).
On VoIP with a good low loss path you can get amazing quality too. Skype for example sounds even better than digital circuit switched telephony.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't. I am not a fan of Comcast for many reasons. This fee isn't very consumer-friendly and it should be described more honestly as an "upgrade fee" or similar. But no, there's no reason it has to have anything to do with the "work" required to do the upgrade. Is Adobe obligated to make the price of Photoshop commensurate to the cost of burning a DVD or downloading a file?
Right, because PhotoShop implements, tests, documents, and maintains itself via... magic.
Yes, that was my point. Comcast's backend infrastructure similarly does not run on magic.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's for a few reasons. One is, as you mention, because it's nothing more than a button click to downgrade. Less than a 1 minute call with a CSR. How they can justify $50 for that is anyone's guess. The second is they're saying things like "it's to cover the cost of having CSRs, printing bills, etc." But actually, the $110/mo charge covers that, and always has. Third is because the company is making plenty of profit,…
"How they can justify $50 for that" They don't need to justify. The only reason they would even think about this is if the detriment didn't outweigh the benefit. If perhaps x% of people think that it's a ripoff and 90% don't or don't even know or think everything is a ripoff anyway then why not get the extra revenue? My guess is that the amount of people that even have any understanding of what is involved is quite s…
> The mere fact that you feel like it's up to you (or anyone else who makes comments) to decide "ok that's enough" really does not make any sense.
Actually it does. Consumers are allowed to make decisions about purchases on any grounds they choose, including whether they feel that a company is taking too much profit, or that the company is violating some ethical standard.
Consumers are also free to call for boycotts or otherwise persuade others to not purchase products. If we think that a company should be transparent and justify their pricing so that it's proportional to costs, then that's what we think. If we think that companies shouldn't exploit the technical ignorance of consumers, then that's what we think.
In a capitalist system, we're free to debate these questions, make purchasing decisions based on them and start competing companies to serve dissatisfied consumers. If we have more technical knowledge, preventing non-technical consumers from being exploited by sharing information with them is an ethical good. Most advocates of free markets argue that these capacities make the system work.
The only thing that wouldn't be permitted in a pure capitalist system is if these ethical claims translated into a demand for government intervention, which no one has done so far. Even so, it's easy to argue that these arbitrary fees are a market failure caused by information asymmetry between Comcast and consumers and could require government intervention. The issue is not the price. It's that Comcast is misrepresenting the charge as technically necessary, which could be seen as discouraging consumers from evaluating competitors (assuming they exist) by implying that there are technical rather than business decisions behind the charge.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#88Can confirm. I work for a telco and we recently upgraded our cable infrastructure to handle 100Mbit (previously 50Mbit was the fastest). All the customer needs is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, we re-provision in our system and they'll get 100Mbit. They come into our store, swap modems, and they're done. As for the hilarious/stupid/disappointing things OP was told by sales/tech support/whoever, I can also confirm that. Every da…
Large ISPs like Comcast are offering services over a variety of different systems -- some may not be upgraded or otherwise do not have the capacity available to support the 105Mbit/sec package. This $250 fee is probably to cover the instances where they do need to make backend changes to support faster speeds for the customer. They charge every customer the fee to spread the costs associated with that out.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#89Related... Recently Comcast claimed that they did an "internal audit" and found that I was not charged a monthly fee for the modem I rent from them.
The only wrinkle is that I provided my own modem.
Then they insisted that I "prove" that I purchased a modem, I suggested that if they charge me for something that they have to proof that they sold me said service.
Anyway, I haven't heard back since. Waiting for the next bill. Has anybody else experienced this, seems like a scam to me.
Re: Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Is Adobe obligated to make the price of Photoshop commensurate to the cost of burning a DVD or downloading a file?" Of course people who have never run a business and don't understand the total cost of running a business will always relate "cost" to one thing what you pay for a particular item which when factoring a host of other things is either not relevant or not easily determined. I just read where Tesla (an HN…
> Of course people who have never run a business and don't understand the total cost of running a business... Can you please stop with the flamebait? It's not conducive to productive discussion. To address your point, not everything should (ethical judgment) be priced based on value. Do you not see the difference between a Tesla and internet service? What about electricity - should PG&E charge based on how much value…
"Can you please stop with the flamebait?"
Point taken. I guess things like this piss me off so I flew off the handle in that way. So I apologize.
"Do you not see the difference between a Tesla and internet service?"
Ok well with respect to that we are not talking about Internet service but a faster type of Internet service that is by no means essential in any way (such as your other examples electricity and medical treatment). You don't need 100meg service and for that matter you really don't even need to stream video. Essential internet (wouldn't you agree) is really basic things and the bandwidth to support email, going to the government website, shopping for a car, etc. I don't consider enough bandwidth so several members of one family can all stream Netflix at one time essential. And that is what I had in my mind as I was making my comment.
In that respect the faster internet service might be more like elective surgery (say plastic surgery but not reconstructive surgery) which is not the same as medical treatment in an ER.