Well, Comcast is opting to forgo such secretive business from here on. Instead, it has, in the words of Vishesh Kumar of The Wall Street Journal, “formally submitted plans to the Federal Communications Commission...detailing how the company plans to manage its broadband network. .... Rather than than target specific types of bandwidth-intensive applications like peer-to-peer file sharing, the company will instead slow Internet speeds for its heaviest users at peak times when its network is congested.”
Technically speaking, the enactment of the two will essentially mean for Comcast customers not only that their standard monthly fee will offer only so much data access, but that the way in which they access the data - insofar as large and sustained transfers are concerned - is also observed and manipulated if deemed necessary. All in all, a consciously stifling combination, no doubt.
Some observers of the company’s actions say, on the one hand, that the data cap is quite high. They feel that the average user will not reach 250 GB in a given month, even with regular consumption of media like music and high-quality video. That may be true. Yet, how interesting it is that, on subject of networking throttling, Comcast claims to have received “no customer complaints...about the new method in its trial markets and less than 1% of customers were affected on a typical day.”
Of course, many, if not all of these questions will remain in the air indefinitely, as proof is hard to amass among the consumer class. And Comcast cannot be expected to have to address psychological issues among its users. Thus, if the FCC finds Comcast’s plans to manage users’ activity more strictly not an unfair practice, which it may well do, Comcast users will, very simply, have to deal with it. If this is so, the only sensible thing for discontented Comcast subscribers to do is move on to another service provider. Will they, though? Comcast is evidently hedging its bet on customers’ feeling that a departure from the company’s billing charts will be less appealing than the moment at which they had originally signed on. This is thoroughly old style to business conduct, for sure, but it has unfortunately been proven quite effective at times.