Both Comcast and AT&T have announced the newest markets for their highest-speed residential broadband services, with people in the Chicago, Miami, and Jacksonville areas being the ones to benefit. [More]
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Franken: Net Neutrality Win Means “We Might Just Be Able To Stop” Comcast/TWC Deal
By 4.21.15
The Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger is not going as smoothly as either company had hoped. With each passing day, the FCC seems less likely to rubber-stamp their approval, and rumor has it that the Justice Department is leaning against the corporate marriage. With momentum building, merger opponents are taking the chance to push back even harder, and that includes U.S. Senator Al Franken. [More]
Comcast To Meet With Justice Dept. To Discuss Time Warner Cable Merger
By 4.20.15
In the wake of a report that antitrust attorneys at the U.S. Dept. of Justice are leaning toward blocking the pending $45 billion merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, it looks like the cable giants are going to meet with the DOJ later this week to discuss the status of the deal. [More]
Comcast Bringing Super-Fast Fiber Network To Silicon Valley & Other California Markets
By 4.17.15
Two weeks after Comcast announced that Atlanta would be the first market to get its new Gigabit Pro fiber service — which promises speeds of up to twice that of Google Fiber — the company is now saying it will bring the high-speed broadband to several markets in California where it already offers service. [More]
Report: Justice Dept. May Recommend Blocking Comcast, Time Warner Cable Merger
By 4.17.15
It’s been well over a year since Comcast announced its $45.2 billion plan to buy Time Warner Cable and regulators at the FCC and Justice Dept. have yet to indicate publicly whether they plan to approve the deal or sue to block it. However, a new report claims that antitrust lawyers at the DOJ are leaning toward putting the kibosh on this marriage of the nation’s two largest cable operators. [More]
California Utilities Commissioner Calls For Rejection Of Time Warner Cable Deal
By 4.10.15
With Comcast set to take over Time Warner Cable’s millions of California customers, state regulators there have been scrutinizing the deal to see how it would affect consumers. Earlier this year, the state’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) suggested a number of conditions that would make the merger more acceptable, but today a CPUC commissioner publicly called for the state to block the marriage of Comcast and TWC, at least in California. [More]
Comcast Tries To Refute Philly Customer Service Study, Does About As Good A Job As You’d Expect
By 4.10.15
Yesterday, Philadelphia finally got around to releasing the results of a long-in-the-works Comcast customer service survey of city residents, and the results weren’t very favorable for the cable company. Of course, Comcast, which had more than a month to review the report before it was made public, is now trying to discredit it, saying the consultants that put it together should have asked Comcast — and not the citizens of Philadelphia — for accurate data about customer service. [More]
Philadelphia Finally Releases Results Of Comcast Customer Service Survey; It’s Not Pretty
By 4.9.15
Earlier this week we told you how the city leadership here in Comcast’s hometown of Philadelphia appeared to be dragging their feet in getting around to releasing the results of 15-month-old survey of city residents about Comcast service, even though the cable company had already been shown the report. Today, the city finally got around to sharing this info with the public and it’s about as unpleasant as you’d expect. [More]
Comcast Refused To Cancel Cable For Customer Whose House Went Up In Flames
By 4.9.15
When your house burns down, the last thing you should be concerned about is having to make repeated calls to your cable provider to get them to cancel or suspend your service. And yet Comcast refused to cancel service for one Minnesota customer after his house was turned to ashes — all because he couldn’t provide his full account number. [More]
Following Complaint From Comcast, Ad Board Recommends DirecTV Discontinue Rob Lowe Ads
By 4.7.15
If you’ve been near a TV in the last six months (and don’t fast forward through every commercial break), then you’ve likely seen the quirky DirecTV ads featuring Rob Lowe and a parade of kooky alter-egos. How much longer you’ll see those spots is up for debate after an ad review board, acting on a complaint from Comcast, found many of DirecTV’s claims to be unsubstantiated and recommended the company pull the promotions. [More]
Surprise, Surprise: Comments In Favor Of Comcast/TWC Merger Come From Groups Comcast Has Donated To
By 4.6.15
Large companies do a lot of philanthropic and community giving. Comcast is not alone on that front: volunteerism, grants, donations, and employee matching are common, perhaps even standard, at many of America’s biggest businesses. But where Comcast differs is that they, very publicly, turn their valuable giving into an unpaid army of on-demand lobbyists whenever they have a company to buy. Like Time Warner Cable. [More]
Philadelphia Won’t Show Results Of Comcast Customer Survey To Anyone — Except Comcast
By 4.6.15
From the skyline to the mayor’s office (to the very broadband line through which this story is being published), Comcast is everywhere here in Philadelphia. But even this company town occasionally has to go through the process of reviewing and renewing its franchise agreement with said company. Unfortunately, it looks like some of Philadelphia’s top brass may be dragging its feet on this process — and ignoring the opinions of their constituents — at the same time Comcast tries to acquire Time Warner Cable. [More]
It’s Almost Lawsuit Season: Broadband Trade Groups Prepping Their Legal Arguments Against Net Neutrality
By 4.3.15
The FCC voted on the Open Internet Order — net neutrality — about six weeks ago. But nobody ever accused the wheels of bureaucracy of turning quickly and so it is only this week that the rule has been sent off to the fine folks at the Federal Register. That means we’re finally in the home stretch handoff; the rule will become the law of the land 60 days after the Federal Register publishes it. And that means we’re finally in the window for the big wave of down-and-dirty lawsuits and legal challenges we’ve been awaiting since basically forever. [More]
In Atlanta? You Can Soon Sign Up For Internet Twice As Fast As Google Fiber. The Downside: It’s From Comcast
By 4.2.15
Atlanta residents are now well-poised to join inhabitants of metro Raleigh and Kansas City as citizens of one of the nation’s few crucibles of fiber competition. Comcast is setting its sights squarely on Google Fiber today with the announcement of a new fiber to the home offering at twice Google’s speed, and Atlanta is the lucky city getting first dibs. [More]
Man Who Says Comcast Got Him Fired From Job Seeks $5M In Damages After Company Smeared Him Publicly
By 3.31.15
Last fall, we were the first to tell you about Conal O’Rourke, the Comcast customer in California who spent more than a year dealing with consistent over-billing — including $1,820 worth of equipment he’d never ordered nor needed — and horrendous customer service who was fired from his job at Comcast-consulting accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers after he took his complaint to the office of the Comcast controller. Shortly after publishing that story, Conal sued Comcast over the incident, and now he’s amended that lawsuit to allege invasion of privacy and to put a higher dollar amount on the damages being sought. [More]
New Homeowner Has To Sell House Because Of Comcast’s Incompetence, Lack Of Competition
By 3.25.15
Only months after moving into his new home in Washington state, Consumerist reader Seth is already looking to sell his house. He didn’t lose his job or discover that the property is haunted. No, Seth can’t stay much longer because no one can provide broadband service to his address; even though Comcast and CenturyLink both misled him into thinking he’d be connected to their networks and in spite of the fact that his county runs a high-speed fiberoptic network that goes very near to his property. [More]
Comcast Says It’s Tripling Size Of Social Media Customer Service Team
By 3.23.15
Comcast has been responding to customer complaints on Twitter and Facebook for years, but that didn’t help the company get out of the basement of customer satisfaction ratings — not just for cable and Internet providers, but for all U.S. companies. And now that Comcast is trying to merge with the one consumer-facing business with a worse reputation, it says it is making an investment to improve its social media customer service team. [More]
Numbers Show That People Care Much More About Comcast/TWC Merger Than AT&T/DirecTV Deal
By 3.17.15
Last week, the FCC paused its 180-day merger review clock for both Comcast’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable and the merger of AT&T and DirecTV. But a look at the number of comments and filings for these two deals shows that one is getting much more attention than the other. [More]
