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Comcast (CMCSA) becomes the bandwidth Nazi

Posted August 20, 2008

“Will I get to work one day and discover I can’t download one of our own TFN videos because Comcast has decided to be the bandwidth Nazi?” — Stephanie Grimmett

by Stephanie Grimmett

Baltimore — (TFN):  I wouldn’t be too excited about Comcast Corp. (CMCSA:NASDAQ) in coming months. The company is about to slow down its internet speed to “punish” heavy users. I’m trying to think of an analogy for this situation that doesn’t sound like a really stupid business move. But I can’t come up with one.

Of course the company hasn’t said what qualifies someone as a heavy user. Will it include companies in its assessment? Will I get to work one day and discover I can’t download one of our own TFN videos because Comcast has decided to be the bandwidth Nazi (sorry, Christoph, but the cultural perception of Germans in history isn’t my fault.)?

The other idea to make the downloading process a little more fair is a little less idiotic. Like paying for gas or cellphone minutes, Comcast’s other suggestion is to make subscribers pay for individual usage, instead of a basic rate for service.

The pay-per-minute idea does get into a sticky mess of what exactly you’d be paying for (seconds on the internet? minutes spent downloading? total amount of bits downloaded each month?). But I’m sure Comcast would solve that problem to its own advantage.

And what, you might ask, is the other reason I’m warning you away from Comcast today? Well, the company has managed to anger the FCC, which is demanding it stop illegally blocking file-sharing sites. Maybe the company is scared the music industry will swing at it with the full weight of all those lawyers.

But the FCC still says it’s a bit too People’s Republic of China to block legally set-up websites. Next thing you know, Comcast will block this website because we say something mean about them. And you thought it was creepy when companies rewrote their own entries on Wikipedia.

Comcast is in a mess. And I’d avoid the stock until the company figures out how to make money from heavy downloaders instead of punishing them.

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Posted by Stephanie Grimmett · Filed Under US Stocks and Markets 

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