Comcast Holds Off On Implementing New Data Plan for Northeast Customers

Feeling like you’re held hostage by your ISP? Just ask Daphne from Scooby-Doo!

Internet and phone companies are two types of companies Americans love to hate — and for good reasons. During a pandemic, Comcast was planning to set usage caps on more customers, notably those located in the Northeast states, forcing heavy users toward their more expensive unlimited plan.

Those plans have now been delayed until 2022.

“We are delaying implementation of our new data plan in our Northeast markets until 2022,” Comcast said. “We recognize that our data plan was new for our customers in the Northeast, and while only a very small percentage of customers need additional data, we are providing them with more time to become familiar with the new plan.” But there’s nothing to become familiar with. The restrictions are glorified price hikes imposed on the backs of customers who already pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world thanks to limited competition. So while a reprieve was welcomed, experts have long warned that the restrictions shouldn’t exist in the first place. 

Comcast Backs Off Plan to Expand Dumb, Unnecessary Broadband Caps

Seems like this is good news for those this data change will eventually impact — at least for a little while.

We have a few alternatives to Comcast in our area, but they are sort of the best of the worst. We had DSL through the phone company once upon a time. Comcast/Xfinity/whatever they want to call themselves was better. We keep hoping that somebody else will come along with an alternative: Amazon, Google, the satellite service from Mr. Tesla — something.

Regardless what happens with Comcast and their Peacock streaming service, they still have internet — and that’s a major cash cow (see: As Long As Comcast Charges For Internet Services They Should Be OK). Speaking of Peacock, it’s currently our least watched subscribed streaming service.

Who is your ISP? Do you like them? Feel like their prices are fair and reasonable?

Disgruntled Customer Alert? Man Charged With Cutting Comcast Cable Lines

Harley Quinn about to go full blown vigilante mode — among her many talents

Innocent until proven guilty, but in addition to those storming the Capital this past week, here’s an equally bad idea: cutting Comcast cable lines and interrupting service for other people.

The Comcast worker discovered several fiber optic lines running from an overhead railroad bridge to a buried junction had been cut. Several splicing junctions had also been cut, police said. The Comcast employee questioned the man about the cables and the man left, police said.

Man Accused Of Cutting Comcast Lines, Causing Outages – LevittownNow.com

Hey, if you’re mad at Comcast, then just do the sane, simple thing: cancel your service. Vote with your feet. Don’t cut services — allegedly — for other people. What did the other Comcast customers do to you, anyway? Innocent bystanders.

The reality is these companies can dispatch trucks and workers for service outages. It’s their business. We get falling lines due to trees and wind in our area every year it seems. These workers are excellent about restoring services quickly. Idiots cutting lines isn’t going to do anything long term, this is short term irritating.

Definitely not sticking up for Comcast, despite us having their high speed internet for many years now, but don’t think the solution is vandalism. They are rightfully facing heat for enforcing a data cap during the pandemic, which is at best extremely poor timing.

How do you deal with companies that take actions and/or have service policies you don’t like? Our home insurance premium just went up a ton (we have made no claims or anything else that would warrant an increase), and now we’re out shopping for new insurance company. Vote with your feet, seriously, it’s the best way we know to send a message. Grind an axe on your blog, social media, etc, that’s fine, too. Sever ties not cable lines.

As Long As Comcast Charges For Internet Services They Should Be OK

They charged for air on mars

Total Recall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Comcast is doing well with their internet business in the pandemic. Owning a high speed internet service, especially during the pandemic, is a great business. Just having any significant stake in major internet-related access is a worthwhile — at least as long as end consumers are paying for it.

There have been various degrees of “let’s make free internet access everywhere a reality” but the logistics of “free” are a subject beyond the scope of this post. I will say anything labeled as “free” is a business illusion. There are no truly, completely free lunches in this world, unless maybe we’re talking about air and you might remember in Total Recall the antagonist Vilos Cohaagen (Ronnie Cox) profited from the air on Mars.

It’s a different story, though, for Comcast’s legacy business. Surging use of streaming-video services and the rising number of smart devices per household are driving more people to seek internet service and faster speeds. Comcast signed up 800,000 internet subscribers in the first half of the year, nearly offsetting the 815,000 residential pay-TV customers it lost in that span. The unit generated 61% of Comcast’s revenue in the June quarter and 77% of its adjusted Ebitda.

As Disney Retreats, AT&T and Comcast Have Options

Those who are cutting the cord in mass exodus from traditional cable might think Comcast is hemorrhaging cash. It would seem Comcast understood this by the launch of Peacock, their Flex box and $100 million acquisition of Xumo (which now has 24+ million subscribers) in early 2020. They seem to be pivoting to that business vs. losing their customers completely — those that don’t have/need their internet service.

Whether or not the Flex box is any kind of contender vs. Roku, Amazon Fire and the new Google Chromecast + TV remains to be seen. The logical bet would be on Amazon on Google, although I’d like to see Roku continue to be the leader in the space simply because they are not Amazon or Google. A business should only get so big in the tech space before it is too big. There should be no argument, except from those investing in these two tech goliath’s, that they are too big.

So … what does this mean?

Unless you are looking for a future where free Wi-Fi is everywhere, probably controlled by ads (sigh), having your own home internet service will remain a staple utility like water, sewer and garbage service. Yes, you could be on a well and use nature to avoid those as well. I almost mentioned electricity, but in the move to go green, solar increasingly is looking like the way to go there.

We’re in a seismic shift from the old guards to new guards. Those in the tech sector are familiar with this activity and some even embracing it.

Whatever you’re reading out there about Comcast possibly being in some kind of trouble, articles like the one above are much closer to the reality, or so at least this early adopter, once upon a time horror novelist techie thinks. Sure, their customer base needs are changing, but then that writing has been on the wall for years now.

Comcast’s Ad-Supported Xumo Reaches 24+ Million Subscribers – How Many Are Actively Watching?

Congrats to Comcast for 24+ million Xumo (https://corp.xumo.com/) subscribers. It’s a good number, but when Netflix boasts 190+ million paid subscribers, it’s not amazing comparatively. Heck, we were most recently impressed to see Shudder pass a 7-figure paid subscriber milestone (see: Shudder Reaches 1 Million Subscribers on September 23, 2020)

Xumo, the free, ad-supported streaming TV service now owned by Comcast, wants to make the case that it’s in the same league as its two primary rivals, Fox’s Tubi and ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV. Since January, according to Xumo, its user base has soared 2.5 times to reach more than 24 million U.S. monthly active users.

Comcast’s Xumo Touts Explosive Growth, Topping 24 Million Monthly Users for Free Streaming Service (EXCLUSIVE)

Their subscriber milestone shows many people continue to enjoy watching ad-supported TV streaming services like Xumo, Tubi, Pluto and others. Or maybe it shows that a significant number of people want to sign up — like we did — for the service.

Subscribing to something free, however, isn’t as important as people who sign up and are active.

How many of those 24+ million subscribers are actively watching say an average of 2 hours a week? That’s an average of watching one movie a week on the service. I would call those subscribers active.

Us? We wouldn’t pass this test. Not just with Xumo, but not any of the others either: Tubi, Pluto, heck we don’t even average that with the Roku channel, also free.

We are watching some live TV through Locast local channels like the Seahawks NFL games on Sunday. Have also been watching more news with the impending election and other world events through CBS All Access live TV option.

We have these free channels on Roku but the vast majority of our TV time goes to the 7 paid channels we subscribe to (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, CBS All Access, Shudder)

What about you, friendly readers? How much of these ad-supported TV/movies are you watching? Xumo, Pluto, Tubi, let’s just use those. Do you watch any of them more than 2 hours a week? Do you have a favorite of the three? Which one?