Lately, Comcast has been throwing lots of money around to try and convince people that they are the fastest and best value in high-speed Internet service. Although the truth (integrity) of much of the propaganda pushed by their attractive, demographically correct spokes person is questionable, until yesterday I was never compelled to blog about it.
I've been driven closer to writing about this, as I continue to experience "mysterious" performance related problems with my various non Comcast product related high bandwidth activities, such as video conferencing and Vonage.
Despite a number of complaints to Comcast Technical "Support," these problems seem to be getting worse. I find it suspiciously coincidental, that the problems associated with my Vonage VOIP service did not start until Comcast began offering their own "Comcast Voice" product in my area!
So what changed yesterday? Word began to circulate that Comcast had solicited otherwise uninterested people to take up seats at an official FCC public hearing in Boston, resulting in many genuinely interested people and press representatives being turned away! Hundreds of people, many of whom had taken the day off of work to attend and voice their concerns about the importance of an "open" Internet were prevented from entering the hearing, because it was
"full."
Since this story broke, Comcast has actually admitted to paying people to fill up seats, in an attempt to "stack the room." You can view the report HERE. One of the paid attendees is on record as saying he was "just getting paid to hold someone's seat" and said he was clueless about the actual purpose of the meeting.
This incident is a blatant example of corporate malfeasance. The FCC should levy a significant punitive fine on Comcast AND hold another Boston hearing. Future hearings, should be held at venues that are large enough to accommodate anticipated crowds. A web-based registration component should be used, with a limit on one ticket per originating IP address.
I encourage you to tell the FCC to stop the large Telecom vendors from blocking Internet traffic that is not tied directly to one of their revenue producing products. Tell the FCC we need Net Neutrality legislation today!
