The triple play plan I have from Comcast includes gigabit Internet, HBO, and phone with free long distance. It was advertised at $170/month and my bill is $193. The $23 increase is $15 dollars in taxes and franchise fees and $8 added by Comcast to cover the current fees they pay for access to local programming and regional sports networks. The offer price is guaranteed for two years and the programming fees are separated from it because they can vary year-by-year depending on how greedy the content distributors are. This $8 increase raises my bill by 4%, so the Consumer Reports study has some problems. Chiefly, these come from including equipment rental fees that consumers can easily avoid by buying their own modems, routers, and DVRs (as I do.)

The claim that this $8 fee was hidden from me is absurd. When I upgraded to gigabit a few months ago, the agent walked me through every add-on to the quoted $170 price on the web site as well as every discount I get for bundling and owning my own gear.

The purpose of the CR story - and its echo by Brodkin the Troll - is to win support for government-owned networks and random regulations such as net neutrality, and to turn consumer attention away from the privacy abuses Internet users suffer at the hands of monopolists Google, Facebook et al.

You're being played.

I corrected my post on CircleID after learning that the false impression that the FCC was going to fine Comcast was snuck in by a headline writer at the New York Times and not by the AP reporter who covers the FCC beat. Martin was actually rather coy about his specific plan when he leaked the story, and the reporter was actually played a bit. It would be nice if you could update the quote from my CircleID post. Any or all of the first three paragraphs should do:

Note: this is an update on my earlier story, which incorrectly said that the AP reported that Chairman Martin was seeking to impose "fines" on Comcast. In fact, the story used the word "punish" rather than "fine," and a headline writer at the New York Times added "penalty" to it: "F.C.C. Chairman Favors Penalty on Comcast" (I won't quote the story because I'm a blogger and the AP is the AP, so click through.) Much of the initial reaction to the story was obviously colored by the headline.

Martin's concept of punishment is to order the company to do what it had already told the public it was doing, phasing out one system of traffic management in favor of another one. It's a non-penalty punishment, akin to forcing a misbehaving child to eat the candies she's already enjoying. Now back to our story.

At a press conference today, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he's not seeking to fine Comcast. Rather, he will simply impose some reporting requirements on them and order them to do what they've already started to do, phase out the current traffic management system in favor of an application-agnostic one.

Thanks.