US broadband internet: Now with mandatory 'nutrition' labels The FCC's "nutrition labels" for broadband internet services are now a required part of doing business for American ISPs. As of April 10, a rule passed in 2022 has taken effect requiring ISPs to display labels at the point of sale for internet service that include things like prices, service changes after an introductory …
1. Forget point of sale -- this needs to be on *every* monthly bill (mailed paper and downloadable PDFs) with the "introductory" and "contract" times counting down so people know when time runs out.
2. Can I get this for my *current* plan? Based on how it's gone the last few years, it should read "$60/month, n/a for introductory and contract, $0 other fees, $0 taxes, 25/5" but I'd like to make sure my provider isn't going to sneak in some new terms.
3. The example image: 1200 down, 200 up for only $109.99? As long as it's not one of the major coax cable companies, sign me up! I'll even move for that deal!
> 3. The example image: 1200 down, 200 up for only $109.99? As long as it's not one of the major coax cable companies, sign me up! I'll even move for that deal!
Seriously, how on earth is it that in a country of >300 million people there is so little competition that anybody can possibly view that as a good deal?!?
Oh, I'm not rural -- I'm firmly in the suburbs, less than 25 miles away from the center of downtown of a major city. But you're both right -- 1) lack of competition and 2) not easily fiber-cabled.
As my top post says -- and I've repeated time and again, I pay $60 for 25 Mbps. Less than twice the price for 48x download speed (and 40x upload)? I'm sold; shut up and take my money as long as you aren't Xfinity (or similar cableco from other states).
It's not all terrible here - I am lucky enough to live in an area with *three* actually competitive, actually high-speed broadband providers (local cable co and two FTTP services) which is soon to be four when my electric co-op rolls out their FTTP service here. I pay $77/month (incl fees and taxes) for symmetric gigabit and a fixed IP.
3. The example image: 1200 down, 200 up for only $109.99? As long as it's not one of the major coax cable companies, sign me up! I'll even move for that deal!
Here in New Zealand, thousands of km from the centre of the internet, we get that, plus unlimited usage and free phone service, for the same price in *NZ* dollars, which is about 60 USD. You yanks are being ripped off.
《Here in New Zealand, thousands of km from the centre of the internet, we get that, plus unlimited usage and free phone service, for the same price in *NZ* dollars, which is about 60 USD. You yanks are being ripped off.》
Even from AU, we can envy the Kiwis their rational broadband. The AU NBN is the typical committee camel.
I thought the FCC's Acme ISP label was taken from a the Optus NBN offering. :)
The $89.99 intro. to $109.99 after 12 months ($20 or 21% increase) is signature Optus (from C&W days.)
Yes, internet is no great deal here in the U.S. and I've mentioned it before. For a good number of us it is because of the distance that the ISP must service; a comment above from a user states "I'm only 25 miles from a city center" - 25 miles of run and maintenance adds up by the end of the year. Add in the usual, joyous U.S. capitalism of captive audience (no, to minimal competition in each area), lobbyists, certain parts of our own government (cough, GOP, cough) fighting against FCC ISP oversight, etc, and yep, we're screwed.
But always remember, ~36% of our population supports and consistently votes for this because anything else is "communism"! So, Let Them Eat Cake, I can't be bothered to keep reminding them what idiots they are.
AT&T gives me 1000 Mbps up and down for $55.00/month. (The real values are closer to 800, naturally.) Of course, that's because:
1. I got an upgrade to 1000 from 300, same price, for moving from Uverse tv to Direct TV Streaming; AT&T really wanted to be rid of all copper-based products.
2. I got 300 up/down (really about 240) with a $5 price cut from Uverse 75 (really 60) down/20 (really 20, I nearly had heart failure) when I moved to AT&T fiber (yes, they can't spell).
3. Comcast has an ‘aggressive’ pricing structure locally.
Allegedly these prices will ‘never change’. We’ll see.
YMMV.
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The ‘regular’ monthly price after promotion needs to be as prominent as the intro/teaser price. Apart from that it’s great…
It would be useful to see a cellphone contract version next - esp. oriented with clear info about additional costs like roaming, the impact of handset subsidy ‘finance’ and any insurance you get suckered into.
…. and the UK’s useless equivalent regulator Ofcom should clone it immediately.
Do they also have to disclose "network management" policies, like how Comcast considers the entire bittorrent protocol to be "intrinsically illegal, with no legitimate use cases since it's only used for piracy" and will terminate your service for using even software that piggybacks on it (Windows 10's updater in default configuration uses it for P2P sharing of update data)?
Seriously, if you're a Comcast user, try downloading a Linux ISO (completely legal content in every sense of the word) using your favorite torrent client (VPN or not, it doesn't matter, they can see the "torrent shaped" packets even inside a VPN tunnel even if they don't know what or with whom you're downloading), and wait for the "you do that again and we'll terminate you... as well as your subscription" email.
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