Criticism of Comcast

A number of different controversies and criticisms have surrounded Comcast for various reasons over its recent history. Customers of the telecommunications company report low levels of customer satisfaction on both service and cost. Comcast has also had several customer service scandals, the most notorious of which featured a representative not allowing a customer to cancel his service. This clip went viral. Comcast has also been widely criticized, most publicly by Netflix, for its position against net neutrality, the principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally.

Low customer satisfaction

In 2004 and 2007, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey found that Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service. The ACSI indicates that almost half of all cable customers (regardless of company) have registered complaints, and that cable is the only industry to score below 60 in the ACSI.[1] Comcast's customer service rating by the ACSI surveys indicate that the company's customer service has never improved since the surveys began in 2001. Analysis of the surveys states that "Comcast is one of the lowest scoring companies in ACSI. As its customer satisfaction eroded by 7% over the past year, revenue increased by 12%." The ACSI analysis also addresses this contradiction, stating that "Such pricing power usually comes with some level of monopoly protection and most cable companies have little competition at the local level. This also means that a cable company can do well financially even though its customers are not particularly satisfied."[2][3] In 2009 Comcast rebounded on its ACSI rating for television and Internet services, moving ahead of Charter Communications and into a tie with Time Warner Cable

Net neutrality

In 2006, Comcast implemented measures using Sandvine hardware which sends forged TCP RST (reset) packets, disrupting multiple protocols used by peer-to-peer file sharing networks.[27] This prevented most Comcast users from uploading files.[28]

In August 2007, TorrentFreak reported that Comcast had been preventing BitTorrent users from seeding files.[28] In October 2007, the Associated Press reported that Comcast "actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally".[29] In November 2007, Comcast's limiting of torrent applications was confirmed by a study conducted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in which public domain literature is distributed over peer-to-peer networks. Analysis of the EFF study found "strong evidence that Comcast is using packet-forging to disrupt peer-to-peer (P2P)

Privacy

Comcast has a one star privacy rating from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[45]

TechTV acquisition

Comcast announced on March 25, 2004, that its new gaming-oriented television network G4 (operated by subsidiary G4 Media, Inc.) would acquire Vulcan Venture's technology-oriented television network TechTV. The deal was finalized on May 10, 2004, and the two networks became G4techTV on May 28, 2004.[46] This led to the cancellation of many of the TechTV channels throughout carriers across the world. On January 3, 2005, TechTV International began airing select programs from G4techTV. On February 15, 2005, the TechTV brand was dropped from the United States G4techTV feed, leaving the network name as G4 – Video Game Television. Since then, G4 has gone through a rebranding into a male oriented network.

This move became hugely controversial among loyal fans of TechTV and its well-known personality Leo Laporte. Around May 6, G4 announced the termination of 250 employees from the San Francisco office by July 10, 2004, allowing approximately 80 to 100 employees to transition to G4's main office in Los Angeles, California, if they agreed to relocate there. With the departure of ZDTV-era employee Adam Sessler in April 2012, Morgan Webb is currently the sole TechTV-era employee remaining with the network. Comcast also acquired 33.33% of G4 Canada in addition to its U.S. channel in the sale of TechTV.

Lobbying efforts

Comcast spends millions of dollars annually on government relationships.[47][48] Comcast employs the spouses, sons and daughters of mayors, councilmen, commissioners, and other officials to assure its continued preferred market allocations.[49][50][51]

Comcast occasionally lobbies against "à la carte" bills that would give consumers the option to purchase individual channels rather than a broad tier of programming. Although they claim the reason for this is to keep customer costs lower,[52] these issues continue to garner attention from state governments, the

HDTV claim and quality

Comcast has started transmitting three HD channels per Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) carrier, rather than two per QAM like some other video service providers. Though more cost effective, this additional compression has been noticed and measured by some customers as a reduction in the quality of broadcasts.[54] Comcast claims to have more HD choices than DirecTV by including Comcast's on-demand and pay-per-view assets. Each HD on-demand program is counted as a so-called HD "choice" by Comcast.[55]

On August 8, 2016, a Comcast employee confirmed that Comcast was downgrading native 1080i channels to the 720p60 format.[56]

Crimes by contractors

There have been instances of attack, theft, rape and other crimes by Comcast contractors. These have taken place during home installations,[57] service calls,[58] door-to-door flyering,[59] and neighborhood visits.[60]

Signal intrusion and accidental transmission of pornography

On May 1, 2007, during a broadcast of the preschool program Handy Manny, Comcast had briefly replaced the program on Disney Channel's cable channel assignment with hardcore pornography for subscribers in Lincroft, New Jersey. Comcast's response to the complaints that ensued from the incident claimed that "We are continuing to investigate the root cause of the incident."[61] A spokesperson for Disney Channel said in a statement "We value the trust that parents have in Disney Channel and our programming ... and certainly take [Tuesday's] regrettable programming disruption in New Jersey extremely seriously."[62]

On February 7, 2008, Comcast subscribers in Nashville, Tennessee, also saw pornography via the cable provider on Cartoon Network. The incident, which happened in the early morning hours, was broadcast for at least an hour. Vice president of Nashville's Comcast provider, John Gauder apologized and stated "We apologize for any inconvenience some of our Comcast cable TV customers in Middle Tennessee experienced Thursday as a result of some highly unusual issues ... It appears that a subscription movie channel was inadvertently shown on other channels which normally carry news, sports, children's and other entertainment programming ... We are taking the appropriate steps to ensure that this highly unusual incident does not happen again."[63]

DNS redirection

Comcast turned on a DNS redirection function for its Internet customers by default. When customers accidentally typed a non-existent Web address in their browser, they were then redirected to a Comcast search page saying the page was not found and offering alternatives. Comcast called this option "Domain Helper" and gave customers an option to disable it.[69] Comcast later announced that DNS redirection was incompatible with DNSSEC, which was a priority for the company. Their DNSSEC deployment began in 2011 and as users were migrated to DNSSEC-validating servers, Domain Helper no longer was used. As of January 10, 2012, "Domain Helper" was retired when the last Comcast users were migrated to DNSSEC-validating servers.[70] Comcast was the first ISP in the United States to fully implement DNSSEC, having both signed all of their domain names and turned on validation on all of their DNS servers. Comcast also announced that these DNSSEC-validating servers were all natively IPv6-enabled.

NFL Network

On November 10, 2006, Comcast announced it would add NFL Network on digital tiers in time for the eight-game Thursday- and Saturday-night package.[71] In August 2007 Comcast moved NFL Network from the digital tiers to the Sports Entertainment Package. This led to a lawsuit between NFL Network and Comcast, with the ruling in favor of Comcast.[72] Comcast sent NFL Network a cease-and-desist letter to stop encouraging subscribers to leave Comcast.[73] Comcast's agreement with the NFL Network ended in mid-2009.[74] In February 2008 an appellate court in New York reversed field on a judgment made in May 2007 that allowed Comcast to move the network from its second most distributed tier to the company's sports tier. The New York's Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, ruled the language "concerning 'additional programming package' was ambiguous and that 'neither party has established that its interpretation of the relevant contracts is a matter of law.'"[75]

References

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) - National Cross-Industry Measure of Customer Satisfaction The American Customer Satisfaction Index^
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) - National Cross-Industry Measure of Customer Satisfaction The American Customer Satisfaction Index^
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) - National Cross-Industry Measure of Customer Satisfaction

Customer service after Hurricane Ike

Shortly after Hurricane Ike hit the Galveston, Texas, area in 2008, customers received bills and later collection notices for unreturned equipment that was destroyed during the storm. One customer reported a $931 bill which included a $66 credit for interrupted phone service, but also included a $1,000 charge for not returning her rented DVR, cable modem, and other equipment. Comcast responses differed after the storm, with some customer care agents telling customers to file with their insurance providers, and other agents advising customers to return their equipment, even if it was ruined or moldy.[15]

2014 customer service scandals

In July 2014, technology journalist Ryan Block recorded a conversation with Comcast during which he attempted to disconnect his service, and was repeatedly met with questions from the employee. The recording immediately went viral, resulting in an official apology from Comcast.[16]

In August, two similar stories went viral. One customer posted a YouTube video in which his call to cancel his service was put on hold until Comcast customer support offices closed.[17] Another customer recorded a series of conversations in which Comcast promised him he would not be charged for certain services, charged him anyway, and then refused to reimburse him for the charges until he revealed that he had recorded the initial call. When the representative explained that she would only credit him because of the recording, the customer asked, "You're telling me that if I didn't have a recording of that call, you wouldn't have been able to do it?" "Yes, that is correct", she replied.[18]

In the same month, rapper Dann Furia blogged that he had contacted Comcast 25 times in six months without any resolution to a problem of $1,320 in wrongful charges.[19]

Comcast customer Conal O'Rourke made headlines in October after his accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), fired him as a result of his complaints against Comcast. O'Rourke contacted Comcast several times to dispute overcharging and improper fees, but problems continued for a year without resolution. He contacted Lawrence J. Salva, Comcast's chief accounting officer and controller,[20] and after more failed attempts at resolution threatened to involve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Salva then contacted a partner at PwC and alleged that O'Rourke had behaved unethically. PwC terminated his employment as a result. Neither Comcast nor PwC will release recordings or documentation of O'Rourke's calls; they have also refused to disclose the content of the communications between Salva and the PwC partner that resulted in the decision to dismiss O'Rourke.[21][22] PwC provides consulting services for Comcast, from which it garners upwards of $30 million a year in revenue.[23] Salva was himself employed as a partner at PwC for 12 years before joining Comcast.[20] Comcast publicly apologized for O'Rourke's treatment, though denied influencing O'Rourke's termination from PwC.[24]

2015 customer name change scandal

In January 2015, Lisa Brown, a Comcast subscriber from Spokane, Washington, called Comcast in an attempt to downgrade her cable package, she was offered an upgrade which she declined. On her next billing cycle, she discovered the name on her bill was changed to "Asshole Brown". Comcast released a statement stating, "We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change, We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again." The employee in question was terminated. Brown's name was fixed, and a refund for two years of service was given.[25]

Washington state lawsuit

In 2016, Bob Ferguson, the attorney general of the state of Washington, initiated a lawsuit against Comcast. He alleged that their equipment insurance plan, called the Service Protection Plan was "deceptively added the SPP to many of its Washington customers' accounts without their knowledge or consent." The suit, which also claimed that the plan provided little actual coverage, asserted that Washington residents had paid for $73 million for the fraudulent services.[26]