Justice Department Investigating Cable Companies For Data Caps

When we told you about Comcast’s raspberry in the face of everybody who wanted to use Netflix more than a few times a month, we told them the Feds would show up. They didn’t listen, and, guess what? The Feds have shown up.

… people with direct knowledge of the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly confirmed, as first reported Tuesday night by The Wall Street Journal, that the department was examining broad changes in the marketplace for online video, including the use of Internet data caps by cable companies.

One of the issues involves whether those limits to the amount of video, audio and other data that users can download are discriminatory against Netflix, YouTube and other new digital video competitors. Comcast, in particular, has come under scrutiny for its past use of data caps and other network management practices.

This may not necessarily end in Comcast getting a smackdown, although it is likely the blatant fiction that is Xfinity Streaming somehow coming from a land of elves and unicorns instead of the same infrastructure as everyone else will go by the boards.

Why? Comcast is realizing that data caps are at best archaic, and are starting to do away with them. The strict enforcement of the cap has also gone by the boards; instead of taking your Internet away, they’ll just send you a mean email.

Either way, it’s nice to see that nobody is fooled by cable’s behavior. Of course, this will probably be resolved in time for Google Fiber to come along and make it all irrelevant.

(Image via Some Ecards)

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