In the US, the big service provider, Comcast, is warning its subscribers to cut back on their Internet access or have their service curtailed. Nothing so unusual about that, you might think, but you'd be wrong.
Whilst many ISPs put "acceptable use" limits on the amount of bandwidth ordinary subscribers may use under the terms of their service contract Comcast is refusing to tell its subscribers what the thresholds are before they are summarily cut off and subject to a year-long suspension of service.
In the meantime, payments for non-existent service are still being taken from some customer's bank accounts and they are having to fight tooth and nail against a monolith of uncaring corporate apparatchiks in an effort get their money back.
This outrageous travesty of customer relationship management is as disgraceful as it is incredible.
Only a couple of years ago as it sought to woo subscribers, Comcast was advertising its service as "unlimited" but has since switched to an "acceptable use" policy. The trouble is only Comcast executives and a limited number of rank and file employees know what that "acceptable use" is and, unbelievably, the company is refusing to tell its customers what those limits are.
As is commonplace in the US, contracts for Internet and mobile telecoms services are so complex, wordy and convoluted that one can be forgiven for believing that they have been devised by Mephistopholes himself. They can be truly fiendish.
Comcast's 23-clause policy states that it is a breach of contract to generate “levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information.” But nowhere does it detail what levels of traffic will "impede others".
In essence then, Comcast is drawing an invisible line and then threatening to disconnect anyone who crosses it.
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