Despite low approval, Cable wants to dictate technological future

Have you ever gone into a new store and experienced such bad customer service that it made you wonder how the company managed to stay afloat? According the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, this feeling is all too common among Comcast subscribers, as the company has once again ranked  near the bottom among all American providers of television and Internet services. And recent news about Comcast having to tell 200,000 of its subscribers to reset their account passwords because their personal information was being sold online certainly isn’t helping their case.

Instead of providing quality service to their customers, Comcast has taken a disappointing approach to remain competitive with other service providers—spending millions of dollars trying to influence regulators and lawmakers in Washington to give them unfair advantages.

{mosads}Right now, Comcast is looking to solidify a larger stake in wireless by largely working through backchannels to slow the deployment of a new service called LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) that could give consumers a better and more reliable wireless experience. Instead of lobbying against LTE-U outright, Comcast and other cable interests are leveraging their vast resources through outside organizations and inside-the-beltway powerbrokers to force LTE-U to meet specifications of their choosing before it is deployed.

Through groups like the Wi-Fi Alliance and others, cable companies already hold strong influence in determining which Wi-Fi devices receive highly coveted certifications, and they could be given the same gatekeeper authority over LTE-U if they get their way. Comcast can’t even keep your personal information in order. Who are they to trust, let alone dictate the future of technology?

Both Wi-Fi and LTE-U operate using unlicensed spectrum, which are radio frequencies that the FCC designated to be used for experimentation with new wireless technologies. Currently, there are no standards for what defines fair use of unlicensed spectrum, which means that Wi-Fi is not even currently subjected to the types of limitations that Big Cable wants to impose on LTE-U.

In many ways, the success of Wi-Fi has been predicated on it being free to evolve, and the absence of heavy-handed regulation on unlicensed spectrum has allowed it this freedom. In order for LTE-U to give consumers the best experience it can, it should be treated with the same flexibility so that it can also thrive.

However, because Comcast has already invested untold amounts of money into its Wi-Fi network, they are none too happy that others have the audacity to propose new ideas like LTE-U that provide consumers more choices. By squeezing out LTE-U, Big Cable is using its authority to make sure unlicensed spectrum is used how they see fit, but these are decisions that should clearly be made by a regulatory body working in the interest of the public like the FCC.

Americans should be allowed to decide for themselves which services and devices they want to use and which align with the disruptive nature of today’s rapid technological growth.

Despite many experts believing that introducing LTE-U will work well alongside Wi-Fi and only make wireless service better, Comcast has put up a tough fight to keep this new service out of consumers’ grasp.

If history is any indicator, they may be fighting a battle that they can’t spend their way to win. Just this year, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, America’s two largest cable providers, spent over $32 million dollars in an unsuccessful effort to lobby regulators towards allowing their $45 billion merger, which would have given the resulting mega-company unprecedented power to control the booming online video industry.

Time and time again, when Comcast can’t compete, it just tries to buy its preferred outcome.

Since Comcast replaced nearly 10 million of their customers’ routers with new ones that also function as public Wi-Fi hotspots, there can be no doubt that the company already has big plans for Wi-Fi. Any efforts to curtail the rollout of LTE-U simply exemplify another instance of Comcast putting its own profits over providing a better experience for customers.

If Big Cable gets to play the role of gatekeeper for innovation on unlicensed spectrum, future innovations will only move as fast as the cable companies want it to. Considering how bad Comcast is at keeping its customers happy now, that possibility is something we should all be worried about. 

Celock is the executive director of 21st Century Consumers, an advocacy organization focused on the interests of consumers using emerging technologies for goods and services.