Class action lawsuit filed against Comcast
By Jonathan Schlaffer
It should come as no surprise that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Comcast regarding the speed of its service. Gilbert Randolph, LLP has filed the suit in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of a client and the residents of the District.
The complaint alleges that Comcast is supposed to provide the “fastest Internet connection” and “unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer.” The firm alleges that these claims are false because Comcast impedes access to P2P (peer to peer) applications.
When it comes to P2P applications, Comcast isn’t exactly the forgiving type. The company supposedly sends “reset packets” which that tell the transmitting computer(s) to stop sending data. Therefore, “users of peer-to-peer applications are denied full access to the Internet despite paying for a service that Comcast promises is “unfettered” and the “fastest” available.“
A spokesperson from the firm said that the company claims it does not block access to any applications but that’s not the case. It’s not so much the fact that the company is doing this but that it does so in an “underhanded and deceptive manner.”
The plaintiff in the case, Dr. Snider, said, “I’ve been a Comcast customer for several years, and I feel betrayed.” A lot of other customers are right there with him, for the same or different reasons.
The company was adamant that it does not block or throttle P2P traffic in any way shape or form. It finally admitted said actions to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) but did not reveal the extent of those activities.
Comcast claims that it does so because P2P applications place additional burdens on its network and named BitTorrent as one of the main offenders. BitTorrent called the actions by the company, “anti-competitive.”
Now that Comcast has attracted the attention of the court system, the FCC and Congress, maybe it will change its way. The Executive Director of the Open Internet Coalition, Markham C. Erickson, ended by saying, “if Comcast doesn’t change its behavior, the word ‘Comcastic’ is going to become a synonym for fraud.”
It’s Comcastic alright, but not in the way Comcast meant it. The problem is that if you live in an area where Comcast service is offered, it’s unlikely you have any other choices for a service if you want all three (phone, Internet, cable). It seems the company also has a way of locking out competition too, perhaps that should be brought up in the case as well.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 9:54 am
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
Stumble It!
March 13th, 2008
I am pleased to hear about this lawsuit filed against Comcast. I now have Comcast for all three services and I looking into what can be done regarding them selling customer phone numbers and possibly the “lock-out” of competition. I have had their phone service for six days. NO ONE has the phone number, YET I have received four calls from telemarketers asking for me or my husband. Too say that I am livid is an understatement…did I mention that the number is unpublished!! I’ve read other blogs online and apparently this has been happening for some time. Something needs to be done about Comcast.
June 2nd, 2008
I have comcast and am unable to use Skype because of this, is there a way to join this class action? I am in Chicago
June 4th, 2008
had service for 20 days canceled due to poor picture and service dropping intermittently. refused to pick up dish that they installed on my roof wanted me to pay $100 for them to pick it up and wanted me to sign a waiver if there are holes in my roof. Well of course there will be holes since those idiots drilled into the roof. I wnat the damn dish gone and repair to my roof.
June 4th, 2008
had service for 20 days canceled due to poor picture and service dropping intermittently. refused to pick up dish that they installed on my roof wanted me to pay $100 for them to pick it up and wanted me to sign a waiver if there are holes in my roof. Well of course there will be holes since those idiots drilled into the roof. I wnat the damn dish gone and repair to my roof. I am in Texas
June 25th, 2008
I want to join the class action aginst comcast. A news story with information on this would be very helpful.
July 29th, 2008
Comcast stole my money and terminated my services, their contact is misleading and they are the big dog and they always win.
September 29th, 2008
I’d love to see this case extended to also take a look at the unfair practice of ISPs, especially Comcast, barring its users from running servers on their connections. Considering how much I shell out to them per month, I should be able to host whatever I want on my own equipment, and it should be illegal for them to tell me any different.
I would personally testify to the fact that Comcast is anti-competitive, in part because of their AUP (acceptable Usage Policy), but mostly because of the underhanded practices of their NOC staff. Blocking ports should only be done upon a customer’s request, never because the ISP has decided to do it for you. I run an email server (a legitimate Exchange server for my technical community), along with a small webserver farm, and a series of Linux based chat servers (running UnrealIRCD & TeamSpeak Server). So far, comcast has blocked my email server twice, the 2nd time being after I had taken meassures to ensure that there was no erroneous port 25 traffic (gathered by running ‘tcpdump port 25′ from my Linux based edge router). As a senior network administrator myself, I know what they are doing, and it should be illegal. For that matter, the AUPs of most ISPs here in the USA should be called into court. These companies are raking in billions per year on their services, and you can’t tell me that they can’t afford to continually upgrade to keep up with increasing demand. They just released an addendum to their AUP which goes into effect on October 1st, 2008, which creates a 250GB cap per user. 250GB seems like a lot. Try running a tech shop on a 250GB cap. Not to mention, with more and more real-time video streaming sites, video conferencing communities and such developing at a steady rate, how long will it be before Comcast is forced by need to re-examine this 250GB cap as being far too little for the average user, much less, the power user.
What kills me the most is that Comcast advertises their service as ‘The one for power users’, but with this new 250GB cap, what they’re doing is charging us more to run out of our alotment more quickly.
If only there were another choice… but,if you want Broadband in Little Rock, AR, you have to deal with either AT&T or Comcast’s duapoly.
October 31st, 2008
I have three service with comcast for my business when i switched my service to comcast because of high speed internet thier phone was working but not the internet i called them for it they told me i have a negetive very weak signal by sending the tech to my place for over 10 times steel my internet is slow and they issued som credit to me but this credit did not applay on my account so icalled they said is OK we fixed it but for some reason allways shoes pass due on my account and i call again and again untile they cut my bussiness phone line for two days i called their service department i was so angry about it they worked with me they said they are sorry and your phone is working now after i hung up with them i realized they did not fix my phone yet so i called againe and the tech deprtment told me i have to talk to billing deprment and he will connect me to them but he connect me to 911 instead the billing department can you figure the confusion for me to explaning my phone problem to 911 and then i call them againe and againe untill i god my phone back I am in manassas va but if i can be part of a class action law suite againgt comcast any where i will be there
November 26th, 2008
Greetings- I am writting to ask if I can join this class action lawsuit to sue comcast for fraud. They owe me lot of money and will not give it back. They claim each month to charge a month in advance and if I am a week late, comcast double my charges instead of charging the usual fee of 7 to 20 dollars.
Thank you all
Pls. respond ASAP.
December 23rd, 2008
I want to join too. I have a homebased website business and they block uploads and downloads of files to the server. It’s not just bit torrent apps. They block anything big. I paid for their upgraded service only to have it finally be 6mbps - which is their lowgrade service (I’m paying for 16mbps but never get it - not even close). Weekends and holidays are awful, I’m lucky if I get 5mbps down and 1 up with lots of disconnects. We have no other “high speed” option here - they have the entire market. I hope they get hanged high for their deceptive practices.
January 16th, 2009
I now get junk phone calls which had stopped after the new law went into effect. apparantly it does not apply to internet phone. I also have had many outages and no rebate on the bill for loss of servce, some times for most of the day. Frequent crashes of internet connection for no reason Just what you would expect when they have the monopoly in the area. Then the best now i get a phone call from some company doing a survey of comcast customer rating of service. Probably to support their defense in a lawsuit. Well needless say they didnt get high marks. Even if a lawsuit is won most customers will never see much from a class action, and the service will be the same. What is really needed is some competition in the market.
January 26th, 2009
JANUARY 26, 2009
MY NEIGHBOR TOLD ME ABOUT THIS SUIT YESTERDAY. I HAVE BEEN BATTLING COMCAST FOR A YEAR AS OF 1-11-08, WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT THE CABLE FROM THE POLE TOMY HOUSE WAS OVER 15 YEARS OLD. NO WONDER WHEN WE SIGNED A CONTRACT FOR DIGITAL IN APRIL 2004 THAT NOTHING EVER WORKED. EVERY MONTH WITHOUT FAIL, PCS OFF, TVS NOT WORKING BECAUSE OF DVRS NOT WORKING. BACK AND FORTH I WENT WITH THEM FOR 4 YEARS! THEY BLAMED EVERYTHING BUT THEMSELVES UNTIL A TECH (YOUNG) CLIMBED THE POLE AND TOLD ME THE CABLE WAS OLDER THAN HIM! A JOKE BUT THEN HE SAID AT LEAST 15 YEARS~~TOO OLD FOR DIGITAL TRANSMISSION. IT TOOK HIM OVER AN HOUR TO GET SOMEONE ON THE PHONE TO ORDER THE CABLE REPLACEMMENT! GO FIGURE. THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY DONE ON 11~2007. SO WE PUT UP WITH ALL THE CRAP UNTIL AFTER THE HOLIDAYS. ON 1~11~2008 A 19 YR VET TECH TOLD ME THE CABLE ON THE POLE WAS EXTREMELY OLD~SO MUCH FOR IT BEING CHANGED IN NOVEMBER! HE NO SOONER CHANGED IT THAN MY TV PICTURE HAD SO DRASTIC AN IMPROVEMENT IT WAS LIKE GOING FROM BLACK AND WHITE TO COLER IN A BLINK!!! NO LIE! NO EXAGGERATION!! NO DIGITAL TRANSMITTED TO MY HOUSE FOR 4 OF THE LAST 5 YEARS I WAS CONTRACTED FOR IT!!
THEY KEPT TELLING ME THEY WOULD REIMBURSE ME FOR MY TROUBLE FOR THE YEARS I HAD DIGI. AT THAT TIME I BELIEVED THE CONTRACT WAS SIGNED IN 2005. THEY WERE HAPPY WITH THAT, BUT DECIDED THAT SINCE I HAD A FEW MOS. WHEN I WASN’T CHARGED FOR IT BUT RECEIVED IT BECAUSE THEY RECODED MY SERVICE INCOPRRECTLY (DON’T U LOVE IT!) THOSE MOS. WOULDN’T COUNT. THAT PROMPTED ME TO GO THRU ALL OF MY STMNTS AND GUESS WHAT I FOUND? MY CONTRACT!! 4~23~2004! THEY OWE ME ANOTHER 12 MOS.! THEN THEY BLEW ME OFF. I SOUGHT FCC HELP AND WAS TOLD BY THEM THAT I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN A LETTER FROM COMCAST DETAILING THE REIMBURSEMENT. NO LETTER! THEY BLOW OFF THE FCC!! THEY MUST BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOD! I NEED AN ATTORNEY AND ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS HAD THE SAME ISSUES. LET’S GET THE THIEVES!!!!
TERI C.
January 26th, 2009
JANUARY 25, 2009
MY NEIGHBOR TOLD ME ABOUT THIS SUIT YESTERDAY. I HAVE BEEN BATTLING COMCAST FOR A YEAR AS OF 1-11-08, WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT THE CABLE FROM THE POLE TOMY HOUSE WAS OVER 15 YEARS OLD. NO WONDER WHEN WE SIGNED A CONTRACT FOR DIGITAL IN APRIL 2004 THAT NOTHING EVER WORKED. EVERY MONTH WITHOUT FAIL, PCS OFF, TVS NOT WORKING BECAUSE OF DVRS NOT WORKING. BACK AND FORTH I WENT WITH THEM FOR 4 YEARS! THEY BLAMED EVERYTHING BUT THEMSELVES UNTIL A TECH (YOUNG) CLIMBED THE POLE AND TOLD ME THE CABLE WAS OLDER THAN HIM! A JOKE BUT THEN HE SAID AT LEAST 15 YEARS~~TOO OLD FOR DIGITAL TRANSMISSION. IT TOOK HIM OVER AN HOUR TO GET SOMEONE ON THE PHONE TO ORDER THE CABLE REPLACEMMENT! GO FIGURE. THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY DONE ON 11~2007. SO WE PUT UP WITH ALL THE CRAP UNTIL AFTER THE HOLIDAYS. ON 1~11~2008 A 19 YR VET TECH TOLD ME THE CABLE ON THE POLE WAS EXTREMELY OLD~SO MUCH FOR IT BEING CHANGED IN NOVEMBER! HE NO SOONER CHANGED IT THAN MY TV PICTURE HAD SO DRASTIC AN IMPROVEMENT IT WAS LIKE GOING FROM BLACK AND WHITE TO COLER IN A BLINK!!! NO LIE! NO EXAGGERATION!! NO DIGITAL TRANSMITTED TO MY HOUSE FOR 4 OF THE LAST 5 YEARS I WAS CONTRACTED FOR IT!!
THEY KEPT TELLING ME THEY WOULD REIMBURSE ME FOR MY TROUBLE FOR THE YEARS I HAD DIGI. AT THAT TIME I BELIEVED THE CONTRACT WAS SIGNED IN 2005. THEY WERE HAPPY WITH THAT, BUT DECIDED THAT SINCE I HAD A FEW MOS. WHEN I WASN’T CHARGED FOR IT BUT RECEIVED IT BECAUSE THEY RECODED MY SERVICE INCOPRRECTLY (DON’T U LOVE IT!) THOSE MOS. WOULDN’T COUNT. THAT PROMPTED ME TO GO THRU ALL OF MY STMNTS AND GUESS WHAT I FOUND? MY CONTRACT!! 4~23~2004! THEY OWE ME ANOTHER 12 MOS.! THEN THEY BLEW ME OFF. I SOUGHT FCC HELP AND WAS TOLD BY THEM THAT I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN A LETTER FROM COMCAST DETAILING THE REIMBURSEMENT. NO LETTER! THEY BLOW OFF THE FCC!! THEY MUST BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOD! I NEED AN ATTORNEY AND ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS HAD THE SAME ISSUES. LET’S GET THE THIEVES!!!!
TERI C.
April 14th, 2009
Very much interested in going after and breaking comcast ir regards to their bamdwidth and accounting practices.
June 2nd, 2009
Does anyone know the status of this lawsuit, and how one can join the class action against Comcast — would be very glad to know.