It's not like anti-competitive, monopolistic situations are new for cable companies. When that behavior is already your business model, and not only legal but in some cases protected by local governments... Well, if it ain't broke...

Couldn't Netflix setup IPTV as an option to the user to take advantage of the same loophole? or maybe the FCC could classify all streamed videos as IPTV...

That's just kicking the same can down the road and letting Comcast think of some other expensive obstacle for Netflix to favor their own services.

Not sure if the FCC has a set definition for IPTV that would make Netflix not IPTV ... if they don't, it would just require Netflix to say "we are IPTV too".

They'll run out of loopholes eventually...

The thing is, it's _not_ an OTT service and that is why it isn't considered Internet traffic. It is offering a slimmed down cable tv package for a low price, and you use your own devices instead of a cable box.

Yes, but Netflix has and is the defacto streaming service to your own personal device. No matter how it's delivered if it walks and quacks like a duck it's a duck.

This is a bullet straight at Netflix and all other OTT services and the following Comcast rep to consumer conversation will go as followed....

Customer service rep, "Sure you can use Netflix and enjoy through any Internet device, but your going to have to be concerned about going over your monthly cap, which can get costly." "Though with our Stream TV you don't have to worry about that, you can stream all you want to your personal devices and it will never cost you more per month."

Awful.. anti-competitive ... needs to be shot down now!

Their former chief lobbyist is now their chief regulator.

If you are talking about Wheeler and the FCC, that is wrong.

Wheeler has never been employed by Comcast. He was once the head of the main cable trade association--over 30 years, when (1) Comcast was insignificant, (2) there were no cable ISPs as there was no public internet yet, and (3) being a cable lobbyist meant being on the pro-consumer side since cable was the small underdog going against the big broadcasters.

Over-deliver, you're anti-competitive. Over-charge, you're being a monopolist. Provide what everyone else provides at the price they provide it, you're colluding.

Businesses are trying to make a buck. The people coming up with and enforcing regulations are also just trying to make a buck.

If Comcast ever over-deliver, I'll eat my hat.

I get more download and upload speed than my package includes, and I am a Comcast customer. use salt, hats are gross.

Its direct manipulation of your behavior through economics. What if your water company started pretending to be out of water then offered free car washes where they had placed ads playing 24/7? Luckily, the engineers in charge of most utilities are concerned with the technical challenges of meeting the market level of demand, not inventing awful business models that no one wants.

"What if your water company started pretending to be out of water then offered free car washes where they had placed ads playing 24/7?"

Then they'd be lying.

It's anti-competitive to use one business to over-subsidize another to get market share. Bundling IE, anti-competitive. Dropping the price below cost in a town that's getting fiber from someone else, anti-competitive.

Comcast improving price or speed or caps over their entire network is what everyone wants.

And if the caps had anything to do with infrastructure costs, they should be doubling every year or two. Instead we're up from 250GB in 2008 to 300GB in 2015.

But I wouldn't want to watch Comcast's service because its crap. So how are they "over delivering" as you put it?

I'm not following.

People are getting their bandwidth allotment AND additional services. Your contempt for them doesn't mean that they're anti-competitive.

I am not getting the service I care about. I am getting crapware.