Corruption, distortion, control: Comcast’s real-life ‘House of Cards’

Let’s talk about Comcast, he said, hands trembling and the big vein in his forehead throbbing like a jungle drum. I hit the FCC’s Net neutrality delusion in a previous post, where FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler interpreted the Supreme Court’s Net neutering decision as giving the FCC even broader powers of control over the big Internet providers instead of the steel-toed kick to his crotch it really is. Complete double-talk seems to be the standard for the Internet provider business these days.

Comcast is a perfect example of a we-don’t-care, double-talking, slavering, rampaging telecom/cable monstrosity that’s using this consumer-crippling legislation to topple our competitive choices like Godzilla strolling through Tokyo. It’s only going to get worse. Sure, there are tinfoil hats preaching ridiculous Comcast conspiracies, but maybe the wingnuts are on to something, even if they’re starting out from pothead premises.

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The deal that’s been in the news the most recently is Comcast’s move to devour Time Warner Cable. You’d think Time Warner might not be superhappy about this deal, but its CEO, Rob Marcus, got up at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom Conference held earlier this month in the highly industrious locale of Palm Beach, Fla., and enthused that the $45 billion merger will put all of us in happy-happy land.

Newsflash: It won’t. Rather, get ready to be dumped into hugely-screwed-douche-broom land. The deal means that Comcast is set to service about two-thirds of the American population with both Internet and entertainment. How many of those folks are going to have an actual, practical choice?

Comcast spreads it tentacles

Tellingly Marcus has been Time Warner’s CEO for only about two months, and recently leaked information on his compensation package shows that he stands to make robber baron money if the merger goes through — to the tune of about $80 million. How could he possibly be biased? I know I’m a cynical old fart, but is it loony to suspect that Comgraft may have had a hand in getting this guy a key to the executive bathroom? If there was any justice, he’d have to write a resignation letter right this minute with ink made from rectal blood and salty tears.

The fate of U.S. Internet pipes isn’t all that’s on the block. With Net laws castrated as they currently are, Comcast can also opt to bully content providers and control what you can and can’t access on what amounts to its Internet. In a recent blog post, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sounds like he’s complaining about this trend — never mind he’s already validated it. Netflix complained of degraded throughput to its customers about a month ago, then paid Com-lie an exorbitant extortion fee, and presto! Its service quality was magically restored. Hastings and Comcast paint this as a big win for consumers, but they’re actually saying we’re as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Instead of toeing the line, Netflix should watch its back since Comcast is after more than its QoS. Recently, Comcast announced that it bought rights to Netflix’s hit series, “House of Cards,” and will be showing the previous season of Kevin Spacey’s Machiavelli impersonation on its cable network. I don’t like it, but given that Netflix knew Net neutrality probably wasn’t about to go its way, it should have seen that one coming.

Sony ensnared

Another content-related problem is Comcast’s blocking of Sony’s HBO Go app, which lets PlayStation 3 buyers stream HBO content to their PlayStation — as long as you’re not a Comcast customer. Even though those folks are paying Comcast for “free and uninhibited” Internet access, they have to watch HBO solely on their cable TVs. Sony doesn’t want any part of that discussion, saying it has no knowledge or understanding of why this is going on and forwards all questions to Comcast.

I’m not even going to get into the Comcast lunacy of turning its customers’ Wi-Fi routers into publicly accessible hotspots. It’s been going on for some time, and only now are customers noticing. Knowing Comlax, it probably hasn’t bothered with pesky little network management chores like bandwidth caps or monitoring service levels. If your Wi-Fi throughput suddenly drops, figure your sketchy next-door neighbor has illegally pornified your IP address, so the FBI won’t associate him with all the pics he’s sending to his beastly bros.

But hey, at least Com-crass has been quoted as promising buyers the same customer service they’ve come to love from Uber. I guess we should expect price gouging and the CEO ridiculing us on his Facebook page in addition to six-hour appointment windows.

To be clear, I’m onboard with Sen. Al Franken, who sent a letter to the Department of (we kind of care about) Justice last month detailing the mind-boggling long/medium-term weaknesses in the Comcast-Time Warner merger. I wish he could make the jokes I know were going through his head when his aides wrote that thing, but I guess that’s not appropriate on Capitol Hill.

The longest con of all

Then again, he might as well have cracked wise since Comgraft has been funding both Republican and Democratic politicians of late: 15 of the 18 members of the Senate House Judiciary Committee, scheduled to hold what’s surely going to be a drunken, stripper-infused yes-fest on the merger on March 26, as well as 32 members of the 39 that will be impersonating impartiality on House Judiciary Committee and staging a similar farce. All have stuffed big bucks from Com-pass-the-hat’s wallet into their campaign coffers, so if we’ve been watching “House of Cards,” we already know how that’s going to end.

I feel like I’m shouting at the wind, but I re-iterate: The Internet is a utility. We’re shipping entertainment, products, and overlord drone software via the Web like we do over highways and railroads. Do we let state highway administrators tell trucking companies what they can and can’t ship? No, because that’s as stupid as hitting yourself in the head with a roofing hammer. Why then are we doing it on the Web? We shouldn’t, ’nuff said.

This article, “Corruption, distortion, control: Comcast’s real-life ‘House of Cards’,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, follow Cringely on Twitter, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.