Starting today, ISPs must display labels with price, speeds, and data caps

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/starting-today-isps-must-display-labels-with-price-speeds-and-data-caps/

by pseudolus • 2 years ago

98 75 2 years ago

LorenDB• 2 years ago

Why does that label look like it came off a cereal box? I legitimately thought that picture might be a joke of somebody riffing on the nutrition facts label.

dan-g• 2 years ago

Probably for that exact reason—consumers are familiar with the format, and know that something with that particular design is to be trusted—I.e. as a part of some governmental regulation.

dartos• 2 years ago

It’s clear, legible, standardized, and easily recognizable as a form of compliance information relevant to a consumer (much like nutrition labels)

Funes-7• 2 years ago

Is the format used in anything other than nutrition labels (and ISP labels, from now on)? It also struck me as odd.

imzadi2• 2 years ago

I think it's intentional. Nutrition labels are familiar and also effective in providing a lot of data in a small space.

dghlsakjg• 2 years ago

Universal standardized design is a feature.

That label is accesible, easily compared across brands, and makes it hard to hide undesirable terms.

toomuchtodo3• 2 years ago

The labels are required now for providers with at least 100,000 subscribers, while ISPs with fewer customers have until October 10, 2024, to comply. "If a provider is not displaying their labels or has posted inaccurate information about its fees or service plans, consumers can file a complaint with the FCC Consumer Complaint Center," an agency webpage says.

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us

https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandlabels

https://www.fcc.gov/document/what-look-new-broadband-nutriti...

EDIT: @windexh8er Doing God's work. Many thanks.

windexh8er• 2 years ago

Ahh, yes - Mediacom decided they're not going to do it. Filing a complaint now.

jabroni_salad• 2 years ago

So typical for mediacom, always at the forefront of the industry's worst practices. They were one of the first to bring in bandwidth caps and search redirects as well. Metronet is finally turning on my street next week and I'm not gonna look back even if it means dealing with a cgnat and having all of my traffic go out of chicago instead of minneapolis.

xenospn• 2 years ago

Thank you, government, for making our lives better.

numbers• 2 years ago

It looks like CenturyLink doesn’t have it on their website, can someone confirm this maybe I just can’t find it? I’m going to file a complaint.

Funes-7• 2 years ago

What about a list of blocked sites? Many ISPs are in cahoots with governments and corporations to block sites without ever notifying their clients, and I'm sure the US is no exception.

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

ISPs are in cahoots with governments and corporations to block sites without ever notifying their clients, and I'm sure the US is no exception

It is. We have the First Amendment. If you have examples to the contrary, I’m incredibly curious to see it.

Funes-7• 2 years ago

Trying to visit Library Genesis or Sci-Hub throws me a 451 error ("File unavailable For Legal Reasons"), for instance. Monoskop.org couldn't be loaded either some months ago and I had to go through the Tor browser to visit it, as well. These aren't violating any law in the European country in which I reside.

filoleg• 2 years ago

Afaik none of the ISPs in the US just have their own lists of blocked websites. Not even talking about “they dont have the lists available,” I am saying that they dont just block websites.

With the only exception being when they are ordered to do so by law, in which case it would apply to all ISPs at once (thus making the idea of putting those on the label used for comparing ISP services kinda pointless). As of now, I believe there are exactly 3 websites that are blocked by every single ISP in the US due to a court order[0]. Which is kind of their legal obligation.

0. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/judge-rules-ever...

otterpro• 2 years ago

We should have labels like this for web hosting service, cable tv providers, cell phone providers, etc... I've been trying to get a web hosting service, but everything has a fine print on price with asterisk. It took me awhile to figure out that dreamhost's rate is $2.59/month, but will renew at $8?/month. On certain vendors, I didn't even know how much I'd end up paying, until nearly at the end of payment step where there's a tiny fine-print somewhere buried with gray font that's barely readable.

coldpie2• 2 years ago

Huh, I've been with a small handful of different webhosts over the decades and never had that experience. They've all just had their prices up front (modulo taxes), no balloon policies or whatever junk. Sounds like Dreamhost is being scummier than average.

NeoTar2• 2 years ago

How about for subscriptions in general? Both virtual and physical (e.g. a gym membership)?

At the very least, a regulation could say that for any promotional rate, the duration of the promotion, and the non-promotional rate must be shown at equal prominence (i.e. the same colour, background, font and size).

eastbound• 2 years ago

Wouldn’t you say that AWS prices are obscure? Or, if AWS prices are clear (but inaccessible for people with no prior knowledge), then an ISP could charge “$.46 by million .css, $.78 per million .js”.

p1mrx2• 2 years ago

Interesting, Comcast now has 115/24 for $30/month, and the only tier with faster upload is 1300/40 for $126/month.

I generally shop for DOCSIS service based on the upload speed, so Comcast will get a lot cheaper when my current contract expires.

Edit: oops, "Internet Essentials" is only for people on Medicaid or similar assistance. My cheapest no-contract option is 175/24 for $56/month after the paperless discount. In any case, they doubled the upload speed for that plan because the feds raised the definition of broadband from 25/3 to 100/20.

jrochkind14• 2 years ago

that's almost certainly an introductory rate. Look at the label to see!

Are you talking fiber or cable? I only have access to cable, not fiber.

If you can really get fiber for $30/month non-introductory, I'm jealous -- where I am (I think comcast currently has different eastern and western US prices, but is otherwise standardized), cable broadband the _cheapest_ plan available (without qualifying for income limits on "essentials" plan) is $68/month non-introductory price.

Advertised as "150", but the new lable claims "typical" speeds of 176 down 115 up.. which is... way more "up" than they've ever advertised before, odd.

jrochkind14• 2 years ago

I hadn't heard about this, but I went to comcast with an incognito browser and claimed to be a new customer -- and indeed these are next to plans (you do have to click through to detail page).

This is actually great. Comcast is my only available broadband provider, and I've been trying to figure out how to switch to a cheaper plan, but haven't actually been a able to figure out the post-introductory rates on the plans before, and the customer service/retention people put you on hold at random times designed to somehow influence you to pay more and give you confusing answers.

Now it's clear. I can switch from 300Mbps I don't need to 150MBps that is fine, and save $30/month, great.

(I think comcast still won't let you switch to a CHEAPER internet plan without talking to a human, you can't do it self-serve).

tacocataco2• 2 years ago

Corporations get away with so much by hiding the ability to resolve conflicts behind customer service hell.

hansvm• 2 years ago

Also, switching plans starts a new contract.

jrochkind14• 2 years ago

The plans I am looking at are contract-free, but definitely something to be aware of -- and clearly specified on the new labels!

The lower-end cable broadband xfinity plans all seem to be advertised no-contract, it's only once you get to 800mbs down that there is a contract. ($70 month introductory rate, 12 month contract, $110/month non-introductory rate. Funny that they let you out of the contract right when your introductory rate expires?)

CharlesW• 2 years ago

It can (and so that's a valuable call out), but I've been able to switch internet service tiers multiple times without a new or extended contract.

coldpie2• 2 years ago

If you're a fan of this, keep it in mind when you're going out to vote later this year. Elections matter.

"""The infrastructure bill revives the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission's broadband consumer labels that were scrapped during the Trump administration.""""

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/11/congress-oks-42-...

reaperman3• 2 years ago

Comcast / Xfinity put "Typical upload speeds" of 114.98Mbps at my address on the "300Mbps plan" nutrition facts. But in reality, all plans from 50Mbps to 1000Mbps are hard-capped at 20Mbps.

What's going on here with the discrepancy between "114.98Mbps" and what I actually see on my 300Mbps plan, which is a hard cap at 20Mbps upload? Is there something I'm missing?

I also love how Xfinity sells a 2000Mbps plan at my address with a 1.2TB data cap. There are 730 hours in a calendar month - if I used that plan I'd blow past the data cap in under 1.5 hours. WTF? "Here's a monthly internet plan -- make sure not to use it for more than 1.5 hours in total next month or the price will suddenly more than double"

Fire-Dragon-DoL2• 2 years ago

Do they have an unlimited data plan option?

mindslight• 2 years ago

It would be fantastic if data caps also had to be expressed in bytes per second, as a counterweight to the fallacious instantaneous speeds.

Although what's even better is building out municipal broadband and forgetting about these rent seeking dinosaurs. I've got 1Gb/s symmetric, no data caps, no term contract, and a steady monthly price.

kevincox• 2 years ago

Even if you can't use it constantly having a high top speed is useful. Most people aren't downloading large files most of the time. But it is very useful to be able to have those bits fly when do you do want to transfer something. While 1.2TB seems quite low for 2000Mbps it is still better than having 200Mpbs just so that you have 15h of full-speed capacity.

forbiddenlake• 2 years ago

You're just missing the "next gen speed tier" which is available in some areas and usable if, and only if, you own a blessed modem. I'm in the same boat, 20 up (which is a nice increase from 5 a year ago), but I could get 100 if I rented or bought the right modem.

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/upgraded-areas-leas...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/wiki/knowledgebase/...

https://assets.xfinity.com/assets/dotcom/projects/cix-4997_c...

joshspankit• 2 years ago

customer service/retention

Many years ago the ISPs saw and adapted to people seeking out the retention department in order to get a better deal. In most cases “the retention department” they transfer you to is just a different agent of the exact same rank.

And tbh: fair enough since any time there’s a truly amazing deal (even if it’s a one-off) it’s posted publicly online and becomes a negotiation tool for everyone else.

jrochkind14• 2 years ago

*update* omg, comcast will now let me change to a LOWER tier on the website without calling customer service!

This was not true in the past. I wonder if this was also part of the law that went into effect.

kasperset• 2 years ago

Step in the right direction. I like that they included upload speed, latency and not just download speed.

dtnewman• 2 years ago

About time. I once went to sign up for internet with what looked like a great rate, let’s say $30/month (i don’t remember exactly). After fifteen minutes on the phone as we are wrapping up the agent says “ok, so do you authorize me to charge your credit card 47.99/month?” I reply that i thought it was $30, to which she says taxes (unfortunately it’s standard practice to exclude taxes in US advertised prices, but at least the amount is not under their control) plus a $12/month “delivery fee”, to which I replied that I’d like to pick up my internet access myself thank you , so can we waive that one? I ended up hanging up and just finding a provider with a slightly higher price but no BS.

If you want to charge more for modems and other optional stuff, fine, but when you start adding fees that aren’t really distinguishable from the product itself, you merit this kind of regulation. I pray, please go after car dealerships next.

kstrauser5• 2 years ago

Amen. If it’s something the vendor is adding themselves, it’s the price, not a fee.

pants2• 2 years ago

T-Mobile is the site I can find the actual nutrition-label-type info. Can we get another website that aggregates all the labels into one explorer?

mdaniel• 2 years ago

I would think that broadbandreports.com would benefit from that (they have now evidently consolidated on the more misleading https://www.dslreports.com/ url)

tacocataco2• 2 years ago

We should have nationalized the big ISPs when they stole the billions set aside for rolling out fiber.

If only corporations had repercussions for their malicious behavior. Maybe some day.

kstrauser5• 2 years ago

My long-term tilting at windmills ambition is to require companies to express data caps in terms of time you’re allowed to use your connection.

For example, say Comcast has a 1Gb service with a 1TB data cap. You could hit that limit in about 8,000 seconds, or about 2.5 hours. In my mind, Comcast should be required to advertise that as “one gigabit for up to 2.5 hours”.

I know that ISPs oversell. That’s fair and reasonable. No ISP would build out their network as though every customer were using 100% capacity 24x7. The degree of overselling we see today with ridiculously low data caps is just obscene.

thanksgiving• 2 years ago

I know that ISPs oversell. That’s fair and reasonable. No ISP would build out their network as though every customer were using 100% capacity 24x7. The degree of overselling we see today with ridiculously low data caps is just obscene.

My conspiracy theory is this is NOT overselling or over subscription but a coordinated attempt to shape consumer behavior away from online streaming toward their own offering that is not subject to the data cap such as cable television.

How come frontier does not have data caps but Comcast Xfinity does? Why does Comcast Xfinity not have data caps specifically where they have competitors? This is not anything official, just a thought.

kstrauser5• 2 years ago

I don’t think that’s much of a conspiracy. See “zero rating”: “you pay to stream from those mean leeches at Netflix, but our wonderful service doesn’t count against you!”

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

No ISP would build out their network as though every customer were using 100% capacity 24x7

My FCC data label says unlimited.

kstrauser5• 2 years ago

Mine too. Our ISPs didn’t build their infrastructure as though each customer would be maxing out their connection at all times. It does mean they have a good idea of how fat their pipes need to be to support the traffic loads they see on their graphs. Then they buy enough capacity to meet those needs, plus some safety margin.

For instance, if all customers had 1Gb service and peak usage on their end is everyone streaming Netflix at 40Mbps at 8PM, it would be prohibitively expensive for them to buy the capacity to support every customer downloading at 1Gb simultaneously when 40Mb is only 4% of that.

toomuchtodo3• 2 years ago

Metronet fiber is unlimited, no cap.

https://support.metronet.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043044794-...

Frontier, Astound (acquired WOW), CenturyLink and Quantum Fiber, AT&T Fiber as well.

https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/best-internet-providers-w...

Also, humorously, Starlink and T-Mobile Home 5G.

https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1469-65206-75

https://tmo.report/2024/01/t-mobile-has-quietly-added-a-data... (deprioritized after >1TB, but not capped or charged extra)

Comcast/Xfinity seems like Big Snowflake Energy in this regard.

kstrauser5• 2 years ago

Unpaid endorsement: if you’re in the Bay Area, see if you can get Sonic. Here are their labels: https://www.sonic.com/broadband-facts

Cerium• 2 years ago

Follow up unpaid endorsement, Sonic is incredible. Half the price of the competition with more features.

Last time the power went out I got a text message from Sonic before I got one from the power company. Sonic texted saying my connection was down, they were looking into it. Then a couple minutes later saying that diagnostics show the power is likely off in my neighborhood.

Night_Thastus2• 2 years ago

I just tested it, it works fantastic.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am with this. It's all the information I wanted in a very clear format.

Recently when migrating service, Comcast told me the plan I was on didn't exist anymore and they had an alternate plan with higher speed for less money. However, they refused to say what it would cost after the "introductory period". Without knowing that I could not agree. Now, I know exactly and can actually decide if I want it!

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Official post: https://www.fcc.gov/document/consumer-broadband-labels-now-r...

aj7• 2 years ago

I’ve asked this before. I’ve noticed if my speed is slow, and I test it a few times, (I usually use the Netflix-owned site,) my speed rapidly improves. Do ISP’s throttle service, DETECT your visit to speed testing sites, and THEN speed things up?

JimiofEden• 2 years ago

Is there a clear definition of 'typical' when it comes to the speeds/latency - e.g., should I expect this on a p95 level at my residence for the contract?

I ask because I'm paying for a service advertising itself as 500mbps down/10 mbps up/latency 14ms, but I have never in my 3 years of paying for it seen that level of performance. Running a `networkquality` test right now on ethernet reveals about 159 down/2.0 up/latency 50ms, which is closer to what I've come to expect on any given run

On top of that, if the confines of 'typical' are broken on the side of the provider, would this just be an fcc complaint? More than happy to track this over the course of a month and provide data to back up my findings

Night_Thastus2• 2 years ago

The trouble is that there are a lot of situations that could be causing that.

Is the coax line leading to your house in good condition? Is your ISP performing some kind of maintenance on their local infrastructure? How new is your modem and what does it support? What about your router? Ethernet cables or wifi? What about the computer that's interfacing with it, is that the bottleneck? Is all the relevant firmware up to date? What is connected to your network and what is it doing?

I have high end networking equipment that's all kept up-to-date and I generally get a bit higher than what is advertised.

If you have poor quality or old modem and router, they're never going to be able to handle 500 mbps down.

bochoh• 2 years ago

For Spectrum to find the broadband facts you have to go through the order process and then a "Show Broadband Label" will show up on the internet package selection. Buried pretty deep.

Edit: There is also a little bit of a dark pattern. The price shows 49.99/mo for 12 mos with auto pay, but the Broadband Facts sheet shows price at $84.99 and says "This monthly price is not an introductory rate". Very shady from my (only) option for ISP.

Edit2: [Dark pattern](https://imgur.com/a/FktbVuV)

a1371• 2 years ago

I absolutely love that they look a lot like food labels. It's a consumer friendly choice and is instantly recognizable.

uconnectlol• 2 years ago

how was this not just an exercise of checking the law or amending it for fraud / false advertising with a result like, "a service has to state the actual cost up front and not require the person to calculate a bunch of stuff in his head with 5 equations for 10 competitors before he can even compare them". you can't say "$30/mo" and then put a star once you click 3 pages deep saying "(for the first 3 months)", because that makes it practically impossible for the buyer to compare prices, gating it behind some stupid fucking address entry form that breaks 80% of the time. it's simple fraud and nothing else. you write: "price: $30/mo and then $70/mo after the first 3 months"

and i bet FCC spent 100 million dollars making this

and can you even access these food labels before entering your address? (and why is it not mandated that they provide a list of zones and prices per zone?)

a number like "total latency" is just complete nonsense, as its not a real metric that can fit in one number, and the kind of number marketers love to abuse.

and nothing about what kind of modem the ISP is compatible with. is it cable, adsl, fiber?

wifi extender and battery backup? because someone in FCC needed to work his full shift so he added those during his time? i'm not going to compare isps based on what random bullshit they bundle in, i only care about the actual service. anything more than 3 variables is too much. modem rental is important since they fucked up the chance of having open standards so hard that most people practically have to rent a modem. i guess FCC can't be blamed, they aren't techies or whatever.

imzadi2• 2 years ago

I recently switched to Wyyerd. I don't see the labels on their site anywhere, but maybe they are under the 100k threshold.

Starting today, ISPs must display labels with price, speeds, and data caps

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