Thanks to Scott Kirsner (on the story, as usual), you too can shake your head at Comcast's tactics when the FCC came to Harvard last week for a hearing about who controls the Internet. As per Heads Up, Netizens below, the agency that has some regulatory powers over the Internet (it can't really control the whole thing now, can it, the Internet being global and all) came to Boston to hear first-hand about Comcast's transmission policies. In short, Comcast has apparently blocked BitTorrent's use (so many stories that I'm just putting in the Google search link).
Well, now. It appears that Comcast hired people off the street to fill seats at the FCC hearing so that the public (that's us) couldn't sit in the them. Click through to the Portfolio story by Sam Gustin and see a priceless picture. Here's one telling paragraph:
Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said that the company paid some people to arrive early and hold places in the queue for local Comcast employees who wanted to attend the hearing.
Speaks for itself.
And while we're on the subject of Comcast: last week, as I reported in Under the desk, our Comcast cable service went down. Not completely. Not predictably. Just the kind of frustrating experience that makes me want to sell the house, buy a farm, and go off the grid entirely. The finger-pointing between Comcast and Verizon, our website and email provider, was skit-worthy. That said, I had one conversation with Eric at Comcast Tech Support that bears reporting. In trying to diagnose my problem, which included not being able to send attachments, I suggested my sending two emails to him, one with an attachment, one without.
"We can't send or receive email," he said.
"You're kidding," said I.
"I'm not," said Eric.
"Comcast Tech Support doesn't have email? Isn't that kind of pathetic?"
"Our lockdown policies go waaaay beyond pathetic," he replied.
My condolences to Comcast Tech Support (Eric did figure it out, by the way, thanks).
And Comcast: tell us who made the decision to hog the seats. And please show that person/those people the door.
