Verizon, Comcast Will Not Cancel Service Through June Due To Coronavirus

Verizon Communications, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, and cable giant Comcast said on Monday they will extend a commitment through June 30 not to cancel service or charge late fees to customers because of the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: In March, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said major wireless and internet providers -- including Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile and Alphabet's Google Fiber -- had agreed not to terminate service for subscribers for 60 days. In total, more than 700 companies have now agreed to the voluntary measures. Further reading: Comcast's Network Holding Up Fine Without Usage Caps.

July 1

[chasisaac]

I am thinking there are going to be a lot of disappointed people on July 1.

Re:

[Slugster]

Maybe but maybe not.

If the (US cable companies) started cutting people off now, they'd probably lose many of them to an alternative service--at least, for TV channels.
The less-monied customers wouldn't be able to pay early termination fees or bills already due, and that alone would prevent them out of signing up again according to the cable company's own rules.
The current situation isn't a matter of a few tens-of-thousands or even a few hundreds-of-thousands of customers; there are very possibly milli

And they keep showing how unncessary

[rsilvergun]

their high fees and bandwidth caps are. I hope somebody is noticing besides me.

Re:

[iNaya]

Well, if they reduced their fees, they might have $10 billion profit instead of $20 billion profit.

Please note, I am neither against nor for the idea of profit caps, I'm just interested in discussing.

An idea of competition is that prices get lowered, and if my understanding is correct, Verizon, Comcast, etc. have areas where they are monopolies; and in those areas it might make sense to implement profit caps, or force competition, or something like that. That might encourage them to allow/invite competit

Re:

[MooseTick]

"the Chinese tendency to hide the truth"

Doesn't EVERY nation do that when it comes to bad news? Do you think the US or any other country act any different? No one wants to hear bad news or be the bearer of bad news. That's the one thing Trump does know. That's why he's constantly been talking about how the virus will "magically go away", the various "game changer" drugs and treatments that aren't, and how there is no shortage of masks or tests. He doesn't want to be the messenger who gets shot delivering ba

Re: And they keep showing how unncessary

[NagrothAgain]

Comcast, the largest US ISP, has said their caps are simply about making money, and Charter who is nearly as big doesn't even use them at all. It's the cell companies who say they need caps.

Re:

[phantomfive]

I don't think this shows much. Myself personally, data usage dropped to 400MB in the last month. Almost all the data I use on my phone now is over Wifi.

So nice of them

[jmccue]

So nice of them, how about stop throttling and abiding by the original contract stating unlimited bandwidth. I wish we had a gov with a spine that would force them to abide by their ads. While we are at it, stop extorting your customers.

Why would they cancel service due to Coronavirus?

[MobyDisk]

I see no reason to cancel service due to a virus.

Comcast lies...

[xanadu113]

Comcast lies... they have shut us off TWICE in the past month. Once, they shut us off (after promising not to), switched us from gigabit to 25 down / 3 up, then when I paid the past due amount, proceeded to DISCONNECT US for a good 16+ hours AFTER we paid. Then did it AGAIN a few days ago. (Not to mention our gigabit line is getting 250 meg speed tests, which they have tried to claim is NORMAL for gigabit??)

BullSh*t!!!

[meburke]

What Comcast is doing is reducing their services. They are suspending some TV services and reducing broadband speeds from around 300mps to 50mps, and adding a $15 charge to each subsequent month's bills for their "Assistance Plan".