House Commerce Democrats Press ISPs on Plans to Raise Prices

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J.; Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., pressed Comcast and eight other ISPs Monday on whether they raised or plan to raise their prices. “Some companies have already started to abandon the policies they adopted in the early days of the pandemic” via the Keep Americans Connected pledge, which expired June 30, the lawmakers said in letters to heads of Comcast, Altice, AT&T, Lumen's CenturyLink, Charter, Cox, Frontier, T-Mobile and Verizon. “Broadband networks seem to have largely withstood” major shifts in usage, but “what cannot be overlooked or underestimated is the extent to which families without home internet service -- particularly those with school-aged children at home -- have been left out.” The Democrats cited Comcast’s expansion of its 1.2 TB monthly data plan (see 2011230037), “an egregious action at a time when households and small businesses across the country need high-speed, reliable broadband more than ever.” The lawmakers pressed the ISPs to say how many customers they have disconnected since the beginning of March and whether they intend to “extend bill due dates, waive fees, or provide service at no cost.” AT&T "has been at the forefront of keeping our customers and communities connected, working to close the homework gap and bridge the digital divide by making broadband more accessible and affordable," a spokesperson emailed: "We are reviewing the letter" and plan to "provide a response." Charter has “been working tirelessly since the beginning of the pandemic to meet growing connectivity demands and expand service to help people and institutions respond to the pandemic crisis,” a spokesperson said. “As of the end of July, we had already: connected nearly 450,000 students, teachers, and their families at speeds of up to 200 Mbps broadband service for 60 days at no cost; kept nearly 700,000 customers connected and forgiven $85 million in customers’ overdue balances when they had a hard time paying bills due to COVID-related hardship; and taken steps to support small businesses, including offering one month of free service, providing helpful online tools, suspending collections, and not charging late fees or terminating service for small business customers. Moreover, we’ve done all of this without imposing data caps, usage-based pricing, or early termination fees on our customers.” CenturyLink “will be responding,” a spokesperson said. The other ISPs didn’t comment Monday.