Hacker News Reader

Comment by ProAm | Hacker News Reader

What do you think the fine will be for lying to the FCC about this one? Im guessing 250k and a strongly worded apology letter.

View on HN

Suspension from participating in public grant programs (no free taxpayer cash for you - sorry) and a fine on the order of 5% of yearly gross revenue per instance would help ensure that corporations are not incentivized to lie. Of course, that'll never happen.

Have the Board draw straws and execute the person who draws short. Anything short of this admittedly harsh measure will be written off as the cost of doing business and probably overturned by lobbying, bribery, legal arguments in court, etc. There is value in a punishment that cannot be undone.

Have the board draw straws and then execute everything currently working for Comcast. The whole company is a crime against humanity and anyone who can go along with it deserves a share.

I'd say being forced to provide the service at an address that you said is eligible would be adequate. And no tricks with $10k installation service & inflated monthly bill.

I'm okay with a $250K fine. Per address.

Maybe an opportunity for crowdsourcing? Instead of paying the fine to the FCC, pay the fine to whomever files a successful challenge. Maybe make the fine per-address. Maybe require a nominal deposit from challengers to discourage false challenges (deposit(s) returned upon successful challenge(s)).

Probably adds too much complexity to be worth it (especially the part about deposits), but still interesting to think about.

And several man-years in updating and maintaining the maps going forward.

One hopes.

13 “invalid” addresses

Let's not overstate the problem here...

Let's not understate it either - 13 invalid addresses in Fort Collins that Ars was able to find. I wouldn't expect this is isolated to Fort Collins. And indeed - "30 residential addresses on Quartz Loop" which were falsely listed as served were found too.

Also, this is data used to participate in federal grant programs, so it's not like an "oopsie!" kind of thing.

Over 30, just in that neighborhood. And that was after a brief search.

> We tested Comcast's coverage claims in Hillier's area by clicking nearby addresses on the FCC map and then entering the addresses on Comcast's ordering website at xfinity.com. Our search wasn't exhaustive, but we found over 30 residential addresses on Quartz Loop and several abutting streets that had the same problem—Comcast claims to serve those houses on the FCC map, but each address is listed as "invalid" on the Comcast website.

Both Comcast and Verizon have mistakes in their databases. They both list me as living on N. Main St. even though it's been Main St. (with N. Main just being a short stub) for some number of decades now. I actually have Comcast service and it hasn't been a problem but the point is that they have some incorrect/outdated data.

Luckily most of FoCo doesn't need to rely on Comcast. They have their own muni ISP which is $60/mo and no taxes/fees. I've been using them for a few years without any issue.

https://fcconnexion.com/residential/residential-internet-ser...

Unfortunately, I don't see enough about sample size or testing method to tell if that's a big or small problem; if they randomly sampled 20 addresses and 13 were wrong, that's a big deal. If they sampled every address in the state and 13 were wrong, that's a smaller issue.

Overstate? Overstate?! Go on the fcc map. Pick a rural location that supposedly has service. Go to that providers website and try to sign up for service on that address. If I had to ballpark, probably 25% of addressees outside my home town are fraudulently claimed as having service.

The FCC needs to enable a fraud bounty. I'd be more than happy to stick it to these companies and get paid for doing so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com