Comments on: Deceptive Practices

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 03:15:00 +0000

I have the cable company and the phone company who charge almost exactly the same rate for service. I’m on DSL because the phone lines are buried and don’t get blown away. The cable lines go down in thunderstorms and they have to wait until after the power company is finished before they can start work on the cable as they share poles.

The damn phone company has fiber out the ying-yang but they won’t sell you a partial, you have to pay for an entire run and pay to have it buried.

The cable company was going to fiber, but they got bought out, and the new guys aren’t interested.

I have a fiber bundle at least 3 inches thick 75 feet from this computer and both options I have, phone and cable, are copper.

If I was doing anything major with video or audio I would be forced to go with the cable company, because DSL just isn’t fast enough, but even then the speed is no where near maximum because they have been adding phone service on the line.

The Florida Public Utility Commission has no one on it who could boot a computer unassisted and I’m positive their VCRs have blinking clocks.

All of these people have virtual monopolies in any but the largest urban areas and I get really ticked when people I know in Mexico can get a full T1 for $50 per month.

I would shift to satellite, but I would have to pay mileage for installation over and above the $400 because they won’t let me go up to the office in Alabama to get it and install it myself.

This is why we need Net Neutrality and functioning regulation. The market doesn’t work when you have a near monopoly, much less a complete monopoly, and all the FCC does is make it worse by approving more and more concentration.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 01:39:50 +0000

Well, if they want to be a monopoly, fine. But regulate them if that’s the case. It’s not the fact that they’re doing this kind of crap that pisses me off. It’s the fact that they say, “well, if you don’t like it, go elsewhere” that pisses me off, when there is no “elsewhere” for me to go — there are no other high speed options in my area. It’s the fact that they’re an unregulated monopoly that pisses me off.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:55:31 +0000

Everyone thinks this only affects “piracy”, but they forget all of the software updates they have to download these days. I have to fire up my emergency back-up laptop and put it on the network at least once a month to update or when I need it because a hurricane blew through, it would be tied up for hours pulling down updates over a dial-up connection.

If they want to do it, fine – but tell people.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:23:14 +0000

And while the article says that Comcasty only slows down “uploads”, that’s not how Bittorrent works. You can’t download any faster than you upload. That’s part of the design of the network, in order to prevent “leachers” from bogging the network down. So if Comcast is capping upload speeds, they’re capping download speeds too.

From personal experience, I can attest that the cap is there, and that it effectively reduces download speeds on the Bittorrent network to approximately 54kbaud modem speeds. At one point in time Bittorrent was the fastest way to download new Linux distributions. No more. It’s faster now to just find an FTP mirror somewhere and download it at half the speed of what Bittorrent once provided me. If Comcast had any, like, actual competition, in my area, they’d be history. But since they are an unregulated monopoly, they can do what they want. Sigh.

— Badtux the Pissed Linux Penguin

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:51:32 +0000

I doubt it because it argument has always been based on the technical aspects, and on the technical aspects he is correct but that doesn’t alter the fact that these people behave badly and often conspire to “fix” conditions.

As I said, if Comcast needs to balance its network, fine, just tell customers so they can decide. You can’t sell unlimited access and then limit it – that’s fraud.

By: whig

whig — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:21:17 +0000

I’m interested to see whether NTodd will comment on this story.