Slashdot Mirror

Previous 'grunts at the company' have stated many different figures, where does the 60GB come from? I scoured through the Comcast TOS (which consists, separately, of the Comcast Service Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy, and Abuse Policy, and does not appear to be available from comcast.com), no mention of 50GB anywhere, or any hard numbers, anywhere.

From the Service Agreement, though: Facilities Allocation. Comcast reserves the right to determine, in its discretion, and on an ongoing basis, the nature and extent of its facilities allocated to support HSI, including, but not limited to, the amount of bandwidth to be utilized and delivered in conjunction with HSI.

Basically, like people have been complaining about for years, it can easily be a moving target, and they can terminate your account without having to tell you either what the hard limits are, OR what generally acceptable numbers are.

Back when I had Comcast, they started sending me nasty letters after I was just using 10GB/month (mind, in a college city, too!), and trust me, there are lots of ways to fill up a *lot* of bandwidth besides BT, particularly with faster, larger, higher capacity games, online video, music, nevermind what percentage of HTTP bandwidth comes back down to advertising.

Comcast doesn't seem like a very good company to begin with, though. In my first-hand experience, they're rotten. I'd been acquired through their buying out AT&T Broadband Internet cable service, it hadn't been so much of a hassle, except that they had given everyone else new cable modems out of it, and even though I was still renting mine, they refused to do anything about mine, which had given consistently low speeds and generated a ton of heat. This wasn't even the biggest problem. When it came time to move, I had tried a half-dozen or more times to cancel the service before moving, but they refused, because I had really been a customer of ATTBI, and so, they told me they had no obligation to allow me to simply discontinue service, since, apparently, I wasn't even really in the system. Despite numerous attempts both over the phone and in-person, they would just not let me discontinue service. I still had to move. Of course, even when I tried to return the modem, they started going on about how that wasn't Comcast equipment, so they couldn't accept a return, a month later, they charge me for several months of supposedly unpaid service (when I had only moved a month before), and the modem, when they refused to handle anything in a remotely sane manner.

So, it doesn't really surprise me in the slightest when people consistently have problems and fears over Comcast discontinuing their service, since they never announce even so much as a safety margin on how much you can use. Though, other people have stated figures quite different from 60gb numerous times, too.

http://www.comcast.net/terms/abuse.jsp\

read the last section there, jethros & debras of slashdot... and be careful what you bitch about. These ISPs could always institute hard limits and start ganking access left and right for the 2% of hardcore users that cost 30% percent of the infrastructure issues.

I happen to know that comcast leaves it open ended so that you can get yer downloads when you need them. they pad the pipes, so to speak, to overcome slowdowns from peak usage. they go out to neighborhoods and split nodes (i.e., install multi-million dollar, carrier grade blinkenlights) as soon as projections of node saturation look so-so. they even release excess node capacity for big downloads if it's there.

the whiny whingers in this article, the ones that got cut off, were either jamming things up with a massive list of active torrents or worse, ignantly running a heavily infected computer and refusing to get it cleaned up. either way, it's selfish and stupid behavior.

as to the reporter who crafted this warm and fuzzy story well, he/she has played you like a hand of cribbage.

. . . which would be an alternative, if the opponents of net-neutrality weren't so hell-bent on taking away this option. Read this, or this transcript.

Their promises weren't written into the law, at least in Pennsylvania, but...
Verizon struck a landmark deal with the state of Pennsylvania in 1994 to provide 45MB/s Symmetrical Fiber to the entire state. Verizon recieved over $2 Billion from Pennsylvania but Verizon did not come close to meeting its agreement - wire 50% of PA with 45MB/s Symmetrical Fiber by the end of 2004. The state allowed Verizon to completely ignore the original agreement and keep all the financial incentives. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/30544

Some broadband providers (Time Warner is leading the charge) plan to expand use of the oversubscription model to distribution of TV channels. The means by which they intend to implement this is referred to as "Switched Digital Video (SDV)".

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/74811

SDV will allow broadband providers to claim to provide a larger number of channels to a group of subscribers than they actually can and will allow them to claim those channels are available to a larger-sized neighborhood per-run than they can today.

To take this a step further, since CD's themselves don't carry uniquely identifiable markers, even having information in said database wound not construe ownership. Arguably, you ould purchase a copy of "Stevie-Boys's Latest Penguin Raps" as a gift, but because you gave it as a gift you would then be surrendering the rights, even though the "database" would indicate that you have rights to it.

The unfortunatel truth is that there is very litte you can do to prove ownership without the above-mentioned database... and there are (hopefully) very few who would agree to such a registration. Until that happens, the RIAA can continue their bullying tactics relatively unencumbered by the facts. This way they can continue to do things like go after estates and depose greiving famlies

Bob

The current wireless providers cancel accounts when people actually use them; the boards are littered with EVDO users complaining that, for example, Verizon axed them when their throughput hit 10 gigs a month. Heck, even Consumer Affairs got shafted.

Will there be similar limitations on WiMax? Without a reasonable TOS, I'd turn it down.

Yeah with America being so socialist and egalitarian and...oh wait, you're talking out of your arse.

Yes, because nobody anywhere in the U.S. ever complains about redlining or complains about it, and nobody ever pays any mind to it.

Or not.

Just because it doesn't exist in your corner of /. doesn't mean it doesn't exist as a hot-button issue period. Next time have an idea what you're talking about. Some folks think redlining is the end of the world...

The WS is the center of the sphere of influence accepted by the Republican government. Which has driven under the influence into nightmare after nightmare. I read it sometimes to keep an eye on the propaganda bubbler before it spews all over us.

I'll take credit for linking to actual thought provocation, in BroadbandReports.com. Not to provocative thoughtlessness.

The Weekly Standard is William Kristol's neocon rag that cheerleaded us into this Iraq debacle, this $9-45 TRILLION debt, and the rest of the BushCo agenda to crush the government that we use to protect ourselves from corporate anarchy.

The standard neocon procedure is to loudly insist that all the problems with their own policies are what's wrong with what they're attacking. It's boring, but it's worked, so they're doing it again.

The standard attack on Net Neutrality is Net Doublecharge, where the backbone like AT&T gets paid already for publishers like Google to connect from upstream, and paid by consumers like you to connect from downstream, to access their link among other networks. They doublecharge websites like Google because they want more money, and can get the entire industry to charge at once so there's no "routing around" the more expensive blackmail networks.

You want to see what their Net Doublecharge Internet will look like? It will look like AT&T's HomeZone, their updated version of AOL's "walled garden", where you get access only to AT&T's official Internet: sites that pay AT&T for access, which don't make any trouble for AT&T's control.

you can get just the internet WITHOUT the phone service and retain your copper line so far half the posts here are either wrong or just FIOS bashing spam with little facts.

Try reading the forums over on http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/vzfiber for more information than this one article.

what's funny is people with my same connection (8mbps/768kbps comcast) see transfer rates of 15mbps in different parts of the country while I see the exact same download speed as i did on 4mbps. I always test at a download speed of 2-3mbps while my upload speed is pretty true to the advertised speed, doesn't matter if i am hardwired or wireless. And in practice, i see the same download speeds as my parents on 1.5mbps verizon dsl.

I had always been told that cable internet was "shared" with your neighborhood while dsl was a private line. After reading some of the posts here, it seems like both are shared, but maybe I'm getting the wrong impression.

I wanted to get Speakeasy dsl when i moved in to current abode, but I didn't realize it was going to take up to 2 weeks to get service once I placed the order...one week for the phone line to become active and then another week for the dsl to become active. The lady I talked to explained it pretty well to me, but I still find that absolutely obsurd. Which is why i got cable internet instead. I was already calling comcast to get digital cable/hd service and I was going to have service in a few days, instead of a few weeks. It's too bad tho, because I think I'd still rather have DSL service than cable. Not to mention the fact that comcast and verizon, and I'm sure others, block inbound ports to keep users from running servers. I pay for my internet access so I want to be able to use it as I see fit. I don't really see why they should care if i want to tie up my personal bandwidth with a personal website.

Doubting Maxwell: There is one already! From my Web site (AQFL):

Hmmph, I didn't know we had End User License Agreement (EULA) to live! Tempnexus's Broadband Reports Security forum thread mentioned a funny spoof for every human who was born. According to this EULA, we seems to come with spywares (God spies on us), and can be infected with bad stuff like virus and trojans. Ending EULA means terminating life. Here's a copy of the EULA:

PLEASE READ this end-user license agreement ("EULA") carefully. By being born, you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA. If you do not agree, do not exit womb and, if applicable, return to the place of conception for a full refund.

1. GENERAL. This EULA is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or an entity) and the scientific or religious establishment of your choice ("God"). This EULA governs your Life, which includes all seconds from the time you are born until you are legally pronounced dead (. This EULA also governs the container supplied with your Life ("Body") and any support services ("miracles") relating to Life except as may be included in another agreement between you and God. An amendment or addendum to this EULA may be presented to you by your retail suppliers ("Parents").

2. THE PARENT PROGRAM. All complaints and technical support requests should be addressed to your Parents, who may or may not, depending on the subscription level you have elected, offer you additional warranties. Parents are third-party components, and not subject to warranties under this EULA. God is not liable for the quality, competence, character, number, gender, species, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or presence/absence of your Parents, or for the quality of the relationship between them, if any, and does not supply technical support for Parental units. Any Parent may be terminated or exchanged at any time without notice and without recourse.

3 CONSCIOUSNESS. To reduce piracy, God requires certain components to be activated. The license rights granted under this EULA are limited to the first five times you gain Consciousness ("Wake up") after you are Born unless you supply the information necessary to activate your Life. You may also need to reactivate your Life if you modify your Body or alter your Consciousness. God will not collect any personally identifiable information from your DNA during the activation process without your consent.

4. DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT. Content providers are using digital rights management technology to protect the integrity of their content so that their intellectual property, including copyright, in such content is not misappropriated. If your Brain's security has been compromised, content providers may request that God revoke your right to copy, display, and/or play protected content. Revocation does not alter your Brain's ability to access unprotected content, if any exists.

5. OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES. Your Life may not be shared or used concurrently among different Bodies.

6. YOU ALSO AGREE:

a. Not to remove or obscure any copyright, trademark or patent notices ("Birthmarks") that appear on the Body as delivered to you;

b. To indemnify, hold harmless, and defend God from and against any claims or lawsuits, including attorneys' fees, that arise or result from the use or distribution of the Life;

c. That God reserves all rights not expressly granted.

3. RESERVATION OF RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP. God reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this EULA. The Life is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. God or Its suppliers own the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Life and in any derivative works produced by you during the course of your Life. The Life is licensed, not sold.

4. MEMORIES. You may make a single back-up copy of the Life. You may use one (1) back-up copy solely

This Broadband/DSL Reports forum was recently opened for helping people with infected systems. Its FAQ is informative as well.

According to this F-Secure's Web log, it tells what is going wrong with the Windows Metafiles (WMF) vulnerability. It turns out this is not really a bug, it's just a bad design from another era. When Windows Metafiles were designed in late 1980s, a feature was included that allowed the image files to contain actual code. This code would be executed via a callback in special situations. This was not a bug; this was something which was needed at the time. The feature now in the limelight is known as the Escape() function and especially the SetAbortProc subfunction, and has been around since Windows 3.0, shipped in 1990...

Seen on Digg. This Broadband Reports' security forum thread mentioned this as well.

Copied and pasted from my AQFL Web site.

Also, read Broadband Reports' security forum thread for discussions and what people observed.

Folks on Broadband Reports' security forum are raving over NOD32 over AVG, AntiVir, KAV, etc.

this isn't evidence that usenet's death is happening; only that ISPs -more specifically ONE ISP- doesn't want to include the cost of maintaining the massive servers in their fixed price... Bell Canada's Sympatico internet service hasn't had binaries in their usenet for years (says MacGyver)
...and if it is in fact only used by a small number of their customer then this makes sense...
the fact that there are dozens of large companies (I believe giganews is the biggest, and giganews was the company rogers was paying for their usenet feed) offering this service tells me that there is in fact a demand for usenet .... from what I've read of late, traffic is UP on usenet, not down, and that tells me that the rumours of usenet's death are greatly exagerated.

From AQFL: Broadband Reports and Boing Boing say WiFi doesn't "stand for" wireless fidelity. It's a pun on "Hi-Fi" and "wireless fidelity" doesn't mean anything.

Here's a fairly accurate report on the current state of satellite Internet service.

Wow! ADSL2 at 24Mbps. It's not like any US provider offers ADSL2 at 24Mbps.

Well, actually:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/52221

And if you want fiber to your house:

http://www22.verizon.com/FiosForHome/channels/Fios /HighSpeedInternetForHome.asp

Trust me, insane quantities of bandwidth are overrated. I regularly get 50Mbps to Akamai sites (local mirror on campus), 30Mbps to other universities (Internet2) and around 10-20Mbps to everywhere else. In reality, the connection doesn't "feel" any faster than the 4Mbps Comcast service I had before.

Do you honestly think everyone who opposes Social Security, federal involvement in education, "progressive" income taxaction, capital gains taxation, min. wage laws, etc etc etc is doing so because they hate poor people and want to enrish themselves at their expense? That's a mighty tough conspiracy to maintain, especially since lots of low-income people support Republicans ... in fact, the average low-income white person is much more likely to vote Republican than Democrat.

I can see many practical issues with all of those programs/issues, however I also see them as some see democracy - the worst solution, except for everything else.

Although, I personally support a social saftey net for many reasons, which I've better defined here: http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,14645 358#14649568

All of this is that a fully free market economy seems as sustainable as humanities attempts at the opposite - communism. We have seen the quality of life in a close to fully free market economy, in the US during the late 19th and early 20th century. Frightful conflicts arose and led to the forming of unions to end that (though how successful that was is another debate - the point is the masses didn't stand for a fully free market solution).

I find it amazing that people can claim to care about society, and other people in general, yet oppose setting a minimum standard of living and being willing to pay to maintain that. It seems hypocritical to me, and certainly very selfish.

From a Broadband Reports' security forum thread for those who missed it in my EULA poll reply:

PLEASE READ this end-user license agreement ("eula") carefully. By being born, you agree to be bound by the terms of this eula. If you do not agree, do not exit womb and, if applicable, return to the place of conception for a full refund.

1. GENERAL. This eula is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or an entity) and the scientific or religious establishment of your choice ("God"). This eula governs your Life, which includes all seconds from the time you are born until you are legally pronounced dead (. This eula also governs the container supplied with your Life ("Body") and any support services ("miracles") relating to Life except as may be included in another agreement between you and God. An amendment or addendum to this eula may be presented to you by your retail suppliers ("Parents").

2. THE PARENT PROGRAM. All complaints and technical support requests should be addressed to your Parents, who may or may not, depending on the subscription level you have elected, offer you additional warranties. Parents are third-party components, and not subject to warranties under this eula. God is not liable for the quality, competence, character, number, gender, species, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or presence/absence of your Parents, or for the quality of the relationship between them, if any, and does not supply technical support for Parental units. Any Parent may be terminated or exchanged at any time without notice and without recourse.

3 CONSCIOUSNESS. To reduce piracy, God requires certain components to be activated. The license rights granted under this eula are limited to the first five times you gain Consciousness ("Wake up") after you are Born unless you supply the information necessary to activate your Life. You may also need to reactivate your Life if you modify your Body or alter your Consciousness. God will not collect any personally identifiable information from your DNA during the activation process without your consent.

4. DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT. Content providers are using digital rights management technology to protect the integrity of their content so that their intellectual property, including copyright, in such content is not misappropriated. If your Brain's security has been compromised, content providers may request that God revoke your right to copy, display, and/or play protected content. Revocation does not alter your Brain's ability to access unprotected content, if any exists.

5. OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES. Your Life may not be shared or used concurrently among different Bodies.

6. YOU ALSO AGREE:

a. Not to remove or obscure any copyright, trademark or patent notices ("Birthmarks") that appear on the Body as delivered to you;

b. To indemnify, hold harmless, and defend God from and against any claims or lawsuits, including attorneys' fees, that arise or result from the use or distribution of the Life;

c. That God reserves all rights not expressly granted.

3. RESERVATION OF RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP. God reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this eula. The Life is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. God or Its suppliers own the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Life and in any derivative works produced by you during the course of your Life. The Life is licensed, not sold.

4. MEMORIES. You may make a single back-up copy of the Life. You may use one (1) back-up copy solely for your archival purposes and to reinstall the Life in the Body. Except as expressly provided in this eula or by local law, you may not otherwise make copies of the Life, including the imprinted materials accompanying the Life. You may not loan, rent, lease, lend, or otherwis

Does look like there might possibly be a legitimate explanation, though. Some other pretty innocuous sites are dark from RR.

If hackers or terrorists caused this kind of disruption in the internet the government and media would freak out.

OTH, Wimax Washes Dishes Cures cancer, potty-trains toddlers

Don't get too excited! According to Broadband Reports and ComputerWorld: "The streak of Mozilla's Firefox browser gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer has come to a grinding halt in July. For the first time since Firefox Version 1.0 made its debut, Internet Explorer was able to regain some lost ground. Firefox's market share shrunk to 8.07% in July from 8.71% in June, while Internet Explorer grew its share to 87.2% in July from 86.56% the previous month."

I am 100% sure you are wrong, Shaw's capped at 512Kbit/s up for residental plan, and 1Mbit/s up for Xtreme.

Also, check here for Broadband reports FAQ, as well as here for maximum speed tests reported by users.

AFAIK I am right http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/61105 http://news.com.com/SBC+plans+to+get+naked/2100-10 34_3-5698066.html

Googling "lozito misquoted" will get you a number of hits, including this one: (quote is about 1/3rd the way down the page)

I emailed Lt. Lozito, here's what he said...

I have received several comments about my "Quote" in the article.
Suffice it to say, that the media does not always capture everything
said in a phone interview and then translate it to paper as it was
intended.

What I was referring to was the use of the devices to locate an open
port or signal and then once found, accessing the system to conduct
unlawful activity.

The possession of the device itself is not illegal however I believe
that in time, the law may look at such devices much as it does for
burglary tools for someone that has been convicted of burglary or
related crimes.

If my comment caused some confusion, I apologize.

Lt. Bob Lozito
Operations Commander
Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force
4510 Orange Grove Ave. Sacramento, CA. 95841
office: 916-874-3030 fax: 916-874-3006
email: rlozito@sacsheriff.com

How about crediting the inital source of that story? broadbandreports.com article

The news article is flawed b/c the report misquoted the sheriff about the cantenna.

- http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/65821

This is from broad band reports

Several users e-mailed Lt. Bob Lozito to let him know he was dead wrong. You can't broadcast with a Cantenna or you'll violate FCC guidelines, but you can receive signal. Also, there's no law on the books in any state we're aware of that would make owning a makeshift Wi-Fi antenna illegal. "have received several similar emails," says Lozito. "My comment was not accurately quoted," he states.

So really all this argument is about bad journalism. The sheriff only mentioned that it is illegal to posses a cantenna while in the act of breaking into wifi networks. Email the sheriff to see for yourself that he did not mean that cantennas are illegal.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/65821

before you spam him into oblivion perhaps give it a second thought:

Several users e-mailed Lt. Bob Lozito to let him know he was dead wrong. You can't broadcast with a Cantenna or you'll violate FCC guidelines, but you can receive signal. Also, there's no law on the books in any state we're aware of that would make owning a makeshift Wi-Fi antenna illegal. "have received several similar emails," says Lozito. "My comment was not accurately quoted," he states.

Actually, to expand on what I said earlier, further research shows that this has actually been going on for some time... even back to June.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,13615 830

How do you connect abusing the TOS with warez homos? Are they monitoring packets and realize your downloading copyrighted software?

People who abuse deserve to be capped.
Define abuse. If you do, that would be a definition that OOL does not provide to anyone. That in itself is the problem. From what I;ve read, I've drawn the conclusion they cap the highest bandwidth users that has no relevance to the TOS or warez. Without defining what "too much" really is.

DSLreports is full of OOL capping incedents. You can draw your own theory on why they are getting capped.

The argument should be, what is unlimited and why is unlimited advertised but then limited provided.

The speed is good, but ever since they switched to a 71.x.x.x pool and 15-minute DHCP times, my connection goes down every 12-15 minutes. It really is intolerable, and I'm not the only experiencing it. There's a rather large Broadband Reports thread here documenting the problem. It's terrible. You can pretty much throw online gaming and IRC out the window, and it's frustrating to have to wait for your connection to pick up again when you're on the net.

...try reading the lists at dlsreports.com...

Is this what you meant? ;)

Welcome to yesterday morning's news, Slashdot.

While I don't expect cutting edge anymore (and haven't for some time), I at least expect something within 48 hours before the news is old and tired. Things move fast on t3h int4rw3b.

Amen. Glad you saw this too.

Mentioned over at Broadband Reports two hours ago:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/64781

Dvorak complains about lazy journalism, then misses an entire aspect of the story (Boyd getting Direct Revenue to stop using affiliates to distribute Aurora via Bit Torrent), AND lazily ties Boyd to a Microsoft anti-Bit Torrent conspiracy......

Just go to the source:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/mspeed?results=1

Latency and actual throughput are all there, ranked by provider. VZW and Spring are leading the pack.

Take a look at http://www.broadbandreports.com/mspeed?domains=1 for a more averaged result.

Just go to the source:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/mspeed?results=1

Latency and actual throughput are all there, ranked by provider. VZW and Spring are leading the pack.

Take a look at http://www.broadbandreports.com/mspeed?domains=1 for a more averaged result.

Where you mount an antenna on your roof pointed at a particular location. You can get multiple megabits from this, and cheaper than from a cell-phone provider. Here's an example. http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/broadlink/ind ex.shtml You can't use them unless you're in Santa Rosa, but there may be companies in your area. Basically go to dslreports.com and check for wireless DSL. http://www.broadbandreports.com/search

Canadians seem fine with their government picking their pockets. I'm not surprised they don't complain about it picking their packets too.

Would never happen here in the USA anyway, this story should be moved to slashdot.ca

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/62949

U.S. Now 16th in Broadband Penetration Slips three spots in global ITU rankings Posted on 2005-04-26 18:42:25 There has been rabid debate over whether the United States is (or isn't, depending on your political slant) falling behind in broadband penetration. That debate was fueled by an ITU report stating we were 13th in that category. According to the latest ITU data, we're now sixteenth. The U.S. ranking is something ITU and OECD researchers attribute to a lack of a cohesive government infrastructure policy - but free-market fans and incumbent supporters attribute to geography. The data indicates there are 11.4 broadband subscribers per every 100 U.S. inhabitants.

I see a few threads in Broadband Reports' security forum.

Also, see here.

like its recent major DNS outages. And Comcast wants to buy Adelphia? I don't think Adelphia people will be happy with that if Comcast can't handle its own issues.

Read Broadband Reports security forum thread about this. It appears the rerelease patch fixed the blue screen problems, proxy, etc.

Oversold broadband to the point where I actually uncapped my modem.

Be careful about that... It wasn't Adelphia, but another company made some guy's life hellish because he uncapped his modem.

(more on topic) My in-laws have Adelphia in Cleveland. Seems fine to me. I periodically connect in to their network from Maine to work on stuff and I've never noticed any particularly poor performance.

Get a router to do that for you, like the Xincom XC-DPG502.

Quote from PCMall.com: Allows you to use both WAN ports simultaneously, increasing your available bandwidth. You can set load balance type by Packets, Bytes RX+TX and Sessions

My fiance was a student at Chico State within the last 5 years and she just found out last night that she had been hit for $39.99 from a Pluto Data Inc scam. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/60769 I wonder if they are somehow connected? She has only used her credit card online a few times.