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Houston DSL users File Lawsuit Against SBC

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the getting-the-big-bidness dept.

cprincipe writes "According to this story on Yahoo, Houston DSL customers of SBC Communications have filed a lawsuit alleging that SBC has intentionally lowered connection speeds to its customers. " SBC, it should be noted, is the parent of Southwestern Bell, and recently acquired Ameritech.

3 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. file transfer test by Ed+Bugg · · Score: 5

    Just as a test I did a ftp session to ftp.kernel.org (zeus.kernel.org) and did some transfers and this is what I got.

    get linux-2.4.0-test6.tar.bz2
    local: linux-2.4.0-test6.tar.bz2 remote: linux-2.4.0-test6.tar.bz2
    200 PORT command successful.
    150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for linux-2.4.0-test6.tar.bz2 (18106527 bytes).
    226 Transfer complete.
    18106527 bytes received in 122 secs (1.5e+02 Kbytes/sec)

    That's what I expect 1.2Mbps download speed, so as you can see it's not an all 128k cap on everything.

    --
    -- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
  2. I used to work on DSL for SBC... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    I was in a meeting about 6 months ago where people were joking about how long it would take for the first class action law suit over deceptive DSL advertising to show up... The throttling is done by the network design. The DSLAMs concentrate the traffic from 576 customers onto a T3 (45 mbps) line. Do the math... That comes out to about 78 kbps/customer. Far below the guaranteed rates. BTW, I have RoadRunner and will change to DSL ASAP. Despite the deceptive ads DSL is still better than a cable modem. And, I can have as many machines as I want on a DSL and I can have a server on a DSL. Things that I can't have on RoadRunner. Not to mention that RoadRunner is about to become AOL.

  3. SBC isp with PacBell DSL capped my downlink. by GodRaekwon · · Score: 5

    I've had the advertised "384kbps-1.5Mbps downstream / 128kbps upstream" DSL from PacBell for about a year now. I used to have it with the PacBell ISP, and I've often got download speeds of ~250k/sec. In other words, even beyond 1.5Mbps. Well, a few months ago I've gotten a letter in the mail from PacBell that they no longer have a choice of ISPs, and the ONLY ISP available is through SBC, to which I was automatically changed. With this new change, my downstream is FIXED at 80k/sec, I guess 640kbps or whatever. Now, I wonder if this is illegal, because it is obviously CAPPED at 640kbps. And I am paying for "384kbps-1.5MBps depending on how good your line is" deal, so if it's capped, at least they should cap it at 1.5MBps. Long story short, SBC sucks.