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ATT Raises Prices for Cable Modem Owners
MBCook writes: "It appears that AT&T broadband doesn't like it when customers own their own cable modem. According to this article at ZDNet, ATT will be 'changing' their prices for all users. If you own your own cable modem, your bill is going up $7. If you lease your cable modem, you end up paying the same ammount you were before. I guess AT&T likes to milk it's customers. If I don't have a long distance service with any phone company, I have to pay for the privilage of not depending on them. Now I'll have to pay for the privilage of not depending on AT&T for a modem?"
Maybe they decided to do this instead of charge people for exceeding ridiculously low monthly bandwidth caps...
-- V
Not exactly sure what you meant by....
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
While everyone will shout and scream "I don't want AT&T to maintain my cable modem", but when the line gets dropped and AT&T need to diagnose the problem they will apply the first rule of problem resolution
"The user is a moron, the fault is at their end"
This involves them doing the standard, is your modem turned on, is it working, is the green light flashing.... you don't have a green light, oh its your own modem, so how do you tell if thats working ?
So it does cost them money in terms of call and tech support. They have to have special call centre scripts, new diagnosis procedures etc etc.
And your cable modem might have a bug which buggers their network.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Now I can finally go and get myself a new graphics card!
ATT Cable internet hasn't been available in my area of Pittsburgh yet, and last year they claimed to make it available by January this year. January came, they said February. February came, they said March. March came, they said never. May rolls around and I see ATT trucks putting up new fiber everywhere and can't wait to find out if it's for cable internet. $35/month was a really good value (even if you need a $200 modem), I'm not so sure I want to pay $42/month. Buying a $200 modem doesn't seem cost efficient if I'm going to be paying $42 as opposed to $45 to lease the damned thing.
Now I'll have to pay for the privilage [sic] of not depending on AT&T for a modem?
Are you just bitter that you shelled out cash for a worthless piece of crap? You won't be able to use it anywhere once all cable modem companies standardize on this pricing scheme.
I have been pwned because my
What the fuck does this sentence mean?
"You're just scared like a little white pussy. I'll fuck you till you love me, you faggot!"
Now that a major US provider is changing the rules, it'll be interesting to see how Slashdot readers take the news when it affects them a bit closer to home.
This is a problem that affects us all.
DD.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
In countries that have national phone companies, you can often hear people lamenting about it and suggesting if it were private, everything would be better. Sure, some things would, but it's interesting to see that the "free market" can fail too.
This sig is a true statement, but I cannot prove it.
Cable modems got cheaper so the difference between
those who own c modem and those who don't should be
smaller - down to $5. This means that overall
this is a rise for everybody - just for
those who don't own cable modems the rise is
compensated by the fall of cable modem prices.
When the modem is leased from the provider, they have more control on everything. They can be more prepared for customer oriented oddities, failure claims etc resulting in better predictability of incomes and less uncertainties in general.
Try to avoid having any involvement with AT & T. My experience with them is that they look for ways to abuse you, like many big companies.
According to the ZDnet article, the additional charge for renting a cable modem is $10; you're still getting a discount if you own your own cable modem (albeit a very small one).
I considered briefly buying my own cable modem, but for the monthly cost of leasing, it was cheaper in the short term. (I live in an apartment, don't want to buy a cable modem in case I move to an area that doesn't supply that type of service)
That being said, I rather expected this move. In case you haven't noticed, telcos are struggling right now, and any move that can keep them afloat (ok fine, keep the share holders happy) they are going to do. Rather nifty of them to tell anyone, as I am a subscriber, and I didn't receive any information on this. Yeah, of course the rights and all that are subject to change, but enough of running rough-shod over your customers. We are people too, and don't always have the convienence of having a ton of loot sitting around, or customers we can up prices on without telling.
In a similar rant, a lot of these companies do these things without even pausing to consider what the risks are, simply because there (for the most part) ARE NONE. Customers will bitch, a few will change providers (those lucky few that can) and other than that, NOTHING WILL CHANGE. YOU might care enough to drop service, but most people are so apathetic about stuff like this, it's comical. Bitch, moan, give em the money. Hell, it makes business sense to do this. Too bad the customer gets it in the end eh?
Sent from your iPad.
Editors, please correct grammar and spelling errors submitted. In this story, those are even above the /. average ("ammount", "it's", "privilage"). I would like to see this average going down rather than up.
not ONLY does the stupid son of a slimy whore NOT make ANY sense, he can't fucking spell a goddamn simple word like 'P R I V I L E G E'.
damn it all to hell, you dumbshit motherfuckers, USE a spellchecker.
from the article "Customers who lease their modem from AT&T will have their lease fee reduced by $7, paying an additional $3 per month for the modem."
And the customers that own their own modem are having they're bill increased by 7 dollars.... So essentially by owning your own modem, your now helping to subsidize the cost of users who don't want to buy their own modem but lease it.. That seems very wrong to me, hell completely wrong.. why should I have to pay 7 dollars to have my own modem as opposed to 3 dollars to rent it? I smell some lawsuits here..
Glad I have Comcast Cable modem here in PA..
That sounds pretty shaky as far as consummer protection laws are concerned (but then I live in Europe...)
you say: This involves them doing the standard, is your modem turned on, is it working, is the green light flashing.... you don't have a green light, oh its your own modem, so how do you tell if thats working ?
You do realize the people that they have working the "LEVEL 1" call centers are complete morons right? They are probably over-qualified if they are taken from the welfare to jobs progams. You'd think if you explain to a level one tech that yes your compitent and you've already done some basic check troubleshooting(like being able to ping the local edge router for example, but nothing else) would make it so that you dunt have to listen to them say: ok go the left corner of your screen and hit the start button with one click of your mouse, now go to control panels and click once... and etc etc etc...
If anything they want everyone to use the same modem so they're dumb ass level 1 techs have a slim to none chance of ever helping someone out.. I really do hope those people don't make more then minimum wage too!
2 weeks ago with comcast there was an outage in our area(could ping the routers) and i had to go through all that, and after much pain i asked the level 1 dweeb to try and ping my assigned IP. She/He/It said that her/his/its ping program was not working and could not verify it for me. I asked if he/she/it could then ping from the command line on his/her/its desktop and they had no idea what i was talking about!!!!
So then i asked to be passed off to the next level tech so i could talk to someone who might be able to help me or i could realisticly explain my problem too. but the the DUMB ASS LEVEL 1 tech said he/she/it could not transfer to a higher level tech until she diaganosed my problem.
So I then mentioned that she/he/it was unable to diagnose my problem(in their eyes) cuz there ping tool was down and they should transfer as a result of that, but no they said! because of that i'd have to wait until thier network came back up and they could test & they said they would not know when that would be and just to try and call back through out the day...
::sigh:: ok i hope they make less then minimum wage!
They have increased the price of their service by $7. They are reducing the sting a little by allowing people to rent their cable modems for free. People who have their own modem can still take advantage of this offer. People who do not will not be paying more. They simply will not be paying less.
What we really need is more competition in the marketplace. We need at least a dozen different services, then one of them would relaise the good niche market of people with their own cable modems.
Essentially what AT&T has done is imposed an ownership tax that penalizes its users for owning their own equipment. The folks there probably just saw the latest reports and saw cable modem leasing was down. And of course AT&T prefers that the money is in their own hands, not the cable modem manufacturers'.
I'm surprised AT&T hasn't made their own cable modem yet and FORCED users to buy it. That wouldn't surprise me. This does.
-Evan
According to this AT&T aren't doing so good. Could it be that they've decided to try and make some money? Yeah it's crap for those of you who have to pay an extra $7 a month or whatever but at the end of the day big companies are always gonna try and make money. I guess cable modem users are just an easy target.
...have to deal with different brnads of modems all the time. It's called Life, and AT&T should get over it.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I've had ATT cable for about 3 months now. I've been leasing a modem from them as well. This is the first time I've had cable, so I wanted to test it out before paying the 100 bucks for a modem that I may never use again.
/. breaks it too. go figure. click, preview, argh, click, preview, argh!
Once I reach the upstream cap (300) the connection dies completely. If I upload a file to an ftp site the connection is broken until I stop the transfer. If I start loading a few webpages, or have several ssh sessions opened to different servers, it dies until i can close all the windows, and power cycle the modem. I've seen this happen while watching tcpdump and getting 100-150 arp requests every second for about 5 minutes, the modem sits and crunches while I'm getting 75% packet loss to their router.
From mailing list archives the general feeling is that when this happens your modem is faulty. Well I've been trying for 2 months to get a new modem, and I've gotten nowhere. With that information, and the fact that it powercycles itself about 4-5 times every 8 hours, I've decided that it is the modem.
There definately isn't any perks to paying them monthly for a modem. I'd rather be able to take the damn thing back to Best Buy and exchange it. I think I'd rather have my own modem just for that reason, even if I'm only saving 3 bucks a month.
oh yeah, posting comments on
Ok, I see why you're steamed. You forked out $80 or so for your own cable modem. Now, you're not getting a discount that you once were. Whats your answer? DSL.
sorry, thought the title was something different. for once /. DID name something appropriately!
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Because until the price reaches some ridiculous point, I will continue to pay whatever they ask for high speed service.
Let's see...I can use:
1) DUN - *please*
2) DSL - See No. #1
3) Cable Modem - OK!
Do I like it? No. But what are the choices? I don't have any complaints with the service. It is extremely fast here and almost always on.
Ma Bell is a cheap mother.
--
boy that will teach you to use the phone company for your ISP.
1. Remove the coaxial cable, power supply cable, and Ethernet cable(s?) from the modem.
2. Find an A/C adapter that'll output a shitload more power than your cable modem A/C adapter does.
3. Connect adapter to modem. Don't worry if it doesn't fit, just push harder.
4. Connect adapter to wall outlet.
5. Turn modem on. When you smell smoke, turn modem off.
6. Unplug adapter.
7. Contact provider, tell them that modem has completely kicked it and won't do anything now. Try not to laugh if they ask you if it's getting power.
Good luck!
What did you expect. The cable companies have been F'ing us for years. And all the sudden, they're nice guys because they have broadband?
Nope, being with a cable company is like living with a rabid dog. Sooner or later you're either going to get bit or you get rid of the dog.
The thing with DOCSIS modems is you can query them for info such as Uptime, and ping their internal network IP remotley (we do this from the helpdesk). The only other thing to check is the link light to the PC, which you can check on the back of the ethernet card anyway. The DOCSIS tools also give info on wheater the modem is up, and if not if its in any of its initialisation stages. Eg. Ranging, IPComplete etc.. so we can tell if its stuck somewhere.
I love that they say it reflects the change in the costs of Cable Modems. 100/3 On that rate it will take 33 months to break even on buying your own modem!
Personally, I think they would prefer people didn't own there own modems for management reasons.. If this is the case why not just say that.
James
In order to hook up a modem, you had to get a special Data Access Arrangement from them, for which the monthly charge was more than you'd pay for a modem today.
Eternal vigilance, etc.
FFS Mods, its got something to do with the fucking article posted. Stop being dipshit moderators and save your points for good clear-thought posts, and for modding down the trolls. Don't use pissy offtopic moderations for a reasonable request like the parent. FFS some moderators, they're like a fucking disease.
Go on mod me down, you'll prove me 100% correct. (And see these idiot moderators explode their brain with the reverse psychology).
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
And don't forgot the D.C. Appeals Court decision from last week. This is part of the "competition" to DSL that is sufficient to let the phone companies not line-share.
Notice how the "competition" is driving prices down?
Ummmm....
i will laf when att has to be auction-blocked
I'm on Rogers, and they raised prices. I know Bell Sympatico raised prices. All companies are doing this because of the small percentage of people sucking up a huge amount of bandwidth. It's costing them too much money.
"If I don't have a long distance service with any phone company, I have to pay for the privilage of not depending on them."
I am not sure what original poster means by this. I used to have a landline phone with no long distance provider, and I am pretty sure I didn't pay a dime to AT&T or anyone else.
Cripes people will bitch and moan till the sky falls.
There may be tech assist issues that AT&T will use to support the move. Yes, they can honestly say that it saves them money to have a limited pool of modem types to ease support. In the long run, they're doing this simply because they can. What are the majority of their customers going to do? Yes, that's right, absolutely nothing. The very few might switch providers, if possible, or drop the service (unlikely). Most will quietly, if begrudginly, stay with the service and pay the extra $.
AT&T as well as all the other broadband providers have us by the short and curlies. They can pretty much change their agreements at will and ad infinitum without fear of retribution because of the monopoly powers they hold. Don't like it...drop it.
Either look into class action suits on the basis of consumer protection (which will go absolutely nowhere), or....quit yer bitchen and suck it up.
"It's hard to be a man when there's a gun in your hand"
but what the hell... deal with it.
Thats right, get over it. The precedent in slashdot was set when a lot of posters told us Aussie to get over our shitty cable modems.
The businesses are going to keep sending up prices, and finding new ways to tax the consumer. It would be half-acceptable if they bought it down again in times of growth, but they don't. So first of all, if you don't want to get reamed, don't get cable.
But if you want cable, there are a few options. First of all, contact you industry ombudsman, if you have one. Also lobby the nearest democrat member of congress and the senate, make sure your complaints about this discrimination reaches someone who could possibly give a shit, and do something about it.
In other words, if you cannot change from AT&T to another cable server or adsl, make sure yo fight dirty (a.k.a political). What is another option is to publicly shame AT&T, perhaps with a few letters to the editor of you local newspaper. So instead of bitching about it, get over it, and do something about it. The more people that give a shit, the more people that read about it, the more bad publicity the company will get, and that WILL get their shareholders pissed.
(Recent example of bad publicity at work, our biggest bank in Aus (NAB) were making a drastic change to their reward scheme. Quite a few people got pissed, and they half-reversed the scheme just as quickly as they had announced it. Bad publicity works, and it starts with their own customers.)
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
If you live in an apartment building, development, or neighborhood of any kind then get together with your neighbors and form a buying association. Tell AT&T if they don't waive the fee then 50 of you are going to a competitor. 50 not enough? Organize your town. At some point, the pricing equation will swing your way and they won't be able to afford to say no.
Or talk to your town or borough council about setting up a Metropolitan Area Network. God knows there have been enough Slashdot posts about how to do it.
ya know, up until like 3 months ago I believe the service was this price anyway, if not more expensive. I seem to recall being somewhat happy when they stated they were dropping their price by $10 dollars(I live in Virginia). And I'd rather pay an extra 5-10 dollars a month and continue to use gigabytes upon gigabytes of bandwidth (gotta love KaZaA Lite and Audiogalaxy, not to mention the gaming fix of WC3!!!) over my home network as opposed to having that capped at some rediculously low amount of bandwidth. just my $.02
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Some days ago, users in Australia had their broadband access severely limited [slashdot.org] as the major providers changed the rules [slashdot.org]. There were many Slashdot posts effectively telling these users to 'get over it'.
- contracts (even those with obscure clauses, or that get rewritten by the vendor after they have your money) posts. This whole meme that businesses have as their sole responsibility to make money, and ethics, much less their customers' satisfaction, be damned is nonsense from start to finish, doubly so when you're dealing with telco type situations (of which cable companies are an example) where there is an effectively monopoly (or duopoly) on your choices.
... perhaps we should end that sufference in a couple of high-profile cases and the other behometh's will fall in line. That presupposes, of course, that our democracy isn't so far gone, and our leaders so profoundly corrupt, that the people can still have a voice politically. The jury is definitely still out on that, but it would certainly be worth a try.
[...]
Now that a major US provider is changing the rules, it'll be interesting to see how Slashdot readers take the news when it affects them a bit closer to home.
A-fucking-men. I get so utterly sick of these Randian libertarianesque businesses-can-do-no-wrong every-consumer-should-be-an-expert-at-deciphering
Most homes can only get cable/cable-modem service from one providor, or local telephone service from one providor (in both cases, the company that owns the last mile of copper going to your house), so telling people to "vote with their feet" is literally tantamount to telling them to physically move to a new community or do without what is becoming an increasingly vital service.
It is utter crap when these self-styled free marketeers (who apparently can't recognize a limited, non-free market when it hits them in the face) tell folks in Australia that sort of nonsense, and it will be equal crap when they do so in this thread.
It is past time that people and consumers organize once again and restore some social responsibility to these businesses. Businesses and corporations exist at the sufferance of the people
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Cause if you own, and it gets hit by lightning or a surge, your out. If it's thiers, they replace it for free. It happened to me once, and saved me a load of cash.
adventure-today.com
It's high time that we all learned that there are real people out there in these large, powerful corporations whose sole aim is to absolutely screw the little guy.
The sooner we realize this, the better off we will be.
I thought that it was illegal for a company to basically charge 2 different prices for the same product/service that is advertised to end-users? Isn't this known as price discrimination, which is illegal under law by the Sherman Act and by the FTC?
Sounds like today's new and up-and-coming business leaders haven't studied their relevant business history lesson's in B-school. Or their ethics for that matter...
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Maybe they should make the modems open source so that it will lower costs?
So, what's the bandwidth of the prices described in the link?
PS: In Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) a 300 kbps cable modem is about $38. 256 kbps ADSL about the same, taxes included.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
Here in the UK, the Cable company Telewest seems to have the worst telephone support I've ever encountered. A couple of weeks ago, I phoned up with a query about network outages and if there was any reason why my connection was dead.
The monkey I got handed to proceeded to deny that there was anything wrong with the network, and launched into his heavily trained diagnosis routine. He first did the usual routine of asking me to power cycle the modem. I duely did this and reported that the modem was coming back, send light flashing...
And before I could go any further, he'd cut me off and said that the lights flashing were a sign that the modem was faulty and that I would require a tech visit. Before I could interject and tell him that it was only rebooting, he'd began the proceedure of booking me an appointment.
So I told him to calm down and wait for a second. Sure enough, the modem completed its reboot. I then asked him to go away and seriously check if the network was buggered. Sure enough, two minutes later, he came back and sheepishly told me that connections in the Wimbledon area were suffering.
It seems that Telewest support chimps will book a tech visit at the slightest provocation. I wonder how much time has been wasted, both in terms of tech hours and people having to take the day off?
http://www.davetansley.com - you proba
Well, not the first, but one of them. They're are a lot of people out there that can get a cable modem from their cousin's friend's roomate who found it in a barn auction, that's probably made by connect-o-corp. Or possibly they just got the cheapest thing they could find in the bargain bin of Computer City, barely understanding enough to realize that they at least think they're saving some money by doing it themselves. AT&T is just protecting themselves from these sors of people who really don't understand that there is a definite difference in quality and support between devices on the market.
Plus, they probably figure that those people who really DO know what they're doing, and want a better modem, would be willing to pay a small extra fee (though 7$/month is too much. maybe 25 a year?) in order to use their own. Another possibility is to have a list of 'supported' modems, but that's hard to implement, more work for them, and leaves you stuck if you have an obscure modem, or one that was just released and 'not yet supported'.
Conclusion: Understandable, but too expensive.
Common sense is what tells us that the world is flat
Chances are if you're the kind of person who would want to own your own cable modem, you're the kind of person they'd really rather leave anyway. It probably means you're more technically inclined and not willing to simply be a "consumer" -- you probably want to run some services, perhaps use some VPN tools to get to work, and all that other stuff that really pisses them off. They really just want customers who might browse the web for a couple of hours a night or send an E-mail to grandma. Once customers actually start really using the internet for serious applications, their revenue model gets all screwed up.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This might lower the prices on cable modems?
For people signing on to AT&T Broadband, it is obvious that buying a cable modem isn't such a great benefit anymore, and it would actually be more cost effective in the long run to rent. Won't cable modem manufacturers lower their prices to try to encourage people to buy?
The speed of time is one second per second.
This doesn't come as a shock for those 'senior' citizens who never looked at their bill that was once an AT&T customer.
AT&T used to bill senior citizens, and still do in some part of the country, for renting out their 'touch-tone' phones. Not that I am trying to bash on senior citizens or anything, but many individuals who never looked at their bills for years and knew their rates were remaining fairly constant never knew that they were being billed for a phone that they had in their home that was actually installed and owned by AT&T.
There was a news report done on this where an individual took care of his mom and when he started to do her bills, he had noticed that she was getting charged for having an 'AT&T' phone. The funny thng is when he found ou that for years his mom was paying for the rental of the phone, he rushed right out to the nearest store and bought her a simple $9.99 phone with big buttons (so she could see). Called AT&T and told them to remove the phone.
This may not be the oldest form of AT&T milking their customers, but it certainly is one of the most interesting ones that I have heard. Fleecing of America (especially our senior citizens). *sigh*
Doesn't the idea that you suddenly have to pay for something that you don't use, that isn't being provided to you in the first place strike anyone as illegal? Sounds like a class action target if there's ever been one! (Hey, why don't we start charging them for not renting our unused computer parts! We'll make a mint! Besides, they started the negative consumer market, not us!)
Just recently, I had to help others with their cable modem. One was killed because it wasn't on a surge protector. The other one simply wouldn't work with 802.11 router. I tend to prefer renting, because when new cable modems come out, I can get them to come out and switch it. So far the cable company has been good about that, so it's one more reason to not buy the modem.
The "No PIC" (Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier) charge is mandated by the FCC (although each telco can choose whether or not to pass the cost on to coonsumers). Check out Verizon's explanation:. The fact that ATTB is charging their customers for not using THEIR modems is just a way for them to make an extra buck and screw the consumer. It's ridiculous.
obvious. Cancel your service. Call them up, explain to them why you are canceling (and yell at them for good measure, especially if you can get a manager on the phone) and when they offer you the half-assed deal to keep you on, cancel anyway. And threaten to cancel your phone service if you have access to another provider. I did this to bellsouth with great results, but you have to be willing to step down to 56k land.
But geeks are suckers, they can't be without their broad-band fix. And as long as people are willing to pay, companies are willing to charge. Stand up and let them know how much the service is worth. (And go outside.) Or you can continue to be a sucker and pay $7 more per month.
This sig is false.
Most of these ISP cable modems have upstream bandwidth caps coded in the prom. If you flash the prom to eliminate the cap and it's *their* modem they can kick you for violating TOS.
If the customer owns the modem then it's harder for them to deal with bandwidth abuses. This is just their free-market way of coping with the costs associated with people trying to run high-bandwidth servers w/o paying the business rates.
Yeah, my appliances are always getting struck by lightning.
okay, she did say rough...
It is interesting after Comcast was @homeless, their price increase was $5 to those who chose to rent their cable modem. Seemed fair - if you didn't want an increase, you could spend $100.
This move by attbi smacks of unfairness... those that were duped into purchasing are now penalized? On what grounds? Higher support costs? bah! They can count on the income because the only out is to sell the cablemodem on eBay to a comcast customer. Jerks.
Should be interesting to see how these pricing differences are reconciled if/when the merger is completed.
Heh.
I suppose I'm going to get evolutionally-penalized.
I originally signed up with MediaOne here in Boston. They directed me to the nearest Circuit City to purchase the modem. I bought it and now use it with ATTBB, who gobbled up MediaOne 1.5 years ago or so.
Ah well.
m
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
About a year ago, I got my dad set up with @home. At the time, you could save about $10 a month off your @home bill by buying your own cable modem. Cable modems then cost about $170, so we figured buying one was a no-brainer, as it would pay for itself in less than two years.
Then @home went down the toilet and my dad's service was taken over by AT&T. Now it looks like our decision to buy wasn't so smart after all. My take-home lesson from this: never bet your own money on the assumption that your cable provider won't change the rules of the game.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
use yours !
Maybe they're trying to make up for agressive pricing in other divisions?
Example: We have the "AT&T Ultimate" long distance plan - for $20/month we can call anyone for $0.07/minute except other AT&T customers - those calls are FREE. That cut our average LD phone bill by an order of magnitude. (Not kidding - wife + sister-in-law + mother-in-law talk several times a day for at least an hour. Don't ask me what they talk about, they won't tell me and I'm certain I really don't want to know.)
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Since we do a lot of work at home, broadband is necessary to get things done in a timely manner... and guess who the sole provider of broadband in the area is? AT&T! They have decent service and all, but it's always nice to know they're free to charge me whatever they want and I have to pay it.
"People who own their modems are pretty much locked in to staying with AT&T," Kersey said. "It's a way to extract a little more money out of a small percentage of people. That's a fairly politically smart thing to do because it doesn't affect the vast majority of customers."
/Spicole from Fast times at ridgemont high
You DICK!!
/Spicole off
Sounds like a good plan:
Charge more to the people who invested in the technology, are your best/longest customers and probably sold your service to *other* people before you fscked it up and capped to the point of being useless.
"extract a little more money", eh?
Yeah, the more you tighten your grasp, fsck-head the more your business will slip thru your fingers.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Considering that cable modems have dropped considerably in price in the past year and a half, people should expect that the discount for owning your own modem would would also drop. As cable modems hit the sub-$100 mark, I'm sure that anyone still getting a $10 discount/month is dropping their leased model off on the doorstep of their ISP.
You want a real problem to complain about? Here in the midwest, Mediacom charges an extra $10/month to broadband subscribers who don't also subscribe to one of their cable TV packages. Just because they arrive over the same medium doesn't make them similar enough in my book to warrant these coercive bundling tactics. The worst part is that, except for the delivery method into my home, the services are 100% unrelated. It's like if the gas station charged me an extra quarter a gallon unless I buy a case of mountain dew when I fill my tank.
Stuart Kahler
You can definitely have no carrier, and there shouldn't be a fee for it... you should be saving money because the LD carriers usually charge one! I was in Qwest territory, and am now on a small-town telco, both of which allow it. I asked for "absolutely no long distance carrier, so I can only call long distance with 1010 numbers, and put a PICC (pronounced 'pick') freeze on the line." Then you can't even be slammed by the scam artists who try to change your carrier, because only you can change it by calling your local carrier directly. I make so few long distance calls that my wireless plan with free long distance is enough, and if I need more I can use a dial-around code without paying a $5+ monthly fee.
Yes, I'm a sick geek that enjoys the challenge of this crap.
This is a rate increase, pure and simple. Let's face it. This has nothing to do with the cost of supporting modems. I lease my modem. I first got it when I started with Highway1, the name that preceeded MediaOne. They have simply found it easier to raise rates by couching it in terms of "lowered cost of equipment". In my view it's part of a trend that continues to provide me with lower services at an increased price.
I'm only glad that at the moment this price increase does not affect me. There are other things that bug me a whole lot more.
My top ten pet peeves with AT&T Broadband:
10. Playing with the pricing structure so much that it's starting to resemble the price structure for Cable TV. That means it's going to end up being nothing short of confusing.
9. Being moved from only 3 hops to a backbone to 7 hops. A move that now forces *all* of my IP traffic to go to new york instead of cambridge. I have a lot of traffic that ends up at POP's in Cambridge.
8. Elimination of "vanity" hostnames. Soon we will all have hostnames like h000102030405.ne.client2.attbi.com instead of nice names like vanity.mediaone.net. I suppose it helps them to discorouge people from running services on their machines.
7. Having my upstream bandwidth reduce by 15% because the @Home folks only had 256KBps so now we all have to. Why not give the @Home folks a little bandwidth boost rather than punish the rest of us?
6. Having to deal with Teir 1 Tech Support. I remember the days when you got to talk to a knowledgable person immediately. You didn't have to wrestle with someone verbally for 20 minutes before they would let you talk to a real network admin.
5. Getting all those calls from AT&T trying to cross sell other services such as Broadband Telephony. For a while I didn't even qualify for Digital Voice yet I still would keep getting the calls for it. Go figure.
4. All the changes in added services such as e-mail and personal pages. I enjoy improvements in these services but do they really need to be "improved" on a yearly basis. It seems that everything has to totally change each time this happens.
3. The confusion and fingerpointing everytime my broadband service is sold to or merged with someone else. I really miss the days when you could just pick a good service provider and know that they would always be there for you.
2. Having to print new busniess cards and notify *all* my contacts that my e-mail address has changed from "mediaone.net" to "attbi.com". (I tell them that the attbi stands for AT&T's Big Inconvenience.)
1. The voice menu "from hell" system. I think Jon Katz could write another popular column on this one. Heck he could probably write three columns. It's so convoluted it want's to make you scream. To top it off you can no longer pretend you have a rotary phone and jump straight to a person. It now has voice recognition. Arrggghhh!
First a quick rundown of how cable modem networks work. Think of the bandwidth of a cable modem network like a tree. each branch comes together and is supported by a larger branch and then eventually the trunk of the tree. all these branches have to share the bandwidth. If one of the branches is utilizing a lot of bandwidth, the rest suffer for it. ,but at the same time within the boundaries of your agreement. By doing this, they don't have to upgrade their infrastructure as fast and you don't have to worry about someone else hogging all your bandwidth. AT&T is allowing people to still use their own modems (Which they cannot throddle) but at a cost of an additional 7$ a month. So, for an extra 7$ a month, you can make everyone off your router miserable by hogging their bandwidth :) Other cable companies won't even allow you to use your own cable modem. (Time Warner in Rochester NY for example)
How can the cable companies prevent this from happening? There are two ways. They can either boost the bandwidth so that everyone can get maximum speed or they can throddle down everyone's connections so that nobody can get more than anyone else. Well, to boost everyone's bandwidth, that would cost the company millions upon millions. They would have to order tons of circuits to every neighborhood not to mention router upgrades and such. However, cable modems now a days have bandwidth limiters. That's right. You can throddle connections down right from the cable modem. Well, that makes more sense now doesn't it?
What AT&T and many other cable modem companies are doing is throddling down your connection. It's slower
Basically, from their perspective this makes sense. They can help to control the hogging situation and at the same time slow down their need to expand their network. I've seen companies go down the tubes because the need for bandwidth got out of control and they could not afford to expand. I just wish that they would come out with some sort of burst rate for these cable modem networks similar to how Frame relay works. That way, when the bandwidth is not in use, I could get the extra speed I want. Perhaps somewhere down the road.
I never understood why anybody would want to buy a cable modem anyway. Modem prices have come down, but even before AT&T's rate change change, buying your own only saved $10 a month anyway. So that means that if you bought a cable modem for $150, it would be 15 months before you broke even. That's too long a payback time for a technology investment.
The FCC doesn't prevent competitors from stepping in to your local market. Anybody is welcome to set up shop.
However, the numbers are *not* working out. The nat'l average for broadband usage is something like 15%, and is expected to stagnate until prices come down. If you already have one broadband option, a new entrant can expect to split that with the existing incumbant, so they might expect to wire up 7.5% of the homes. Is that worth the investment to build the infrastructure? No way.
If the new entrant thinks that broadband might reach something like 40% of the homes, and their take might be 20%, then that starts to make some sense. However, that's "bubble math" - there's no way you'll see 40% penetration until prices either come down, or there's some new demand for broadband (like Napster is legal and free).
Unfortunately, this is a waiting game....
Look, this is simple. Bandwidth is expensive, or at least it's not the free resource everyone likes to think that it is. You ever look at the prices for T1 lines? They're expensive for a reason. Some of that is gouging, sure, the bottom line is that *somebody* is paying for crazy-high bandwidth. Cable ISPs started out with cheap prices to attract customers, then the realization hit that they couldn't keep it up forever. This is not a surprise to anyone except college students who are used to having "free" high bandwidth connections in their dorm rooms.
AT&T announced this price increase over a year ago, hardly new.
:) ) I have no objection to paying a few more dollars a month for high quality cable modem access.
They are actualy REDUCING the price of the modem rental, granted by just $1 a month but. . . . This is quite fair and I consider it JUSTIFIED and a LOT better then, say, implementing shitty ass bandwidth caps.
Considering the high quality level of their service (they have recently increased the upload speed cap from 16KBP/s to 30KBp/s!!!! YAHOOO!!!!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
...vote with your wallet. If there is DSL or some other high speed option in your area and you're with ATT, drop them like a hot potato. Make sure you tell them WHY you are leaving. When you call to install the new service, tell THEM why you left ATT. If you do nothing and take it up the ass, the rest of the companies will follow suit. I get cable modem service through Time/Warner Communists...er, I mean communications. If they start charging me extra for downloading big files (Hal-Life patches, MP3's or the like, I'm lucky enough to have access to Ameritech/SBC DSL. If they pull a stunt like ATT, then I might go w/satellite. I know that everyone doesn't have another option, but those who do should look view tactics like ATT's the same way the average person would if a dead rat was thrown onto their kitchen table.
I used to be a happy customer of Excite@Home before AT&T took over. The effect was immediate: the service deteriorated dramatically, with more outages and slower connections. And now, this. I am glad I ditched them.
AT&T, if you are listening: You are a monster who manages to foul up everything you touch. Get bloody lost.
Is it just me or does this scream out the fact that there's clearly not enough competition in the broadband market these days? I mean AT&T suddenly decides to start charging people an extra $7/month to people who went through the trouble and expense of buying their own hardware. Sounds like a good motivation to get service from a different provider, but then what are your choices really?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
If there were a good reliable SAT service for Internet, I'd go for that, the same way I dumped my local cable company.
And yes, I know about Sat Dish Internet. Last time I looked they were unreliable. Has that been fixed?
I'm tired of AT&T. I have an alternate for TV, Direct TV. But... internet access.. Verizon if you are listening please bring DSL to Swansea, MA! AT&T sucks!
Now I'll have to pay for the privilage of not depending on AT&T for a modem?"
-If there is a mistake...well, you should have used the 'Preview' button!-
att wants true control of the device.
If you own it, then you can hack it to provide faster bandwidth.
If att catches you, all they can do is cut your service.
If att owns the device, then if you hack it, they can now cut your service, take the modem, and sue you. Big difference.
As to all the other reasons that I ahve seen here about the modem differences and/or prices, that is a joke. ATT has always been paying US$20/unit. And all cable modems comply with docsis, so they are easily updateable.
In my case, I CAN'T lease the modem from the cable company and use my own instead. They lock down access by MAC address, so I'd have to have their modem plugged into the cable, not mine, to get it to work. Life's a bitch, eh?
I would have to agree with your point about most homes being able only get cable service from one provider. Personally, I believe cable companies are one of the most disgusting monopolies in this country. The rates they charge 1) seem utterly random 2) change every month. However you do have a choice in some areas, you can choose DSL or cable and generally if you are able to choose DSL, you can choose one of a few DSL providers (XO and Earthlink to name a couple). Yes I know they run off the same telco, however the services they provide do change based on the DSL reseller.
I, personally, am very happy with my cable provider, Optonline
Aside from the shrinking difference in monthly cost I never could think a real benefit from owning cable modem. It's a device that has the SOLE function of plugging in to a proprietary network. At least where I live there is only one cable company. If I drop AT&T what I am going to do with that modem? Owning a cable modem actually ties you in to AT&T at least until you recover your purchase cost through lower monthly charges.
Here is a copy of the complaint I submitted to the Better Business Bureau. If I were to charge them for my time spent as a result of their incompetance, it would be a bill of $4800.00 at my current cunsulting rate.
"About the time AT&T took over @Home I tried to get a purchased Cable modem authorized to replace my leased modem. Due to problems with their authorization database, it could not be done. After a number of calls to support over a period of weeks, two of those calls resulted in them wanting to send a truck out to see if they could get it resolved. Since the problem was software related on their servers, I told them that a service tech would not be able to rectify it either. I was assured that I would not be charged if they couldn't get it authorized and they couldn't do it as I had told them, both times.
I don't have exact dates on these issues but I do have over 8 support ticket numbers on all the calls. Every time I have called, I have been told that they cannot access those tickets to get any information. The tickets were 885076, 1340254, 1356031, 1360218, 1381019, 1398948, 1404179 and 1451848. In every case I was promised a follow-up call and never recieved one. The most recent ticket was one where the billing dept. was supposed to address my billing issues, take off the service call charge, cancel charges for a second IP and bill only for a year in advance for 1 IP. I had already paid for a year in advance for 2 IP's.
What they did was to remove the yearly fee for 2 IP's and start sending me bills for monthly service, which is a greater cost to me, and add the charge for the service call where they did absolutely nothing to fix the problem they came out for. I canceled the second IP because their network department never resolved my issues with getting the second IP working so that I could communicate between my two servers over the internet. That was a problem with their internal network and those support calls were never responded to."
I actually think that I will now issue a bill to them for my time and send it by certified mail, along with a copy of this complaint.
That's pretty much standard practice. Looking at it another way, if the TV signal is unscambled on the wire, you can get a $25.00 basic cable subscription for $10. Theft of services disclaimers apply....
Yeah, that's right. You Australian pieces of shits bitching about how we told you to shut the fuck up because your country is behind the times with cable modems, need to shut the fuck up. No one cares what you have to say, go back to basting in the sun and getting skin cancer because there is a large hole in the O-Zone layer above your shitty country.
K? K.
I am completely fed up with at&t. I got a voice/cable/internet package advertised for $100, and within 6 months I was paying ~$130. I shelled out the extra $2 for an unlisted number, when I cancled the service a year later, just for fun I looked at my local phone directory only to notice that even though they collected $2 a month from me tbo not list my number it was listed anyways. They wouldn't credit me money back for the whole year since the phone book I was using as reference was only 4 months old. When I decided to move after I bought a house, we requested service to be cancled on 3/25. Of course they decided to cut my line a month early, no phone, tv, or internet. Bla.
So I move in to my new home convinced I'll never have to deal with ATT again, I'll just get DSL, satellite and good ol' baby bell phone service... Well, it turns out the satellite signals are a bit too lazy to fly though trees, and DSL companies are very picky about whom them will service.
So its back to ATT I went. Of course I decided to buy my own modem. Of course Att decided to charge me for a leased one anyways. I called and complained, and they actually hung up on me. Eventually, I had to fax them a copy of the work order for the install where their tech had clearly written "CUST SUP MODEM".
What a bunch of pricks
Oh yeah, I forgot about their digital cable I refuse to get anymore. Their on screen graphics take up the bottom third of the screen, and 30% of that area is filled with... you guessed it, banner ads.
They are a monopoly and have to be stopped.
Now go ahead and tell me to deal with it, I'm used to it.
Next time when your connection starts to eat shit (which it never should, because AT&T is the best), do the following:
- Go to cable modem, and pull plug.
- Wait about 30 seconds, and plug it back in.
This usually works every time, but sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't work, then you'll have to wait until one of the great technicians can come out to your residence and take a look at it. These guys are awesome! They're very qualified and know everything there is to know about computers and they'll have your cable modem up and running in no time!So those of us who own can now request
a new modem to lease? Seems like a reasonable
request and a chance to upgrade...
I also purchased a SAMS club ATT card (600 minutes for $20.82), and got Ameritech to DUMP my Long Distance Carrier. (ATT!)
I don't mind dialing all the numbers and waiting a few moments, recharging is easy via credit card.
However, I HAVE received a few telemarketing calls FROM ATT where they try to get me to sign up for a cheaper calling plan.
I tell them: "I already have a great calling plan with ATT, 3.4 cents per minute! Can you beat that?" It's amusing to listen to them stammer and try to figure out how I manage to get 3.4 cents per minute with ATT, since they don't apparently have any regular "plans" like that.
Then if I choose to explain that I'm using a calling card and have DUMPED my monthly LD provider, they tell me "Well, you know, your LOCAL phone provider is authorized to charge you UP TO $7 per month to NOT have a LD carrier. "
"So what?" I say, "You guys used to charge me $10 per month for a plan that charged me 10 cents per minute! Plus I don't pay any of those stupid taxes on the calls! I WIN no matter what !"
(click)
Since then, we've managed to convince several friends to completely drop their LD carrier and use the SAMS ATT card, which is still the cheapest solution I've yet found.
No one I know has yet been charged this surcharge for *not* having a LD carrier. yet.
Between pay per use, bandwith caps, invasive controls on content, and what ever else they cook up to get $$ out of us, i can see us heading back to 'point to point' dialup modems..
May be slower but at least it wont be controlled by the Man..
Not that im against paying for somethign i use, but come on.. this is getting really stupid.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My sympathy to those using AT&T for broadband internet. It is a fate that I myself narrowly escaped.
Earlier this month, I found myself moving to a new apartment, and needing new internet access. The cable provider monopolizing my new neighborhood? None other than AT&T.
I called up on the 3rd, ordered service, and was told that the cable guy would be out on a Saturday. That Saturday came and went, and of course, the cable guy never showed up. Seems the first person I had spoken to had failed to put in a work order.
Next appointment: Wednesday afternoon. My roommate takes off early from work so he can meet Cable Guy. Cable Guy arrives 10 minutes before my roommate gets there, leaves a note, and disappears.
So, he calls in to set up another appointment, and is told about installation fees. Fees which I was told, just last weekend, wouldn't apply, since I was ordering the 'basic' (do-it-yourself) modem installation. Here's where the fun begins.
I call them up to get a straight answer on the pricing. I get referred to two 'local' 1-800 service numbers. The first is disconnected. The second is for Long Distance (no, I don't want to buy any, thank you!)
I get referred to other phone numbers. Somehow, I end up getting a local broadband support office... on the other end of the country.
Indeed, until I declare my intentions to cancel my order (after the 8th toll-free phone call, and the 10th time on hold), it seems there is not one person in the entire company who can give me a straight answer on pricing. And by then, I've made up my mind to look into DSL and Dish Network. Both of them such good deals in my area that it's a wonder I ever considered AT&T in the first place.
On a side note, I recently heard on the radio that in a survey of satisfaction with the customer support services of various industries, Cable TV ranked at rock-bottom. And the worst of the worst? Charter, Comcast, and AT&T.
Gee, I wonder why.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Sorry, but it's incorrect to say that x/0 = infinity. The division operation is not defined for a denominator of zero.
It is not, "You fucking moron" but "You are a fucking moron", unless you meant that the moron in question was actually in the process of fucking when he wrote that.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Cable is an unregulated monopoly in the US
Not in any city I've ever lived in. Cable cos are regulated at the local level. Go to your local public utility commission hearing and complain. Have you ever been to one of these hearings, or do you just like to whine on a message board?
So, if you own a modem, your bill goes up $7. If you lease/rent from AT&T, your bill stays the same.
... so go rent a modem from AT&T and stick it in your closet.
Uh
... assuming, of course, that the modem-owner's bill was originally <= (the renter's bill + $7)
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
"You can throddle connections..."
What the hell is "throddling"? I think you meant THROTTLE.
Can a typical cable modem talk to other modems on the same area? If so can one person get two, subscribe one to the service, set the second one up in a peer to peer setup and then NAT through a gateway?
Years ago we found that Arcnet cards would work over the local cables wires for quite some distance.
So if you made a commitment to stick with them for a while (which is pretty much you're doing when you buy the modem instead of leasing it), you are the one that has to pay more? That makes no sense whatsoever. AT&T should be rewarding people who make the decision to buy their modem and stick with the service for a while, not punishing them. This is the most lame-brained idea they have had in a while.
today is spelling optional day.
I think I understand what is happening here because they're doing something similar with their CATV service. A while back, AT my dick gets hard when the wind blows," whereas Ms. Nipple Stud will get THE MATRIX instead of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
/.ers, is an illustration of what technological change enables powerful media companies to do: alter the very fabric of society itself, in fact, turn it on a dime. This is something that no government - democratic, communist, socialist - has ever been able to achieve.
Once AT where everyone is kept in a cocoon and is only allowed to see those parts of the world that reinforces the individual's existing view of the world as measured and extrapolated via their watching/surfing habits.
If you don't think this could be done in a way to seriously impact how people live their lives, imagine what would occur if the example people I used above were suddenly to have their "programming" switched on purpose or accidentally. Both people, without really understanding why, would suddenly feel alienated and even passively persecuted. What would happen in a big city where a couple million people have all been made to feel alienatied and persecuted, all at the same time?
This, my fellow
The "bandwidth is sooo expensive" bot strikes again!
The reason that AT&T is doing this is simple. They don't want you to own the modem. It actually saves them money when you use your own modem, they don't have to replace it when it breaks and they don't have to maintain a stock of modems, which is why they tried to encourage people to buy modems. They have changed their minds, because they realized that they cannot control modems that they do not own. There is nothing stopping you from running diffrent firmware on a modem that you own, getting around any speed caps that they may have placed on your account. All of AT&T's traffic shaping takes place at the modem. What you are going to soon see is tired service, pay more to get a faster connection, pay less to get a limited connection. However, the only real diffrence will be the firmware that they send to your modem. Hence, they want to stop the spread of modems that they cannot control.
... a few years ago. If we picked them as our long distance calls company, we had a 10$ rebate. At the very same time, the modem was no longer free of charge (they did not want to sell them at that time, you simply couldn't buy one) and you had to ditch 10$ for it every month.
As a result, today I don't have a regular phone line with bell, I only have a cellular from AT&T.
It seems no matter what, I'll end up giving my money to those who don't really deserve it.
Won't work. They will only allow one modem on the account to connect, the one that you leased.
You may wonder how an enormous, impersonal, faceless conglomorpation can physically lick anus, but I will explain it to you.
I am unfortunately and temporarily an AT&T BI customer. I got a call last week, at 9 AM, from a computer, saying there was an error in my account somewhere and I should call the tech support number to get it straightened out. Never mind that the call woke me up and confused the hell out of me. I was woozy and I only caught the last 4 digits of the number. The message did not repeat, and when I asked it questions about what the hell it was talking about, the computer just kept talking.
So I went to their website, found the number I was supposed to call, called it...and was told that account-related stuff was a sales issue. So the guy gave me a number and I called it.
The guy at the sales line asked me what my problem was. I told him I didn't know. The computer voice just told me I had a problem. Doesn't your database tell you why it told me I had a non-specific problem? No... let me transfer you to someone...
After I was transferred, the person at the other end of the line told me I was an idiot for calling a Boston area number, when I live in Minnesota. I told her you have got to be kidding me, this is the PHONE company...
We're not the phone company, we're the cable company sir.
Well, I was transferred to you. If you're so smart, give me the right number, then, jackass.
She gave me another number and I talked to another person who didn't know what the hell the computer voice had called me about, and thought I was stupid.
So I gave up and bought a house in Minneapolis, where Time Warner is the cable company.
And that is the story of how AT&T ate my balls.
I switched my long distance service off of AT&T and promptly received a check for $100 if I would return. Seeing no minimum time requirement in the contract, I cashed the check, switching back to AT&T, then called my other long distance provider to switch back. I received another $100 check a few weeks later, cashed and switched again. Now AT&T is out a couple hundred bucks and I'm still not a customer. They might be getting a clue because I received one last check for $50 which I did the usual with and I haven't heard from them since. Maybe you guys could keep the cable modems but drop your long distance service with AT&T and hope for a similar incentive?
Corporations have to make more money this year than last year - no matter what. It doesn't matter how much profit they're making or how large their market share is - they've simply got to make more money this year, or they are letting down their shareholders.
It sounds more or less like a Ponzi scheme to me, but it's capitalism (at least our brand) and it "works" (according to those it works for), so expect more of the same... until the people decide to change what corporations are and what they can do.
3 months later and the modem is still sitting in a corner collecting dust. Unfortunately, these specific CyberSURFR modems are not 100% DOCSIS compatible, meaning they won't work on pretty much any other cable system. And AT&T is smart (mean?) enough to not provision customer-bought modems that are not DOCSIS. So that leaves me with a useless piece of hardware. Maybe I'll turn it into a wall clock.
I hope you're all happy.
--Blair
AT&T Broadband *increased* upstream transfer rates for many customers. They're making it a flat 256kbps across the board. Funny to see how the articles about bow AT&T Broadband is screwing people make big news, but when they increase the piddly upstream cap that people bitch about constantly, nobody seems to care.
Article here
You should just shut up and be happy you still got the freedom to surf the net. You're lucky, y'know. When I was a kid we didn't even have the internet. Now you can get it for $50 a month. We should all bow down and thank AT&T for bringing this to us ignornat lazy citizens. And I'm sure they won't let the government look at ALL your mail.
I'd had AT&T as my interstate and local long distance carrier for many years (having been happier with them than with the alternatives). This year, they started playing games with the monthly service fee -- trying to figure out which fee plan and which rate plan worked best suddenly turned into such a maze that you can't even make a good guess at the best rate. The last straw came when they began charging the monthly fee in advance (which caused me to be charged twice for the month when they made that transition).
My point is, AT&T seems to be playing these games in other areas too, not just with cable modems.
BTW as a direct result of these games, my long distance is now provided thru Costco (lower rate, no monthly fee... take that, AT&T). Too bad cable modem users generally don't have the choice of jumping ship to another provider.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I use some company called ITT or something like that, and if you don't make any long distance calls they don't charge you for anything. You might want to see if someone brighter than I might have the name and a link for them.
The AC idiot bot strikes again!
You don't seem to see the actuall benefit of buying a cablemodem. Number one anything you have, that you own outright, you can sell (legal things of course). Buying a cablemodem is so you say $150 or so, which is about the average cost, so you are NOT PAYING the cable company for the modem, you are (key words here) NOT PAYING the extra $10 a month. So after 15 months, you have saved paying the cable company $150. Now there is where your point is almost valid. You are now at the point, as if you have never bought the cablemodem outright. But each month after that, you are still paying the cable company $10 less per month because you have the cablemodem. Who only gets cable for 15 months? I know I've had cable for more then 3 years now. So buying my modem was well worth it. Now what am I going to do when I move? Why sell it of course.
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
This is the email I got recently about vanity hostnames:
Subject: Important Announcement About Vanity Hostnames
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 08:13:48 -0500 (CDT)
From: Network Notifications
To: NAME_REMOVED@ATTBI.COM
Important Announcement About Vanity Hostnames
Our records show that you have a vanity hostname (i.e., hostname
other than h+MAC address) assigned to your account. While the
ability to provision vanity hostnames was discontinued in November
of 2001, any vanity hostname provisioned prior to then was migrated
to the AT&T Broadband Internet network in the format
vanityhostname.ne.client2.attbi.com.
Due to upcoming network changes, we will no longer officially
support this service. Every effort will be made to continue to
keep existing vanity hostnames active, but this cannot be
guaranteed. This also means that we can no longer transfer an
existing vanity hostname to a replacement Ethernet adapter. If
you replace your Ethernet adapter, note that your new hostname
will utilize the h+MAC address convention (defined below).
Our hostname policy is to set the hostname to the MAC (Media
Access Control) address of your Ethernet adapter preceded by the
letter "h". For example, if your Ethernet MAC address were
00:80:D7:3D:23:B0, your hostname would become
h0080d73d23b0.ne.client2.attbi.com. We selected this hostname
because the MAC address is unique, and because it is already
discoverable on the Internet. We precede it with the letter "h"
to avoid a completely numeric hostname, which is discouraged.
Persistent host names have never been officially supported on our
network and should we need to renumber the network, we can make
no guarantee as to the amount of time that will be needed for the
hostname to resolve to an IP address.
Sincerely,
AT&T Broadband
This email is for informational purposes only. Please note that
any forwarded emails will not be responded to.
Copyright AT&T Broadband 2002
Oh, come, come, come. Without a monster or two, it's hardly a quest... merely a gaggle of friends wandering about. - Owl
The broadband providers perceive nat as a threat. Several months ago, there were stories here about the broadband industry seeing nat as a kind of theft, where they were missing out on revenues from leasing IP's for each of those machines that without nat, would have real internet IP's.
So their solution is to provide modems with a different protocol which can identify machines behind nat...so that the connection between the ISP and your home is not IP.
Given that those schemes are on their minds, it seems only natural that they would want to discourage the use of a modem they do not control, or can not recall and replace with their new ones. Even if you don't cave in and pay for more IP's (which is ridiculous, you don't pay for additional phones hooked up to the same line/number, even though those numbers are scarce as well) they still get some extra ca$h.
I suggest we coin a term to combat the idea that every net connected device should be paying for an IP, even if behind a firewall/nat. I propose "IP Gouging". I also think people should contact the local public utility commission and explain how shady a practice it is. We pay primarily for bandwidth and connectivity, we only need one IP to make use of the utility.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Here is the real problem coming from this story. When a cost of doing business rises, it is immediatly passed on to the customer. If cable prices had gone up, you bet we would have seen an increase in leasing prices and overall. When the reverse is true, we don't see the change. We should lobby AT&T to pass their modem saving on to us.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
In most areas you can "lock in" your current rate and get one month free if you commit to one year of AT&T cable modem service. My current rate (Souther Cal) is $35.95 - which would be $42.95 when the price is jacked.
I just paid $395.45 for 12 months (about $33/mo) with their pay for 11 get 12 plan.
Apparently their "billing" dept can't cope, so if you want to see if you can get the deal, call customer service (for me, that's 866-447-7333).
Bon Luck.
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Mediacom just did the same trick in my area. Rates went up $10/month, but the modem lease went from $10 to $5.
The twist in Mediacom's case: they screwed up the marketing. Inteasd of print up flyers that said "Your rate's going up, but you now save $5 off the old price of leasing a modem." They simply said "$5 off".
Guess who owns a modem? Me. Guess who's getting his $5 off a month? I might have to frame the flyer, send them a photo every month, but hey, $5 is another pizza.
This kind of crap is why services like -- and I said "_like_" -- DirecWay are so important for the future. When I can get broadband and phone service from satellite, the local telco can kiss my butt. The only reason AT&T and Cox and Qwest and the like have a chance right now is because they own the only convenient high-speed medium...phone/cable lines.
Sure...they'll try to buy up all of the satellites. Sure will be much more difficult to monopolize, though. After all, if all else fails I could contract with a *shiver* French company, if I must.
The sky is literally the limit.
Of course, now that they've found scads of water on Mars, Earthly issues won't concern me in about twenty years....
Let them ship you their modem. Take it out of the box, examine it, make sure it isn't damaged, and then... put it back in the box and stick it in your closet. Use your own modem. Who's going to know?
If they run tests and decide that you're not using their equipment (either by checking MAC addrs, which, as a practical matter, they really can't keep on file, or by issuing instructions to the modems), what can they do? You're "testing alternatives."
Besides, hey. This way you get a backup modem, in case the spiffy one you bought dies. And you can plug the modem in and turn it on when you're having service problems, if you feel like it, too.
Get off my launchpad!
Cox no longer has any names for their modems. You are a number. Services are explicitly prohibited. Only port 21 is left open to incomming requests because AOL's instant messenger needs it, so you can run ftp in a normal fashion. No, they don't want you to run ftp, but they have yet to cut me off for my little read only site.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
At some point in the past year, shortly after AT&T took over from MediaOne here in Los Angeles (and things started going downhill), they sent out a lot of junk mail heavily promoting the option of buying a modem (from them) for $200, pointing out that you'd save $10/month from then on.
I didn't bite as it wasn't at all clear to me that I would be using the service for a year and a half more (and at this point, it's even less clear -- if they institute transfer limits, as an earlier article suggested they might, our relationship is over). But I wonder how many people did. I bet those folks are somewhat torqued now -- it's going to take a lot longer to recoup their $200 by "not paying $3/month" than by "not paying $10/month"!
To give AT&T a little credit it sounds like they are giving current customers with their own modems a $42 credit to offset the unequal increase. My guess is that even they couldn't justify screwing people whom they'd sold $200 modems to just a few months back THAT brutally.
kiscica
I'm not sure AT&T can do this legally.
I happen to know that a certain local cable company was forced by the governmnet to allow people to OWN their remotes rather than pay a monthly fee to RENT them. The boxes still cost a monthly fee of course.
I'm not sure what the issue was exactly with the remotes, but perhaps it had something to do with people being able to buy other companies remotes which would work just fine with the boxes, but the cable company was actually telling the boxes not to accept remote input if you didn't pay the rental fee.
This sounds like the same sort of thing. AT&T is taking away incentive for people to buy cable modems from competitors even though they will work just fine with their service by charging them a fee EVEN IF they own their own hardware which could do the same job.
Old price: $29.95/month + $10 rental fee=$39.95
:(
Buy your own modem & you are subject to their "upgraded pricing plan" which costs $10/month more for the same service... but you save the rental fee.
The Seattle P-I has a piece this morning about the monopoly aspect of this. Bottom line: In Tacoma, where there's competition for cable and broadband, you pay less; in Seattle, where AT&T has a monopoly, you'll be paying more.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is so true. As somebody who doesn't watch tv or subscribe to cable, it really burns me. When comparing cable broadband prices to dsl, or citing average prices for service, the price for the service without cable tv is the one that should be used. And the ftc shouldn't allow them to advertise any other price. It's pure deception.
"...What we really need is more competition in the marketplace..."
I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, where only 18 months ago (in my neighborhood, at least) there were at least 5 competing broadband providers:
One Large crappy overpriced Telco;
Two DSL CLECs marketed by a dozen resellers;
One (or Two?) satellite 'dish' providers;
One huge national cable company; and
One regional cable company.
One would think, with all this competition, that we would have decent prices and maybe some modicum of customer service. But after the failure of one CLEC, the other hanging on by a thread, and the major cable company gobbled up by another - we had then, and still have, some of the highest cable and broadband prices in the United States. And customer service? I think it must be a law here that telco / cable service must suck or else.
18 months and four email addresses later, I can state that what passes for 'competition' around here sure isn't helping much.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Oddly, this information comes to me just two days after a lightning storm fried the cable modem I purchased not six months ago.
Looks like I'm going back to the lease plan. At least I can get them to replace the modem when it fries.
of course you can, simply spoof the MAC
most Intel cards pefrom this in software right on the properties page...
They're still billing me for my long distance, and threatening to shut me off if I don't pay. I switched in February when they hosed me on my T-1 for the last time. I finally got out of that fiasco, but they still keep charging me for that too, and threatening to shut off my hosting company. That contract was cancelled in April. Bastards. They're grubbing money as fast and furious as they can, because they're poised on the brink to be the next Enron. Watch and wait, they're in some real shakey shape, 6 months tops before they make the network news. Remember WorldCom and Global Crossing.
This is really interesting since just about a year ago, ATT@Home pushed for ownership of the Motorola Cybersurfer 4100 for the bargain price of $100 plus IIRC $10 less on your monthly bill. Now a year later the trout who got hooked on this one (me included) are out 100 bucks and STILL have to pay a modem fee...
I've been meaning to buy my own modem for about six months now so I could cut my bill by $10 per month. My laziness in this regard has saved me $30. Amazing.
i had a long ordeal where the tenth AT&T employed tech-support person finally admited that AT&T will port scan all of its customers and attempt to access machines offering HTTP or telnet access.... but now i know a lot more about firewalls.
there gonna raise prices for capped bandwidth?? And a DHCP set-up? NO static IP!!!!eeerrrrrr Makes no-sense to me at all. The jprice here in washington is already to high 43.00$ some change. God damn greedy people taking advantage of not being able to go with a different supplier of service in my area. I would totally avoid them in all cost if i could live with out high speed accss.the pricks!!!!
*huh* Sig? WTF?
One issue is that RH is rpm (RedHat Package Manager) based software that other Linux companies use as well: Caldera, SuSE, Turbo, Mandrake, etc., are all rpm based. To make one Linux standard they'd need to include Slackware, Debian and some more. Therefore this is a hoax, because even if they release such distro it'll be rpm as well, unless they do their own package manager, which I doubt they'll do, it'd take time and $, which they don't have.
RH's dominance in the US is also due in part to IBM's support for RH mainframe releases. Even though SuSE and Turbo were way ahead of RH in releasing their mainframe Linux software, IBM still took RH as their main Linux supplier even though RH software on S/390 or AS400 as buggy as hell. Guess what, apparently, other Linux companies being weak in tech support can't afford their engineers to focus on IBM support.
Would you believe that in Turbo there's only one tech support eng?, SuSE doesn't even have mainframe Linux support in the US, etc., and what is laughable is that while Turbo had good S/390 software it gave away support to mainframe vendor Sytek, which obiously did their own installation by tape so they can claim it as propriatory. It's a sham created by upper managment. They're destroying what's let of Linux. In other words M$ doesn't have to worry about anything.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
I hate monopolies. I'm so sick of having to send AT&T a check every month. I want competition!!
I pay close to $200.00 per month for 1 megabit
(bidirectional) DSL with a small CIDR block of
IP's. Privately owned local DSL provider.
Lots of people claiming there's 'no competition'
in broadband have deals like this available to them, but consider them too expensive.
I'm very, very happy with my expensive broadband connection.
I'd like to add one more item to my list.
- The loss of dial-up as a backup when my cable modem connectivity is down. This morning it was down for four hours.
In my lengthy discussion with a tech. support "supervisor" I was told that the dial-up numbers were discontinued because a survey revealed that "business people" mostly wanted it to access e-mail while on the road.
so, you own the modem, well it broke, and now you need one. since you dont have to lease it anymore, make THEM supply you with one!!!
just a suggestion