Comcast in Court, AT&T Gets Greedy

raindr writes "The Detroit News has this article on how comcast is going after people with modified Cable TV boxes.These fines (170k) seem a bit much to me." They apparantly send out a "bullet" to deactivate modded boxes. In other coax news,Shynedog writes "Boston.com is running a story about AT&T broadband users in the Northeast who are complaining about the unfair price hike that has been imposed on subscribers who own their own modems. It the wake of recent customer complaints, AT&T has started offering coupons to offset the monthly increase, but only for the next six months."

Comments

How our cable TV bill suddenly tripled

[Roblimo]

We subscribe to Roadrunner + TW's basic cable in Bradenton, FL. One day we get our bill and the cable portion has jumped from ~$12 to over $40. I call, they say we're getting premium cable service, they've run a system audit, they're charging us what they should have charged us all along.

I'm like, "Say what?" You suddenly decide to give us and charge us for service we never ordered? Take it off our bill.

TW Rep: "I can't do that. You're enjoying the premium service and must pay for it."

Back and forth, no supervisor around, I call back the next day. TW assumption is that we have climbed the pole and removed a filter. I haven't. Our neighbors are in the their 70s and probably haven't either. I finally get bumped far enough up the TW customer "service" chain to get the charge removed, but not until after I file a (still unanswered) complaint with the FL Dept. of Consumer Affairs does the excess charge actually come off our bill.

The installer who comes out the next day to put on the correct filter says this happens all the time, that the day before he was out at the house of another suspected "cable pirate" who was in his 80s, in a wheelchair, and on a respirator, who sure hadn't been climbing poles, and had been paying the overcharge for months until his son came to visit and noticed his oversized cable bill.

The installer said the filters were often defective, that this was the problem more often than people stealing cable service, but that the company just assumed everyone was a thief and charged them no matter what.

I talked to the system's marketing manager. He told me almost all of the people who got extra service were stealing it on purpose, which contradicted the installer's comments. I don't know who to believe, but I am suspicious.

At least in FL I have a choice of 2 cable Internet service providers and a dozen DSL providers, and it's far enough south that sat TV is clear. In MD (my other residence) my only broadband Internet alternative is Comcast, and they suck so badly I endure a phone modem here, and we're in a tree-lined valley where satellite TV won't work.

Too bad FCC Chairman Powell loves and trusts cable TV companies so much that he doesn't mind them holding defacto monopolies over bradband Internet in much of the country. He ought to go to work for one of them if he loves them so much, and get off the public payroll, since he's not willing to lift a finger to help the citizens who pay his salary keep the cable TV operators from screwing them.

- Robin

Calling it "code" isn't quite right...

[Raetsel]

This is analog cable they are talking about here. Calling it "code" makes it sound much more complicated than it actually is. Not that it could harm a VCR (or TIVO) anyway...

I remember the last time the "magic bullet" issue came up. This was several years ago, and it was TCI (the company AT&T bought out) doing it, IIRC.

Shortly after news of the coup hit the press, I started hearing about "magic bullet filters." They were sold under various names (both vague and unabashedly direct!), and were a shockingly simple notch filter.

That's it -- just a little circuit and resistor to keep the signal levels in safe limits for your pirate converter box. What I just read sounds very similar to what I remember:

1. TCI went to General Instrument (the cable box manufacturer), and said "Okay, if you wanted to pirate cable, how would you do it?"

2. General Instrument got hold of some of the "aftermarket" equipment, and reverse-engineered it.

   (We're two R-E steps out, now... first the pirates were figuring out the scrambling and getting into "test mode," the second was General Instrument figuring out what differences there were between the 'official' systems and the aftermarket ones.)

3. General Instrument figures out a signal they can inject into the cable system that will not affect 'legal' boxes, but will overdrive sections of the aftermarket chips -- thus doing irreperable damage, and rendering the cable box inoperative.

4. TCI injects this signal into their system, and everyone who complains about dead cable receives a rather shocking bill. (If I remember news reports properly, it was $500 - $1000 and a promise to behave. It's been a while.)

Memory is a bit rusty, but that's pretty much how I remember it happening. I can't believe this old trick still works...