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Cable Companies Saying No to WiFi Sharing
blastedtokyo writes: "According to this story from CNet, Time Warner Cable is going after people who share their wireless connections via NYC Wireless or other public share networks. All we need is a warchalking symbol that conveys 'I'm a lawyer who doesn't have time to figure out how to set up a WEP link.'" This might remind you of a story posted the other day about other ways cable ISPs are trying to lock down their networks.
Fault loves the past, worry loves the future, but content enjoys the present.
It was about time that the cable companies started trying to lock down their services. Everyone else is. Music, Radio, Phone, now cable. Go figure
"Greed is for amateurs. Disorder, chaos, anarchy: now that's fun!"
If they are worried about people giving bandwidth away. Instead of chasing off potential customers. Why don't they just charge for bandwidth usage like a lot of them are anywaiz. That way, even if someone gives it away using wireless, they get their money and everyone is somewhat happy.
Plus, it doesn't give them the evil ogre look when they just try to make a profit. (At least not as much so.)
~ kjrose
We're paying them for our connection. Why do they care what we do with it after that? They've already got their money. And if you're like the majority of cable modem subscribers, you're capped anyway, so it's not like you're using more bandwidth than you're paying for, regardless of how many people you have sharing it at any given time.
If you don't play by the rules, you don't get to play at all. That's fair. You pay the bill knowing the limitations, so don't bitch and whine when you get caught.
Want to share your own connection? Get a dedicated line - a T3 or something. Then you can play all you want, as long as you can pay. That's how it works in a capitalist society.
This is the same story, just from another news organization!!!
Isn't there enough repetition on slashdot already??
I don't see the problem. Anyone who allows access to his network, competes with the ISPs at a price they cannot match, while they have to pay the increased costs for the extra band width. It's either this, or paying per byte.
I own a small ISP, so I fully agree that it's within ISPs rights to limit the connection to only those who purchase it for consumer grade services. If you're a business or reseller customer, you can purchase a T1 or higher cost/bandwidth circuit and do whatever you want with it. If a ~$50/month residential user ends up giving his access to the whole neighboorhood, there won't be any money to run the services. We all know free Internet doesn't work. So suck it up and pay for your own service so you can have reliable and decent service from your providers.
I thought about becoming a lawyer, but then I looked at the starting salaries, and decided I didn't want to go back to school in order to take a pay cut.
Help find a cure for Gidget.
As an Apple Airport user with a secured station who is looking to get into cable internet in the next six months, this is a critical question for me to answer. Guess I need to talk to my local cable company personally.
I don't share my wireless network with anyone. I have it on my laptop and my pda (The awesome despite some performance issues e740) and I have my AP set up thanks to Linksys's update to only allow those two to connect via WEP and MAC address. So if they tried to connect to it, they will see it, but they will also not be able to connect. That is unless the Cable Guy is a hacker too, which I doubt (what hacker would want to do that job!). Besides, don't those freaks who share it know that they risk their own systems by running it unencrypted and unrestricted?? Also, they lose the ability to do cool stuff like acess your desktop data amd hardware from PDA or Laptop(if they turn on sharing, anyone can see their stuff...stupid move). They also can't share printers like I do with my laptop! ;)
Gorkman
If you're so much better than all of us at programming, why are you an Anonymous Coward??
"Greed is for amateurs. Disorder, chaos, anarchy: now that's fun!"
Many cable companies seem to think that trying to restrict their users from wireless solutions is a good idea, but AT&T seems to have the right approach.
i p.asp
http://www.attbroadband.com/homenetworking
redirects to
http://www.computers4sure.com/linksys/store/att_z
If you drop in your zip code you will see that AT&T not only doesn't deny you wireless but in fact offers a one-stop-shopping for wireless products from Linksys.
So, while this specific article is about sharing your wifi with people that don't live in your apartment/home/discarded fridge box, I have to wonder if AT&T will even care about such sharing. They're pushing wifi as a solution, so they have to expect this sort of thing to happen...
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
The basic problem here is that some people feel the need to "bring it to the masses" - for whatever reason. I see a couple of solutions:
1. Turn off the service on these thieves.
2. Acknowledge the fact that this is happening and place a cap of some sort on their monthly transfers or bandwidth.
3. Acknowledge the fact that this is happening and charge them for usage accordingly.
4. Acknowledge this is happening and set up a public information infrastructure, where the cost would be shared by businesses, providers AND taxpayers. This is akin to setting up public streetlamps, wastebaskets, water fountains, etc. The public has shown an interest in this type of thing, so it's alternately good business and good public policy - something you don't see too much of.
PERSONALLY - I prefer the fourth option.....
I help organize the Houston Wireless Users Group, and the PhotonSphere, a site dedicated to wireless freenet advocacy. A few days ago, we received an email from the Electronic Frontier Foundation concerning what is happening in New York. Basically, the EFF is searching for regional and local ISPs who have Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) that allow you to do what you want with the bandwidth you purchase from them. If you are familiar with your AUP, please visit The Sphere and post what you know so that we may pass this information along to the EFF. The full letter from the EFF may be found here as well.
Because rightly or wrongly, many PHBs fear that attacks over wireless networks would subject them to legal action by the victims of said attacks.
gah, damn subject lenght limits.
"AT&T offers wireless options - will they restrict?" was what it was supposed to say...
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
I do not understand why they are doing this. Are they losing money? Why? After all, their costumer agreement is either one of:
- Guaranteed bandwidth with a fixed charge
- Pay-per-MB, or
- A mixture of both.
Thus they charge for the traffic on their leased links, regardless of wether it is generated by the costumer or Wi-Fi free-riders.Another point is that they lease the link on a particular costumer, and the costumer can do with the link whatever he pleases. If only the costumer can use the link, then that means his family/friends/flatmates cannot?? I think this is absurd.
In the end, it is up to the costumer himself to regulate traffic on his local network. If he gets charged a lot, or his connection is slow because there are a lot of free-riders taking advantage of his open Wi-Fi system, then he can limit access (by allowing only specific MAC addresses to connect). I think this is easy enough.
Also consider this. When a company hires a leased line/ADSL connection, they do not face a limit on the number of terminals they will have connected to their LAN. What does it matter to the provider? They still get compensated for the increased traffic.
I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)
Customers saying "Fuck Off" to Cable Companies
...someone got a bunch of people together in midtown manhattan who had cordless phones and said, "Hey - I have this great idea, why don't we all share our phone lines with each other? It'll be great, and bring wireless phone service to underserved areas." While I think the practicality of this is a bit daunting, just bear with me for the purpose of the analogy.
I admit that I don't know a whole lot about NYC Wireless, but if I'm getting the gist of things from their page, they essentially want to have everyone possible share their 802.11b bandwidth so the internet can be free and wireless for all. As altruistic as this sounds, I have to agree with the ISPs that this presents all sorts of problems as far as network security and is perfectly within their rights to limit.
Read your service agreement with AT&T Broadband, or Road Runner, or Time Warner, or whoever you go through - chances are there's some clause in your contract that tells you not to subcontract the service out to others. If you want to run your own ISP, or offer wireless broadband to all, that's for you to decide - but they're perfectly within their rights to tell you to go scratch and get your own T1 from another provider.
(I should add that I'm a law student, so my fate is sealed as far as the lawyer jokes go.)
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
It's not like people are charging others to use their connection, they're giving it away. Are they going to try to stop me from letting my roommate (who I don't charge) hook his PC up to my lan so he can get online?
I don't necessarily see a problem with sharing a connection with a neighbour or two and splitting the bill. Sure, it most likely goes against your TOS, but it's not THAT big of a deal that your ISP is going to come knocking.
But, having large public WiFi networks, inviting hundreds (thousands?) of people to use it daily, and using a bunch of cable/DSL links to run it? Dontcha think thats pushing things just a *little* too far? The Cable/DSL companies, contrary to what a lot of people think, *are* trying to turn a profit. Just because you're paying $50 or so a month for a broadband link doesn't mean you've got the right to go ahead spread it around!
"It's very shortsighted that they are developing such a hostile relationship with early adopters of their own technology," said Anthony Townsend, a spokesman for NYCwireless.
I fail to see how a for profit company is being hostile by enforcing the terms outlined in its TOS, when ultimately you signed on the dotted line and agreed to adhere to it!
I'm all for free or cheap public WiFi networks, but you'd think they'd at least look at getting some legit links. Seems kind of silly to me to just go ahead and set everything up, advertise it, and then expect that TW/whoever else isn't going to be upset about it.
I have a cable connection through Comcast, and one of the terms of use is that the data line be only connected to one computer. If you want more than one computer in your house to have a cable connection, you pay extra every month. The usage agreement specifically forbids sharing bandwidth through routers and the like. It is technically illegal. I would love to switch to an ISP that allows me to split a connection, but (surprise!) Comcast has a monopoly on cable, and Verizon's DSL isn't any better. Comcast's way of enforcing this policy is by requiring (due to "unknown service problems") a visit from a technician, who, while "fixing" your cable modem, probably does a quick peek for routers.
They're not even going after unsecured APs in general.
They (and they have made this clear in the article) are only going after those who publically advertised their open APs on the NYC Wireless site.
As long as you don't publish your name on a site advertising that you're giving away free wireless, you're fine.
And as to NYC Wireless, etc. - They simply need to anonymize their operations so that AP providers can't be linked easily to cable modem accounts. Right now, the site is providing a name and address, which makes it easy for RR to bust them.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
At my apartment, I have two room mates, we share the cost of a cable internet connection, between the three of us there are 8 computers (i have 1 laptop for taking to class, one workstation, and two servers) and between the three of us, we have over 80 gigs of mp3s, 150+ movies, and anything else under the sun. we also have WiFi for the laptops, so where's the line drawn, when does it breech the contract? what's the difference between sharing with my two roomates, all of which are bandwidth hogs, or my elderly neighbor who wants to check her email, and cruise around on the net? most people aren't anything like me,
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
If im paying for the bandwidth ( im sure its capped anyway, so im not 'cheating' anyone ), and i accept the legal risk of what goes across, why does it matter that i share?
and yes i know its their lines, their AUP, but still if im paying.. why bitch?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This kind of stupidity, along with the crackdown on "bandwidth hogs", is all due to the shortsightedness of those creating the subscriber contracts and AUPs. If the ISPs would simply provide clear policy on bandwidth usage and set something that both their customers and they could live with, this kind of witch hunt would be unnecessary. We have cable modem providers banning servers regardless of whether they are public or private (for the subscriber's use only). They are banning 802.11 because they think it might cause a bandwidth problem. They block ports for applications ranging from web servers to P2P networks.
If there is a usage limit, spell it out. If you want more money for more usage, publish a price schedule. But quit targeting early adopters who are just using their connections in new and innovative ways.
Mine says I "may not connect more than 5 computers at a single location" and that I can't "resell the Service or any portion thereof," but it doesn't say anything about giving it away for free (assuming fewer than 5 computers at a time are connected).
Telocity is great. I have nothing bad to say about them.
does this apply to the business class of service which has a considerably large price.
My company would like to connect 2 of our offices through the same connection.
LAMME LAME LAME LaME-
There's no money like blood money!
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Whatever they say they'll do, they can't have any control. If they say you cannot share your connection how will they be sure that you are not sharing? Even using an regular eth connection with your neighbor, what can do?
Once the data arrived your computer you can pass it anywhere you want, you can send it through your eth connection our wifi, or whatever, you can even throw it back to the internet. The point is that They can't do anything, simply because then can't know what you are doing with all the data arriving in your computer.
What amazes me the most is that the Cable Companies seems to don't know this. Why don't they know it? What is happening? Do they only recruit lawyers? Don't they have technical consulting there? Don't they have a employer with a QI 90+ to tell them that it probably won't work and the best is to consult somebody who knows what s/he's doing?
This shows the quality of the service we are buying, we, nothing more then geeks, know more about their bussiness then themselves.
Shame...
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Cable companies don't have the resources to go hunt down casual sharers ("casual" being defined as up to at least 17 college students in a house - I set up an IP Masq server for a bunch of friends, and that's the # of users there - TW never cared, and never went after ANY of the 329820442234 apartments using it.
In fact, despite the contract saying it was verboten, TW employees would hang out on the Linux support forums and sometimes even give unofficial IP Masq advice. (This was the Ithaca, NY area)
The difference in this situation is - The users that got "the letter" advertised on the nycwireless site that they were running an open AP, saying, "Hey everyone, feel free to use my cable modem."
If it's for yourself and your friends, they don't care. If you're providing unmonitored open access to strangers, that's a different story.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I used to know the owner of a cable company. He used to scream and yell about how everybody was stealing from them, and the government was raping them. Cable companies are super paranoid about losing a dollar anyway. If you have ever seen the cable commercials that ask you to turn you your neighbors in for cable theft. Yet they have managed to raise rates on us, and restrict service further.
Epilogue - He sold his share in the cable company a couple years ago, for 90 million dollars. And this was a "small" cable co. in West-Virginia.
I suggest that ISPs simply insert bandwidth limiters to prevent customers from overusing their connections, rather than charging them extra, or going to war with them.
For the ISP/customer relation, the one and only question is the contract between them. Is bandwith sharing prohibited or not.
If it is, WIFI or not, the customer is wrong.
One more annoying aspect is the fact that more and more law enforcement agency ask ISP to keep log of connection informations. This lead me to think that WiFi enthusiast sharing their connection, acting as local ISP, need something like the WGAP.
What's this ? The Wandering Guest Access Protocol is an idea I work on in my (few) spare times since a few month, permiting for a user sharing bandwith to deny responsability about some part of the traffic emanating from his network, notably by using an authentication of the Wandering Guest using its network. But there are so many legal and technical challenges I doubt I can publish any lifetime soon a satisfying presentation. Anybody wanting free WIFI networks being acceptables to the establishment must think about legal aspects. Else, the post 20010911 effect will provide the perfect excuse for the telcos to remove competition.
I don't get it, isn't Road Runner rate limited? If so, then I'm paying for bandwidth that I'm sure doesn't get used every month. Why should they care what I do with my spare bandwidth; it's not exactly if we're talking about pirated bandwidth here. Besides, who's to say that I'm not trying to set up wireless w/ DHCP for my own purposes? Whether they put this in some AUP or not, I think they might be on some shaky legal ground.
Yeah, but I can go to sleep at night knowing that I'm not a scumbag.
:-) oh that will be a pretty sight!
ALL LAWYERS ARE SCUMBAGS. just like bankers, yall are just a bunch of morally bankrupt leeches that are the cause of all problems in society..
One day, the people will revolt.. and the lawyers will be the first ones hanging from the trees..
They can be sure you're sharing their service ONLY IF YOU ADVERTISE IT PUBLICALLY.
Only people who advertised their wide-open APs on nycwireless got "the letter" - And TW said they're not actively hunting down 802.11 users - These particular users, in TWs own words, "Waved a banner in front of us" saying they were breaking their TOS.
TW found out because they effectively TOLD TW they were breaking the rules.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I use WiFi to connect all my computers at home to a single router using NAT. How can AT&T (or whoever) differentiate between legitimate "in-house" use and someone who is sharing with his friends/neighbors/total strangers? Just because you use WEP doesn't mean that you aren't sharing your connection with "outsiders".
:( It's a real catch-22 for geeks.
Moreover, AT&T charges extra for each IP address you need in addition to the one they give you as part of the basic service. If they ban WiFi, I'll have to connect everything through the cable itself, which means paying extra for the 3 or 4 additional IP addresses. Makes me wonder if there's another agenda here besides getting rid of the leeches.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I honestly wonder how many people are sharing their cable connection through WiFi. In my case, it's moot point because I'm surrounded by trees. You can't pick up my signal unless you are physically on my property, but I must admit that I probably wouldn't share even if I could. Don't misunderstand me, having been without broadband for years and years with a jacked up phone line that wouldn't allow more than a 23.6 connection, I would love to bring an end to someone else's misery, but the problem is liability. If someone uses my connection to do something...questionable, guess who gets held accountable
And I no longer want to have all these damn cables.
I've had a LAN in my house (and the next house, and the next appartment, and the next appartment, and the next appartment, and the next appartment and I'm putting one in my store,) since Apple came out with the Mac in '84.
I'm really getting sick of running cable, digging through walls, running cable races and tying up cable with TieWraps every time I move (absolute,) and every time my wife changes the decor (if the equipment position moves.)
I LIKE 802.11.
If the signal bleeds and my traffic goes up a bit, who gives a fuck? I'm paying for it anyway.
Its not like the ISPs and carriers AREN'T geting their money. They ARE.
I'm paying.
It's MY connection and I'M PAYING.
What the fuck is their complaint?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I like your sig line, but you might try adding deity/deities... you might be excluding some polythiests...
My Stuff: pspChess and foobar2000 plugins
You may wish to look into some things before you run your mouth and call people thieves. If your ISP allows networks, than this is perfectly legit. You pay them for the service, they provide it. If they give you unlimited bandwidth and permission to run a network then they have no right to cry when you use it.
do not read this line twice.
Do you think you should be able to bring some friends to share your plate to an all you can eat restaurant? Or that you should be able to take home as much leftovers that you can carry?
The Internet is comprised of systems connected to the net via others that are already connected. These systems then extend the net by connecting new entities via their connection and so on down the line. This continues for as long as someone is willing to share their bandwidth, usually at a price. Without a specifically written contract, I do not understand how these companies can view this as an illegality. It is precisely what they themselves are doing.
Unlike cable television access theft, where it is the duplication of data that is being sold, bandwidth is a limited commodity and you cannot use the exact same bits that are being used by whomever you gave them to. It is more analogous to allowing a guest of your home to use your telephone. As that guest is taking up the entire "bandwidth" of your phone for their conversation, you cannot use that same phone line yourself. I don not believe that phone companies could legally establish the practice of fining or disconnecting your service should someone other than yourself use your phone.
There is no law that states that it is mandatory to be a Fortune 500 company in order to resell or give away bandwidth you have purchased. This behavior is a very good example on how the Internet is being altered and stunted by the corporate machine who now views the net as their property. They now feel that not only do they have rights to your data, what you can or cannot send or download, but also in the manner of how you allow data to eventually be placed on your wire.
OK all you free market weenies you weren't even born when Ma Bell made you pay for every phone extention in your own house. They metered the voltage on the line and if they detected a drop the operator broke into your call and told you you were breaking the law and needed to pay for the extra extensions.
Is that the hill you want to die on?
4. Acknowledge this is happening and set up a public information infrastructure . . . This is akin to setting up public streetlamps, wastebaskets, water fountains, etc.
If that would indeed be how it worked I'd be all for it; however, what would probably end up happening is that we'd see the same thing that happened to local phone service. That is, we'd pay our exorbitant monthly fee to Verizon and then have some ridiculous "Universal Service Charge" thrown on top of that.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
I'd like the job of driving around with an omni on my roof wardriving all the cable modem territories looking for wifi sharing. Document the node, send it off to legal, keep driving.
"Can you share it now?" "No" "Good"
Get paid to wardrive! Nifty. And hey, I've got experience!
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
If people keep piggybacking off consumer broadband connections, then it will just force the ISPs to go to a bandwidth metering charging system. So unless you want to pay per megabyte instead of the 'unlimited' service you currently get, stop letting people use your consumer connection. And when the ISPs _do_ go to a per megabyte charging plan, don't bitch here about it and wonder why they are doing it. I'll just point you to this article.
If i've paid for the bandwidth, why am I not allowed to shove it over WiFi and have a few mates use it? What is the difference between that and a Linux box running IP Masquerading hooked up to a home network?
Unless they are charging people for using the bandwidth (ie. reselling it) then once they've purchased the bandwidth then they're pretty much free to use it how like like.
(unless the terms and conditions they signed in the first place expressly disallow this)
2. Acknowledge the fact that this is happening and place a cap of some sort on their monthly transfers or bandwidth.
I'm surprised there isn't a default monthly cap at the moment. It could be set to something very high that would cause a problem for only a select few people but would easily knock out WiFi sharers.
Mind you, if they advertise unlimited bandwidth then this is going to be a problem. I do however see the side of the network company who offer bandwidth only to find that they lose a number of customers simply because one person is sharing out his.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
But they disallow you from re-distributing the service - for a fee or otherwise. While these people are not theives, they are commiting fraud.
I'm with NTL cable for my internet connection. We can run servers just fine, with some slight restrictions (webservers must not be high traffic or pornographic, ftp servers must be password protected, and no VPN)
This is from their AUP...
17. Servers
(i) You are solely responsible for the setup and security of all servers that you may run on your PC. You are also responsible for all traffic that may pass through your PC. Please note that your account may be subject to immediate suspension or disconnection without notice, if any security breaches do occur or any server causes any degradation in network performance. You should also note that running servers on your PC may cause your own connection to operate in a less than optimal manner.
(ii) Webservers: see Para 8, Websites (this referes to them terminating your connection if there is excessivly high traffic, or pornography)
(iii) Remote Access: All remote access ( FTP; SSH ; PC Anywhere etc) must be password protected & the address must not be publicly advertised.
(iv) Game: If the game in question has a password/IP access restriction option this must be used. Your IP address must not be publicly advertised on Gaming sites etc.
(vi) Other: You may run other servers but be aware that ntl reserve the right to restrict access to them should they cause network problems or should we receive complaints.
(vii) We may, at our discretion, run manual or automatic systems to determine your compliance with our User Policy (e.g. scanning for "open mail relays"). You are deemed to have granted permission for this limited intrusion onto your network or machine.
Please note that should we receive any complaints about any server that you may be running that your Internet access may be suspended without notice pending further investigation.
18. Use of Virtual Private Network (VPN)
As stated above, the ntl Internet and/or Interactive Services are for residential use only and we do not support the use of VPN. If we find you are using VPN via the ntl IP network we may instruct you to stop using it and you must comply with this request. This is in order to prevent problems to ntl (eg network performance) and other Internet users.
I run a webserver and ftp server and have had no trouble at all with them. It's a great service!
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
Why do people immediately want to involve the government? Would you quit trying to spend other people's money?
The cable companies should, rightfully, either shut off service or charge by the byte. Frankly, charging by the byte is ludicrous for the residential sector -- virtually everything is moving to flat rate. Consumers like flat rate because it allows you to budget far more easily.
Want a "public" wireless network? Start a company, decide how much it'll cost, and bill subscribers appropriately. No, it's not this pipe dream of a free-for-all wireless network where you can plug in anonymously and do whatever you want. Maybe it'll be viable in 10-15 years, but right now it's not.
How the FUCK did this get modded up? It's completely incomprehensible!
I have Road Runner here in Minnesota, and they don't seem concerned about me running mta/sshd/httpd/nntpd*. In fact, they just emailed me to let me know that my current version of sendmail is vulnerable to the percent hack. Good for them.
* if you're running sshd, why are you exposing your vncserver rather than ssh-ing in and port forwarding?
--
E_NOSIG
And I was going to be a lawyer, but they found out my parents were married.
These companies should not be free to decide who their customers are. And should not be free to decide how their services are used. They are providing a public utility under a public license.
This is not like buying soap or corn flakes. This is like getting electric service and using it for whatever I damn well like. Their are bandwidth issues to be accounted for for sure, but that is it.
These are just a bunch of greedy bastards that want to charge me hundreds of dollars a month for services that have virtually no real operating costs and could be provided for with a minimum of techical knowledge
But apparently we are going back to the days when Ma Bell takes 30 years to implement touch tone service or call waiting or the next great thing and then pat themselves on the back (and charge us an arm and a leg) for a job well done. Jeez... I can't wait to be charged per email or per authorized web page I load into my next generation cell phone that costs me $300 and displays ads from the phone companies in the middle of my 911 call!
Just a few years ago these same companies were arguing that people shouldn't be able to hook up their own phones to the network because of the risks. Now we see that the risk was that people would take it upon themselves to revolutionize communications first with BBS and then with the inter connected internet and email, thus circumventing the big bells.
People easily forget that the phone company didn't want the internet and it was Congress and the Universities that forced it to open it's lines to data traffic. Let's not let them put in tolls at every corner. Keep the air free.
So does this mean. the 2 - 150ft Cat5 cables patched into separate hub dangling out of my window mean I have to stop now?
thelikesofwhich.com
My fiancee is in law school but she's not a scumbag.
Of course, she doesn't want to be a lawyer anyways, just a mommy eventually, so I guess that exempts her from being a true lawyer. Anyways, women are wierd.
What kind of a headline is that? It's about as obvious as "Ice Cream Company Declines to Pass Out Free Ice Cream" or "Soda Retailer Declares 'No Free Refills'"
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I am an employee of Time Warner Cable's Business class in North Carolina, and our policies say nothing against hooking up wireless equipment to cable. I know that NYC runs slightly differently, but I find this to be rather odd.
Our AUP says that you can't resell our service, which is standard for most ISPs really, but if someone wants to give it away, like a landlord with 'included' service, then it's ok. I hope this doesn't set a precident, but I have talked to people around the office, and we don't see anything wrong with it.
I do know however, that 'somewhere' we are investigating several new service options, which include wireless as a last mile solution. Perhaps NYC would be the first rollout, and we don't want it to be stomped on by public networks using our service.
I am going to try to convince the people in this region against stopping open wireless networks. I hope the ISPs don't do this in Boston, as I am moving there soon.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
People (especially those who reads slashdot!) like flat fees, unlimited time, unlimited bandwidth.
As I'm sure everyone knows, bandwidth is not free. The cable companies price their product selling for typical household (or business, on different pay scales of course) use--of course variations in use do exist, but those who just use email balance out the power users (or the file sharers) etc.
If people want to share their connections with everyone and use that much more bandwidth, I'm sure the cable companies would be glad to charge you much more for your connection--maybe if we got some petitions going for per bandwidth charges we could get the cable providers to ok this! Anyone interested, I think this could work
AT&T is a piece of shit company. I never thought I'd be happy about the day SBC (Southwestern Bell) could offer Long Distance. Since AT&T could never bill me correctly for either my long distance and internet dial up account I switched everything from AT&T.
AVOID AT&T AT ALL COSTS or it will cost you a lot in the long run.
You've PAID for the bandwidth. This is NOT a case of using more than what you paid for, so shouldn't you be able to do with it as you see fit? I should be able to set up a machine on my front door and let people stroll up and use it! This is another case of coporations trying to stick to old business models. I agree that paying by the amount of bandwidth you use probably makes more sense. Until then, yep, the cable companies are just being greedy.
...///...
Exec: If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere...
10 seconds later...
Exec: OH HAHAHA! FOOLED YOU! YOU CANT TAKE IT ELSEWHERE BECAUSE WE'RE A MONOPOLY!!! MWAHAHAHAAA!
(rolls around the floor laughing like a giddy schoolgirl, with $1000 bills all over the room)
through your WIFI Hub, is another car crossing the bridge on your dime.
If they were all using YOUR Computer, then your analogy might hold.
You are the same type of person who thinks it is okay to download all the MP3s you want for free because record companies are evil.
Same here, you can steal all the bandwidth you want because the cable companies are evil.
Obviously companies like Excite@home went under because they weren't making enough money. Maybe you should consider that when you go stealing more bandwidth. Oh yeah... I bet you were bitching when your cable internet went down from that... then bitched again when they raised the price to bring it back.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Your mention of securing machines brings up a very good point relative to this. You can expect that, as wireless products get easier to work with (right now the stats on ease of use with Wi-Fi are appalling), they will be showing up in more homes. How many of these folks will have clue one about how to set these networks up to prevent roaming access? How many will really care?
In the end the providers will try to prvent this excess usage from happening, but they can hardly take on all of the people who simply forget to lock down their networks. They'll take on those who advertise, but then with the growing volume of wireless networks, will people really need to be advertising? You'll just go to wherever you want, whip out your roaming software, and be on-line. If anything your problems getting connected will likely be tied more to interference than lack of open networks.
Overall I'd expect that there will be a slight increase in overall network usage because of this extra roaming and this will end up causing a slight increase in prices and a balance will be achieved. The providers will go after egregious abusers and the rest of us will happily roam without them ever noticing.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
i could understand why they're making a big deal about people with open wireless connections that dont have any security. I use wireless around my house because it would have been a huge hasstle to wire it up. Granted my wireless network is secure and I'm not sharing with the neighbors. But if they wanna get rid of all wireless connections i think that is a load of crap. And technically they have no bisiness looking into things past the modem because that's where their support ends....
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
So because a government-created and -regulated monopoly abused its customers, the free market doesn't work?
Fucking Money Hungry Republican
Handing out WiFi to others free is just like running cable to others that don't pay for. It should be a criminal offense, unless you want to pay per wifi client
I don't understand - most, if not all, people readily accept that it would be illegal for me to subscribe to cable television, then turn around and rebroadcast that programming to my neighborhood.
So why do people feel they're entitled to subscribe to cable internet, and rebroadcast that service?
If I pay for a meal, and don't eat all of it, then, yes, I can feed it to whomever I want
Wrong. The analog of creating a public wi-fi hub for everyone is not paying for a meal (of which you pay for one dish for a price), but going into a buffet, and passing out plates of food to everyone outside the restaurant. Sure, if you paid for X amount of byes per month, and you don't use all of it, then, yes, you should be able to share what's left to whomever you want. But your analogy doesn't apply here.
Set up your VPN to use port 443.
It is no more different than the power companies. The only difference I see is the need of the switches. Where I live (PR) Verizon charges 125 monthly for a T1, and if you want an internet connection with it is $1800. Why is it so much?
Wait.... what if TW offered two different plans.... one for individuals who want unlimited bandwidth at a flat price, one for people who want to do whatever they please with their connection and are willing to pay by bandwidth?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Capitalism works on competing businesses raising capital and dividing markets. The resulting competition gets companies, and individuals, moving forward.
Consumer broadband languished for years until both cable and twisted pair solutions were available. This means you can buy residential broadband from either your cable company or from your phone company. Or you could try Covad, Speakeasy, Wifi Metro, or other services.
As any good market, the top broadband player will make most of the money, the second player will make a reasonable return, the third player loses a little money and hopes someone pulls an Enron, and everyone else has a dream. The market isn't yet mature, and there are business uncertainties about marking the boundry of the market and dividing costs. This is how people get into arguments on owning the loop to the phone company's Central Office, or the home owner owning the right to move the drop cable to a cable overbuild, or the right to dump the ISP side of an internet connection and pay only for physical routing.
It's also how people argue about costs. One way of looking at wireless internet nodes and household private networks is that they all usurp service and place undue burden on the provider; an open network is theft. The other way is to view the service as providing a utility, like power, to a residence; an open node is like running an extension cord out to the front yard. The market will sort this out.
SBC nee Pacific Bell doesn't mind if you run a local network or open node, and has a long history of not worrying about extra phone extensions. Cable companies have a long history of worrying about cable descramblers, people using cable for two televisions in the house, and people using cable for public display. The terms and enforcements follow the corporate histories.
Who is correct? Let the dollars decide.
Chasm/Thaila
P.s.: Looking for a Silicon Valley SE to sell products to developers? Email me at jobhunt@truegift.com
The buffet analogy is perfect in this case. In your toll bridge case, the car would have to expand or contract based on the number of people on board, which it doesn't. Think of it as a gate of a certain fixed width and you're selling tickets for people to pass through. Five fat people can pass through side-by-side, or ten skinny ones. Would you rather be selling five tickets or ten?
Ideally cable providers should be throtteling bandwidth and providing bandwidth service levels. If they sell you 1.5Mbps for $50 a month, you should be able to download at 1.5Mbps all year long, every second of the day. But then you shouldn't be able to ever burst 6Mbps. However, this isn't the case with most providers. Comcast provides me with what they term a peak of 1.5Mbps, but in actual fact I often get much, much more than that. Depending on the time of day and day of week, I can max at 6Mbps. If they're not having a bandwidth crunch in my area, that might be fine, but if they're hurting and still not capping the bandwidth, whose fault is that? Certainly theirs. I don't know if bandwidth throtteling is such a technically challenging issue, but it seems that enforcing download caps in MB/month rather than bits/second is taking the easy way out.
Its the same justification that so many use for piracy. If you use free wireless, you haven't payed for the bandwidth, thus the cable/dsl/etc provider proclaims it has lost a subscriber and it equals a loss. Now do you see why anti-piracy is a farce used to essentially force commercial software onto your computers and money out of your pockets?
Plenty of money and the right lobbyists/lawyeres and you can do whatever you want anyway. Too bad all the rich geeks were too busy buying electronic toys and investing in shady/useless businesses.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
will the water company start proceedings if you give someone a glass of water? Maybe the power company will insist that your windows aremirrored so none of THEIR light gets out. This is fucking outrageous - if you've paid these pricks for the bandwidth, then it's yours to do with as you please.
That was classic intercourse!
This is why I use DSL. The phone company doesn't care. You pay for some speed down, and some speed up. They are just passing it onto whatever ISP you choose. I use a Linux Friendly ISP myself. They could care less if I setup a website, or serve games. I can put as many computers as I want. If I want static IPs they'll route a many as I want to pay for (I use a /28 myself.) As long as I don't send spam or have an open relay they are cool with it all.
but I don't think that this one's gonna pass the Turing Test anytime soon. Gibberish. Or Aspergers. Same thing really.
That was classic intercourse!
I would definitly go for the metered plan, as I don't use as much as I thought I would... however, it's people like me that the cable company is hoping for, to balance out the heavy users... I don't think they would do that.
I just like having a fast connection when I do use it.
Snooze and you lose your sushi.
Uh, Thieves? How so? You mean they don't pay their cable bills every month?
What's that you say? They do?
Then how are they thieves?
Isn't that like saying : Anyone who redistributes water supplied by the public water department by letting strangers have a drink is a Thief. Which means that owners of buildings and malls that have public water fountains are Thieves!
The bandwidth has been paid for, so the cable company has no right to decide how it is being used. If what you meant to say was that the price of that bandwidth did not reflect the cost to the cable company -- too bad, they should learn to price it properly.
That said, I agree with your fourth option. Any possibility of getting your legal representatives interested?
If there is a usage limit, spell it out. If you want more money for more usage, publish a price schedule. But quit targeting early adopters who are just using their connections in new and innovative ways.
... like to hear from people who run ISPs to see if this theory makes any sense.
Perhaps the contract is working as designed.
I hear that a small fraction of customers use most of the bandwidth. Turn that around, and it says a large fraction of customers are paying too much money. If billing went metered, competition might eventually drive down the price of broadband for most users to the point where the provider couldn't make any money.
Just speculation
-- p
..changes.
Until you pay rates on the Kilobyte, the providers have every right whatsoever, both legally and morally, to prevent you from sharing your connection.
Right now, most services in the US allow subscribers to buy an unlimited amount of transmission at a fixed rate. For example, you might pay $50 a month for a 768k downstream connection.
Compare this to the electric company, which charges you variable rates -- you use more electricity, you pay more cash. The electrical companies probably don't care if you run a line to your poor neighbor's shack -- other than the risk associated with you frying yourself and knocking out the power grid, the only thing they have to concern themselves with is collecting additional revenues for the added kWh.
ISPs are the exact opposite. They let you transfer as much data as you want, but they limit how quickly you can send and receive it. With unlimited transmission rates, they get the same amount of money from you if you transfer 1M or 10T in a single month. They make loads of money on the 1M, and stand to lose quite a bit on the 10T. ISP's assume you won't have 768K of traffic 24/7 for an entire billing cycle -- and this is how they make money.
Simple logic: if more people use your connection, more data is transferred. The ISP begins to lose lots of money. Eventually, even at the fixed bandwidth rate you're paying for, the ISP loses. If you're paying per K, M, or G, suddenly, the ISPs won't care HOW many people you share your connection with -- they'll receive money proportional to the amount of data you and your leeches transmit.
This isn't a big deal, and I'm surprised that it's taken the ISPs this long to jump on the issue.
And they want to charge you a fee for each additional computer on your network.
My future's determined by Thieves, thugs, and vermin -- The Offspring
They are not banning 802.11, and nor could they if they wanted. 802.11 is a transport mechanism.. your cable modem has no IDEA what types of transport are being used downstream.
What they ARE banning is the sharing of bandwidth with whoever happens to be close your house. Totally different. You can still WiFI till your hearts content, they just do want you to provide your WiFI connection to anyone with the ability to connect to it.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
The problem is that they can't tell the roaming visitor from the freeloading full-time neighbor, so they treat both of them as Eeeevil Cable Thieves instead of either realizing that offering friendly 802.11 service for visitors makes you more likely to buy broadband (either theirs or DSL) (so they should encourage it), or finding a way to charge $5/month for roamer service and get extra revenue from these new customers as long as they can tell a full-timer (who they can hope to get $40/month from) from a light user.
It's a continuation of the industry-dominant policy of suicidal cluelessness. A few of the cable companies get it, and let you offer servers at home, which encourages you to use broadband, but most don't.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Now, let me get this straight. I pay $50 for access to TimeWarner Road Runner. For that, I get broadband bandwidth (which usually ranges from 50 (on below avg. sites) to 800 (under good conditions). I get this bandwidth, and the deal is that I get UNLIMITED ACCESS.
So that means I could be on the net 24/7 and they'd have no cause to complain.
But no matter how long I'm on the net, the bandwidth i get at any one point doesn't change. I always get ~200-300KB/s (avg).
So, if I'm not going to use it 24/7, shouldn't I have the right to let other people use it, so I can get my money's worth? If I let other people come in my house and use my cable modem, Time Warner wouldn't gripe about that? What's the difference between that and me having something where I can broadcast my access to neighbors?
There is no difference in effect for Time Warner. I could do either one, and it would have the same effect on them. Time Warner's simply seizing this to stop it because its technological.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I don't know about others, but Road Runner makes you pay the bill, BEFORE you receive the service. The way I see it, if I pay my $45, then I own the right to use their network for another month. I paid for it, it's mine, and I should be able to do with it as I please.
Someone mentioned plate sharing at a buffet, but cable modems are not like a buffet. There is a limit to how much you can get, I can use all of it myself if I want to. If I want to slow down my own connection by letting other people use it, that should pose no problem to TW.
What they are really trying to do is get more money (duh). They already get my money for TV and internet access (and you know they are traking what we watch on digital TV and what we look at on the internet.) I wish there was another broadband alternative to my cable modem, but they seem to have a pretty good monopoly going there. Does anyone have a better way to be a digital citizen without supporting Big Brother monopolies?
they should buy me an Octane2.
If not, then they should stop complaining...
Mostly, people aren't setting up 802.11 networks to provide 24/7 access to any particular person in their area. This collective wireless thing was more of a sharing the wealth, like, when I'm near your house, driving by or at a cafe or something, I can go through your DSL, and when you're near my house, you can use mine. The idea wasn't to give your bandwidth away to other people as a permanent connection... Oh well.
If cable ISPs were all-you-can-eat restaurants:
"Thanks for your money, gentlemen! Here's you go, one plate each. Yes, we know that the plates are the size of a saucer even though our commercials say they're the size of a manhole cover. Now please, overlook that and go help yourself to anything. Oh, except, the sundae bar you heard is in places like this is off-limits to you. And you can't have the fried chicken wings, and you can forget about those bacon bits that you see in the salad bar, those are off limits to you, too. And if you gentlemen want to discuss business over your meal, you have to pay us more money."
"Excuse me, sir, what do you mean, 'Then what did I come here and pay good money for?' You can always sit at your table, sip a glass of water, have a slice of bread, and look at all the nice ads that are on the placemats. We worked very hard to sell that ad space so you customers wouldn't have to look a plain, blank placemats!"
"Oh, and please don't stay too long. Even though we say we never close, we sort of frown on people who keep the tables tied up for too long."
~Philly
The company shouldn't mind unmonitored open-access use by strangers, because that's not adding significant bandwidth and (more importantly) reducing their number of subscribers, any more than they mind visitors coming to your house and watching cable TV. What they should mind is using your wireless (or wired) access so that your neighbors mooch off your service instead of buying their own, just as they'd mind if you ran a TV cable from your splitter to your neighbor's apartment. The intermediate level - a houseful of college students sharing access - is pretty much equivalent to the houseful of college students sharing the TV in the living room . It'd be nice for the cable company if they could charge more for large households, but it's unrealistic, and besides, this way they're more likely to upsell on the movie channels. (When I lived in Ithaca, you had to buy cable service to get decent TV reception - otherwise there was just one UHF station in Syracuse that bounced over the hill - but HBO didn't cost too much extra so lots of people bought it.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I LIKE 802.11.
If the signal bleeds and my traffic goes up a bit, who gives a fuck? I'm paying for it anyway.
Ummm... ok.. what are you going to do when the feds show up at your door and arrest you for cracking systems or some other crime? And then your ISP cancels you account and bills you for any damage done. Check you ISP policy, YOU are probably responsible for any illegal activity done through your connection.
The Problem is the FCC serving the interests of it's major benifactors instead of the people is pretends to represent. Just like Author Anderson - it is taking huge - shall we say "Consulting" fees from rape-and-pillage corporations like At&t for an artificially scare resource (UWB has practically unlimited bandwidth) This has blinded it from serving its main purpose which it to see that the Airwaves are serving the best public interest.
Public WiFi Networks are largely a grassroots protest of the apparent inadequecy of the FCC and its paying co-conspirators to provide a necessary service. Do you think Verizon could charge $.10 a minute for 300 Baud internet in "some" areas if it had to compete with commercial grade 10MB WiFi?
If we argue that sharing WiFi is a protest of the FCC's impotence - then cutting it off amounts to political counter-pressure and it feels a lot like clamping down on Free Speech.
The Response should be - Damn - these guys have found an unfilled market demand - we'd better get off our collective arses and fill the need before someone else does!
AIK
Here's a food analogy that works:
Pretend that I set up an eatery. I think about an all-you-can-eat take-out buffet, but then realize that I'd lose money on certain corpulant customers. Instead, I create a system where you can take up to 5 lbs. of food. While 5 lbs. is pretty much the break-even point for what I'm charging, I know that most of my customers will never eat that much.
I let a bunch of people in, and to my shock and horror most of them load their take-out cartons with exactly 5 lbs. of food and depart. I follow one of them home, and find them spooning out portions to their neighbor.
Now, is this (a) my fault for setting up a basically faulty (from my POV) system, or (b) the customer's fault for using the system in a way I didn't forsee?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If I sign a contract saying that the ISP will provide me with a max of 1.5 down, 256k up....then by god I'm paying for the right to use a max of 1.5 down and 256k up, whether it be me myself downloading shit all day long from multiple sources, while uploading 256k of shit to another server. OR, I can use a little bit and let the rest of my friends use it for a max of pulling down 1.5 and sending up 256k. It's the ISPs fault for assuming that bandwidth isn't always going to be used. That's like signing up for 20000 cell phone minutes and only using 200. I want to get my money's worth god damn it! ISP doesn't like that and wants to charge me more? Fine, but I'll go somewhere else. They want to restrict my bandwidth to less than what the contract says? Well then they just have a breached contract and an angry user. Screw stupid ISPs.
The problem is that what companies like TWC really want is for you to pay a user fee. They don't want to admit that anyone "owns" any part of their product except them.
This issue feels more like a restriction of our freedom than a protection of their right to free enterprise. Imagine the grocery store trying to "crackdown" on the sharing of a gallon of milk, or Papa John's "saying no way" to the sharing of pizza. It's absurd, especially considering that I don't use ALL of the bandwith all by myself.
*** Stop trying to be cool. ***
Instead of a company charging a metered rate -- which would eliminate a lot of profit from the "paying too much money" people -- they can just beat/ban/forbid/threaten the high-bandwidth users until they fall into the low-bandwidth category.
This is probably why most ISPs don't explicitly state what acceptable/unacceptable bandwidth usage is...if customers knew, then they could adjust for it. Since customers can't know (because it's never stated), then the company can make the adjsutments.
"They waived a banner in our faces and said, 'Look what we're doing!'" said Suzanne Giuliani, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable of New York City. The company wasn't actively looking for violators, she said, but only reacted when someone pointed out the NYCwireless Web site to them.
I would hardly consider posting a website as "waiving a banner." When you pay for bandwidth, you should be able to use the bandwidth however you choose.
Lets be real here people...they are pissed because they are not getting those 20 other customers. If it really is an issue of "resources" or "bandwidth," perhaps we sould show them the havoc that REAL bandwidth issues can cause...i dunno, perhaps some geographically distributed (within a single provider's network of course) p2p apps running at full throttle.
Last time i checked, no one was sitting on my front stoop DDoS'in.
Oh yeah...and just as a side note, the only reason that I use WiFi is cuz AT&T in over 4 years hasnt been able to get cable to my building! Jerkoffs.
Intelligence is like four wheel drive, having it just means you'll get stuck in more remote places.
No, there is not a limit as to how much you can get with RR -- there is a limit as to how fast you can get it. Currently, RR doesn't have a bandwidth cap (at least, not that I have been able to find). Yes, you pay your $45/month for access, but you're fooling yourself if you think you can do so however you want. Just try to put up a game server on their network and publish it over on GameSpy. I'd give you two days before its discovered and you get told to take it down or lose your connection.
Go ahead and try to use all of the bandwidth you want -- its people with attitudes like that that will force TWC to put bandwidth caps on and move to a tiered system.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Policies against running servers on your cable modem interfere with early adopters, preventing the innovation that might find the killer apps that get lots of people to buy service -- that's suicidally clueless, and pretty common. Policies against wireless are because they can't tell roaming visitors from non-innovative late-adopters who are mooching off their neighbor's paid service rahter than buying their own. Instead, the cable companies need to encourage innovation, perhaps by setting up a tunnel server system so that roamers can easily access the net, either for a small fee or with better service for roamers who are cable subscribers than for non-subscribers (e.g. limit bandwidth to 28kbps for non-subscribers so they can still do email and light surfing, with unlimited for cable subscribers so they can do cool broadband apps.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
if u are aloud certain bandwidth what the difference if it used by one user or by many???? it the same bandwidth and if it not it should be, like on DSL... no body complains about sharing DSL..
Who controls the information, controls the world...
Cable Companies that Screw Technically Oriented Cusotmers Will Watch Subscriptions Go Down the Drain. Stupid is what Stupid does. I already tell most people that cable modems are not worth the money, that all you need for email and simple web browsing is a dial up modem. These fools think they have a monopoly, but what they really have is a temporary advantage. Technological progress will eventually circumvent these losers and leave them with their obsolete entertainment delivery systems. Cell phones offer a second line to all, right now. Soon wireless networks will play out and deliver beter and freer internet than these stupid cable operators can imagine.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Our company pays right around $1500.00 for a DS1 line. Now according to this we get "Unlimited Internet access at 1.536 Mbs to 12 Mbps," as long as we follow the AUP. That's what our contract says, and the only thing I can think that WiFi sharing would fall under is the Network Performance clause.
Now, if we were running a WiFi network off of my DS1 and providing our whole building with internet, but not going over our "Unlimited Internet access at 1.536 Mbs to 12 Mbps" amounts, would there be anything wrong with it? I can't see why, but I am sure that they would cut us off, especially if many of the other companies in my building started to use our service instead of their own. I can understand why they are upset, but I do not understand how they could argue that it was wrong of us to use the bandwidth we paid for.
Hmmmm... maybe I should talk to my boss...
It is stealing. Although your not making money at it is still stealing.
You can compare it to everything in the world to try to justify your actions, but it is stealing.
This is a connection for your home, not your home and everyone else. The price is based on a one single user model. Period, not a 50 person mondel. You want 50 people to use it, pay for 50 people to use it.
I personally don't want you sucking up all the damn bandwidth in my sector because you fill you need to steal and give to the rich. That is right your not giving to the poor but the rich guy next door that makes enough money to pay for it also.
Get off you high horse, come to to earth and just admit your stealing. Otherwise your just kidding yourself and you sound silly to everyone else.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Here's my take on the situation : 1) Cable Operators sell service at X$ per month. They had no practical (cost-effective) way to throttle bandwidth, so they offered it as "unlimited" usage, even though they were counting on users to use only a certain amount of bandwidth. 2) Technologies (802.11) and applications (P2P) become common enough that the average bandwidth per user goes beyond what the Cable Operators had originally budgeted for in step (1). As a first step to curb bandwidth usage, Cable Operators target the high-bandwidth users first to help bring the average bandwidth per user down. This is where we are today and what this article, along with many others, have been about. 3) Tiered services technology, which would allow the Cable Operators to offer different sized pipes at different pipes, becomes commonly and affordably available in early 2002. This technology allows Cable Operators to more accurately bill their customers on the amount of resources they are using. However, since the Cable Operators are either: a) too short on cash to upgrade (Adelphia is in bankrupty court, AT&T is in the process of being acquired by Comcast, Comcast is too busy acquiring AT&T to worry about upgrading their technology, etc.,.) b) don't see the benefit of upgrading yet (hey, why spend $15 per suscriber to upgrade our head-end when we can just charge all customers more money and make more profit ?) or c) are in the process of upgrading (GCI Alaska is the ONLY Cable Operator I know of offering tiered services today) Anyways, that's my story and I'm already stuck to it.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
First, I don't eat gargage like that.
Second, I don't expect people to hang out in my bushes surfing the net where I live. -splunch- That's the sound of your analogy falling on its face. I especially don't think they will hang out in my bushes, to anonymously plan criminal acts. Are you another member of the department of "Abuse and Security"?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I go to the store and buy 10 Lbs of hamburger and then have a cookout for my friends. Am I steeling from the store? I paid for the burger,
but in giving it to my friends, I have prevented the store from selling to them.
In the past, some people have suggested that bandwidth be treated like a utility service. I think that's a great idea. Just like every residence is supposed to have water and electricity service and acceptable levels of reliability, a data connection should be treated the same way. This data connection can be for conventional telephone service, cable television, internet, and whatever permutations and combinations the future brings us. This way, an infrastructure can be established whereby each connection receives metered bandwidth, and the recipient can do as they please with it because they are paying for the bandwidth they use. The power and water companies don't care if you leave the faucet running all day or every light in your house on all day because you're paying them based on your consumption.
This will also have the effect of forcing the consumers to educate themselves to prevent abuse of their bandwidth. If you have a leaking faucet or toilet, it's in your best interest to fix it. If you have an unsecured WAP, then you'll end up paying for whatever bandwidth leaks out of it.
That sounds like a lot of education. How can that be accomplished? Part of it is available in most public schools. It's called "Home Economics". In addition to learning basic sewing, cooking, cleaning, and typing skills, students should also be presented basic information about home networking. The students can then bring this information home and educate their parents. The other part of the education solution lies with the equipment producers. They should provide more information with their products about setting up a secure home network. This is in addition to products already available like personal firewall software and "Idiot's guide to.." publications.
This could also help with adoption of IPv6. Just like every phone line gets a telephone number, every data line will get an IP address.
BLOCK STRUCTURE breathing apparatus required for special maneuvers!!
AT&T's TOS also prohibits you from using any servers (httpd, sshd, etc) at all. And they even block port 80 at their routers (incoming).
My future's determined by Thieves, thugs, and vermin -- The Offspring
When I ordered Covad DSL ($50/month for 384/128kbps), the salesperson was very clear that sharing one's line to sell wireless access to one's neighbors was perfectly OK with them and something that they regarded as a competitive advantage of their service.
DSL has less media sharing and is easier to upgrade on an individual basis. This may be why DSL providers in my experience generally seem to be ambivalently neutral to definitely positive about wireless access sharing, while cable modem providers have generally been quite concerned and proactive about any kind of bandwidth hogging scenarios (not just wireless sharing).
...would these be the same ISPs who let their subscribers run Nimda servers for months on end ?
The article says that there is a way to lock the networks down so unauthorized people can't use them. As a cable ISP user (Comcast), I would have no problem with them making users lock down their networks.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Why should AT&T care?
-oZ
Your notion of property is rather warped. It's THEIR connection -- they bought/leased and installed the equipment, they provide the service -- and they're allowing you to use it in exchange for compensation. If you don't like the terms of use, you don't have to pay the compensation. (Contrary to what a lot of geeks might wish, there's no inalienable human right to a broadband Internet connection.)
Now, I agree that their terms of use should allow some degree of "fair use" slack. They shouldn't bust you for illegal sharing if your out-of-town friend stays with you for a few days and shares your connection in the meantime. But if you're openly advertising your hot spot as a public access point, the providers have every right to complain.
It's not unlike the difference between taking the morning newspaper and making copies of an interesting article for a couple of friends, and copying the entire newspaper every morning and giving it away to everyone on your block. Whether you're charging them or not isn't the point, you've overstepped the boundaries of fair use. (I know I'm muddying the waters a bit by using a copyright-based analogy and terminology when that's not really the issue at hand, but I think the parallel is quite strong.)
And it actually sounds like this is how the companies are behaving right now: They are going after the people who seem to be willful offenders rather than people sharing casually. And while I may disagree about whether that's a smart way to run the business (and am personally glad to be with Covad, the one company they cite that doesn't care if you share), it's clearly their prerogative to do so.
Or to use a different real-world analogy: leasing a broadband connection is not unlike renting an apartment. You're paying, but it's not YOUR apartment. You don't have the rights to do whatever you want -- tear out the carpet and replace it with linoleum, permanently move in ten of your friends, etc. Of course, you can do things within reason (like have friends stay for a few days, or put up some pictures). But don't think for a minute that it's yours because you're paying.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Let's say I own a house, and I pay the local utility company $40 per month for water service, with a maximum of 5.0 gallons per minute entering my house.
Then, I set up a drinking fountain in my garage, leave the door open all the time, and put up a sign: "Free Water!". People come and drink.
If the water company came after me for "stealing", that suit would get laughed out of court, and the judge would bitch-slap the entire plaintiff party on the way out.
How is this any different from my having a DSL line, for which I pay $X.00 per month for a rate cap of Z kbits/sec, and setting up a public 802.11 network for passersby to use?
Bottom line: bandwidth companies -- if you can't provide Z kilobits/sec to Y customers for $X.00 per month per subscriber, then you have no business advertising these rates. Period.
We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.
They are not banning 802.11, and nor could they if they wanted.
Yes, they could. They can ban whatever they like because it's their service. As for enforcement, they can ride around in a sniffer van to detect who has 802.11a/b/g and send out letters telling them to shut it off. They don't have to prove that you were sharing the connection. They don't have to even show that the 802.11 was hooked, directly or indirectly, to the cable modem. They could simply say that they don't want you as a customer if you use wireless networking.
802.11 is a transport mechanism.. your cable modem has no IDEA what types of transport are being used downstream.
I don't think the average Slashdot reader thought that their cable modem was aware of what was using it for connectivity.
My cable modem does not have an "IDEA" about what servers I'm running either, but that has not stopped my cable company from changing their AUP to ban servers.
That'd never work. Afterall, how many lawyers do you know who would admit to being a lawyer?
When you work at a law firm, every single one! They never let you forget where you are on the org chart!
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
This is why I fear the removal of the analogy section from the SATs. More than one person is generally allowed to share a connection. Why does it matter if that other person is my brother or my neighbor?
I'm using my 56k flat rate Internet access here. If I start to no stop downloading at maximum KB/sec rate allowed by my modem, I don't understand why I could not do it. Surely ISPs base their bandwidth buyings on statistical models, as "average" user downloads say 2 KB/sec every 2 minutes. If I've payed for bandwidth, I've all the right to use it! If I lend some payed bandwidth to someone else, it's only a my affair. Of course if legal bandwidth contract with my ISP doesn't allow me to lend some bandwidth to someone else, this is a different question.
If you buy a car and share it with your neighbor..Ford can't stop you can they. The ISP contract states your get X transfer rate then it is there job to provide X transfer rate. If you use X transfer rate constantly and it is cutting into there profits then they messed up. Now they have an alternative. You get X Transfer rate with Y bytes of transfer per period. Easy they cut you off after you reach your byte cap and then you pay if you want more. Sounds like a reasonable solutions to me. Of course they can't do that until your contract is up.
The majority comment here seems to be that all the bandwidth hogs should have to pay if they use. I'm all for that....personally I pay a 50% premium for DSL vs Cable because I like the difference in service. But what about the guy two blocks from me who cannot get DSL?
I don't think broadband ISPs should be allowed to make any restrictions on service or even unregulated pricing decisions unless there is viable competition from at least *TWO* other ISPs and open access for new competitors. I don't mind AT&T selling web-and-mail only internet service. Lots of people like that. But what about the doctors who I install VPNs for that want to perform telemedicine to save lives? One size fits all national service agreements with a "if you don't like it, don't buy it" attitude just don't work when there is no competition.
We need some regulation. Unfortunately the Bush FCC seems to be running the other way.
The differnce with dialup is that the overall useage is so small, that even with 100% saturation all day and all night, you're still under 600 MB per day. It's tiny and there isn't much possibility for you to suck the ISP's uplink dry. Sure, bandwidth costs money and more bandwidth costs more money, but this only has a real effect on a large scale. 600 MB is nothing.
"If I've payed for bandwidth, I've all the right to use it!"
For certain! I think ISPs mentalities with the meaning of 'unlimited' are different when comparing dialup and broadband. This is because the %useage for the average broadband user is FAR lower (in terms of percent of the possible bandwidth used) that in modemland. If a broadband user shares their connection and it is at 100% all the time, then they might be using 50X the average bandwidth the ISP expected. If a modem user did this, it might be 5X the average. I think that this is one of the achilles' heels of the current broadband payment model because it allows the customer to gouge the ISP in a way the ISP never expected.
In the ISP's mind, you've only payed for that average level of useage even though they advertised an 'unlimited' connection and they will get upset if you take more than they expected and budgeted for because the bandwidth costs them money. Since, if you buy unlimited broadband, you are entitled to use it, they simply change the definition of how their system works by bandwidth caps on ports used by kazza (sp?). In the end, the ISPs that survive and are not draconian in their useage terms will be the ones where users pay for what they use and don't pay for what they don't use.
To keep pricing fair and prevent universal bandwidth caps, I think that it makes sense that people be billed for the amount of bandwidth they use beyond a certain limit. This way, as you say, you pay for bandwidth and have the right to use it. This is because bandwidth costs money, and more bandwidth costs more money.
While some innovative municipal utility companies have rolled out fiber optic to the curb, both the telcos and cable companies have purchased legislation to insure that can't happen in many states, California among them.
The alternatives unless one can economically justify T1 are ... if you can find a dialup ISP willing to experiment, build a point-to-point 802.11 / microwave link with the other end on their roof or DIY DSL renting a "dry pair" (aka alarm circuit, etc.)...
From my POV, I take these threads as simply a warning to avoid cablemodems from major broadband companies no matter how attractive the pricing or sales pitch.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Don't they realize that most people who use shared WiFi links are merely trying out the service and they will eventually buy their own subscription.
-a
Yes I am karma-whoring. What's it to you?
How to rationalize theft.
As usual, you are wrong. Of course, given your record, hardly a surprise.
Cable companies are regulated by the FCC and cannot currently decline to provide service to paying customers who abide by reasonable contracts.
Hope That Helps.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
Perhaps because the contract you signed specifically said this practice was verbotten? In most of these cases, that's exactly what's happened. I chose a DSL provider who was both slower and more expensive than my cable company specifically because the contract didn't have a server ban, only a re-sale ban in it.
In other words, you didn't pay for the service as you are using it. If you wanted a simple bandwith provider with no restrictions, you should have shopped around for one.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Since you don't care what your users do with their packets, you have no objection to providing your services to spammers, then?
Let me know the name of your ISP, so I can block your users' email....
Of course you agree with them: it's *your* customers who would be getting the free wireless access, so it's *your* market that's eroded by them not paying *you* for what they get for free.
-- Terry
Anybody done any war printing yet?
Drive by, attach to a Wi-Fi net, search for network printers, and print a coupon for the local pizza shop.
WRONG! AT&T specifically doesn't allow you to share your access. RTFM.
If you remember correctly from the good old days when ISP's were all dialup, then you'll realize that there's not one modem for one customer. It's more like one modem per 20 customers. If enough customers used their modems 24/7, then either the lines would all be busy, or the ISP's costs would be much higher than $10 per month per customer.
The same thing applies today, although the ISP's are even cheaper because customers will only encounter slow connections (Internet's fault), as opposed to busy signals (clearly ISP's fault).
It's not about the bandwidth used. That's just a red herring. And it's not about "theft of services": they are being paid for their services. And it's not about bandwidth or transfer caps: many companies already enforce them anyway.
We all know that, eventually, as soon as someone deploys a directory service capable of handling it, circuit switched telephony, along with the long distance carrier charges that are based on the source and destination nodes for your VOIP packets, will go away. And so will the revenue model based on distance between endpoints, as the carriers are commoditized into fat packet-pipes.
So... I rather expect that the cable people are more concerned with the 17 other apartments within 300 feet of yours that get wireless access without paying them $$$, than they are with roaming wireless hordes.
They are facing the same problem than the long distance carriers face with IP telephony: there has been a technological sea change that will require them to go from charging for the source/destination of a packet to charging for the pipe size.
They are being commoditized, and they don't like it. Well, "welcome to consumer driven demand for a conversion to packet switched networks".
In other words, it's about a reduction in total market size. They want the market to be as big as possible, and for that to happen and ppermit them to maximize revenues, they have to achieve the same market penetration.
As supporting evidence, I'll offer the following:
They aren't going after people who leave their curtains open while they watch HBO on their big screen TV visable, and often audible, from the sidewalk in front of the house.
They also aren't going after the little 2.4GHz television repeaters. They aren't being bashed because cable television run out through one is circuit switched by channel: it's unlikely that all of your neighbors will want to watch "Attack of the Zombie Bimbos" (unless you live in a Fraternity House). So they end up buying cable so they can change the channel.
-- Terry
My ISP -- iStop -- seems to have taken the position that once you pay them, you can do whatever the he** you want with the bandwidth. That's the way it is supposed to be!
They charge a fixed monthly fee $30 CDN for the first 10 GB up/down during primetime, allow nearly unlimited between 3am-8am, and charge $2 CDN a GB after that. This an a 1184/160 kbs line.
This ain't Star Trek where you create cups of Earl Grey tea out of thin air. Nothing is "free," kids.
CNET News quoted one member of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group as saying that his neighbors are very happy with using his Internet access free of charge. "Occasionally, they bring me pies and things like that." Yeah, I'd have no problem giving up the occasional pastry to my next-door neighbor if it meant I could save $50 a month on my cable modem bill. This is no different than bringing a cupcake over to your neighbor's house after you've hooked up your garden hose to his faucet so you could water your lawn everyday for the past month. Also, there are probably seventeen other neighbors and uncounted passers-by that have used this guy's water for the past month free of charge without giving him anything.
So I see that your mom decided to let you use the computer again.
But, as usual, you are back to making claims with no basis in fact:
Cable companies are regulated by the FCC and cannot currently decline to provide service to paying customers who abide by reasonable contracts.
"Reasonable contracts"? Yeah, that sounds like a real solid legal definition. LOL! Show me anything -- ruling, law, etc. that demonstrates that the FCC forces cable modem companies to provide service based on how "reasonable" a contract is. Or were you just spewing more of your unsubstantiated bull****?
P.S. If being "right" is important to you, just start agreeing with me and you'll be right far more often than you are now.
If they block 80 it's not universal. I have been playing with win32 apache for some time now and have no problems serving pages on 80.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Wow, such an intelligent post. Too bad you didn't RTFM either. You would have seen the bits already mentioned here.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
I cannot speak to his "record", but, as a practicing attorney, I can tell you that he is correct in this matter. Cable modem providers cannot discriminate based on race, religion, or national origin, but, if they wish to turn away customers with WiFi networking products, they are within their rights. It is my expectation that, if challenged, they would claim that the WiFi products pose an undue security risk to their network. I have little doubt that their right to enforce their terms of service would be upheld in court. Even if that portion were not upheld, the ISP usually has a clause allowing them to terminate service for any reason. For example, here's a passage from my provider's service contract:
7. TERMINATION
This Agreement and Service provided hereunder
may be terminated:
. by Comcast:
i. at any time without prior notice if the Customer fails to comply in full
with any term of this Agreement; or
ii. for any other reason upon thirty (30) days notice to Customer.
It never ceases to astound me when people that obviously have little grasp of even simple contract law pretend to be legal experts.
If I pay for X amount of bandwidth it is no one's business if I then may some subset of it available to someone else as long as I don't use more than I contracted for. The claim of the cable companies is bogus.
The problem with the argument "they gave it to me so why do they care what I do with it?" is that it intentionally ignores the principles under which the [insert generic asset here] was given in the first place. They don't cap your line because they *assume* your usage will be typical, and that their infrastructure will support N users at the calculated average rate. When someone decides to increase the number of users and thereby increases the demand on resources that is NOT simply a deviation from the average because there is little chance that there will be an offsetting reduction at a later point-- the average is changed in the process, invalidating the assumptions upon which the contract was based. The excess demand is taken directly from the commons (which is their bottom line). We all know what happens to the commons when too many people take advantage of an unregulated resource. The ISP has no choice but to react.
I was starting an ISP today I would bill on the bell curve-- the bottom 10% would have their bill waived entirely, the middle 80% would be billed according to the average usage estimates, and the top 10% would be billed by volume. Think of it as a tax on the commons....
The cable companies should, rightfully, either shut off service or charge by the byte. Frankly, charging by the byte is ludicrous for the residential sector -- virtually everything is moving to flat rate. Consumers like flat rate because it allows you to budget far more easily.
It is? I'd say the exact opposite is happening, and people want to buy by consumption : My electricity is charged a base administration fee, and then a transport and generation fee based on consumption. The same thing for water and natural gas. My food bill varies based upon how much of a glutton I am, and whether I'm a name brand whore. My TV service, after much complaints by users, now lets me order only the channels I want rather than accepting some flat-rate "common denominator" package. My car uses gas based upon how much I drive, and my tires are warranted for 100,000km, so the sooner I get there the sooner they're replaced. I could continue with countless examples of "pay as you go".
There are very few services in our society that are flat rate. Why? Because flat rate users are often abusers: Just look throughout this discussion for all of the "It's my bandwidth to share!" BS -> That's what you get when you average consumption and flat rate it. These people are the people who would dump their feces in the commons given the chance, because they have no concept of what their actions mean to the whole as their perception is defined by their own little reality.
I don't think that anonymous wireless networks will take off for the same tragedy of the commons reason: It'll be a week before some 1337 IRC haxorz realize that it's a perfect venue to launch DOS attacks, propagate trojans, hack, etc. It'll be about 5 minutes after that before an army of lawyers busts down the door at AnonWiFi and requires them to maintain extensive security monitoring to ensure that their services aren't being absued, and it'll be about 5 minutes after that that AnonWiFi shuts down because of the costs. I can virtually guarantee that that will happen: The larger the user base, the more idiots that are looking for a reason to deficate in the commons.
that you seem to have missed.
The ISP is selling you access, at a fixed monthly fee, to a xxxkbps pipe to do with what you will. If they've been stupid enough to not set limits on what you can do with it beyond that and relied on the assumption that you will use it within their "average" user's parameters, its their mistake.
Now if they'd put it in the Terms of Service in the first place, fair enough you signed the thing, they can limit what you're doing. But if they didn't, its poor business planning and no problem of yours.
The ISP has no right to blame the user for their BAD ASSUMPTIONS on usage!
... just look at Telstra in Australia. Its hell - the "average user" apparently uses <300mb/month, so thats the baseline charge for ADSL service. 1G is vaguely reasonable, then they start gouging you as if each gig _per_ _month_ has a large monetary cost to them.
Bytecharges can be useful to force users to self-regulate their useage, but too often provides use them as an excuse to turn your broaband service into a "modem on speed" - ie get your email really fast, but don't think about using stuff you used to do on your 56k like internet radio.
a 3G cap is absurd ; it prevents users from doing anything interesting with the link. Even listening to 24kbps internet radio a lot will run you _well_ over that cap. 15G is more reasonable ; remember the 'net isn't just used to transfer "files", its not 15G of new stuff to store on the user's hdd with <insert file "sharing" software here>. I can use vnc to admin the NT server at work (*ick*) over 56k - its painful but it works. When my ADSL goes in soon, I won't be able to because of the stupid bytecharging.
Be very careful what you ask for, you might just get it.
Because IP masqueraded links are relatively easy to identify. There is a certain range of high UDP ports that are used to masq udp traffic to internal hosts, so a lot of traffic on those ports strongly suggests a link with multiple masq'd hosts behind it.
Just do a tcpdump on your firewall's eth1 (or ppp0 if you're an unlucky bastard) and watch...
Sure its not proof ; but when have cable / dsl companies needed _proof_ ? The ToS of every ISP on earth includes a "we can change the ToS when we want" clause, and a "we can kick you if we feel like it clause".
Essentially it boils down to:
Security: You put a firewall between yourself and the Net and then open up a hole behind it to the world?
Culpability: Someone uses your connection to launch the next Melissa or SQL Worm, or to mailshot the whole of their paedo mailing list with new pictures. The buck stops with your ISP account. The black helicopters will be over your house.
I can't see that it's worth it.
ben_
ben_ the technologist and platform agnostic
You obviously missed my comment one paragraph later in your haste to hit "Reply" :o)
To quote: (unless the terms and conditions they signed in the first place expressly disallow this)
So, yes, I agree with you :o)
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I just read the response posted by the lawyer. I guess it really sucks to be you right now. Of course, I expect that you'll slink off silently rather than being man/woman enough to admit that you were wrong.
Repeated surveys have shown preference toward flat rate billing. Look at the telephone service in the US - local is completely flat rate. Long distance is rapidly moving to flat rate. Cell phones are even starting to become flat rate.
Yes, electrical, gas, and water are billed by consumption. They're also the utilities people complain about the most regarding cost -- because while you have a general idea how much power you use month to month, there are the occasional months that just blow you out of the water.
Your TV service IS flat rate unless you get PPV movies. Glad to see that your cable company is progressive (most are not), but you still know that the cable bill is going to be a set amount every month.
Gas? Food? Yeah, it's pay as you go. But gas is virtually always the same barring long trips. I know that I have to refuel my car every week and a half or so, and while the price is going to vary some, it's not going to take drastic swings. Same thing goes with food.
What you have to realize is that people have been paying flat rate for telecomms (consumer grade) for over a decade now. The phone service has been flat rate for even longer. If you try and change that and make it "pay as you go" then you're going to get a lot of flak and resistance toward that -- particularly since I've yet to see a plan that would actually LOWER the cost for the average user.
Yes, I fully agree that people whinging "it's my bandwidth" are off the deep end and have no tie to reality. But the cable and DSL companies aren't a whole lot better. They wanted people to buy the service and not use it.
Pretty much agree with you on the AnonWiFi bit though... there are "tactics" that could counter the script kiddies, but it's always a war of strike and counterstrike, with the providers a step behind.
What's the difference between redistributing via wireless network and redistributing via wired network? My home network is ethernet. If I leave it unsecured and someone hops through it, am I committing fraud because they're not paying the cable company?
do not read this line twice.
Really? I haven't been able to get to port 80 on my box since the code red fiasco a while back. Have you tried accessing it from outside your own network?
My future's determined by Thieves, thugs, and vermin -- The Offspring
Technically, yes. Of course, they're probably breaking the law by using your network without permission (implied or otherwise). The only real difference between wired and wireless is perhaps that it is more obvious that you're "doing wrong" by using someone's LAN without permision when it is wired. Unless you leave wired RJ45 sockets on the street outside your house...
Anyone who believes that Anonymous Coward is a lawyer has been trolled.
The new york city cable franchise agreement with TWC NYC (Southern Manhattan), section 4, paragraph 6. "Nondiscrimination"
Pay close attention to the part that reads "For Any Reason" and "All Services"
Contracts are only valid if they pass the reasonable persons test.
The new york city cable franchise agreement with TWC NYC (Southern Manhattan), section 4, paragraph 6. "Nondiscrimination"
Provide a link to it. There is no logical search on Google that reveals that document and I have no intention of wasting any more time looking for it. If you can't link to it, quote the section in full.
Most "nondiscrimination" clauses have to do with race, ethnic background, physical handicaps, etc. and nothing to do with networking hardware. "Reasonable persons" (I thought it was "reasonable contracts" in your previous post) would agree that a cable company could have legitimate concerns about network security related to wireless networking.
Anyone who believes that Anonymous Coward is a lawyer has been trolled.
"Anonymous Coward" is the name given to all persons who choose to post without a login. It's not one person.
You're just pissed off because he/she pegged you right as one of the "people that obviously have little grasp of even simple contract law pretend[ing] to be legal experts."
Again, I walked away from you. I don't play flamewar games, but I'm *STILL* not anonymous coward.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
Gee, I wonder if Anonymous Coward knew that when he checked the "Post anonymously" button, you fewl.
YHBT
Bullshit. You entered this discussion by flaming me: Then when challenged to support your claims, you turned tail and ran. If you won't engage in an intelligent debate, then don't waste my time.
You wrote:
"They don't have to even show that the 802.11 was hooked, directly or indirectly, to the cable modem. They could simply say that they don't want you as a customer if you use wireless networking."
Yes, yes they do. Otherwise, why would they have issues of network security, if it wasn't hooked up to their network? Is that reasonable? Don't think so.
Otherwise, why would they have issues of network security, if it wasn't hooked up to their network?
Because they might believe that the consumer is lying when he claims that he will never hook the wireless equipment to their network. What possible reason would they have for believing some person who says that he's creating two home networks, one with, and one without, Internet access? Chances are that it's like the customers with three computers that swear that only one will be on the cable modem. 99% of them are lying.
If it's really about "above average" bandwidth users costing them money, then why aren't they falling all over themselves to refund money to "below average" bandwidth users, who are saving them money?
The infrastructure is there, and I can guarantee you that they are not upgrading it all the time. It's all about how much money they can suck out of how many wallets, per month.
Sharing your connection is one less "on *grunt* going *grunt* customer *grunt* relationship!".
-- Terry