Slashdot Mirror
AT&T Broadband Introduces Tiered Pricing
Joey Patterson writes "It had to happen sooner or later. CNET reports that AT&T Broadband has introduced a tiered pricing plan called UltraLink (3 Mbps down/384 kbps up) for $79.99/month if you buy your own modem and $82.95/month if you lease one of theirs."
My cablemodem gets better upstream than this crappy-ass package. I wouldn't touch that deal with cyborg_monkey's nutsack!!
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
It had to happen sooner or later.
You make this sound like a bad thing. As long as it doesn't affect my current service, I like having the option of jumping up a notch in performance.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
... If i had this service in my area. We have always complained about poor throughput and this is the resolution.
We have demanded a service, and now the way we want it is being presented to us.
Must be nice - we're enjoying 500kbit cable for $50/month here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Damn cows must be sitting on our optic cable.
I noticed on my ATTBi bill that cablemodem rental had dropped to $2.95 a month. I wonder if that's because I've been a customer for awhile, or if they lowered the price across the board to discourage people from buying thier own.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Honestly, my cablemodem is plenty fast enough for me. I'd like to know of a cheap alternative to having a static IP, and allow more than 2 machines to access the internet without anything fancy going on on my end.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Finally, a reasonable price alternative to ADSL without the double taxes!
I was really hoping this could be a way of getting good, quality based pricing but I guess it's just going to become a way to charge a busload of money... ...although for $82 a month I should get some legal mp3's or local TV streaming for free or something. The mention of being able to set-up home networks is nice though, I'll wait for that story next (that is when they shut those down)
Get your Unix fortune now!
AT&T Broadband said UltraLink will serve power users, which it described as those who have "set up home networks, send or receive large files such as when downloading software, or enjoy other bandwidth-intensive applications."
This is a change from the usual tone of set up a home network and die. Of course, you are paying much more for the privilege. My question, then, is if they give you more IP addresses too.
Currently, me and my roomate use ATT, and we pay them another $10 a month for a second IP. Not sure if there's any bandwidth increase with that; probably not.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
With SBC I am paying $159/Month for 6Mbit down / 384k up aDSL line. This is with 5 static IPs and a very loose AUP. I'd like to see what AT&T Broadband's Terms of Service look like for this new service level, but I don't think that the price is bad at all...
"AT&T Broadband Introduces Tired Piercing"
and wondered what high-speed internet has to do with body modification
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
That's funny, those are the same speeds they told me I could get with the plan I have now.
AT&T Broadband: But now we're really serious. *Wink Wink*
Jesus! You people whine too much. At least they're not charging per bit, like just about every other country on the planet does.
For better service, in the real world, you do have to pay more. To me, this sounds like a good deal.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Why must providers always assume that someone who sets up a home network is a bandwidth hog? Personally, I have several computers on my home network. However, none of them hog bandwidth unless I'm downloading a system upgrade. It just happens that the best way to have everyone able to access e-mail and surf at once is to network the computers. (Duh)
I'm on Time Warner Cable, and they prohibit servers. If they were to enforce that prohibition, would that mean their bandwidth usage would go down? I doubt it. How much e-mail does a normal, non-spamming personal e-mail server handle in a day? Come to think of it, the traffic isn't any more than I'd handle if I had to POP it all at once!
what is so fancy about a linksys router doing nat? my uncle doesn't know squat about computers and was able to get that up and running for 3 of his. if he could do, and he doesn't even know what slashdot is, i would hope you could. ;)
Just wait till they say "oh, now we are going to make it so regular users get .5 meg d/l for normal price and power users can pay more for 1 meg d/l" And then will come the enevitable caps on bandwidth... "If you use more than so many megs of bandswidth per month you pay an over your bandwifth fee."
Damn, at first I thought it said "Tired Piercing." I want the guy who pierces my nipple to be wide awake! But then that's just me, dunno 'bout you.
Fight for your right to read books!
The 384 cap, though much better than it was, still leaves me aching.
I wish I could do a 2 meg down 1 meg up. I'd pay $80 a month for that RIGHT NOW.
Bloody hell! Here in Calgary, AB, Canada I have 1.5Mbps down, 640Kbps up, for CDN$34.95 per month with a bought modem, $39.95 with a leased one. Cap is 5GB down, 1GB up.
That's DSL; the cable company pricing is similar, and the performance (I was a cable customer) is virtually identical -- it's theoretically 3Mbps down, but I never saw that. However, there's theoretically no bandwidth cap. That's with Shaw Cable, for the other Canadians reading this: YMMV with Rogers et. al.
Mind you, IIRC, Calgary and Edmonton were the first two cities in NA (maybe the world?) where you could get broadband at any residential address, so the competition has been going on longer, which affects the pricing, but MAN the prices quoted in the article are expensive!
Comcast has been offering a premium service for a few months now:
/ Ad ditionalProducts/serviceupgrades.asp
http://comcast.comcastonline.com/memberservices
They don't seem to promote it though.
The link is over here here
Will is require "bandwidth hogs" to move up the price range, or simply put a cap on xfer rates?
If this forces gamers and file sharers to pay more, without opting into the higher range.. well. That seems to be the one point the article didn't discuss.
This plan won't eliminate bandwidth hogs if everyone stays at their current price plan, happy with the bandwidth they have currently. I don't see how this will solve the problem...
== Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
A few months ago, we were all freaking out over the prospect of our cable\DSL companies charging us according to usage like the power company. Now AT&T decides to NOT do that, and instead introduce a higher-price\faster-service. I'd say this is a good thing all around - if enough Pirates and Gaming Addicts sign up for the fast service, they probably won't screw over those of us who're happy at 1.5MBps.
Of course, with the exception of Salt Lake City, most of the initial launch cities contain a population that typically has more money than brains... I'm sure more than a few morons will bite for that extra megabit just so they can say they have it -- "broadband envy"?
Higher level of bandwidth is nice, but it's really throughput that makes the difference (eg, even though you are supposed to currently get 1.5 Mbps downstream, sometimes the throughput is much smaller due to network congestion, etc.). Paying nearly twice as much should result in some sort of service "guarantee" which I have never seen AT&T or any of its predecessors that I used (RoadRunner, MediaOne, Highway1). So, I'm a bit leery of such a level of service.
Anyway, more important to "power users" would be things like offering DNS service (they are removing "vanity hostnames" -- why not provide nameservice for people that really want to have their own identity on the net?), and static IP's (it's a bitch having your own domain when your IP address may change at the whim of some faceless corporation).
All in all, I'm really quite happy with my current service from AT&T. I don't know what will happen when the Comcast merger happens. I *do* know that my IP address hasn't changed in a couple of years (so the static IP problem is mitigated, at least for now), and my throughput has mostly been pretty good.
Another thought... does the new "Ultra" service give you telephone support from people that actually know what they are talking about? On the ATTBI.* newsgroups, the complete lack of competence of the lackeys in Florida and Canada that answer the phone is legendary...!
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
... What if the $80 a month charge means that they won't complain if you use bandwidth intensive stuff like P2P. If they'd put in the ToS "You can max out the connection 24/7 without fear of being disconnected or having ports blocked.", it may be worth $80 a month.
I already pay $55 a month now. If paying $80 would guarantee those clauses in my ToS for as long as I'm a subscriber, I'd probably go for it.
Tiered pricing is only reasonable, since infrastructure costs scale with bandwidth.
What I would really love is to see a lower bandwidth option for less than $20 or $30 per month. Somewhat faster than a modem but not 1Mb/sec, either.
The only reason I stick to a modem, now, is the huge jump in price to get ISDN or DSL.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Oh how quickly people forget the early days of being online...text based bbs software, arcane keywords and CompuServe with tiered access pricing:
... at least yet...
300 baud 6.50/hr 2400 baud 14.50/hr (prices are in 1982 dollars, so let's say roughly double for 2002 dollars?) Sign me up!
Then the world was invaded by the likes of PCLink, the Commodore 64 version of PCLink and the Mac based version which bore the same name that these three companies were known as once they merged in the mid 80s...AOL. Now downloading new artwork at 2400 baud, only 30 minutes left to go...but aint it pretty!
Hey, at least they aren't rolling out METERED BANDWIDTH pricing
And funny how they chose 3Mbps for the enhanced services...similar to RCN in it's fiber network markets...however, RCN didn't raise its price one cent. Still appx. $40/mo in my bundle from them...that includes modem rental.
However, I daresay that AT&T may have difficulties consistently delivering the higher speeds as their digital network nodes are already overcrowded causing traffic jams and more general angst in the world....
Jack Greenwood Southern California Inland Empire Suburban Hell
STOP TROLLING
Set up your second computer using DHCP and then hardcode the numbers it gives. It's almost as good as static. So long as you don't power off for too long your address shouldn't chqange. PLus the DHCP server doesn't seem to mind if you milk more than one ip address (I think we had 5 at one time once) and as far as I can tell we have never been charged for additional IPs. I don't think their functional system is tied to the billing system. They expect you to be on the honor system with extra IPs.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Disclaimer: I am not the happiest AT&T customer.
I would think that if AT&T was truely interested in improving their profits, they'd introduce a 1.5 Down and 750 up, or static IPs, or any of the other things that you can get from a DSL company for the same price.
Quite frankly, having a 30 MB download complete in 20 seconds instead of 40 seconds isn't enough to make me double the price I'm paying. If they went to double the upstream price, that might be enough to make me dig deeper into my pockets.
I'm wondering if they have the option to differ my money directly from my paycheck, shit I would gladly replace my money loosing 401k with at&t broad band!
This is the best part:
"AT&T Broadband said UltraLink will serve power users, which it described as those who have set up home networks, send or receive large files such as when downloading software, or enjoy other bandwidth-intensive applications."
I can't think of any better "bandwidth-intensive applications" other than p2p or downloading huges files of pr0n...
.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
Wide Open West, a cable provider making its rounds currently in the Midwest (Detroit, Chicago, etc.) has been offering tiered cable broadband pricing for a while now.
Look at their pricing. 1.5M/256K for $40ish, and 3M/384K for $80ish. Why didn't the upload rate double on the high-end offering?
Oh yeah, we're consumers, not supposed to upload, share, or be creative, only eat the drivel provided for us. Why would we want to connect to our computer remotely? Or videoconference? Or share movies from our ReplayTVs?
Sure, 3Mbps would be nice for only double the price of 1.5Mbps, but it's not going to help AT&Ts finances. The people who are causing them a problem are the people who are using 1.5Mbps all the time. If these people upgrade to 3Mbps they are going to be using 3Mbps all the time, so AT&Ts bandwidth bill will double, while their revenue will not.
.ISO download session, I rarely make use of my 1.2Mbps down. But they don't hassle me about running http, smtp* and ssh servers, it's always on and the latency is low.
What AT&T needs is tiered bandwidth. You get 1.5Mbps for the first 5GB per month. Then you get on a nice sliding scale where the more you download the less bandwidth you get, until your worst bandwidth hogs are getting 28.8kbps. Pay more, and the slope is gentler. Pay lots, and you can have 1.5Mbps all the time. However, since AT&T now needs an extra T1 to support your pr0n habit, expect to pay that kind of price.
I have Time Warner Road Runner, and apart from the occaisional
* apart from when they tested for open relays and asked me to upgrade sendmail
--
E_NOSIG
Papa was a trolling stone.
I live in Central Pennslyvania and get my cable modem access through Adelphia. It is only $40 a month. Also, the first 3 months were only $19.95 a month. On top of that if you install it yourself you get a 4th month free.
I usually get around 2Mbps down and am restricted to 128kbps up. So $80 a month seems like a hella lotta money compared to what Aelphia offers.
Then again, I hope Adelphia stays around long enough to continue offering this connection.
--Note to self. Add witty sig here, someday...
A Pentium 100 can run OpenBSD with ipf and ipnat just fine. It takes 30 mins to do a install and everything you need is already built in. Get a cheap hub or switch and 2 lan cards for the box and you have both a router and a firewall. Also, even though you arent *given a static IP it is very easy to simply use one. Use a different box to grab an IP from dhcp and then release it. Before this IP can be reasigned via dhcp assign it to your firewall. Simple as that you have a firewall, static IP, and connections for as many boxes as you have ports on your hub.
I watch in vain as yet more people fail to understand the evils of tiered pricing.
Recently, Case Western University decided to equip thousands of computers with a 1gb/s fiber network. They didn't quite know what people would use the bandwidth for, but they wanted to find out.
Why am I bringing this up? Ordinary users will only pay AT&T the cheapest price possible for a broadband connection. Now, that's $45; soon, AT&T may introduce a $20-$25 package, and theoretically some people now paying the higher price would downgrade to that package.
But there's tons of high-bandwidth applications available that most people don't use yet. Imagine real-time videoconferencing with resolutions as good as a printer. Imagine downloading OS or application upgrades from the Net in seconds. Hell, who would need hard drives anymore; bandwidth would be faster! There's all sorts of things we haven't thought of yet. But as long as AT&T imposes artificial bandwidth caps, that won't happen.
As bad as tiered pricing are upstream caps. That means that two cable modem users can only communicate with each other at ISDN speeds. There goes any useful peer-to-peer connectivity applications. Don't you all remember back when you used Napster, you'd always sort downloads by modem type, and skip anything lower than a T1? Downloading from one of your fellow cable modem users would have taken 8 times as long as downloading from someone with a leased line - but we can't all have leased lines, can we?
Tiered pricing is fine if it's due to technical constraints. If cable lines in San Francisco and Boston, for example, are higher-quality than lines elsewhere, there would be nothing wrong with offering faster service. But AT&T cannot justify offering service slower than what the cable lines allow; doing that will do much to halt the pace of network innovation. Shame on all providers who offer anything less than network capacity, in both directions.
BS! Your cap is 5GB d/ 1 GB u/? BS!
It is much better that they do it this way than a bandwidth cap / per MB charges. I'd much rather choose a connection speed / price tiered plan than be thinking about how many MBs I have used each month, tracking them like minutes on my cell phone plan.
Tiered access is a reality; now hopefully they will introduce a cheaper, low speed plan (like perhaps 500k u, 100k d, for $30/month)...
This is how DSL service has worked for years. In my area, for example, Verizon has 3 levels of DSL speed in a similar price range to this AT&T cable. I don't understand how "this had to happen sometime" when it has been happening, just not for cable. I realize DSL is tiered and cable is not for technical reasons (DSL's distance factors, dedicated servers, etc.). But to offer more bandwidth at a higher price makes sense if you believe in the basics of supply and demand. My only real issue with this topic is that there's virtually no competition (at least in the NYC metro area). Phone service is mostly monoply and cable is pure monopoly. That throws a wrench into the whole supply and demand thing, but basically if you want more data through the provider, it makes sense to pay more.
Developers: We can use your help.
I don't mind paying more for more bandwidth, but does this really solve the cable provider's problems with 'greedy' users? I would think their big hits come from people who run P2P or other bandwidth intensive applications 24 hours a day.
Granted, tiered bandwidth cuts theoretical throughput, but is it the most effective way to share the cost of bandwidth? There are a hell of a lot of people who just want fast browsing, but will probably use less than a GB each month. Will this new pricing structure bring in more customers from this huge demographic?
My original (mid '99) @home link was consistantly that fast, and it was only $30 per month.
However, that kind of pricing is probably impossible to maintain profitability.
However, the regular AT&T service offers 256k upstream, and it would take more than a 128k improvement on that for me to double my monthly bill. I would never pay $80/month for less than 5 mbps down/ 1 mbps up, and a guarantee that I wouldn't be penalized as a "bandwidth hog" for using the service I'm paying for to its full advertized potential.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Of course in rural New Hampshire, your lucky to get 28.8 modem speeds for $21 per month. DSL? I'd be lucky if they have that 5 towns over, nevermind in my town? Cable? We have to have regular TV here folks unless we shell out the money for satellite TV (which my parents do). Although I fail to understand why the cable company in the next town over can wire tht town for cable and not my town (it's been like that for years). Satellite internet? Not for $70 per month, where you get high ping times and much slower downloads then $42 cable internet provides. Wireless? Too bad there are too many mountains and valleys (nevermind trees) to make it cost effective.
I would of hate to had seen how long it took to get phone service here back when it was coming out...it's really pathetic that these companies can't work to get broadband to rural areas that would have real uses for it.
DirecTV has DSL for $50/month with no limits and a static IP address. You can't beat it, plain and simple. They are good to deal with and I've had no downtime so far. They will set up a network in your house for you, or they'll let you do it for yourself at no extra charge. It's the way to go, and for us they let us have the first 3 months at $30/month.
~ now you know
I looked on the site and there wasn't a clear answer to that question.
If you can't run your own servers, you basically have to eat what they dish out to you, and you're limited in what you can say. 10 megs for webspace - that's nothing. On my DirectTV DSL line I have a static IP for $49 a month. I have an 80 gig drive in my webserver. That's a whole lotta opinions that I can put on that drive.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I just wish someone would compete with AT&T in my area (Pueblo, CO). That way, prices could go down. I'm tired of their crappy customer service. I don't mind the new bandwidth, though.
Subsidized by your tax dollars (and yes, that only took 17 seconds to do!).
For the static ip go to www.dns2go.com free program that directs people from an ip you choose, such as slashdot.dns2go.net to the ip of a computer running a dns2go program. Its awesome and free. for the 2nd problem check out www.dlink.com or www.linksys.com and get a hardware router. unless you want to do the roll your own firewall/linux box route.
I don't see the real question addressed in the article, which is, will this new service have a different TOS agreement (Terms Of Service) then the current service? I'm annoyed enough at being told that I can't run servers, regardless of the bandwidth. I simply will not pay more then I pay now, and still be told that I can run servers, can't VPN, can't this, can't that, can't do anything but consume. (Yes, I tweak the rules with the SSH server that can do anything, but I shouldn't have to.)
On that topic, anybody noticed how almost all of the nasty trends lately that annoy Slashdot denizens boil down to making laws about enforcing the easy things, rather then the illegal things? Instead of enforcing theft laws, make it illegal to change phone ID numbers.... it's easier. Instead of enforcing bandwidth usage (the real money-eater for an ISP), enforce server bans... it's easier. Don't enforce piracy laws, make it illegal to create or use DeCSS and enforce those laws.... it's easier.
I wrote an essay that tangentially touched this issue in the context of automated enforcement a few months ago, but I think the problem is extending out from there. Enforcers of all kind (not just law, AT&T enforces a contract) are getting lazy, and making laws/contracts to help them be lazy.
...about this! 3Mbps is better than a full t1...and if they're saying that for $79.99 you get that GUARANTEED, it means that they have to live up to it. This is the best development yet! Surely you realize that with a cable modem you are using a SHARED medium...that means that bandwidth X is available to segment Y, which has Z number of users on it. So, they could tell you that what you get is bandwidth X downstream, but what you ACTUALLY get is:
X
--
Z
with this proposal, you get guaranteed 3MBPS downstream guaranteed, or you don't have to pay what they ask (well, what it really means is you have TOS that says you get something...when you don't get what you pay for, you're usually due a refund, and quibbling with customer service will usually get you this...).
in short, this is a gurantee that you can suck down as much data as you want for as long as you want without fear of being "capped".
Before you flame something understand it, please.
Ignorance is bliss, and so many of you are so damned HAPPY....
1gb / 5gb ? that sucks, I use that in like 2 days on my fairly slow cable. I hope I never get stuck with a bandwidth cap
Think we'll pay more for tcp packets than udp packets? 8 pennies for each 10 meg of TCP, but 5 for 10 meg of UDP?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
So what do you pay when your usage goes over that GB limit, or does your service just get cut off?
evanchik.net
It's a business account--we pay for static IPs, etc--and there's a fair amount of traffic.
Several months ago, we got a letter saying (I forget the exact words) we had suspicious usage patterns and warned that we're not to be hosting file sharing services that may be violating copyright!
I had one of my company's laywers answer their letter, pointing out that the TOS has no limiations about bandwidth usage patterns, and a reminder that we care even more about copyright violations than they do.
I think ATT is just trying to cut costs here by screwing legit customers. I which we had a (reasonably priced) option at this location, but we get T1 performance in the direction we need at a fraction of the price.
They have 3 tiers:
29.95 - 256 Kb/s
39.95 - 768 Kb/s
49.95 - 1.5 Mb/s (I am currently getting anywhere between 1 and 2.5 Mbits/s)
While certainly those who set up home networks are more likely to be tech savvy and more likely to use more bandwidth, this is also about marketing. You call up AT&T and have a conversation like this:
You: Hi, I wants me some Internet
ATT: Alright, fine, would you like to use our basic plan or our ultralink plan?
You: Ummmm, what's ultralink?
ATT: Ultralink is a service we provide that provides the bandwidth that home networks demand.
Average customer, at this point, will probably think that if they are planning to set up a home network, they'll need whatever this service provides and pay the extra money.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Got any jobs in LG? :)
This actually makes sense to me. (Don't flame me for taking a different opinion)
First of all, the way it was set up before was not fair. My mom, who uses the internet only to send email (that's all she knows how to do with it anyway) would be paying the same amount that I would be paying to play online video games, downloading whatever into My Pants, and transfering whatever to whoever (and all that pr0n when my wife is away) et cetera et cetera.
Yeah yeah, I know: if she wants to just send email, then she should use dial-up. But she shouldn't have to. Dial-up is a totally different service, requiring tying up your phone line or paying for another phone line. On top of that, it requires you to (duh) dial out - a concept to complicated for my mother. She needs it Always On.
The way I see it, she has been paying to support bandwith hogs like myself (and I am not as bad a hog as many others are - I haven't networked computers at home since I left my college roomates).
I would honestly be more worried about their Networking Policy (you need to pay for additional IP addresses, etc.) than to complain about not getting a free ride anymore.
[FYI: I find it compelling to add another tidbit on the irrationality of my parents. They are paying AOL dial-up, Earthlink dial-up, MSN dial-up, and Comcast cable internet. They only use the cable. I have told them twice to get rid of those they don't use. "But we use Earthlink - that's what comes up (reffering to their home page) when we go online (reffering to opening IE).]
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
I really don't see why this is a bad thing. My DSL provider (Verizon) has done this type of pricing for some time now. My line will support up to 1.5M/384K or 768K/768K. I have a choice of speeds from 768K/128K (basic - ~$40/month w/out ISP) to 768K/768K (premium = ~$70/month w/out ISP). I'm a poor college student, so I went with the cheepest package, giving me the always-on service that I need (for my mail server) and faster downloads than the dialup I'm coming from. (Oh and due to the massive f*ck-ege that is ResNet, I'll be getting faster connections than my mates in the dorms.)
Now I just wish anything other than Verizon DSL was available in my area, as I'm paying almost $60 a month for the "basic" service ($40 plus ISP charges). I'd go for just about anyone else over Verizon, even if it were more expensive, just because Verizon really screwed me over last year. However, as long as they have a monopoly on broadband services in my area (no cable modems, no wireless, no alternate telecos, only Verizon), I'll continue to pay their over-inflated rates.
But as long as there is at least one competing broadband provider, I fail to see why this type of pricing is A Bad Thing(TM).
Eak
Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish and Not Quite As Tall As I'd Like To Be.
I thought that your sarcasm was really funny... too bad the myriad of replies don't get it.
Alex
Take your pick.
If you think it costs nothing to run a network, and all the subscriber money is gravy.... well, then, you're smoking some kind, kind bud, my friend.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
But it is called "Cox Internet" and it is $34.95, or $44.95 if you rent the modem. Of course I'm biased. But I'd rather have a lower tier where I can pay less for a slower connection (than what they have been offering). I might even pay that much for a faster one... if it was MUCH faster. 38kbytes up sucks.
(Disclosure: I work for AT&T Business Services, but this is my own opinion.)
sulli
RTFJ.
This is a total rip-off.
I'm paying about 32$ USD for 4Mbit/640Kbit Cable service here in Montreal.
DSL Service is available for the same price, at 3.5MBit/800Kbit with something like 200GB download limit.
Bleh, I didn't ask for ways around it. I have a few computers networked to me "1 computer only" cablemodem (including a linux server dishing out webpages from a custom DNS, using dyndns.org), and I know how to hide it from the cable company. That wasn't my point. I'd like to do this with no strings attached, and not having to worry about the cable company noticing that I'm serving up webpages and stuff, and disconnect me.
I want a service that gives me a static IP address. The best I have right now is to co-lo and its waaay out of my pricerange.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
As far as I know, most people are totally content with the downstream bandwidth they get from all of these providers. anything upwards of 768Kbps is probably sufficient for most people's needs and even most power users. I personally have 1.5 down and I could drop to 768 without really caring and I'm definitely a power user.
The problem is the upstream. If I want to be hosting a P2P server, or running a website off my computer, 384 is barely sufficient (I know because I run on 384 right now). Would I pay a premimum every month to get double my downstream bandwidth? Heck no, I'd never use it. But I'd pay a premium to double my upstream bandwidth in a heart beat.
The other thing I have to wonder about with this is what the terms of service are. If I get 3Mbps down and I actually use it routinely am I going to get unplesant messages from AT&T telling me to stop using my service?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
damn subject line limit
Have you considered using a dynamic DNS service like www.dyndns.org?
I realize that this isn't a true replacement for a static IP. However, most DHCP assigned IP addresses are fairly static in the sense that you can leave your machine on to re-request a lease on the same IP address. Even if you use PPPoE there are clients available for download from dyndns.org's main page that will detect your IP address change and update your DNS account automatically to reflect the new address.
I got regular ATT cable and I get good speeds cause of my area. 175kb down and about 35kb up.
But when I'm uploading my download is about cut in half. If this new service fixes that it might be worth it but otherwise i'm not paying another $30 for 15 more kb/s upload that will slow my download to regular 1.5mbit anyway...
In the same boat.. I really wish my cable company could give me a static IP for a reasonable price. I don't understand how they can justify charging so much (I think I'd have to go to a business account, which is over $100). It's just one lousy entry in the DNS table, right?
As far as hooking up multiple computers with a static IP or dynamic, I just use a linksys router. I think I paid $60 for it. It just acts as a firewall and in conjunction with an old 8 port hub I had laying around, I've gotten that many computers on the internet with it (of course you can also buy routers with more ports and not worry about the hub). I can do IP forwarding with it so if I had multiple machines that are acting as servers (say one is mail, one is web) the router can handle that as well...
also look at dyndns.org to get a hostname for your dynamically assigned ip address. it works really well for me.
-- john
Doh! That's the last time I go to lunch composing a post.
Lots of Business DSL carriers offer static IPs. Try AT&T Business Services, or Speakeasy.
you'd have to find someone fast enough to get you a download stream that was 3Mbps
most your downloads will still be at the same speed, but you will be paying twice as much for it.
also, bitch bitch bitch, if you want the bandwidth, buy a T1, it's like $495 a month.
if you don't want to pay that much then rent bandwidth from someone else and deal with their TOS
ISPs pay REAL MONEY for their bandwidth... you should too!!!
In case anyone (almost every-fucking-one??) is missing it, I think the guy is being sarcastic.
God people are such fucking morons.
This just proves why we need ubiquitous wireless internet.
To all you who would say that there are health problems: Bah. There's already tons of wireless signals going through the air with radio and TV, and you don't see everyone getting cancer, do you?
TV, especially now that it's becoming digital, can easily be transferred over the Internet. Radio can easily be transferred over the Internet (look at Shoutcast). IPv6 insures that there are enough IP addresses that every person on the planet can have a subnet and we're nowhere near running out. So why not just make everything go over the Internet?
Take away all public TV wireless broadcasts, and all radio broadcasts. Then, in their place, start broadcasting wireless networks, everywhere. Completely for free. Radios are reworked to use IPv6 and pick up Internet signals; TVs the same. Support for 802.11g, or a newer protocol, is built into every single computer, TV, car; the list goes on.
There's another important impact if this happens: you're no longer paying for connectivity, so that money is freed up for other uses. People who are now paying $10/mo for NetZero, $23/mo for AOL, or $50/mo for AT&T Broadband now can use that money to pay for premium content. Micropayments can be instituted on a mass scale; most people would only end up spending about $10/mo anyway on micropayments, and power users who spend huge amounts of time on the Internet just pay more. People get the same speed no matter what.
Why not?
The reason it is bad is because before the @Home screw-up and AT&T take-over, I was getting almost 4 Mbps down for $39.95/month. They then capped it to 1.5 for the same price, later raised the price some more, and now are offering the same service I used to get for 2X the $$$$$.
Give this thing some thought here. This is a sort of cable modem FUD. sure, in DSL the connection between your station and the CO is a dedicated line and you can get guaranteed 3mbps down and 384kpbs up to the CO, but the CO has a pipe that ultimately gets shared as well. So the formula is the same ultimately. Unless the bandwidth on the coax side is worse than the pipe side, there isn't too much of a difference. There are some differences that *could* make a difference:
- Proxy at the CO
- newsfeed from the CO rather than through it
- Services that you actually want served from the CO
Peer-to-Peer operations among customers still capped at 384kbps, so only stuff at the CO can really exploit the advantage of not being a shared bandwidth.
What makes the differences is that frequently, the CO being a branch of a telco company is much more likely to have a much fatter pipe than your average cable company. This is valid, but not always the case. Around where I live, DSL and cable modem are pretty much the same, with cable modems getting the edge in burst speed. All this because the cable company works with the local University and is patched into their extraordinarily fat pipe and thus is not afflicted by the standard problems of a cable company.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I actually work in the old TSR building, where they made Pool of Radiance (I think). Although TSR isn't here any longer, which kinda sucks.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I'd like to thank all of you who've contributed, with a stylish tote bag, and a brand new Sarcasm Detector.
In the Uk we pay £50 a month (that's what $70?) for a 1megabit down/256kilobit up connection and you guys complain about $80 for 3 times that download speed? You are NEVER happy honestly.
When I signed up for my cable modem about a month ago at my new house, I was offered three tiers. 384kbps / 768kbps / 1.5Mbps. All both ways. I went with the lowest because of a package deal with digital cable (non-movie channels, $74.99 for both). There is another package now that bundles the "big" bandwidth with all movie channels for $99.99. I was going to switch, but It seems after an issue with my cable modem, they reset me to the 1.5Mbps package. So, I am happy now.
I am in British Columbia, and we have the same Telco here as in Alberta (Telus). Though I don't use Telus, I have friends that do. The bandwidth cap is not enforced at all. They just say they do so later down the road when they decide that people are leeching way too much they can implement it without much recoil from the users.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Having increased capacity is all well and good, but are they going to allow you to run your own servers?
Or is this increased capacity just so you can "stream movies" or other such nonsense?
Then the world was invaded by the likes of PCLink, the Commodore 64 version of PCLink and the Mac based version which bore the same name
The name you're looking for is "Q-Link"
Man, I miss Q-Link. Tight little community where everyone was polite. Helluva chess room, too.
Of course, I don't miss the price ($0.06/min). I remember when my folks got a $100 bill one month.
So what's Canada (or Calgary) done differently (and obviously better) than the US?
Sure they are. It's rather hard to detect the morons from the people "being sarcastic", as the postings are incredibly similar. Couple that with the fact that the morons usually backtrack and then claim that they were "joking" or "being sarcastic" and you have a pretty hilarious situation.
BTW: If this posting is okay, then I'm serious, otherwise I'm being sarcastic. Haha. I'm funny.
Sorry no. It took some searching, but I found their Acceptable Use Policy and:
"Examples of prohibited programs and equipment include, but are not limited to, mail, ftp, http, file sharing, game, newsgroup, proxy, IRC servers, multi-user interactive forums and Wi-Fi devices;"
so you are not allowed to run any servers, nor an open WAP node. I have no personal experience with them so I don't know if they even try to enforce this restriction, but it is there and they could. They want you to pay the business rate even if you aren't making money on it.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I thougt that DSL modems acted as switches, or at least they don't send data from an internal subnet up the DSL line.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I've been looking for an alternative to dial-up for my beach house for a while now. (It's in southern New Jersey, served by Comcast, not that I'm fishing for advice...) I need unlimited usage, but I really don't care about speed... anything at least as fast as my noisy, pseudo-56k connection would be adequate.
As it stands, I'm paying $21/month for local dial-up (which is already a lot.) I believe that cable modem service would be something like $45/month, which I can't justify. We really need another option, something in the $20-$30 range, for people who just want a stable connection. The CNET article implies that AT&T will try to fill that niche, but it doesn't give any details... I hope the idea catches on.
MSK
Maybe I'm missing something, but where do we go to sign up?
How about 5000 down and 1000 up for $30?
That's Optimum Online in NJ. When I read about the shit that's happening all over the country I start to believe I'm in freaking broadband heaven. Even if they double the price, I'd still be as happy as a clam....
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
As a current AT&T Broadband customer, I would consider the higher tier service if it
a. eliminated the block on incoming port 80
b. made a static IP address possible to obtain
Otherwise, they are offering my nothing I desire.
Bunk. Most folks who setup home networks are also smart enough to know they need a decent firewall, which is routing, which means said hub argument means zippo.
Granted, there are plenty of clueless people that pay their ISPs for extra address and then just plug all their machines into a hub with the ISP's device, but in that case their paying for that privledge AND the ISP is well aware of that.
Anything is possible given time and money.
I realize that sarcasm can be subtle, but I think the tip-off was the "hundreds of dollars" versus "$80".
In the real world (every part of it), this has been the standard for years. When the cable company was still beta testing in my area (yes, in the US), they had three levels of service and that was years ago.
The "news" is that there are any cable companies who were _ever_ stupid enough to just open up the tap and let everyone grab as much as they could swallow. The "news" is that there are still companies out there doing that.
If they allowed commercial servers on port 80 again, I'd switch in a second. This is some sweet "up" bandwidth for my needs and that price (which should be tempered with the fact that I'll have broadband at hom anyways). Currently I'm using DHS to put up a frame to my servers on other ports, but this isn't that viable for a commercial site (some firewalls at anal companies block http outgoing everything but port 80).
-no broken link
For charging customers who owned their modems more than those who leased their modems? It seems as if they've reversed themselves on the assumption that people who own their modems cost them more in tech support.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Most cable companies do let you know that it is either legal or illegal to hook up more than one computer to a single lne. I asked my service provider and he said that was fine as they know a typical home user wouldn't be actually hooking up more than say three computers unless there are geeks like in my appt where we've got 8 computers hooked up. But even that didn't bother the cable guy :-) And you can always make sure that he doesn't know you have a 'Home Lan'!
Sasktel (the first ADSL provider in North America) has had this for a while.
:)
High speed basic(1.5M, 128k up): $45.99/month
High speed light(128K): $22.95/month
High speed static IP(Basic+Static IP): $59.99/month
High speed enhanced (2.0M down, 384k up): $59.95/month
High speed Extra (3.0M down, 640k up): $95.95/month, $149.95/month.
Personally, I use Shaw's cable modem service, but if I want a static IP and 3mb down, I know where I can get it for $150/month
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Am I the only one who thinks that upstream caps are a bad idea?
I don't want a 3Mb/328kb asymterical connection.. but I'd easily pay 80$ for 1.5Mb symmetrical. What is the problem here? Why do I get the feeling one of the big reasons an upstream cap exists is to create an artificial scarcity of servers? What does the telco care what I use my bits for, so long as I am paying?
Here in Boston, we've had a similar experience with first Telocity, and then DirecTV (who bought up Telocity). Fast, reliable, and prompt service when needed (rarely).
My wife (a professional computer geekess) tweaks things on the home network to her heart's content...we'll sometimes have six machines and a wireless hub running on it. We were worried when Telocity was bought, but no problems. We were worried when we moved to the other side of town, but no problems.
Every once in a while, we get something in the mail from Earthlink or Verizon, saying how great it is that we can switch to their service and pay more ($59.95 in some cases) for less (no static IP, no in-home networks). Someday, these services will get a clue. For now, DirecTV does it right.
Rogers Cable has had tiered service for at least a few months now. Of course, it doesn't have fancy names such as Ultralink, but there are 2 distinct levels of service.
The main one is called Rogers High Speed (and I will refrain from the jokes about the general lack of speed), and the lower tier is called Rogers Light Internet. The High Speed is supposed to be 1.5 Meg down, and 128 up. The Light service is 128K down, and 64K up. The price of the High Speed is ~50 bucks a month. The light version is ~20 bucks. Not too bad, and probably cheaper than most dialup access.
So far there has been no mention of usage caps, but I would imagine they will be forthcoming.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
This is the way it should be. I don't mind paying extra for my service, but what I can't stand is being told "Sorry, even though you're willing to pay a hell of a premium over our Joe Sixpack service, we just don't feel like serving you." Yeah, I realize that economies of scale dictate that the connoisseurs among us can't always be catered to, but good lord am I tired of having to put up with the market's Lowest Common Denominator fetish.
Now they just need to allow for serving in their ToS - allow ANY type of server, so long as you're not slinging spam or distributing pr0n or w4r3z. (well, the pr0n might be ok, but since it's assuredly someone else's copyrighted works, that eighty-sixes the idea of running a porn site on your cable modem.)
The Free desktop that Just Works
Isn't AT&T the company that was appending a $7 service charge if you used your own modem?? (see this story from slashdot.) What happened with that, did they get harassed into submission or something?
Wide Open West started out with tiered pricing. I have 1.44 Mbs with them for 49.99 a month. They also offer a couple packages above that.
In Calgary, AB, Canada waht good would it be to use their internet if it is not free to speak you mind? In the united states a person can print, speak or type "Fuck Jesus" without going to jail, but in canada its a federal offense.
Unless Canada stops arresting people for anti-jesus cyber sites, I am in no rush to move their. Blasphemy laws are anti-human.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Bandwidth is still every bit as expensive as it was when we were still using 486's and first gen Pentiums. No wonder the internet never took off like it should have. As I recall, many of the pie-in-the-sky projections for the dot-com companies were based on the assumption that everyone would soon have high speed bandwidth. Based on the last six years I would have to project that the internet will never see significant bandwidth gains.
Why? Because if computing and home network power continues to increase as it has, while internet connection speeds remain static, the internet itself will become more and more useless. Our own personal networks will be faster and contain more information, so why bother?
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Ostensibly, this isn't a bad thing; Options are good. It's just the games they play are incredibly annoying:
Originally, when I got cable internet access, it was through MediaOne (now AT&T)... they did not cap their modems and we regularly got 3Mbps down and 384kbps up for $40 per month (because we were also paying for cable tv)... this lasted at least a year or more.
About 6 months after AT&T took over, the price was bumped $5 per month... shortly thereafter, they rescinded a deal where you get $5 off if you also have cable tv through them. Subsequently, they capped everyone's modem for "performance reasons", even though everyone I knew regularly got very good bandwidth.
Furthermore, according to their license agreement, you are not allowed to run any sort of p2p or hosting (irc,ftp,http,etc.) on the connection, which, in my opinion totally negates the benefit of the extra bandwidth. Is it my bandwidth or not? If they ever start enforcing that, I think a lot of people will leave them.
In terms of cable tv, the last deal I made with MediaOne (now AT&T) was getting apparently "free" channels included in my package. Everything was fine for about 3 years until they stop transmitting a handful of the movie channels. Apparently, because they were "free", they could rescind them at any time since, technically, I wasn't paying for them -- though I gave up a better plan for this one because it seemed better... the cable guy made no mention of the fact that they are "included" but they can be rescinded at any time.
Never mind all the issues of them making money through obfuscation; making money off of complex plans and intentionally confusing people. Anyhow, I'm a bit bitter.
Do home networks automatically imply that you use more bandwidth? I can't speak for other /.-ers but I'd say that at least a few of us have a home network set up for sharing files between computers, having an mp3 file server, etc.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Same reason that staying over on a Saturday saves you most of the price of the plane ticket. Companies know that business users can save quite a bit throught their residential services, so they wish to recover some of that savings, go check the prices for T-1 or DS3 access sometime. To recover some of the savings they introduce the business package. The static IP is an indicator that the user's alternative is likely to be something priced in the T-1 range, so they can double home access prices and still save that user a bundle. Additionally, users that use static IPs and other business class services are likely to use more bandwidth, and cost more to serve than the average (web surfing, emailing, etc) client.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
...home built on my street. Now the damn neighbors are hogging my bandwidth...approx. 1-1.3Mbps now. I'm talking RR and I'm paying $45 USD per month.
What I want to know is why RR and other cable companies providing BB restrict bandwidth?!? As I understand it, we could be getting 5Mbps or more as the bandwidth is there and unused.
go to compusa or your local tech store, and grab th $95 3 port/4 port router and some cat5...
I think it is really silly that they try to charge you for the extra machines you put on it. After all, you aren't getting any MORE bandwidth when you add another machine. I might be a little more willing to pay the extra $10 if it meant another full 1.5 mbit.
Similarly though- my cable agreement talks about that but the installers are cool about it. Although a little more recently someone came out to do some tech work on the line (I don't remember the exact reason why he came out right now) and he noticed my hub. "Is that a LAN?" I said "yes" and told him that the reason I have one is because I don't want to have to unplug my computer every time I get on/off the internet to get share my other computers (nor do I want to buy another NIC) which is true. He was cool with that and didn't ask me more questions.
There should be some kind of consumer laws against companies charging for more with no additional product or service to the consumer (as in this case).
What do the cable companies do with all the excess outbound capacity? At the endpoints of attbi or comcast or the like's networks, they are buying symmetric connections to the naps/pnaps. In the attbi example, both the old and the new service have about a 10 to 1 inbound to outbound ratio. That theoretically means that 90% of the outbound capacity is going unused.
N machines through one machine with a known IP. Then you can have many machines all connecting to the net from apparently the same IP. Thus you need only one IP address. The network behind the machine with actual internet connection can be as complex or as simple as you want. But why pay $10 extra?
They get to charge me even more, yet they will still have the same crappy service!
Who wants to bet latter they change their minds and introduce a bandwith up+download limit, a # of PCs connected limit, and more sometime after they get a lot of people signed up?
Sonic.net
4 static IP's
DSL
Excellent peoples
$60/mo (40 to pacbell for the physical line, 20 to sonic for internet access)
All the posts above yours at this moment consider tiered pricing a good thing. Or was it just another shot at the "Slashbot" stereotype?
It's just one lousy entry in the DNS table, right?
Wrong.
Back in the olden days, IP addresses were handed out in different classes: A, B, and C. You bought the rights to an ip address range. It didn't take long for the Class A and Class B addresses to be all sold out. Nowadays, it is becoming difficult to get a full class C.
In order for you to get your static IP, your ISP would have to have had the foresight to get a block of addresses that it could statically dish out.
Your ISP has to rent its IP address space. They are similar to a parking garage. They have a fixed number of spaces that they dish out to people as they connect. Some people will stay connected for long periods of time. Some will turn their machines off every night. Those that turn their machines off abandon their number, just like someone leaving a parking garage abandons their space. The next user coming in gets it. Just as a parking garage may tow cars away that have been left overnight, your ISP may kick people off that have been connected for a long time. Policies vary.
Some ISPs have a block of IP addresses that they give out on a permanent lease, similar to a parking garage having a section for reserved parking. In order to do this, though, the ISP must designate a block of IP addresses, and design their routing appropriately. Cable ISPs are after the casual, home user. These users don't care whether their IP address is static or dynamic. Half the time* these people don't even have their machines turned on. The cable ISP with 10000 users* may have only 8000 IP addresses*.
* These numbers are entirely made up.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
"better service" my butt, try calling up and going through their "support!" They are a monoplic company that treates their customers like shit because they are the only game in town. Thankfully they do not have a monoply where I live, or I would still be getting screwed by them.
Everyone seems to forget that cable is limited - 5MBit/s per user is possible, but if 5-10 people are downloading 5MBit/s, suddenly there's no more bandwith available.
And, since most people download instead of upload, the bandwith on the other end of the line isn't going to be the same going up and down. Nope, they're not going to have extra uplink bandwith and have little downlink bandwith just to satisfy a few people who want to run servers.
ADSL works the same way too - not only do they have more download speed at the central office, providing higher upload speeds is technically impossible with current modems.
The only thing that would bother me is how much of that bandwidth is guaranteed. I pay $80 to Verizon for a 1.5/384 DSL, but that's guaranteed bandwidth. Cable is notorious for fluctuations in bandwidth. If I could get anywhere near that 3mbps cap _consistently_, it would be worth it compared to my current service.
This sig is exactly seventy characters long and a real waste of space!
Comcast, who forbid any use of VPN on "residential" service
My Comcast terms specify that I can't use my cable to connect a 'VPN Endpoint.' I'm not sure if that term has a technical definition, but to me it means that I can't have a VPN server awaiting connections. It doesn't seem to me that this would apply to using outgoing VPN, since there's not much difference between that and telnet or ftp.
The restrictions on running 'servers,' i.e. accepting multiple connections from anywhere on the Internet, seems like a [mostly] reasonable attempt to have a common-sense bandwidth limit. I would think that any type of OUTGOING traffic, initiated by me, should be OK, within reasonable limits. Of course, what seems reasonable to me may not seem reasonable to them, but if they're not going to allow an outgoing VPN connection, they might as well block everything but HTTP and POP, and call it a web and mail service.
Evil is the money of root.
Dude, US is far worse when it comes to free speech. Remember DCMA (Or whatever the hell it's called)? And our RCMP (Canadian equivallent to the FBI) doesn't spy on us (or doesn't publicly admit that they do). US is becoming more and more of a police state. And Canada is likely to follow... because our politicians are tools.
www.no-ip.com is a pretty good start for your static ip problem. And slapping a DSL router (Linksys makes a good cheap one with a built in switch) onto your network is a pretty damn simple way to connect multiple machines to your network.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
My question is if paying for the 3Mbs is going to come with any quality of service guarantees.
I have the normal AT&T cable service now and you can tell the difference in bandwidth at different
times of the day. Why would I want to pay double what I am paying now if at peak usage times I am
going to get pulled down to what I am getting for bandwidth currently. I don't want to be paying
more then everyone else and also have to do my downloads at 3am to get the performance I paid for.
This sounds like the local water company coming by the house and installing faucets with openings
twice the size of my current ones but not doing anything to increase the capacity of the water
mains in the town, and then sending me a bill for twice as much as last month.
I think I'll stick with what i've got.
Because my ISP, Verizon, specifically allows for up to five simultaneous "dial-ups" on one DSL account. Pretty cool of them, actually.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Where I live, Bell Sympatico started doing this sometime in June. They offer regular service (960 down/128 up, 5GB/month each way) at CDN$45/month, "ultra" service (same bandwidth as AT&T is offering, 10GB/month each way) at CDN$80/month, and basic service (128 each way, 1GB/month each way) for (if I remember correctly) CDN$20/month. So once again, not only do we lucky Ontarians get it first, we also get it cheaper.
Here in Spain we pay 45 for a 256/128 DSL line... you don't know how lucky you are...
Why is more downstream capability available than upstream? On cable systems, I can kind of understand because they had to lay new cable to accommodate upstream traffic, and that cable is $$$. But what about DSL? I've been making as many calls as I received on my phone for ages. Anybody know the answer to this?
Used to live near Waukegan, IL. Got cable modem in fall '00. Supposedly was 1500/128. I'd sometimes see 5000/128 over Napster. That's right, 5000! But never more than 128 on the up. Now I'm in east bay, CA. PacBell = 1500/128, pretty much as advertised for $50 or whatever. I'd pay more for 768/768, honestly. I didn't install that pole in my bedroom for nothing!
Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard. The landing party is growing restless and resorting to odd behavior. I have developed talents that must be seen to be believed.
Tis true and a good point. However, in reality I don't think with a lot of ISP's (especially the smaller ones) the amount of IP addresses are an issue. I've had the same exact dynamic IP address (via DHCP) for pretty much the past year. If it they had more fluctuation/ demand than available IP's, I would expect my dynamic address to be changing frequently.
Perhaps if we went to IPV6 this would be more of a possibility?
The ATT site does not have this tiered pricing listed. It also says that I cannot get any broadband service at my address. Kind of funny when when I already have ATT cable modem running there. I think it is priced priced good but they cannot guarantee that performance with the nodes overloaded as they are, hell I get about 900kbps not the 1.5Mbps I should be getting. If they added more nodes and decreasedthe numbers on them, it would be worth it. As it is, they can't even keep my connection up all the time. I constantly get 3 to 5 minute hiccups between 9 - 10pm everynight. Oh well, they wont get my money for now.
I've really been impressed with the service Insight broadband has been providing. Here in Lexington, KY we get 3 Mbps downstream for $45. They don't really advertise it (most probably wouldn't understand anyway) but I went ahead and figured it up when I started consistently getting 350 KB/s downloads.
Screw that uncapping nonsense. This is great.
"Software is like sex. It's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
.....considering that Cablevision's Optimum Online offers 8Mbps down/1Mbps up for $40/month. I fear that they will go tiered at some point as well, but still, the transfer rates are much more impressive than AT&Ts. I would certainly pay $80 to keep these speeds! Not sure about 3Mb\384kb though......
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Do they somehow think I forgot that a year ago I was getting these speeds AND static IPs for $39.95, when their backbone was provided by @home?
"This is a good thing" my ass.
Here's an interesting idea I had, perhaps more of a conspiracy theory. People talk about being glad that ISP's charge for bandwidth provided, rather than bandwidth consumption. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps Microsoft and other software/networking giants might benefit from this as well?
Hypothetically speaking, let's say you were charged a penny per byte of internet traffic, both uploaded and downloaded. Wouldn't that make you want to be more judicious with every packet being transmitted or received? If people started counting bytes, trying to eliminate "unnecessary" packets, we would pay more attention to all packets being transmitted and received, something that Microsoft probably doesn't want, because of all of their hidden traffic used to "provide you with better service"; traffic the common Windows user doesn't know about. The same goes for certain internet sites and content providers.
Also, companies like Cisco have an interest in making sure people don't pinch their pennies because they're being charged for network consumption. The need for more bandwidth requires more hardware!
Just a couple thoughts. Maybe I'm way off base, but I wouldn't put it past the Microsoft goons to have thought of something like this in their business planning.
Youre right, the RCMP doesnt spy on Canadian,
its just continuously harresses legal crippled medpot patients like Grant Krieger.
The internal spying here is done by the CSIS.
If you want to make $12,000 (Can) to spy on
your local ethnic community, theyre always looking
for people. My dum (and broke) friend turned it down. Hell, I would have fed them crap until they got tired.
Problem with Canada is perception. Since we live next to the 400 pound gorilla, we can always say "Well, at least were not like those blood-thirsty yanks who bomb a country 3-4 times a decade." but while we dont have the Patriot Act
(you gotta love this Stalinist mentality where politicians vote for laws without even reading them), we have laws now like C-35, and C-36.
Its nice to know that when dictators like Suharto come to Canada (remember Peppergate?), any peaceful dissent can be met with force.
In terms of Canadian history (and not comparisons with the US), our rights have consistently been eroded over the past decade.
z
Just got a quote from Charter for a business connection. Basically, $100/month, plus $20/month for each Nated box on the network. Fees to open each port.
AND, they own and program the firewall, you want something changed, you ask them to do it. Sure, every day I'll give them the firewall. Nuts.
Which part of calgary are you in?
With Shaw I get 100kB/s up and 800kB/s down. yes 6.4Mb/s. 2 CD's for a beta test (NWN) in under 1/2 hour.
I havent' tried telus yet though.
Rogers out in ottawa is pretty decent as well, but their competitor Bell has horrible service.
later
In Canada for
8Mbs down / 512 Kbps up
it's $42.95 cdn($26.98 US)if you RENT
and $37.95 cdn ($23.84 US)if you OWN the modem.
The modem costs $59.95 cdn ($37.66 US)
gotta love canada !
When I was just in about the 5th grade their was a stupid saying.
"Shut don't go up, prices do."
You think non-bandwidth hungry users will get a discount, or do you think higher plans will require a premium? Remember this is the good ole USA...
I'm on the phone as I type this trying to upgrade our Comcast service to Comcast Pro. I swear we just had this conversation.
Me: Hi. I'm currently a Comcast Broadband Subscriber and I'd like to upgrade my service to Comcast Pro.
Comcast: What?
Me: The premium bandwith service, Comcast Pro.
Comcast: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Me: I saw it on your web site. Would you like the URL?
Comcast: Comcast Pro? I've never heard of this before.
Me: Well let me tell you about it...
Comcast: Hold while I transfer you to another department.
I dunno, I just found it funny that the number they give you to call to get the service is answered by somebody who has no clue that there is, in fact, a service.
Espcially with hint of a low cost for people that 'just want a upgrade from dialup'..
Plus no 'per use' fees for 'hogs'...
Too bad i live out in the sticks and will never see broadband..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Here in Canada, it's $35 a month for cable broadband service...
That's $20something USD, btw.
My service is 5mpbs/360kbps*...
Although it's rare to get close to the download cap, as most sites are too busy to send at that rate.
* Sometimes I get close to 800, but ~360 seems the usual
What I'm trying to say is "haha"
without anything fancy going on on my end.
Solution: Simple ethernet network with lowgrade (read: cheap) linux box with two NICs. Works like a champ every time! Linux, how do you do it?
I don't mind the idea of varied prices for different bandwidth figures.... but what good does that do me if my current AT&T connection is utterly saturated already at a 1.5 mbit cap? What I'd like to see is some package that runs on a separate network that is NEVER oversubscribed, so that pings don't go from 20, to 40, to 200 on a whim. I don't need 3mbit downstream, heck I don't even need 1.5, I'd take 1mbit down, 256k up and pay a little bit more for it if I could be guaranteed that the network would be consistant, and never saturated.
Don't think that because something is available in one area that's it's available everywhere. Too many folks on /. make that mistake, and it's incredibly annoying.
FWIW, I have the Sympatico DSL, and they just upped the price and introduced 5G up/ 5G down bandwidth caps.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
4Mbs down and 640Kbps up for $59 CDN.
t re me.htm
That's better and already available.
Come to Canada folks.
http://www.videotron.com/portail_en/internet/ex
Also announced was the "Still cheaper than renting your movies" plan, 3.5mbps down and 128kbps up, as well as the "Bored guy in southeast Asia with a big hard disk on an ftp server" plan, 1.5mbps down and 5mbps up.
Actually, Comcast also offers a version of this (I happen to work for them in the middle TN area). While standard service is $49.95 /mo (no cable TV) with 1500 kbps down and 128 kbps up, they do offer a "Comcast Pro" version which is 3500 kbps down and 384 kbps up. That goes for $95.00 /mo. with or without cable modem rental. (If you need a modem they give it to you, if you already have one, still same price.) It comes with 5 IPs (all dynamic, though the lease is 6 months). They don't really promote it because it isn't really a tiered package. It's the commercial package available residentially. I personally think it's a good deal, and have been sorely tempted to shell out the $95/mo. to get it. About the only downside I see is that the bandwidth isn't guaranteed, but that's only important if you're doing somethings you shouldn't ;).
That AC is wrong.
It's the CSE that spies on Canadians. The 3LA stands for Communications Security Establishment, it operates under the DOD, and in 2001 had a budget of approx. $CAN 106 million.
The CSE has two functions... Assisting other government branches with their own computer security, and spying on communications traffic within Canada.
CSIS is only allowed to spy on us when our communications cross the border into other countries, unless I recall incorrectly. This, of course, means that messages posted to Slashdot can be intercepted by both the CSE and CSIS, never mind the US agencies.
Isn't that what broadband is for in the first place? Why should you have to 'upgrade' your broadband just to get what you should be anyway?
http://www.videotron.ca offers 4Mbps down and 640k up for 59.95 CAN a month, and 1.5Mbps for 34.95 CAN. High speed internet is considered an essential service in Canada, and the government has taken steps to get the population online....
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
That's great that they offer such nice speeds, but of course I CAN'T GET AT&T Broadband where I live
*sigh*
The installer came into my computer room, looked around and saw the 5 computers along with myriad of parts and pieces and said...
"I'm betting that you don't want me to touch anything in here."
He put the jack in the wall, handed us a piece of paper and left.
It was pretty humorous.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Thats stupid, I pay $30 a month with cox for the same speeds.
I live in Canada (for you americans that is just north of the US) I get 3.0Mbps down 768kbps up for $42CDN/month or about $25US
AT&T Broadband claim to give you unlimited use at least. They just ban most things that would use a lot of bandwidth. I can't decide which is worse, a hard cap on traffic volume or limited application. AT&T also does not do any domain (or vitual domain) hosting for home users. They also say in "required hardware" that you must have a windows or apple box, and no home network unless it is the kind they endorse. I would imagine that they are not interested in keeping anyone from using Linux or their own home network, but I still don't like the attitude.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
XYZZY
GRAULT
yeah, baby, Speakeasy DSL - 604 down, 384 up, and they just give you the bandwidth and back the hell away.
... is that the people who use more bandwidth (beyond just downloading mp3s and movies) also know how to use the Internet effectively and are looked upon by others as authorities and opinion leaders. We also steer *new* business to the cable Internet providers. It's a bad idea to piss off people who steer new business your way; they may stop.
It's about time! People need to grow up and realize that bandwidth doesn't grow on trees, and even if it did, we'd have to import thousands of mexican laborers to harvest it, thus ruining our economy and adding to crime and povery problems in the southwestern United States. There is already much dispute between southern california and mexico over allocation of the increasingly scarce water supply, I don't think we need to bring complaints about the speed of your WinMX downloads into all this.
I think I'm OK with tiered pricing, but we need to get back to something akin to Moore's law on it. I've been very disappointed with the deployment methods and speeds of broadband. I've been on DSL now for 2 1/2 years. My speed should have doubled at least once by now, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Hard drives are doubling every year. PCs are still doubling every 18 months or so. But the wide area link has not been following Moore's since we outgrew POTS. It used to be that I could get a new modem and boost my speed every year or two. Now that the big guys are in control and continuously undershooting on the infrastructure rollout, I think we're on a decade long plan. This is very very bad.
Apparently your parents don't understand the value of that green stuff (or here in Canada, green, blue, red etc.) we get in exchange for going to work every day. I suggest offering to save them $60/mo. in exchange for a flat fee of $200. Then go in and change their homepage. They might just fall for it, and angrily call Earthlink et al. and cancel their service.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I pay 20$ for 4mb down, 0,6mb up in the middle of nowhere in sweden. alowded to runn own servers, static ip and such. damn, im lucky.
http://www.easystreet.com/services/easydsl/enthusi ast.html was my choice... look at their terms! As long as you aren't spamming others, hosting open relays, or cracking other people's systems (in short, as long as you are being a responsible net citizen), they don't care what you do with the service they provide.
As a side note, I've called their tech support at all hours of the day and night and never had to wait more than a couple of rings (not minutes... rings). Very helpful people.
That's what ISPs should be doing to get my business... providing what I need, at a reasonable price, and not bugging me about how I choose to use the bandwidth.
I'm an individual! Just like everyone else!
If you have DNS records pointing at your cable modem IP, make sure you drop the TTL way down (to maybe 5 minutes) before you change any part of your service. Apparently when they make changes to your provisioning (number of IPs, bandwidth, etc) they reset a central server AND your modem, and you will probably NOT get your old IP back.
This really cought me off guard. I had to wait about 3 days for my records to expire from nameserver caches.
Shaw has cracked down on anyone using more than ~5GB a month. The official company line - straight from the mouth of the dear girl who called me, is that 'there is no bandwidth limit, but if you use too much bandwidth we'll have to cut off your access'. They refuse to say how much it too much, but some people have gotten calls after what they say is only 3-4 GB /month.
I've always wanted to run game servers. What would you say is a minimum upstream for say a 16 player Quake3 server?
My blog can kick your blog's ass
I mean seriously, I'm already paying $50 a month BECAUSE I WANT MORE BANDWIDTH. If bandwidth was not a concern, I'd pay $10-20 a month and be content with dialup. So now if I want to actually use this premium service I'm already paying more than double what I could be paying, I need to pay almost double that again?
Excuse me, but anyone that thinks this makes any sense, please bang your head against something very hard. Something is loose in there.
I got that same "5 GB" line from Shaw when I was living in Vancouver. I got cut off temporarily for going waaay over that one month, but the fairly reasonable customer service guy I talked to admitted that their main complaint was the bandwidth going out of my machine. He tallied up their records, which had me at something like 12 GB down, 4 GB up for the month. I don't think they can (or at least could at the time) track bandwidth very effectively, as I knew for a stone cold fact that my downloads that month had been >25 GB. Anyway he told me to cool it, which I did, and no problems since. I regularly went over the 5GB number (tho not by a whole bunch) and they never got on my ass about it.
linksys model BEFN2PS4 allows you to Spoof your "computers" MAC address even if you have non-static IP from your ISP. This allow you to have multiple computers on your home network with a hardware based solution (very little to configure and their tek-support will serve. BUT THE COOLEST THING IS YOU CAN PLUG A REGULAR CORDLESS PHONE INTO THIS MODEL LINKSYS AND USE THE BUILT-IN VOICE over IP and get DOMESTIC LONG DISTANCE for 3.9 cent/min seemless , just dial (xxx)xxx-xxxx # then you connect without a phone company ( your end). Net2Phone bills only minute charges as used to your 25$ prepay, optional can be settup to self renew. IMAGINE AN EXTRA LINE OUT AT THIS RATE AND DISTRIBUTED INTERNET WITHOUT COMPLICATED SETUP. one can of course setup a DNS server to use this router to enable a home network also.
Has anyone tried http://www.linuxntsystems.com/
$39.95
a canned DNS/internet/ftp server ready in 30 minutes FOR THE MOST NON-EXPERIENCED PERSON provided with YES!!! step-by-step numbered instructions on several (approx full paper 3 pages) THE MOST HELPFUL I EVER SAW!!! HURRAY!!
this linuxNT will even seup a DIALUP server with all of the afore mentioned features. EVEN COOLER!!
new strategy by isp/tek-support department management, hire complete amatuers=zero experience because you can pay only $10/hr then if someone with several years experience applies tell that person that they do not have enough experience ( this happens to me all the time, I call and check as I service people who are entitled to the support, I call as them or representing them) LAID-OFFSKY
It's pretty annoying to be uploading, say, a 20MB Photoshop document at 30K/s
Doesn't Photoshop use some sort of lossless compression on images? If not, why not .zip up the images before sending them? Or do you work with images that are many megapixels big and many layers deep?
Will I retire or break 10K?
They offer 20 times as many plans.
Gee, how much bandwidth do you use (download huge ISOs, big slashdot discussions
Slashdot discussions? Those work just fine over my 48 kbps modem connection. It's mostly text, and text gzips well (Content-Encoding: gzip). With Mozilla's tab browser that lets you middle-click to load a page in the background, I see no reason to get broadband just so you can read Slashdot faster.
Will I retire or break 10K?
what I really need is some sort of CIR. Or maybe they should spend some money renovating their infrastructure. Here in Corvallis, OR, where most college students have ATTBI, my ping to my gateway varies between 10 and 200 ms depending on the time of day. This is very frustrating for someone who games and ssh's alot (and no, it's not my line). Unfortunately it's the only real option, as DSL here costs more for a fraction of the bandwidth AT&T offers.
They don't guarantee any speed. Their 1.5Mbps down has been running 100-300Kbps down most of the time in oversold areas. Their response is that they'll fix it when they get around to it and if you don't like it get another ISP.
Up here in Vancouver, I get a 3Mbps DSL line with 640Kbps upstream for CDN$35/month -- that's about US$25. Or I could choose 4Mbps cable for CDN$40. Or get wireless service from a company like FatPort (www.fatport.com).
Quite! I am posting this from Shaw cable as well. I get the same speeds that you do, and I am also running a NAT firewall with extra machines behind it, they are all consuming large amounts of bandwith without problem.
I am also a sysadmin for a hosting company, and one of our backbones is provided by Shaw. Our customers are located worldwide, (but most are from the U.S.) are surprised that we can offer such low hosting rates.
We can do it for 2 reasons:
1) The Canadian dollar is worth about 40% less than the U.S. dollar.
2) Our bandwith allotment is *HUGE* we can scale up to 1-TB if required, and it is still cheap. We pay our provider approx $4.00 CDN per GB, and it is on a really fast pipe.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Sasktel has no cap on any traffic. With their business plan (2 static IPs, allowed to run "servers"), you have NO CAP.
:)
So for 70$ a month, you get 150k/s (Moz daily in 1.5mins about), and 16k/s up. For double that, you get 300k/s down and 80k/s up. No caps!
Granted, you need to use some traffic shaping. Going full on sending 80k/s causes the DSL routers to generate large packet queues which leave your latency ever higher and higher until you reach some timeout limitation in IP. No caps means I can push/pull terabytes a month
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"Sometimes I think that the first experience most slashdotters had with being 'online' was in the 14.4k era. Very few remember the fun of war-dialing and looking for BBSes."
:)
Fun? It was bad enough when our BBS lists had old numbers that had become "home" numbers again. I'd hate to think how annoyed you'd make customers now, plus war-dialing will get most phone companies to flag your number nowadays
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Always posting at +2 is like leaving your caps lock on.
The difference is, when I turn on my computer the Caps Lock is off, and I have to make a conscious effort (or accidentally hit it) to turn it on. On Slashdot, the +2 is the default, and you have to turn it off for every post you make (or at least the dumb ones that don't deserve +2). The checkbox needs to say "Score +1 Bonus" and default to off, so users have to think about whether what they're about to say deserves +1 or not.
At least for this post I'm thinking to turn it off since I'm talking about it....
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Find me a network that can handle 100,000 users, a large fraction of which are heavy bandwidth users, and can do so for less than $4 million dollars a month, and I will help you kick your crack habit.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Umm... even if this were true a while back, it's quickly becoming a non-issue. Last time I needed a small hub (5 to 8 port) for my house, I went shopping, only to discover that a switch was only about $10 more expensive than a hub. Some stores weren't even carrying the hubs anymore, except as closeout items, or only in 10-baseT flavor (with 3 or 4 ports) for under $20, as opposed to anything 100-BaseT.
The fact is, almost no home users have a valid reason to purchase a hub instead of a switch, other than cost-savings. With the cost difference vaporizing, it's foolish to buy a hub and flood your network with excessive traffic.
I also tend to question how much of an issue this ever really was, because protocols like Netbios are non-routable. In the past, people setting up cheap home LANs were running Netbios more often than not. (They usually weren't really smart enough to understand the proper configuration of a TCP/IP subnet mask and so forth.)
Here in Gardiner Maine(the woods) i pay 49.95 a month for 128up(which sux) and X(down) the don't list it. But i typically download linux iso's and such at between 500-900k a second.... most downloads on busy servers hit around 200k but you get the idea. We don't have new fangled things like (anything), but we've got the ability to look at others.
With all these dsl nightmares, although I'm sure you're all aware of it already, but there's always:
http://www.VerizonEatsPoop.com
N. Kitaro
Last I checked (my family has ATTBi) they only charge per I.P. address, not per computer.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
The ISPs buy capacity per second, not per month, and so on upstream; while the electric and water networks also have a maximum capacity at any given moment, broadband ISPs have an incentive to promote consumption that the electric and water companies do not. As broadband is a luxury, not a utility, the ISPs must first sell customers on the service; further, many ISPs are owned by or have close relations to content companies, and would suffer greatly from the psychological disincentive to using the service that metering would incur. Most of all, as you noted, customers would not stand for being force-fed advertising at their own cost.
Is anybody else having trouble getting decent upload speeds? Connections keep stalling and knocking the average down to 128 kbit. The worst thing is that I'd rather have a constant 128 kbit than a jumpy 384 kbit upstream that averages out to 128!
> Calgary and Edmonton were the first two cities in NA (maybe the world?) where you could get broadband at any residential address
When did Calgary and Edmonton get broadband? I got ADSL in Saskatoon in January 1997. Several of my friends got it a few months earlier. I thought we were the first.
Saskatoon and Regina were the first cities in North America to have broadband. According to DSL Worldwide Directory
Moose Jaw and Swift Current had them before Calgary, IIRC, in 1997. Though on that point, I'm not 100% sure.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Tell us more -- who sells the service, and what kind of government control is there? Is there competition? At what level? (Where I am, there's DSL competition, but only trivial competition -- Ameritech controls everything, and there's just a few other front organizations)
The provincial phone company of Alberta and BC is Telus. They are a private corporation with little competition in the telephone market, and weak competition in the DSL market. The CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecomunication Comission) regulates the telephone and internet market in Canada, and they set price caps and enforce competetion. Telcos in the USA can probably afford to sell broadband for what Telus is selling it for, they just don't want to.
So what's Canada (or Calgary) done differently (and obviously better) than the US?
We (Canada) regulate it. In Saskatchewan (where I live), the only telco is a Crown corporation (IIRC, the only Crown telco left in the country, and there are special CRTC regulations just for Sasktel), there is theoretically competition, thanks to the CRTC, but whenever another telco move in, Sasktel smacks them around a bit and they leave with their tail between their legs. Sasktel, surprisingly, is a very good telco, with $45/month broadband with no cap.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!