Bad Behavior on the 'Net - Who Pays the Bandwidth Bill?

rakolam asks: "I am involved with network management in the hosting department of a fairly large ISP. Constantly we have customers who dispute inbound bandwidth spikes and demand service credits on their burstable connections. Events such as the Slammer Virus literally have everyone knocking on their salesperson's door at the end of the billing cycle. My position is that the internet is a public space, and by placing themselves in that space, one has to realize the consequences (and the implications of burstable billing). I'd like Slashdot's perspective on this. Should ISP's ultimately eat the costs of malicious behavior? Is the customer ultimately responsible for the bandwidth they've generated, regardless if it's desired or not? Is this a new frontier for insurance companies?"

Comments

Re:analogous to water/electric company IMHO

[prator]

Not a very good analogy. More like you have an electrical socket outside your house, and you have a sign that says, "Use me". Then you get upset when the circus comes to town and powers everything off your socket.

-prator

Re:analogous to water/electric company IMHO

[jazman_777]

Then you get upset when the circus comes to town and powers everything off your socket.

Holy cow, that circus next door, it's not free?!