Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Cuts Off Users Who Exceed Secret Limit
ConsumerAffairs.com has an article up spotlighting Comcast's tendency to cuts off heavy Internet users without defining in their AUP exactly what the bandwidth limit is. Frank Carreiro of West Jordan, Utah, got cut off by the mystery limit and started a 'Comcast Broadband dispute' blog.
I've got to be honest here... I'd take an invisible high bandwidth cap over something as low as 100 GB. I can rarely download less than 150 GB per month. Yeah, it's pretty lame of Comcast to be cutting off customers using a large amount of bandwidth, but from the sounds of it they're randomly cutting off users who consume more than 200 GB of bandwidth per month. Invisible caps are also better than set caps because set caps tend to be pretty low in general. However, when an ISP has an invisible cap, it often takes more bandwidth usage than it would be if it was a visible cap to grab their attention.
This sounds like a good case for breach of contract. Why has nobody sued?
When it was advertised as unlimited, I can see where a user could complain that it would be a FTC violation if they limited your service, but these days i've only noted in the adverts always on. What's the advertising stance presently on comcast service?
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Hire a lawyer and sue the fuckers for breach of contract. Both parties in a contract must be privy to the terms of the contract. So sue the fuckers, because if they haven't revealed the limitation on the TOS, the limitation isn't valid.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I think that ultimately the question that came about (and of course no one REALLY knows (which is the problem)) was that some folks began wondering if the data was incorrect - in other words - if the bandwidth numbers were mistakenly attributed to an individual who hadn't actually used anywhere near that much.
In other words - digging into the details, it became obvious that one very strong possibility was that (again, no one REALLY knows (which is the problem)) the person who got contacted was not the person who generated the bandwidth. In other words, Comcast keeps asking the poor fellow to cut back, they're looking at 250-300 gigs on their end, while the poor fellow is actually doing about 20-30 gigs and cutting back to even less than that. No matter how much the subscriber cuts back, the next month, erroneous data comes in again - Comcast's info is that he's done another 200+ gigs that month. So this ends up where they cut him off for 12 months (true story). There was no other logical explanation (other than the subscriber lying (which is a possibility, or course)).
This is where the secrecy creates problems, really. Sure, maybe an invisible something or another is better than a low explicit one, but you can't defend yourself if they've got it wrong, because there's no documentation. They don't even always tell the subscriber how much the subscriber has downloaded, and it appears that they may even lie about that. They don't want anyone knowing anything, basically. "Just cut back".
But "Just cut back" doesn't cut it when it's not you, now does it?
It's one thing to have rules, it's another thing to have flexible rules. But no matter how flexible those rules are, if you have this absolute secrecy thing going on, you stand no chance of defending yourself if you actually haven't done it and someone gets something mixed up somewhere.
Having a "counter" on your account - where you log into your account online and see how much you've downloaded, for instance - if you see data on there that isn't you, or if it's going up too fast, you can be proactive and call in and say "something's wrong here". If, for instance, the gigs are accumulating, and you disconnect your modem - pull it out of the wall -- and the gigs are still accumulating, then you can call in and notify. This isn't ME doing it. But if they won't even tell you how much you downloaded to get the call, or if they lie about it, (again, no one REALLY knows what happened (which is the problem)), how are you to trust that data is actually accurate? That it's not a mixup somewhere?
In that one particular situation, it did in fact appear that Comcast got the subscribers data mixed up (they actually turned the subscriber's internet back ON). They cancelled the 12-month cancellation because they reviewed their records and they figured out that it wasn't him doing it - they got it mixed up with someone else. The subscriber was downloading 15-30, and their data was saying 250-350. Month after month after month. Try cutting back on that!
It's creepy, is what it is. It's too secretive - you can't defend yourself. There's no data - no documentation.
They really ought to change the way they do this - it's very, very creepy.
By introducing, or FUDing a secret limit, Comcast users are now in fear that they could be cut off at any time. While some are likely to switch ISP, most will try to slow down a bit "just in case". Overall less data will be used.
If Comcast sets a public limit, most users will try to get to that limit just to get the money's worth, and this tends to increase overall usage.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
With a secret limit, especially if it has a slightly random element to it (say, 10% off by either way), one wouldn't need to worry about every putz throttling themselves to 98% of the limit all the time and hogging the bandwidth. "Be reasonable" is fuzzy advice from a math standpoint, but generally a better way to organise things than the alternative.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Nope.
Current legal calibration requirements for EU (and AFAIK USA) are +0%/-7% (note the big fat zero for the + error). Manufacturing errors, calibration errors, etc all tend to follow a Gauss bell curve so manufacturers tend to calibrate to -3% and allow +/-3% error around that.
As far as the precision of measurement equipment if police is given high precision measurement equipment like the new speed averaging cameras in the UK they use it without any second doubt. These have sub-1% error because they measure the time it takes your car (recognised by number plate) to traverse 2-5 miles. As a result many drivers who expected the 10%/5 mph leeway usually applied to radar and laser cases where very unpleasantly surprised last winter during the roadworks on the M25 and M4 around london (not me, but I know a number of people who clocked 6+ points on their license in a matter of days).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The reason Comcast doesnt tell you is if they did, asshat downloaders would lawyer the total and if lets say it was 100, they'd use 99.9999 then whine if they were denied that much. The approach would backfire. Plus its a competitive disadvantage for Comcast if their competitors know what a soft limit on dl's is.
Bullshit on two points.
First, the people comcast is complaining about are ALREADY using more than that amount. Hence the notices. So define a limit that you want to stick to and that you can handle and tell them that. If your system can handle 200gb a month, don't tell them that. Say 100gb/mo. Since they're already exceeding that, it's not going to hurt to tell those specific users "keep it under 100gb or you'll be booted next time". Further, since they appear to be doing it by a simple percentile of use for your region, then if EVERYONE was using 100gb, that presumably wouldn't be a problem? How so? If 50% of people use 100gb or 200gb or 300gb, isn't that a lot worse than 5% doing it? But if most people were, then they wouldn't complain, apparently?
Second, how is it a competitive disadvantage for Comcast? I live in a big and advanced metro area. I have the choice of 8mbs with Comcast, 144kbps with DSL (actually, less than that because I'm too far away from the local DSL office) or 56kbps dialup. Yeah, I can see how they're worried about all that competition, eh?
Look, I'm not a high downloader myself. In fact, most of my bandwidth usage is from playing MMOs, because the rest of time is, well, spent like now: my connection idles while I type a huge message on a board or another. I'd even be a fan of returning to a pay-per-MB scheme, since I don't see why I'd have to subsidize those downloading terrabytes of porn and ripped HD movies. Plus, let's face it, shiny-happy communal resource schemes just result in the poor subsidizing the rich, and "tragedy of the commons" situations.
That says, I'd draw the line at calling people "asshats" just because they use the bandwidth they were sold. They got sold a service on the explicit claim that it's unmetered and unlimited, and they're actually using it as such.
I'm not surprised that the text you quote comes from another ISP, because it's a widespread disease: sell based on outright lies, then try to demonize the users who actually use what they bought. And I find that lame.
It's like advertising an all-you-can-eat breakfast hour at your restaurant, then starting calling people names when they take more than a cup of tea, two slices of bread and a slice of cheese. Or like advertising that a hotel includes a free swimming pool, and then starting treating people like thieves if they're in there for more than half an hour a day. I'm betting not many people would go to that restaurant or hotel again.
Talks about what "normal people" should use or about downloading porn are just a stupid strawman there, plus some appeal to shame when invoking the downloading porn all night argument. It's just freakin' irrelevant. Those people never signed a contract that said "thou shalt not download more than thy neighbour" or "thou shalt never use it for porn", and that's certainly not the service that the ISP advertised. If they're against downloading porn, just advertise as "the family-friendly network where porn is forbidden and a termination offense" and see if that flies in the market.
Those people were advertised unmetered, unlimited access, and there was no talk about what they can't use it for, either. Period. Now deliver what you sold.
Because all the talk about "asshats" and "bad network citizens" and such is just weasel wording to justify a _fraud_. The ISP sold something he can't deliver, and now is calling the customer names when he actually wants what he's bought.
It's no different than, say, me selling you a PS3 on ebay and then starting calling you names when you actually want it. "Auugh, he's an asshat! If all people actually received their PS3s we'd go bankrupt! I bet he just wants to watch Blue Ray porn on it all night! Someone shame him and drive him away already!" It's just not right.
So basically my message to those ISPs is: fuck you, if you can't afford to really offer that kind of service, then fucking stop selling it. Because presenting people as some kind of supreme-evil arch-villains for just using the service they bought, is just lame. Go back to pay-by-hour or pay-by-MB if you can't afford to live up to the unlimited service you promised. But have the fucking _decency_ to not demonize people who just use the service they were advertised and sold.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The speedometer in a car doesn't measure your actual speed, it measures your calculated speed based on wheel rotation. And how much ground the wheels cover differs with tyre wear, pressure and temperature (which affects pressure).
This is one of the reasons why you almost never get stopped for doing 70 in a 65 zone -- if you have new tires with high pressure, have driven for a while, and the weather is hot, the speedometer might show less than you're actually doing, but a few months later in the same exact car, with more tyre wear, less pressure and colder weather, the indicated speed might be higher than your real speed.
Police are handing out speeding tickets to drivers who exceed secret limit.
I wouldn't have responded (and from the subject, thought one of your child posts had already made this point), but apparently some people don't "get" the problem here...
When you stay within more-or-less "tolerated" speeds above the posted limit, you do so knowing the posted speed and that, at least theoretically, you could get a ticked if a cop wants to give you a hard time (someone mentioned a few states officially allow a certain headroom - True or not, police always have the nebulous "reckless driving" or "driving to endanger" charge when they can't stick you with anything else).
With arbitrary broadband caps, what "official but rarely enforced" limit could we stay within to avoid the problem? 5GB/mo? 50? 500? I have no idea, and neither does anyone else in this thread, and that causes the problem here.
If I violate the TOS, however arbitrary they seem, I can at least take some comfort in the fact that I chose to do so. If I exceed a magical unpublished number, the situation goes from "irregular enforcement of a written policy" to "we don't like you, go away".
Making this even worse, the local cable franchise almost always has a monopoly or at best a duopoly on broadband service. Imagine if the phone company could drop you because you actually use all that free local calling they offer.
It isn't the radar that is inaccurate.
Oh, so a radar gun that clocks a house at 150 MPH isn't unreliable?
Please, radar guns are NOT accurate.
We are living in the age of massive internet usage now. Video streaming, audio streaming, distribution of software via downloads (downloading 2GB+ software packages is nothing unusual - just sign up for any of the various online RPGs and you will see...), multimedia-heavy websites... traffic limits of 10GB per month are outdated. Even 100GB+ are very easy to reach, without downloading porn or warez. I guess a lot of management-type people just have not realized this yet, and so completely NORMAL internet usage is seen as being a "bandwidth hog" or "using the internet at the cost of others".
Thank god I live in Germany. 49.95 Euros per month for 16000 DSL without time/volume limits and including unlimited phone calls. And no traffic shaping either. And somehow, even without placing limits on what people do, it still works...
If you were a cop, you wouldn't need to explain shit. Traffic court is like a checkout line at a supermarket. You come in with a few hundred others, you all troop past the judge in an orderly line, you present your defense, you lose, and you pay. Like clockwork.
It's not so much professional courtesy, it's more that corporate owned trucks are more likely to have lawyers to go to traffic court.
Though with the rules for CDLs... 2 15MPH+ infactions, no more license, if they were really serious about the law and saftey, they'd be pulling semis over all the time. nt only for the license bit, but also, do the math, E_Kin = (m(v^2))/2... and a semi going 80, can't just stop on a dime.
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
It's amazing how brilliant they made my previous cable provider look. It seems to me that a cable company that is unable to provide decent cable services shouldn't be allowed to provide internet service, much less home phone service.
That's still massively different.
If nothing else, and this is the crux of my grievance: the airline won't call you names, accuse you of wrongdoing the other passengers, and generally treat you like a thieving scumbag for just showing up at the airport for the flight you booked. At the very least, they'll acknowledge that it's the problem they created and try to give you some compensation, as you were saying.
That's already a _massive_ difference. In and by itself. I'm willing to even forget and forgive mistakes, even motivated greed, flukes, whatever, as long as they have the decency to, you know, apologise for it and try to do better next time. Such bullshit as the ISP's demonizing the very customers they oversold to, calling them names, etc, is just unforgivable in my book. It's just bullshit.
Imagine going to the airport and finding out that the air company you booked with can and will:
A. treat you like some kind of criminal because you didn't miss at least half the flights you booked, and
B. occasionally call you various unflattering names for it, and
C. try to guilt-trip you and present you as some great malefactor that preys on the other passengers who might need that seat, and
D. might just kick you out for nothing more than not missing enough flights.
I mean, heck, I'm sure they too could make more money if they restricted their business to only people who miss 3 flights out of 4. Then they could oversell the plane by a factor of 4, instead of a measly couple of extra tickets. Should it be allowed then?
And that's just what these ISPs are doing. Trying to kick out everyone who doesn't stay below 1/5 of the capacity they thought they bought or lower.
And when I hear such other BS as secret quotas, lying tech support, etc... I can't see how that's defensible at all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You're right. We should all just shut up and deal with it (and by deal, I mean guess what they expect of us and hope we get it right).
In fact, Comcast should also apply this idea to their Cable TV business. Don't tell me how many channels I'll get for my money, just say I'll get "a reasonable number" of channels. Hell yeah, I'll buy that. In fact, don't tell me what it costs. Just send me a bill each month for whatever you think is "reasonable", Comcast.
- I am made of meat.
Have you ever sat in a car with low tyre pressure that has had air pumped into the tyres?
If the car raises half an inch due to filling air, the circumference of the tyre increases by 2*pi*1/2", or more than three inches. With a 70" tyre circumference , that implies a ~3 mph difference at 70 mph speeds.
Unlimited: (From the Merriam Webster Dictionary) 1) Lacking any Controls 2) Boundless, Infinate 3) Not bounded by exceptions It seems to me if they are advertising unlimted access and are capping it then the FTC should take it up as misleading advertisment.
The car raises up half an inch not because the radius of the tyre has increased by half an inch, but because its profile more closely approximates a circle. It's gone from a really rather flat-bottomed circle not not-quite-so-flat-bottomed circle.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News