NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Do the Happy Dance people...
It's the same dishonesty you have when these people claim that advertised
speeds are guaranteed minimums when in fact they've left out the "up to"
part of the advertisement and the contract.
[ In all fairness, a standard boilerplate these days is a line like
"Speeds are not guaranteed." However, there is clearly confusion
among consumers, who usually assume that they'll get the promoted
(top) speed. What are consumers really paying for in any
individual case? Often the answer is far from clear. This
paper noted here in NNSquad last November may be of interest:
http://www.nnsquad.org/archives/nnsquad/msg00241.html
In a discussion I had with AT&T recently, I was told that they
no longer (or soon won't) subscribe DSL customers to speed tiers
that their particular circuits can't support. That is, if a
line measures out to a max of 2 Mb/s, they'll no longer permit
someone to subscribe to a more expensive 6 Mb/s plan. Of course
one might ask why this wasn't the standard policy all along, but
that's a different issue. I don't know the exact status of this
reported policy change at the moment.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
- - -
From: Brett Glass [mailto:brett@lariat.net]
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 11:10 AM
To: Robb Topolski; Nick Weaver
Cc: nnsquad; Richard Bennett; George Ou
Subject: Re: [ NNSquad ] Re: Do the Happy Dance people...
At 08:11 PM 8/30/2008, Robb Topolski wrote:
Comcast first started this across-the-board threatening and disconnection of
higher-bandwidth users 5 years ago, based on their TOS provision against
someone using the service in a way that negatively impacted it. The trouble
is, they were using the bandwidth amount without ever showing a negative
impact -- they simply rationalized that someone who was using over (insert
some undisclosed number) that they simply must be causing an undue impact.
That undisclosed number became known as the "invisible cap" because it was a
"defacto" cap and remained absolutely undisclosed except through making the
same hard-to-read inference to that "impact" part of Comcast's TOS.
Now, 5 years later, we have a number. Good? No, that wasn't the problem!
They just made their service worse.
Actually, it is the FCC's so-called "network neutrality" ruling (which
actually mandates non-neutrality, because it forces Comcast to favor
bandwidth hogging applications) that has made Comcast's service worse. Their
engineers were doing their best to keep the quality up before the inside-the
Beltway lobbyists stepped in to prohibit them from doing so.
They're still not proving that the users that they are kicking off the
service have caused any negative impact. Instead, they've disclosed a number
used in executing this lazy method. By doing so, they have now limited a
previously unlimited service.
This is a falsehood promulgated by the lobbyists. The service was never
"unlimited" nor was it advertised as such.
--Brett Glass