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Comment by Dylan16807 | Hacker News Reader

The problem isn't comcast's policies themselves, it's the monopoly situation. And that seems like an FCC situation to me.

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Assuming Comcast is the only ISP in his area, can he sign up for a Comcast business account? It appears he doesn't just want his account reinstated but he expects unlimited data use.

I was in the exact same situation this guy was in (except they hadn't cut my service yet), and this is exactly what I did. There is no cap for Business Class Internet and the Customer Service is MUCH better. On top of that, you can get Static IPs that you cannot get with a residential account.

I investigated Comcast Business Class in my area, and the contract I was offered was totally outrageous. The worst clause was early termination, where they claim 75% of the cost of the service for the rest of the contract (1yr, 2yr or 3yr) even when the service was terminated. I re-evaluated my needs and realized with cheap VPS proxies and smarthosts, I could do just fine with one dynamic IP. My contract is simple month to month. From my research, it seems that Business Class has a soft limit of 750GB, too, though apparently not enforced. If you want to have some fun, take the standard Comcast Business Class contract, find the Comcast URL that they include by reference about terms of service and bandwidth usage policies, find the 800 number referenced on those pages to obtain the actual documents, and enjoy the totally blank response you get from the drone that answers that phone number. If you have ever actually obtained the Business Class policy documents referred to in their contract, I'd love to get a copy. (Yes, I actually read their 14 page terms of service. The few, the proud...)

The problem may also be that Comcast (and a few other cable ISPs) may refuse to give someone in a residential area a Business account. In my area they refuse to do it ostensibly for zoning issues (which really have nothing to do with it). It's one of the big reasons that I do not use any of the online backup places.

This surprises me. When I had Comcast Business Cable installed at my home, the telephone rep got the install address, paused a moment, asked, "Is that a residential house?". I said yes, and all was fine. No raised eyebrows from the installer either.

In fact, my boss/company owner, who lives outside Scottsdale, who can't get more than 144kbps IDSL got so sick of things that he ordered a first, then a second bonded T1 to his house, without any hiccups.

If I had to guess what the actual issue is; I think my neighbourhood is connected to some rather old copper lines and they can't make the kind of reliability guarantees that they make to business clients on it, and they don't want to upgrade or replace the copper. The neighbourhood is fairly new but the area it's connected to is fairly old (road paved and utilities put in way back in the 80s/early-90s for other places near by). This is all speculation from knowing the area and the fact that their residential services has had a number of unexplained outages/issues with bandwidth fairly often (6-7 times a year it'll be out for a few hours or very very slow, and they say they are working on it).

Or just pay for one of the higher speed options. I've gone over the bandwidth cap without fail every month, and they don't care since I pay for the higher speed option (previously the 50Mbit line, now the 105.)

Even though their contract specifies the same data cap for all speed options... So that means that at any time they can decide to terminate you for the same reason.

Does it matter if they don't? I'm sure you can find clauses in most ISP contracts that enable them to terminate you more or less at will, it doesn't matter much if they don't enforce them.

Yes, but the point is that if they wake up one day and decide to enforce them, you are screwed. No options for appeal and no other good options for service.

Surely you see how there may be a problem when the solution to a local monopoly cutting off service for overuse is to throw more money at the same company with absolutely no guarantee that service won't be terminated again.

It's obviously not an ideal situation, but I'm just pointing out (like the person I originally replied to who suggested a business connection [which is more expensive and slower]) that there are ways to work around these restrictions.

Avoiding and fighting ostensibly-offensive but rarely-enforced laws and policies is essential to preserving consumer freedoms and civil liberties. I, for one, do not want to live in a society with laws that can be applied to anyone but are rarely enforced (as is common now), as in such a society the law will be applied to whomever the enforcer doesn't like.

Whut? Are you stupid? Having a myriad of unenforced laws on the books is by design. Everyone is a criminal all the time and selective enforcement can be brought down like a hammer on your ass.

Yes it makes us non-free, but it is exactly what the man wants.

What if there was another ISP in the area offering a similar service but also had the same restrictions? The problem would be exactly the same and this guy would be in the same situation. Competition and having options wouldn't really change anything. It ultimately comes down to the data cap restriction first and foremost.

What, exactly, does Comcast have a monopoly on? Basic internet access might be considered a necessary utility, but an unlimited 15MB line is certainly not.

Also, http://www.google.com/search?q=high+speed+internet+seattle+w...

So why stop the service, charge more for more data use. Or perhaps throttle your speeds. I think he means monopoly in the terms of disallowing service, I guess he should be ok if they charge him more money for more data usage. Either way I believe there is a monopoly where as locations and service providers are concerned and many a times caps such as 250GB are extremely arbitrary. I mean really whats the technical reasoning for a uniform cap of 250GB whether you are in downtown NY of Seattle? Also I would read this... Extremely thought provoking... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2709834

It's cheaper for Comcast to cut off a few "problem" customers than it is for them to actually invest their record profits in upgrading residential infrastructure.

I live in Capitol Hill (right in the middle of Seattle), and Comcast is the only ISP in my area that offers a connection faster than 5mbps.

It's a legitimate problem.

Even if internet access is a right, internet access >5mbps certainly is not.

Just because something is not a fundamental human right does not mean that it's not possible to have a monopoly over it. Monopolies are a problem, regardless of what they're providing.

5mbps? You're lucky. I live in a densely populated area of another major city in the US, and I can't get anything faster than 3mbps from anyone, no matter how much I'm willing to pay...

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