Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Remember that the cables that they use were paid for with public tax money. The private companies are selling back to us the infrastructure that we already paid to build.
This is one issue on which neither progressives (who tend to favor government utilities/services) nor libertarians (who tend to favor the free market) are happy, because we have the worst of both worlds: a government-sanctioned, unregulated monopoly, using infrastructure built with public tax dollars, and re-sold to the original payers (the public) at monopolistic prices.
Unfortunately, recent efforts in this direction have completely failed. A North Carolina town dissatisfied with Time Warner banded together to create a municipal ISP, and Time Warner sued, on the basis that they "couldn't compete[0]" with the superior speeds and lower prices that the municipal ISP provided. In the end, Time Warner won[1].
I, like 80% of people in the US, have no choice as to my broadband provider. I don't have a landline. I don't have cable TV. All I need is Internet access, and for that, my only option is paying Time Warner Cable, at whatever price they decide to charge, for whatever service they decide to give me[2].
[0] read: "didn't want to compete" == "it's cheaper for us to sue you than to lower our prices to market rate"
[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/11/the-price-of-muni...
[2] Pro-tip: If you're stuck with TWC as well, don't pay for the higher speed levels. That's just the maximum possible speed, and they don't guarantee you anything close to that, for any portion of your monthly service. If you live in a congested area, you're likely to get the same speed regardless of which tier you purchase, so just pick the cheapest one.
I can't find the relevant FCC directive at the moment (It may in fact be a state law for me, I can no longer remember), but it's illegal for them to sell '30mbit' service as "30mbit is the highest theoretical speed". Essentially a floating average of your max speed has to be at +/-5% of the sold bandwidth.
It would be half reasonable if they just didn't bother to invest in infrastructure, you know like in public transport, but instead they are actively working to make it worse.
Actually unless I was misinformed, they are selling back the unimproved infrastructure that we paid them to improve. The whole situation makes me so furious and there's nothing I can do. Mesh networks, I guess. I need to make some friends along a line from here to a backbone.
Internet access has become commoditized enough that there isn't much innovation in it's distribution, and it is so necessary for modern businesses that it makes economic sense.
In other words, let's wait until use cases like uploading multiple HD video streams are trivial before we freeze the current technical expectations and business models.
The real problem is, like the telephone network, you end up getting all sorts of little exceptions and silly tariffs and they don't get updated and it turns into an idiotic mess.
But in theory, mandating target coverage and speeds should work just fine. Just like the phone network, if the FCC decides to actually get involved and fine people, companies will take things seriously (for the most part...).
We don't have omnibus shipping/commuting/travelling utilities, and many of the constituent parts of this hypothetical megautility (USPS, AmTrak) are money pits that fail to adapt to the changing needs of the population. In other words, I don't think transit is a commodity either.
Electricity, water, garbage, sewage... those are commodity utilities, for the most part. I would also mention phones, but landlines are quickly becoming redundant, which underscores my point if anything.
It's the most basic and fundamental service provided by an ISP, and should be the only service ISPs can provide, to prevent the conflicts of interest that make net neutrality regulations a necessity. When ISPs are an endpoint for traffic rather than just a conduit for it, they have a financial incentive to try to force their customers to use their content services over external content providers.
It's precisely for this reason why I'm against states making deals with ISP's even if it means bringing gigabit fiber to their areas. Will it still be fast enough 10-15 years later? Because you can bet they aren't going to upgrade it anymore after they get their local monopoly. I'm sure 1-10 Mbps seemed super-fast 10 years ago, too, when they made the first deals from which they got their current monopolies.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/billions-in-cus...
It's plenty fast now, too. Good-quality 1080p H.264 video is 3Mbps. 6Mbps is 50GB/day. If this is not enough, you most likely have a software problem.
Not that we shouldn't strive for progress, but most of the complains in these comments are completely different from the rural horror stories of the article - they're taking for granted development that isn't actually there. Signing up for the cable company because it has the highest advertised speeds and then complaining about the implications of a shared medium provided by an unregulated monopoly is myopic entitled whining.
Look into competing DSL options, really. Your new provider may even have warm-blooded people answering the phone.
As for the current practicalities - first, two of these streams would fit in 6Mbps. Second, streaming is unnecessary for tv/movies, and I'm guessing you don't watch 24 hours of a day - upgrade to a non-streaming setup.
Second: "upgrade to a non-streaming setup"
What services are comparable to Hulu/Netflix in terms of variety of content (though Netflix streaming seems to have poorer coverage these days, lost some contracts?) that is not a streaming service?
As for entertainment, torrents seem to work for me. If you're looking for a branded service to contribute money to the destruction of the Internet, then I've got to wonder why you'd have any issue with the cable companies besides price.
Do you have another means of contributing to the artists, actors, directors, crews that make the shows/movies you torrent so that they can receive compensation and continue to make the media you enjoy? Or do you strictly avoid all media that isn't CC-licensed?
And 640k should be enough memory for anybody.
The problem here is that decent internet access (10-30mbps per person) is cheap to deploy, and easy to do, when there are no other problems standing in the way. (For instance, when the cable company doesn't buy off the local government).
Apologizing for phone and cable companies who are raking in record profits doesn't help us in any way.
> they're taking for granted development that isn't actually there.
The development is there. Lithuania, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, and Romania didn't just "magic" their internet in existence. They took cheap easily-obtained widely-available technology and simply deployed it, along with the 30 other countries who all have (on average) faster / better / more reliable internet service than the USA.
http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/
Notice the pricing there too -- USA pays more for internet than many other countries that rank higher than we do. (We pay 4 times more money per mbps than Denmark does, and receive slower service then them for that cash).
http://www.netindex.com/value/allcountries/
> Signing up for the cable company because it has the highest advertised speeds and then complaining about the implications of a shared medium provided by an unregulated monopoly is myopic entitled whining.
I think we understand the implications of the shared medium. But it's clear that the medium isn't the issue -- it's the misuse of the technology by the ISPs. DOCIS 3.0 is not the issue, Comcast trying to cut costs by making thousands of homes share the same backhaul on the same lines, is the issue.
And what else should folks do? Cable is the only internet service that qualifies as "high speed" (by the FCC's very very lax definition of 'High speed') in 99% of the United States.
There are zero other options.
> Look into competing DSL options, really.
Why bother? So I can switch to one of the dozens of companies who all resell the same 2mb AT&T ADSL line. (A line which, according to our own Federal Communications Commission, is too slow to be called "high speed internet")
http://www.fcc.gov/reports/sixth-broadband-progress-report
Why would you suggest we subsidize the phone companies attempts to kill our access to the internet? At least the cable company offers something.
> Your new provider may even have warm-blooded people answering the phone.
They sure do. AT&T has the friendliest phone support team, who will in very kind and gentle terms, explain that since they're too lazy to maintain a single copper pair, I can't even maintain a single Netflix stream. But I should pay them $40/month for it anyway, because it includes "free long distance".
I'm certainly not apologizing for the cable companies. I'm pointing out that complaining about them while continuing to contribute to their record profits accomplishes little.
> switch to one of the dozens of companies who all resell the same 2mb AT&T ADSL line
I would wager many of the people reading this thread live in a metroish area where they can get non-ATT DSL (even if its provided over ATT copper). If the copper is really terrible, a sane ISP should be willing to bond multiple lines together. And I'd assert that many more people would be able to choose this option if the market on these services hadn't dropped out because of a myopic concentration on advertised speed led everyone to think cable was the only option.
Please, push for cable networks to be considered public communications infrastructure and subject to ILEC/CLEC style deregulation, and work to build municipal IP networks. But until that actually happens, don't prematurely deprecate all competition in the ISP space because you want to pretend to live in the future.
Well it turns out the people answering at that number (the number they gave me, remember) were completely unfamiliar with the concept of moving. "You want to do what?" they asked incredulously, as if I was the first person they had ever encountered who had moved from one residence to another.
"I have moved. My service has already been disconnected at the old address, and I would like to activate it at my new address" I repeated, thinking they had just misheard me.
"Have you tried unplugging it and then plugging it back in?" they offered helpfully.
After an hour on the phone and many, many transfers I was finally able to talk to someone who could handle this bizarre and complicated request. I hate to think how much time it will cost me if I ever have a real problem.
If you're a person with clue, get friendly with the folks at the local Comcast office, or one of the technicians. If you're technically inclined and can demonstrate that you're wise enough to only call them about issues with their network, you'll probably be able to get the support number for the local office.
Fibre connections seem to be either BT or Virgin running their own (separate) infrastructure all over the place, and you can get cable broadband if you actually want cable TV.
Personally I've stuck with ADSL2+ since, in London, that's good enough. When I move out next year, we'll see which hardware can get me the best speeds.
[1] http://idnet.net
Fine, yes? No. The other ISP just rent less bandwidth than they'd really need, so they can't offer a decent service (during peak hour it's very easy to get less speed than what you'd get with a 56k).
It doesn't help that we don't have a cable network too, so we're stuck with the phone one. This mean low theoretical max speed (20mb down and 1mb up, with adsl2+), and the signal get really bad as soon as you get a bit far from the central.
Now, this is (very slowly) changing, the bigger ISP are starting to get their own infrastructure and some big cities are starting to get cabled in FTTC (no FTTH because "or copper network is good enough" [sic]). I've also the feeling that I won't see FTTC anytime soon, even if I live ~10km from Milan.
There's also to say that there isn't really any interests for high-speed internet. Last I've heard, only 15% of the people reached by a 20/1 connection buy it (preferring the slower 10/1 or 7/480k, which cost respectively 1€/month and 5€/month less).
To get internet access you actually need two things: infrastructure and an ISP. Infrastructure is through one of two companies (although it may be more now? I'm not sure): Bezeq (DSL) or HOT (Cable). After that you choose your own ISP.
Typically infrastructure is the more expensive of the two, and the ISP is quite cheap.
It's also illegal to have binding contracts for utilities here so if HOT pisses me off, I can switch to Bezeq. If my ISP pisses me off I can switch to another one within 20 minutes. I think this latter point is actually the most effective in getting what I want from my providers. Customer service here is pretty awful usually (and this is from a person who used to live in NYC and had TWC), but when they know they risk losing you very easily it's easy to get what you want.
I think if you unbundle and do away with contracts you'll get a pretty powerful combination.
The laws in this country to allow monopolies are a joke, but both political parties could care less.
I dispute this. Is Google Fiber all right? Do you Silicon Valley folks get decent service? Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. I haven't met or talked to anyone on the entire Internet who is satisfied, or simply not constantly enraged, by their ISP. It seems every single one is corrupt and incompetent at the same time.
On a related note, for whatever reason, no traffic on ports 6660-6669 (IRC) can get through, but I haven't seen this problem reported anywhere else. Combing through the settings on the router they provide, there doesn't seem to be anything blocking it on my end.
Not really. Sure, there are a lot of bad ISP's and places to live with few options, but there's a lot of great internet service out there. Go on any message board and view the threads "Post your speedtest results", and for everyone who's stuck with some shit DSL provider with 1mb up and .25 mb down (my current situation) there's someone with 45.99/month 30mb up 3mb down cable internet or $89.99 FIOS.
Sure, it's not as fantastic as some of the connections you see from people in Europe or Asia with 100mb+ for $39.99, but you have to remember everyone doesn't have that mystical connection who lives outside the USA. There's plenty of bad internet to be had as well.
The main places with solid FIOS coverage are in the northeast: most major metro areas in the VA Beach-DC-NYC-Boston corridor. And Pittsburgh. And Ft. Wayne, IN. Because Ft. Wayne clearly needs FTTP more than Indianapolis.
Most other municipalities in the rest of the country are either locked into exclusivity contracts with other providers, or can't be bothered to give their residents real choice of good providers, or Verizon doesn't want the initial outlay for infrastructure costs for more deployment at this time, or some combination.
I still feel like I am charged way too much for what I get, and I'm scared to mess with anything (for example, to buy my own modem to avoid the ridiculous modem rental fee they tacked on) because I don't want stuff to stop working (or to have to deal with their tech support line). I am in no way happy with them. But I am not enraged.
(When I lived in Blacksburg, VA there were three options for broadband -- DSL, cable, and a university-affiliated provider -- which were all in heavy competition to be the most horrible. I was actively enraged pretty much constantly over the miserable state of affairs. So I know that feel.)
I'm in a rural area, and as far as I know, there are 2 options, Comcast and the local phone co. I'm with the local company. I've had to call customer service a few times, and the phone is answered at an office 5 miles from here. It's one (not difficult to arrange) transfer to someone who knows what I'm talking about when I go on about routers with the default password and a privilege escalation bug. They're the only telecom that has ever impressed me with their customer service.
Their prices are not the best in the world, but they're reasonable and the best around here. While every other ISP is trying to find ways to get people to use less data to avoid infrastructure upgrades, they're rolling out FTTH. $160/mo get's you 200/60.
Everywhere I've ever lived and every connection I've ever tested as been the speed sold +/-3%. There are no monthly caps (not even soft caps). When the CRTC allowed charging for bandwidth overages, they came out and simply said "Our mandate is not to make money, it is to provide a service to the public. We will not charge for overages as it does not further our mandate."
We have surprisingly close to full coverage of the province even though there are a lot of rural locations.
On the cellular side of things, it's thanks to them our province gets better deals from all of the carriers (even national ones). Our crown corp had been offering deals that were worlds better than every other carrier, forcing the others to try and compete.
At the end of the year, they still generally drop money back in the province's coffers.
Guess what? I'm pretty much satisfied (a little sad my neighbourhood is so far down the list for the FTTH rollout is all) and not constantly enraged.
We have this strange hybrid between market competition and a public utility. I don't know if going fully to a utility would be a benefit for us - the way it's structured now there are still incentives/requirements for the utility to remain competitive and keep prices low. I hesitate to see how this would be bastardized should those requirements go away.
From what I have heard about SaskTel's cellular service, I'm jealous that more provinces haven't adopted the model. Of course, crown corporations are not always so rosy; a few provinces over, we have the mess that is BC Ferries.
I haven't had many problems with their service except that once or twice a year the DHCP lease on their server gets stuck where it won't give me an IP and I need to call them to break the DHCP lease so I can get an IP address. The last couple times I broke the DHCP lease via their Twitter support ( https://twitter.com/VerizonSupport ) and it was faster than calling on the phone. I also use OpenDNS so I don't know if their DNS servers are bad.
I use OpenDNS because I used to have Time Warner Cable and their DNS servers went down several times per week.
In my current town (Clifton, NJ) we can get Verizon FIOS and Optimum. Both providers are fighting fiercely for customers.
I used FIOS for a year and it was great, no caps,full speeds and good support. I later switched to Optimum and it is fantastic, I've never been so happy with a service provider, they upgraded most users from 50mbit to 100mbit for free, and they are actually giving me a true 100mbit connection, not to mention an outstanding customer support.
About four years ago I used to live in the Bronx, and the only thing in my area was Optimum, and the service was almost as good as now.
It's about the company caring for the customers.
I live in Poland and I have a pretty good connection (think ~60MB for $15 a month), and for years I never really had any problems with my ISP. That is not to say they aren't any crap providers out there. The rule of thumb is: landline and mobile phone company give crappy, capped, unreliable Internet for riddiculous prices; cable TV companies give good, high-speed, high-reliability connection very cheaply.
My opinion was that it would be very difficult to be a remote software worker in SA because the network infrastructure was so poor. Everyone I talked to just used USB cellular modems to get online, and the load would actually cause the cell tower near my friend's flat to crash sometimes at peak hours. The Internet was entirely unusable for good portions of the day.
Meanwhile, if you're willing to pay a premium for installation and use of a wired connection, you wind up dealing with the sort of thing you faced or just flat out apathy toward whether or not the service should actually work consistently.
In your own experience, is this an accurate assessment?
"The best solution, I think, is to lay fiber in all the municipalities and have consumers choose their ISP, with service delivered on the municipal fiber lines..."
This is exactly what has been happening where I live - Christchurch, New Zealand. A number of years ago, a city-owned LLC called Christchurch City Networks Limited (now known as Enable Networks[1]) began rolling out an extensive fibre network in the downtown/city-centre area. Initially, for about $700 (NZD) per month, you could lease a dark pair between your premises and your ISP of choice (or even directly between two arbitrary premises, plugging directly into your own equipment at each end, with no ISP involved).
You'd then negotiate arbitrary speed/bandwidth/caps with your chosen ISP. We were paying something like $3000 per month for a 1000 mbit/sec internet connection with (IIRC) a 2TB cap. This was probably 8 years ago or something, it doesn't cost anything like this now.
Latterly, they've been rolling out a GPON-based (passive) fibre network. If you are connected to this part of the network, there are highly standardised plans available from multiple ISPs. You can choose one of two speeds: 30 mbit/sec symmetric, or 100 mbit/sec symmetric. Different ISPs have different usage plans available. Any public (government-funded) school can sign up for a 30 mbit/sec plan, with unlimited traffic, for something like $200/month.
Amongst home users, ADSL2+ and VDSL2 are both still popular choices (and our pricing there seems similar enough to the US, with stupidly low caps and high prices), but fibre continues to gain traction.
1) they have right of way to the home
There are some horror stories out there - in truth, the majority of customers get what they pay for monthly without the plethora of stupids presented here.
On the other hand, when I set up service with Comcast, my bill had 4-5 mystery charges monthly for 4 months, no one could explain what they were, and they got credited. But still, it was an hour of my time each time it happened.