Should ISPs Interfere with Your Web Experience?

...simple, use the same "rules" as applied to telephone conversations: if only ONE party is aware it's being recorded, it's illegal.

...of course, that obnoxious "beep" in the middle of a clandestine downloading a bootlegged copy of a video or audio file might distrupt things somewhat (wink,wink).

currently the telcos own most fiber backbones and to avoid the increased bandwidth demands of video, and file sharing and premium video services, they want to be able to throttle any homes bandwidth to make sure their premium paid for features, such as on demand video and VOIP can still be charged for and competitors are barred.

That means their VOIP gets the high road and vonage gets throttled. Their video gets the high road and web flix gets throttled.

The USA/Canada suffers from very low speed service compared to many other countries due to these monopolistic practices.

They can do it as they own the last mile of copper to the house and rent poles to cable and anydog for a fee that assures their domination. They bought pole rights back in the late 1800's and early 1900's when no-one saw the value. Now they are tollgate operators.

An analogy would be a guy at the end of your driveway, and when you want to go to work he wants a buck for you to cross onto his road and then 10 cents a mile.

Me and a few good men and women are going to attack at midnight, are you in?

"Captain Moonlight"

Sure over legislate it like every thing else then you will have no choice when you don't like your provider.

If you are not getting your bandwidth call them on it and ask for a refund because the service you were promised is not the service you are getting.

If I pay for 10MB per second and unlimited use then if I can't down load 10MB per second then I was sold a line of BS and can take recourse. If I didn't read the fine print then use that to break your contract if it is not open and find a new provider.

I don't pay for service so I can have no complaint. I should get a 5MB download rate but mostly get a 1/2 MB rate. The account holder don't care so what do I care.

Brad

This is a little like hanging on a rope below a guy with a knife and demanding stuff.

Freefall might happen if you get pushy.

With Bell here in Canada being a monopoly to all the little DSL resellers, if Bell installs bandwidth shaping, it shapes all the way down. I get 30K in the evenings.

Ya US West had the market in the southwest for all the ISP trunks installation. When the Internet took off big in the early 90's No one but useless west could get equipment for growth. All the good ISPs had to wait and wait while useless west was bragging about their bandwidth in their commercials.

When the mouse doesn't have to fear cats he gets very bold. Your system has no checks and balances. Abuse will feed the greed. I refuse to deal with baby Bells and Ma Bell here. They kept this system hog tied for far to long. They broke them up and the Baby Bells continued in bad faith as long as the could. Now useless west is clueless west.

I'd complain to your FCC. Why, because a dial-up modem is faster in the evenings and you are being serviced like a third world country at first world rates. Get enough people to do it and some politician will notice (make him) and then he will try to act. The embarrassment will force the Bell to respond with better service. You might even get the press involved.

Monopolies are criminal because they stifle innovation. Don't get me wrong one should be able to capitalize on development, but bleeding a market is greed and that is why we have this economic mess. Currency backed greed. That is an oxymoron currency is notes of debt they don't back anything.

Brad

Seems like the digital pipes into our homes are becoming more and more like what the airwaves used to be for radio and TV. Here in the Albany/Saratoga NY region, Verizon's FIOS service gives me hope for more broadband competition into my home in the near future. If I recall right, Motorola was involved with a residential broadband-over-RF "on a pole" project a few years back (however, I don't think it was in my region). The more competition, the less likely the ISP's are to play tricks with the amount of bandwidth they provide their users. My hope is that broadband eventually becomes a commodity, like water entering your home from the local utility. Just a dream? - Larry