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CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

richsnapp.com

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Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#101

Post by eitland »

_9vpl wrote: post #92
pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

This is such a silly POV. Enforcing too much specifics into law is how you end up with non-nonsensical actions that are done just to comply with a law, like intrusive cookie banners on every single website. This law seems to actually be well written, other than it doesn't seem to specify any penalties for non-compliance, at least from the part of the law shown in the article. It's clear what the end goal of the law i…

> Enforcing too much specifics into law is how you end up with non-nonsensical actions that are done just to comply with a law, like intrusive cookie banners on every single website.

The cookie banners are probably a bad example: they were made to take advantage of a loophole in the first "cookie law".

I think the intention of the first cookie law was clear as well, it just wasn't clear enough.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#102

Post by craftyguy »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #97
craftyguy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the line a bit fuzzy though because most ISPs in the US are government-sanctioned monopolies?

Are you sure?

No, that's why I'm asking...

Not every question on the internet is a thinly veiled attempt to make a statement!

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#103

Post by rthomas6 »

paulcole wrote: post #84
inetknght wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll believe that when I see it. Until then, I believe that any wireless communication is inherently inferior to wired communication.

Canned soup is inherently inferior to homemade, but it only takes 2 minutes to heat up, travels well, lasts a long time, and can be bought almost anywhere for cheap.

True, nobody eats homemade soup.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#104

Post by riffic »

waffle_ss wrote: post #38

The original article title is more accurate. Replacing "CenturyLink" with "Utah ISP" as if they're some podunk lil' no-name ISP is misleading. CenturyLink is a Tier 1 ISP, and 5th largest in the country by customer count. Maybe city folk haven't heard of CenturyLink but they have monopolies over vast swathes of rural copper networks.

This is a company with an interestingly convoluted corporate history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CenturyLink

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#105

Post by wlesieutre »

xahrepap wrote: post #94

CenturyLink is totally shady. My wife just yesterday spent a significant amount of time fixing our phone bill. She decided a couple months ago to upgrade to a "fixed" bill plan (apparently they've been raising our prices $10/mo every year for the last few years). This plan price won't change until we change the plan. It's bundled with their internet though, but my wife told them to not send the modem because we weren…

A friend of mine signed up for them on a promo, got charged 3x the price he was supposed to, then was told “We didn’t apply the promo, but that’s only for new customers and you’re a customer now so we won’t fix it.”

Thankfully he lives in one of the few places with multiple providers, so he told them to stuff it.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#106

Post by snapwich »

waffle_ss wrote: post #38

The original article title is more accurate. Replacing "CenturyLink" with "Utah ISP" as if they're some podunk lil' no-name ISP is misleading. CenturyLink is a Tier 1 ISP, and 5th largest in the country by customer count. Maybe city folk haven't heard of CenturyLink but they have monopolies over vast swathes of rural copper networks.

Yeah that's my bad. I thought saying Utah ISP might highlight that this is currently only a Utah issue and CenturyLink isn't blocking everyone's traffic... I think.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#107

Post by acdha »

pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

Imagine if it had said “written communication” and CenturyLink had chosen to block your driveway with a sign or toss a note pasted onto brick through your window. Would you be as quick to say it was the fault of the law rather than how they chose to interpret it?

Laws are not source code and they assume some level of good faith interpretation because most real-world activities are complicated and change over time. If “email” was written into the law then we'd get some equally silly complaint about how they're using a system favored by old people while younger users want SMS, Twitter, Facebook, etc. notifications or that an important notice was spam-filtered. Stating “electronic communications” leaves those options open so time doesn't need to be spent revising the law later.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#108

Post by abrowne »

waffle_ss wrote: post #38

The original article title is more accurate. Replacing "CenturyLink" with "Utah ISP" as if they're some podunk lil' no-name ISP is misleading. CenturyLink is a Tier 1 ISP, and 5th largest in the country by customer count. Maybe city folk haven't heard of CenturyLink but they have monopolies over vast swathes of rural copper networks.

Unfortunately they are the only option for fiber in the part of Minneapolis where I live. It's slightly better than Comcast.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#109

Post by gtdawg »

waffle_ss wrote: post #38

The original article title is more accurate. Replacing "CenturyLink" with "Utah ISP" as if they're some podunk lil' no-name ISP is misleading. CenturyLink is a Tier 1 ISP, and 5th largest in the country by customer count. Maybe city folk haven't heard of CenturyLink but they have monopolies over vast swathes of rural copper networks.

They purchased Level(3) who already previously owned Global Crossing, Savvis Video and Genuity, among other acquisitions.

The Level(3) name was much more memorable in the carrier/enterprise/ISP field and it feels like they are starting from scratch on brand recognition, because as you said, lots of people haven't heard of Centurylink before.

Edit: And as noted by the thread "CenturyLink is totally shady.", Centurylink's retail consumer reputation is quite tarnished (as are most large consumer ISP companies) and mixing that reputation with Level(3) was a bad decision, IMO.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#110

Post by saidajigumi »

waffle_ss wrote: post #38

The original article title is more accurate. Replacing "CenturyLink" with "Utah ISP" as if they're some podunk lil' no-name ISP is misleading. CenturyLink is a Tier 1 ISP, and 5th largest in the country by customer count. Maybe city folk haven't heard of CenturyLink but they have monopolies over vast swathes of rural copper networks.

They're into some major metros. While it's theoretically nice to have competition for Comcast, it'd be nice if that competition weren't at least as shady...
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