Largely I'm happy with my ISP. Except that somewhere in their core network they have a broken link, which means that 0.01% of the internet is inaccessible to me, as of a couple of weeks ago when they "upgraded" my connection. Unfortunately that 0.01% includes my friend's computer which runs my backup email servers. Tried explaining this on the phone to the ISP. The script the phone-jockey had basically took me through rebooting the router, trying a couple of different browsers, and then saying that they were pleased to have solved the problem.
Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
21–30 of 76 posts
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#22If you want competition, stop letting local governments make "deals" with the ISP's to bring such and such Internet or service to that area. Almost always that ensures the company will get a monopoly in that area. 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…
> I'm sure 1-10 Mbps seemed super-fast 10 years ago 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…
So we can saturate our internet connections with one video stream. That means it's not fast enough. Presently living alone so this is mostly a nonissue for me, but what about people with 2+ users at home? One wants to watch the latest Doctor Who, the other wants to check their email and browse the web, someone is losing out.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#23>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. 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.
I don't hate my ISP.
But I've got no cap, and good speeds.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#24The more I think about it, the more I want government to step in and nationalise/regulate internet service, like they did with electricity. 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.
I could not agree more for this specific case. Really wish Internet was just another utility that we paid for and not worry about the monopoly these ISPs have specially in some remote areas.
There is some parallel, but ISPs are not commoditized like electricity utilities are. Once consumer-level data is pretty even across the board and companies are only competing for lock-in and price, those kinds of regulations make much more 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.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#25>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. 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.
Comcast in San Jose provides decent speeds, but the connection can be spotty and drops out at times. Also, despite claims to the contrary, torrent traffic appears to be very heavily throttled. Whenever I try downloading a Linux ISO via torrent, download rates will often start out high, then sharply drop to somewhere under 100 kbps.
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.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#26The more I think about it, the more I want government to step in and nationalise/regulate internet service, like they did with electricity. 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.
I could not agree more for this specific case. Really wish Internet was just another utility that we paid for and not worry about the monopoly these ISPs have specially in some remote areas.
Remote areas? I had remarkably little choice in New York City. I lived in Brooklyn and had Optimum Online. I was happy with it, but then moved to Queens and now I had to switch to RCN, because they were in my building and Optimum wasn't. Moved to Manhattan, and had to get TWC, until FiOS was installed in the building.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm sure 1-10 Mbps seemed super-fast 10 years ago 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…
So we can saturate our internet connections with one video stream. That means it's not fast enough. Presently living alone so this is mostly a nonissue for me, but what about people with 2+ users at home? One wants to watch the latest Doctor Who, the other wants to check their email and browse the web, someone is losing out.
This is exactly the kind of knee-jerk entitlement I'm talking about. I'm guessing if connection speeds were 10x higher, you'd still be making similar arguments for why the slower one was also completely unacceptable. I'd love a 100mbit home connection as well, but we don't have those and signing up for cable is a very stressful way to pretend.
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.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#28>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. 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.
I've had no trouble with Comcast in my area in service or support. My problem with them is that they're colluding with AT&T to keep internet prices high and upsell everyone onto bundled plans, when all I need is internet (not home phone and TV service). Thus they charge $20/mo for 3Mbps, $50 for 6Mbps and $65 for 25Mbps unbundled internet, and AT&T charges roughly the same.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#29It's time to make Internet access a public utility, just like water and electricity. In this day and age, Internet access is as much an essential part of life as both of the above. 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…
RE: #2
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.
Re: Internet horror stories: How ISPs screwed over users
#30>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. 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.
>> Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible.
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.