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Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#141

Post by no_wizard »

SkiFire13 wrote: post #132
ahnick wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty obvious isn't it? They don't want anyone to understand how the system really works. They should not be allowed to put the words "Unlimited" anywhere in their advertisement. period. It's all deceptive advertising and they should be raked over the coals for it. If it's shared then say "Shared gigabit internet for only X dollars!" I guess the reason they don't do that is because a lot of people would choose…

> If it's shared then say "Shared gigabit internet for only X dollars!" I guess the reason they don't do that is because a lot of people would choose competitor services if they were honest. I don't think any competitor will give you a dedicated gigabit to you for a reasonable price, especially if everyone suddently starts asking for one.

I have Ziply Fiber in Oregon.

I pay for a Symmetrical gigabit connection, it’s 60 dollars a month. I record speed tests multiple times a day every day and have ever since I got the service last year. They’re growing gang busters too, my entire neighborhood is on Ziply (90% of household converted from what I understand)

Aside from them adjusting some things due to the rapid unexpected uptake, I have gotten full connection speeds for upload and download every day for over a year. Its been uptime of 99.999% (the adjustment period happened over 2 days and they only slowed service to 300/300 temporarily)

It can be done. It won’t be done by Comcast et. al.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#142

Post by ddtaylor »

toast0 wrote: post #59
ddtaylor wrote: post #41

A reminder of why we are getting FTC broadband labels: https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandlabels

Labels aren't going to help when you don't have choices, and most people don't have choices. Just like prop 65 warnings don't help when everything has them.

They will at the least not be able to claim unlimited data as easily since the label is required to differentiate between unlimited and throttled service.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#143

Post by dehrmann »

ahnick wrote: post #74
ReverseCold wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why they don’t advertise their oversubscription rate. The FCC should probably require this to be disclosed in some standard location. So many people are mad because “I paid for a gigabit and I can’t use the whole thing”… but like you didn’t pay for a gigabit you paid for a gigabit shared among 100 other people, which means peak-of-sums you should usually get gigabit, but it’s not guaranteed. The internet…

It's pretty obvious isn't it? They don't want anyone to understand how the system really works. They should not be allowed to put the words "Unlimited" anywhere in their advertisement. period. It's all deceptive advertising and they should be raked over the coals for it. If it's shared then say "Shared gigabit internet for only X dollars!" I guess the reason they don't do that is because a lot of people would choose…

There's a difference between a data center connection and a home connection. For 99% of home users, moderately oversubscribed gigabit is perfectly fine, and no one would pay the premium (and it's a big premium) for more. Once 1 GB downloads are slow or the connection can't handle 5 HD streams, it's getting into false advertising territory.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#144

Post by drdaeman »

verisimi wrote: post #131
xyst wrote: post #42

Story was reported on in 2020, during the peak of the lockdowns as well. We truly fucked ourselves by giving these national ISPs so much power. In return, they abuse us, they collude to make sure other ISPs do not compete against each other to justify high prices and low bandwidth, and hire lobbyists to implement/push stupid laws in various states to prevent municipal ISPs (eg, Texas).

> We truly fucked ourselves by giving these national ISPs so much power. Why did you give them so much power? Maybe you should have asked questions, drawn up better agreements.

Is agreement negotiation even a thing in B2C nowadays, especially with any larger companies? I thought it’s all non-negotiable take-or-leave.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#145

Post by exabrial »

userbinator wrote: post #33

a gigabit customer who was paying $50 extra per month for unlimited data was flagged by Cox because he was using 8TB to 12TB a month "Unlimited data" should mean you can saturate the connection 24/7. Anything less is deceptive advertising. For a gigabit connection, that would mean around 300TB per month.

So call it 300tb/month, not unlimited, and quit lying?

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#146

Post by zootboy »

kstrauser wrote: post #37
wincy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I pay $70 a month for gigabit from Google Fiber and absolutely saturate that thing all day long up and down. A Google PM got me on a call and asked me if I wanted 20 gigabit for $200 a month the other day. No restrictions, I could run my business off my $70 if I really wanted to. I don’t know what Cox is going on about, they need to get with the program.

I pay $50 for 10 gigabits from Sonic. I don’t abuse it by deliberately running a speed test 24/7 or anything like that. I do use it for anything I want, at any time, without pausing to consider how much data it takes. Launch a NAS backup at 2PM on a weekday? Stream 4K video on 2 TVs at the same time? Download a mass of software updates? Without a second’s hesitation. The CEO is on record being very explicit that they…

I've been pushing an average of 10 TiB per month through my Sonic 10 Gbps fiber, mainly upload. Never had an issue or complaint. And really, even if my XGS-PON fiber is split between 32 customers, that's still ~300 Mbps per customer, which I'm nowhere near hitting.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#147

Post by kevingadd »

fn-mote wrote: post #45
createaccount99 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you sue? Isn't that false advertising?

In the US you could seek recourse via your state Attorney General. You might hope the FCC would care (but they don’t). The GP already lost 6 days of work… how much would the likely payoff be to make it work their while to continue dealing with that company?

When Comcast tried to screw me out of $700 the FCC solved it for me pretty quick. I'd at least recommend giving them a try even if in the end they may not help.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#149

Post by vlz »

userbinator wrote: post #83
ReverseCold wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why they don’t advertise their oversubscription rate. The FCC should probably require this to be disclosed in some standard location. So many people are mad because “I paid for a gigabit and I can’t use the whole thing”… but like you didn’t pay for a gigabit you paid for a gigabit shared among 100 other people, which means peak-of-sums you should usually get gigabit, but it’s not guaranteed. The internet…

There's two (interrelated) values here --- speed ("flow rate") and volume. "Unlimited data" refers to volume. Gigabit refers to speed. This customer presumably isn't too worried about the speed, but is rightly under the impression that he isn't being charged on volume and can thus use as much as the speed allows.

Ok, but you cannot truthfully advertise unlimited volume if you put a limit on the speed which is in turn also limiting the volume.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#150

Post by beloch »

userbinator wrote: post #33

a gigabit customer who was paying $50 extra per month for unlimited data was flagged by Cox because he was using 8TB to 12TB a month "Unlimited data" should mean you can saturate the connection 24/7. Anything less is deceptive advertising. For a gigabit connection, that would mean around 300TB per month.

I used to have an "unlimited bandwidth" account with Shaw Cable in Canada, back before Rogers bought them. "Unlimited" was very much front and centre in all the advertising, etc..

They started charging me overage fees. I called them up and asked them to explain why they were charging me overage fees on an unlimited bandwidth account.

Their explanation was that the bandwidth was unlimited in when I could use it, not in how much I could use.

Fortunately for me, there were other providers in the market that I could switch to. So I did.

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