Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#21

Post by nik_0_0 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 12:50 AM UTC

nreece wrote: post #6

Here in Australia, a few responsible providers like Aussie Broadband have already announced unmetered data usage and temporarily stopping all service suspensions. https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/aussie-broadband-ann... Edit: The real test though will be the bandwidth of our gov-sponsored, substandard, widely FTTN (instead of full FTTP).

In the US, Comcast generally doesn't get a good rep - but they've done the same: https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19

Now if we could take a second to talk about all the "From CEO..." emails that are being sent around...

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#22

Post by znpy » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 12:50 AM UTC

Here in italy Fastweb pledged set up a 1-million gigabytes traffc pool from which all subscribers draw automatically. Once the million is over, traffic will be drawn from the account (granted, Fastweb offers ~50 GB/month for 9.90/month).

This is for now, i wouldn't be surprised if they extend it later on.

The thing is, Fastweb is big in residential internet connection but pretty minor as mobile provider.

No word from major providers (Vodafone, Tim, Iliad)

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#23

Post by danielheath » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #14

nreece wrote: post #6

Here in Australia, a few responsible providers like Aussie Broadband have already announced unmetered data usage and temporarily stopping all service suspensions. https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/aussie-broadband-ann... Edit: The real test though will be the bandwidth of our gov-sponsored, substandard, widely FTTN (instead of full FTTP).

I would expect rationing of the available bandwidth to become more important, not less, as the entire population is stuck at home using it all day.

Aussie Broadband have announced unlimited bandwidth for those on limited plans, but also that those few making extreme use of available bandwidth will be throttled. They might slow their connections down, too.

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#24

Post by jaytaylor » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

nik_0_0 wrote: post #21

nreece wrote: post #6

Here in Australia, a few responsible providers like Aussie Broadband have already announced unmetered data usage and temporarily stopping all service suspensions. https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/aussie-broadband-ann... Edit: The real test though will be the bandwidth of our gov-sponsored, substandard, widely FTTN (instead of full FTTP).

In the US, Comcast generally doesn't get a good rep - but they've done the same: https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19 Now if we could take a second to talk about all the "From CEO..." emails that are being sent around...

FYI - AT&T and other major North American ISPs have also lifted data caps for the next 60 days.

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#25

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #16

>We'll mop up society's collective bills at a later point in time Very much doubt faceless corporations with automated billing cycles will take such an altruistic view on this but perhaps I'll be surprised. Most will do the exact opposite I believe. The last financial crash caused massive cashflow issues for the big corps.

[deleted]

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#26

Post by johnpowell » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

johnminter wrote: post #18

Here in the US the vendors are not doing this.

I use Mintmobile (US) for my cellphone. They are a cheap provider. I pay $180 a year for 2GB of a data a month. They emailed the other day saying data is free for the next month.

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#27

Post by zajio1am » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

The message does not really make much sense to me. Both service payments and pay dispute handling is overwhelmingly done online, so it is not affected by coronavirus and lockdowns.

We do not really know how long it will take. Emergency state and lockdowns may be the new normal. Everything that could work as usual should work as usual to not cause additional disruption.

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#28

Post by fargle » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

Overall, maybe a good sentiment and maybe a good idea. In many areas I think this is being done.

However, I don't at all like the argument that if your neighbor can't pay her bill, it might not just impact her, but two of her neighbors, one of which is some kind of network engineer who fixes BGP thingies. And neither of the leaching neighbors who have some kind of critical need of her internet can help pay for it???

If you can fix BGP thingies, you ought to have your own WiFi, or be able to do better than leaching it.

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#29

Post by goblin89 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #12

goblin89 wrote: post #11

About a month ago my Hong Kong mobile service provider offered subscribers a free local data package. Not unlimited, but a nice gesture.

What's "local" mean here?

I believe this is their speak to make it clear you cannot use that data while roaming.

There are not enough resources hosted within the region to make the distinction pointed out by donavanm worthwhile, unlike e.g. China or Russia. The local data from my plan gets used up predictably while I access resources in any part of the Internet.

Re: Don't Terminate People's Internet Connections

#30

Post by lainga » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

zajio1am wrote: post #27

The message does not really make much sense to me. Both service payments and pay dispute handling is overwhelmingly done online, so it is not affected by coronavirus and lockdowns. We do not really know how long it will take. Emergency state and lockdowns may be the new normal. Everything that could work as usual should work as usual to not cause additional disruption.

I think the problem the article was communicating is running out of money if your job is hit (and you live next to a network engineer slash mooch)