Live data from Hacker News

A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

sacbear.com

251–260 of 361 posts

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#251
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think this is a lazy criticism that I am _also_ growing tired of. If LLMs are trained on written information, that pattern of speech was present before they got there. It's a good way to add emphasis.

Not necessarily, the LLMs used today are far from just simple models of written information on the internet. They use in-house data they wrote themselves, and RLHF/DPO where it's effectively training on its own data to optimize for human preference. If sampling with high enough temperature for this, it could theoretically bring out entirely new unseen forms of speech as long as people express their preference for it via the user interface

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mandate electricity and water as well as telephone line as standard. I wonder why we cant mandate Optical Fibre as standard as well Electricity and water was mandated at the time the government mostly did right by the people and wasn't yet (fully) captured by corporate interests. By the time the internet arrived this was no longer the case.

If people actually read history books we'd make much better decisions as a society. No. Water and electricity were not mandated in a magical past where the government was awesome. The government has been captured by corporations and special interests forever. The level of corruption in the 1800s was astronomical compared to today. People fought for those rights. Often literally. And they still don't exist in some pla…

I don’t think that an awareness of the past is suggested because the past was great. I think it’s because seemingly good ideas weren’t, so it’s a chance to avoid repeating mistakes.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing that we now live in a world where AI can instantly an accurately diagnose a network infrastructure problem, but you are still forced to talk to CS drones who tell you again and again "have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?"

Going off on a tangent now, but man, I wish when you called support you could go through a quick technical competency test, and your results dictated who you got support from. Nailing dense questions about network infrastructure? You get to the engineering team. Failing to know what the "G" in 2.4GHz means? You probably just need someone to tell you to restart your router.

Our city fiber support is awesome and I've had luck in the past with telling the frontline tech that I likely needed to talk to one of the senior techs, and getting immediately escalated. I don't remember the exact problem I was having, but it was something slightly tricky that I had done extensive investigation on before calling.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#254
post #86

Infrastructure is difficult. I have to run 2 ISPs these days. FTTP and DOCSIS. The fiber line is obviously my primary and it's completely flawless when it's working. The problem is that about once or twice a year a utility contractor will break the fiber in my neighborhood and it can go out for up to 2 days. Cellular service is not sufficient to cover. The cable connection is what I use when the fiber goes down hard…

What caveats? It sounds like Starlink would be a perfect backup and likely save you a lot of money.

Satellite signals are low power and rely on line of sight. If he's properly in the woods, especially surrounded by hills, the trees could become a hinderance.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#255
As someone who's lived in 10 different units/houses across 6 different US states, who values decent connectivity, Xfinity or Charter/Spectrum being the only gigabit-speed wired home internet service providers is an instant, non-negotiable deal-breaker for a prospective property for me these days.

These companies continuing to offer service this unreliable and terrible is not unlike the GM fiasco of the FWD X platform in the 80s¹, where the company deliberately attempted to conceal faulty brakes that led to the deaths of over a hundred people while still selling the affected vehicles.

The advertising these companies perform regarding this defective service amounts to fraud.

The country would be a better place if Xfinity and Charter/Spectrum simply ceased existing such that sufficient demand for reliable modern fiber infrastructure became too powerful of a market force to ignore in regions previously dominated by these incompetent-bordering-on-negligent parasitic fraudsters.

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_X_platform_(FWD...

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#256
post #173

I am reading this and thinking why does it sound familiar. And then only learned Xfinity means Cable / DOCSIS. Edit: I wish the title could be edited as Cable ISP. It is a common problem with DOCSIS! And has been the case since 1.0 era. DO NOT use Cable if you can. It happens when it is over subscribed, as well as other radio interference. Although common cause is over subscription. You may actually try downgrading y…

> I wonder why we cant mandate Optical Fibre as standard as well.

The incumbents have been lobbying against this heavily, winning state laws banning municipalities from setting up their own fiber in some places.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#257
Yep, I knew this was Comcast/Xfinity just seeing the title. I had the exact same problem, for years. Intermittent disconnects for a few minutes at a time, multiple times a day. I must have had upwards of 50 technicians come to my house, all insisting there was some problem with the wiring in my house (there wasn’t) or the router or whatever (hardware all replaced multiple times including the wiring). Eventually after years of complaining that the issue isn’t in my house, they finally sent a bucket truck a half a mile up the road and the problem was fixed in about 30 minutes. It worked well for about a year and then started happening again. They started giving me the run around again. I had appointments scheduled for technicians to come, three times in a row they just never showed up. To “apologize” to me they said they would provide a credit on my account. The amount? 1 penny. I took a screenshot and saved it in case anyone thinks I am making this up. Luckily, by this time starlink was available in my area. I switched to that, turns out it’s much cheaper anyway and since then have not had any issues. The sooner Comcast goes out of business, the better.

Tip to anyone reading this: After I cancelled and closed my account, they billed me one last time for double my monthly bill ($200). No idea why, probably they thought they'd try to get away with it. I had little to no interest in participating in their customer support circus again, so I just went online to my bank and submitted a dispute of the charge. The bank instantly ruled in my favor and closed the case, issuing a permanent credit. I have never seen that before. They must be getting tons of Comcast chargebacks to do that.

I also submitted a complaint to the AG office and my local commission but I'm not expecting anything to happen.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#258
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do you, but the least you can do is either not reply, or admit that you used AI to write the copy as well.

I'm not a data analyst. Almost everything pertaining to data analysis of the log is perplexity labs. I'm also not a journalist and the article I wrote didn't sound professional and was too long. So I had AI change it to have a professional tone and structure and then edited it. I'm also not an artist and I had AI generate a picture of a bear reading a newspaper. Then I used krita to remove the background and make it…

I just want to apologize if my amusement about the Gemini comment below the article played some part in kicking off this absurd off-topic witch hunt.

I don't see anything wrong with using AI in the way you did.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#259
post #173

I am reading this and thinking why does it sound familiar. And then only learned Xfinity means Cable / DOCSIS. Edit: I wish the title could be edited as Cable ISP. It is a common problem with DOCSIS! And has been the case since 1.0 era. DO NOT use Cable if you can. It happens when it is over subscribed, as well as other radio interference. Although common cause is over subscription. You may actually try downgrading y…

> I wonder why we cant mandate Optical Fibre as standard as well. The incumbents have been lobbying against this heavily, winning state laws banning municipalities from setting up their own fiber in some places.

Why should optical fiber be standard? I want reliable, speedy network connectivity. It’s up to my network provider to determine the best means to do that. I don’t care if it’s tin can and string if it provides the service I need.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#260
They’re not a monopoly anymore. Starlink is great, as is 5G to the home (I have both) where available.

They’re already paying for it, they’ve built businesses around their monopolies. The ads you see on streaming networks telling you how bad 5G home internet is is their death rattle.

Post reply on HN