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A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

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Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#291

Post by ryandrake »

bavell wrote: post #228
xp84 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, here in the US there are geographically tiny pockets in a few major cities that have actual fiber. Most of the country, including a shocking number of dense urban areas outside the east coast, has zero fiber penetration. Of our two telephone monopolies, one installed fiber for 10 years and quit (the East Coast one), and the other basically never installed fiber to the home. So anyway, outside that lucky group w…

This talking point may be a bit outdated now... I'm in a small suburban area in the southeast with 5Gb fiber available from AT&T. Around 500k in my municipal area (50k in the city proper).

You're probably just in one of those "geographically tiny pockets in a few major cities."

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#292

Post by ryandrake »

epcoa wrote: post #217
ericrallen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs also have different levels of service for different entities, and seem to just barely care about you as a customer. An ISP (like one that starts with the first letter of the alphabet and ends with a common abbreviation for an explosive compound) might not think it’s worth coming out and marking their fiber lines when you call the city’s 811 number to mark utilities before digging for a project, like a fence. If…

It’s AT&T not ATNT. You could have just said it outright, what is the point of the obscurity? It’s not funny if that’s what you were going for.

Yea, seriously. These riddles to avoid naming companies are so bizarre. Why do people do this? Does OP really think the AT&T thug squad is going to come to his house to break his kneecaps because he posted about them on HN?

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#293

Post by ranger_danger »

ksec wrote: 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…

> the one thing most important with Internet or WiFi isn't Speed, bandwidth or latency. It is reliability! It is far better to have a reliable slow 6Mbps ADSL connect than a 1Gbps Cable that has connection constantly dropping off.

Please don't assume everyone's usecase is the same as yours. I would pay dearly to have an unreliable but FAST connection just to get away from my 6Mbps DSL.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#294

Post by 35fbe7d3d5b9 »

motbus3 wrote: post #114

The always caressing hand of the free market and no regulations. I've been through this multiple times. A lawyer friend of mine told me that in such cases only going through a legal battle would solve the problem but the amount of money and time for the zero return will get no interest of any lawyers. You'll be out of luck unless yourself are a lawyer or you know someone being affected who is up to this tedious battl…

I am reminded of the troubles my parents experienced with their phone service when I was a kid. We lived out in the country, and every time it rained the lines would pick up horrific static. It was too much to have a voice conversation, let alone support the (slow) dial up Internet we used.

A multitude of technicians came out and apologetically said there was a problem somewhere in a line, but they couldn’t get approval to really dig in because there just weren’t enough complaints - they theorized there was just one broken line somewhere in a bundle that water would seep in to, and we drew the short straw.

Finally, one technician very quietly suggested that my parents go to the phonebook and call the state public utilities regulation commission. I still remember that their number was found on the one blue page in the telephone book.

Within a few business days, there were half a dozen lineman out stringing new lines, and a supervisor apologizing to my parents, promising the issue would be fixed that day, and giving his direct line to them with the instructions to call if they ever had phone trouble again.

My dad generally distrusts the government, but still marvels at that response to this day.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#295

Post by [deleted] »

prirun wrote: post #265
Nextgrid wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you can get a message in that way, it's possible to circumvent the useless consumer-level support Another option is to simply withhold payment for services non-rendered until the issue is fixed. This is totally fine as long as you've got documentation of the issue and a good-faith effort to resolve it with them beforehand. What they want is to get paid; as long as they get paid they have no reason to bother actu…

Stopping payment sounds good, but may not work for a couple of reasons: 1) if you have payment auto deducted from a bank account, getting that stopped is not always straightforward. My bank told me they couldn't actually block ACH transactions, and to reverse one, I had to file a complaint with the company initiating the ACH, wait 30 days until the next bank statement to verify that the company didn't reverse the ACH…

[deleted]

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#296

Post by fransje26 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #230
mschuster91 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, even if the neighbors saw something, they didn't see anything when the cops come knocking because everyone is most likely pissed off as well and happy someone is finally doing something that forces attention.

I find it hard to think of an industry more universally hated than telcos/cable/phone companies so good luck finding a snitch.

For-profit health insurance companies?

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#297

Post by ebjcoat »

jliptzin wrote: post #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…

Of the ~40 or so businesses I do general IT work for in New England, the ones with Comcast as the ISP are the least reliable. They experience significantly more downtime than any other provider.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#298

Post by qwerasdf5 »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #244
Nextgrid wrote: post #219

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…

Glad to hear that Arkansas now has working roofs, electricity, heat, and water. Must've been weird before 2021.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#299

Post by altairprime »

immibis wrote: post #124
altairprime wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an irregularly but often transmitting radio antenna tower fifty feet from my home, and the outage duration when an outage occurred was precisely the same each time, because Docsis is very carefully specified in how it starts up. (Don’t remember the duration, sorry.) The outage interval varied based on antenna usage; if OP is suffering a similar circuit break, a continuous transmitter nearby could certainly…

If that's a ham antenna, go talk to the guy and he might know some tricks for either shielding your connection (doubt that's possible though), pressuring Comcast, or else at least making an effort to avoid frequencies that interfere with your internet.

The county ambulance dispatch center’s antenna structure was across the street.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#300

Post by HumanOstrich »

martinald wrote: post #268
HumanOstrich wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is not a substitute for fixed broadband. It might be adequate for most use cases, but it's not equivalent and it never will be. Your "99%" figure is nonsense. More than 1% of people will see the difference in download speeds between 1Gbps and 300Mbps. You realize some apps and games show you information about latency and bandwidth? Also, just because they advertise "up to 305Mbps" doesn't mean everyone is ge…

When did I say that it was? I'm just saying it's hard to claim Comcast has a true monopoly anywhere now starlink exists. There's loads of issues with starlink, but it is a very viable alternative and is a big problem for incumbent US telcos as it caps what they can charge (there are a lot of telcos charging $100/month+ in rural areas for awful 2-8mbit/s DSL). It's massively changed the market dynamics. And I suspect…

That's like saying Comcast doesn't have a monopoly because you can get crappy mobile Internet at 1Mbps speeds by tethering to your phone. Or saying DSL is "competition" at 12Mbps speeds. By your definition, there are no ISP monopolies left on Earth now that Starlink is here.

BTW according to the study I linked, less than half of Starlink customers get service that meets the anemic FCC definition of broadband.

> It's massively changed the market dynamics. And I suspect Elon will push the pricing down further and further.

This is hand-wavey conjecture, not an argument. He might lower the pricing if he gets enough welfare for his companies from the government. But only if that's a requirement, otherwise no he's not going to lower any pricing. The monthly pricing for Starlink has gone up, not down.

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