Posted on 08/22/2008 12:16:07 PM PDT by Publius804
Internet provider's usage cap raises questions
Friday August 22, 10:36 am ET
By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer
Company's limit on Internet use upsets customers and portends new era in online service
NEW YORK (AP) -- Three months ago, Guy Distaffen switched Internet providers, lured from his cable company to his phone company by a year of free service on a two-year contract. But soon the company quietly updated its policies to say it would limit his Internet activity each month.
"We felt that were suckered," said Distaffen, who lives in the small village of Silver Springs in upstate New York.
The phone company, Frontier Communications Corp., is one of several Internet service providers that are moving to curb the growth of traffic on their networks, or at least make the subscribers who download the most pay more.
This could have consequences not just for consumers -- who would have to learn to watch how much data their Internet use entails -- but also for companies that hope to make the Internet a conduit for movies and other content that comes in huge files.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
"We felt that were suckered," said Distaffen, who lives in the small village of Silver Springs in upstate New York."
Is this even legal? Do folks like him have remedy?
Just coincidence that the initials are FCC?
Was this disclosed before he signed up? (even in fine print?)
Terms of use usually contain a clause saying that they can update the terms without notice. My car insurance policy contains a similar clause. It’s a standard practice that is probably not going to be successfully fought.
At the moment I’m using a sat. connection for high speed. They actually enforce their fair use policies and most people don’t understand how they work. I didn’t, now I do and will drop it when my year contract is done.
They can change terms of use whenever they want to. They are probably required to notify you though. As for this company just changing terms, we don’t know if the guy actually read them when he signed up so maybe they are just now starting to enforce a policy they was there. My understanding when researching SAT. is that most ISP’s have fair use policies that let the ISP limit your download speeds if you are downloading alot, these ISP’s include some cable companies i think.
So do you guys all really know what’s in your terms of service from your ISP? (if you’re like me you probably just go to the end of the page and hit except)
That's probably the only remedy available then.
It’s actually not “legal” in Colorado to make a contract that is open ended like that. I mean, they DO it all the time, and if someone attempts to enforce it and it goes to court, in all likelihood the plaintiff will win.
This is because you can’t make a contract that basically gives up all rights.
I suspect several states have similar circumstances.
ping
All ISPs enforce ‘bandwidth shaping’. In one form or another.
“Three months ago, Guy Distaffen switched Internet providers, lured from his cable company to his phone company by a year of free service on a two-year contract. But soon the company quietly updated its policies to say it would limit his Internet activity each month.
So the guy rolled the dice and gasmbled and lost now he is pissed.
He had a internet seive provider and by his admission only left because he thought he could get it cheaper.
Turns out as most people with common sense know that cheaper is not always better...
Well, you can sign a firm contract with a throughput guarantee if you want to pay for it. There are plenty of companies offering this in built-up areas.
The little bit of contract law I know would say this guy has a good chance of getting out of his contract since they changed the terms to something he obviously wouldn't have agreed to in the beginning.
Probably not. After all, Frontier Communications Corporation was incorporated in 1935.
Well, if they believe he should legally be bound even if they change the terms, he should just unilaterally change the monthly rate, and they should have to accept that.
If an ISP is going to charge a metered rate, they should be forced to say so in big, bold letters. They talk honestly about the fact that they are trying to convert people to a metered service from “unlimited” usage, because the marketplace as already spoken loudly against it. These days they try to sneak it in because being honest loses customers.
I’m surprised that you can get anything approaching high speed off such a high-latency connection. Do they use a proprietary protocol, or help you tweak your TCP/IP MTU size and window size?
My choice is dial up or trying this one way sat. connection, it is faster then dial up so downloading a program update takes minutes rather then hours.
The next attempt at high speed when this year contract is up it going to call clear wave and see if they can get high enough on one of our buildings to get a signal off their tower. I know people who use that and are very happy with the speeds.
It would seem that it depends on the wording of the contract that started the service. Most of them have language that negates any rights that the user might think he has and negates all of the offers that were made to entice a change of providers.
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