Posts by Craig

Dismantling a Religion: The EFF's Faith-Based Internet

Comcast lies

I have comcast and Vonage. For some reason my cable connection can't make a clear phone call even when I'm doing nothing else. And if I'm downloading 1 torrent (at a whopping 30k/s) then forget browsing the web. It doesn't work. Tell me the speed I pay for (6 megs/second according to Comcast) shouldn't be able to support 1 phone call or 1 30k/s and espn.com. Tell me that isn't fraud.

If I pay for 6 m/s then give me 6 m/s, period. If you can't do that for all of your customers then don't advertise that speed. If they want to cap my useage, fine, tell me what the damn cap is. Don't just cut people off without telling them what the limit is. Can the cops pull you over for going over some arbitrary unposted speed limit?

Not to mention thousands upon thousands of cases of billing fraud of all the territories they bought from roadrunner. Billing all of us for modems that time warner had given us. Even going so far as to question the contract I showed them detailing how I got to keep my modem. Saying it "implied" that I got to keep using it for free.

Register get out of the pocket of the large providers, and the RIAA. I thought you were "biting the hand that feeds IT" apparently that should read "licking the hand of the oppresive overlords of IT and pissing on the consumers".

Harold and Kumar go to Comcastle

Utter crap

I also am a Comcast customer and I hate their service. Well why don't I switch? Because I have no option. They have a monopoly on cable internet in my city. The previous provider (Road Runner) was ten times better. In the 3 years I had them I had 2 outages (both due to weather). In the first 6 months on Comcast I had 7 with clear skies. On top of that we can't browse on two computers at the same time because our connection slows to a crawl. RR never pitched a fit even with 3 or 4 of us GOING TO SIMPLE WEB PAGES. I was even getting billed for a modem I OWNED. I didn't catch it until months in because it was buried on the third page of the paper bill and never even shown on the e-bill (only the total was given, never a break down of charges). The only other option in my city is DSL and the phone company, which wants a premium since I don't have phone service (I have Vonage).

The entire argument of the pro provider side (i.e. schills like the author) is that someone has to pay for the bandwidth. Guess what someone does, ME. I pay for unlimted transfers at a stated speed. Give me the bandwidth I pay for. If its not unlimited tell me how much I get and at what speed. Don't lie and say its unlimited when there is a secret cap (which there is, thats the "secret" portion referred to in the suit). And don't tell me I get 6 (RR gave me 8 reliably and 10 during off peak times) when really its 3 or 4 unless its between midnight and 5 Monday - Friday.

Comcast may own their network, but if they bill it as a buffet they shouldn't put in a speed trap between me and the bacon.