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Internet slowdowns at home aren't just annoying anymore. They can be hazardous to your health or dangerous if you're in an area that freezes.
Internet service provider Armstrong Zoom has roughly a million subscribers in the Northeastern part of the U.S. and is keen to punish those it believes are using file-sharing services.
The ISP's response to allegedly naughty customers is bandwidth throttling -- which is when an ISP intentionally slows down your internet service based on what you're doing online. In this case, when said ISP believes you're doing something illegal.
As part of its throttling routine, Armstrong Zoom's warning letter openly threatens its suspected file-sharing customers about its ability to use or control their webcams and connected thermostats.
The East Coast company stated: "Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services."
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/05/pirates-risk-being-left-in-the-cold/
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @08:37PM (8 children)
Also a reason we need net neutrality.
And competition at the last mile ISP connection.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:02PM (2 children)
Having both seems like it could result in some regulatory weirdness. My thought is a compromise; neutrality regulations for monopolies (or hell, include duopolies if you like, but draw the line somewhere), while leaving vibrant markets with competition free of such regulation. Perhaps most importantly, the most stringent net neutrality regulation applied to any ISP still making use of a municipal exclusivity agreement, so as to incentivize voluntarily giving it up. Those things were designed with entirely unnecessary cable TV in mind, not a vital utility such as Internet access.
We've seen that innovation doesn't happen when there's no competition in the form of dark fiber being laid but never connected, and stagnating performance with increasing prices. You want the handcuffs taken off, show that you can play well with others.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @09:31PM (1 child)
I am not convinced that is a good idea. What possible good could result? It is entirely possible that even with, say, four competitors, they could all be abusive, without any direct conspiracy between them.
In another sense, it is like saying, well, if there is a free market, and enough different oil companies, we don't need any regulation on pollution, because the market will decide which one is killing us the least.
I am not for excessive regulation. But if we're talking about a regulation that you're assuming they wouldn't violate, then why not keep the regulation to guarantee that?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:56AM
No, you're absolutely right. It's not even a reasonable point of discussion. They should be and must be regulated for the internet to work. You don't let power companies come into your home and drill down into your daily life and habits. You don't let libraries follow you home and watch he reads the books and if you maybe lend one over the fence to your neighbor for a weekend. You don't let your roofer come back 30 days later and inspect what goods you are storing in your house, "to check for their legality".
ISPs can fuck right off with making any sort of judgement calls on packet contents, packet types, and packet volume that's within their advertised bitrate and bandwidth. If this takes federal legislation to put them in line then so be it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 08 2018, @09:23PM (3 children)
We need an Open Source, Citizen's alternative to corporate-controlled networks. Mesh networks are one, but laggy. Would it make more sense to launch a whole bunch of cubesats that sidestep the AT&Ts of the world?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday January 08 2018, @09:57PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday January 08 2018, @10:10PM
Yep. It's called "municipal FTTH" [techtarget.com] or "last mile" [wikipedia.org] infrastructure, with ISPs connecting to those networks and *competing* on price, performance, quality of service, features and (lack of) abusive TOS.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:30PM
We need the Soylnet. Come on TMB!
Soylnet? Soylentnet? Intersoyl?
Peoplenet!!
Supposably? Supposably.
Someone ate Ethanol-Fuelled and spontaneously combusted? Supposably!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:48AM
But this isn't a neutrality issue, if you actually look past the clickbait headline. If you violate their ToS they may throttle all your traffic equally, which may include traffic for any IoT crap you may use.
It is an argument for more competition though.