Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 09 2020, @10:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the rent-seekers-gonna-seek-rent dept.

Jon Brodkin over at Ars Technica is reporting on Cox Cable's heavy-handed tactics in limiting upload speeds for entire neighborhoods, claiming network overuse by those who pay extra for "unlimited" access.

From the article:

Cox, a cable company with about 5.2 million broadband customers in the United States, has been sending notices to some heavy Internet users warning them to use less data and notifying them of neighborhood-wide speed decreases. In the case we will describe in this article, a gigabit customer who was paying $50 extra per month for unlimited data was flagged by Cox because he was using 8TB to 12TB a month.

Cox responded by lowering the upload speeds on the gigabit-download plan from 35Mbps to 10Mbps for the customer's whole neighborhood. Cox confirmed to Ars that it has imposed neighborhood-wide slowdowns in multiple neighborhoods in cases like this one but didn't say how many excessive users are enough to trigger a speed decrease.

[...] Comments in a Reddit thread last month confirm that Mike isn't the only Cox customer being warned to cut upload speeds in order to avoid being kicked off the network. Cox didn't tell Mike exactly how much data he'd have to shave off his monthly usage. There was "no magic number or threshold, just an arbitrary amount of decrease, a Cox-deemed 'good effort,'" or his service would be cut off, he said.

Shortly after that phone call, Mike received an email from Cox with the subject line, "Alert: Action required to continue your Internet service." Mike provided Ars with a copy of the email.

[...] This raises several questions that we asked Cox. We asked the cable company why its network is "unable to handle Mike's uploads in the middle of the night" and whether it has "considered adding capacity to its network instead of forcing unlimited-data customers to use less data." We asked Cox how much data, specifically, customers who pay for unlimited data are actually allowed to use, and "Why isn't Mike allowed to use unlimited data when he is paying for the highest speeds and paying extra for unlimited data?"

We also asked why Cox is imposing slowdowns throughout entire neighborhoods instead of only on the people allegedly violating the Acceptable Use Policy and whether the slowdowns are imposed even when only a single customer in a neighborhood is flagged for excessive usage. We also asked how many people in Mike's neighborhood are affected by the upload-speed decrease and whether they will get discounts to reflect their reduced service.

[...] Cox didn't provide as much detail as we were looking for, but it confirmed the neighborhood-wide speed decreases, saying it has "identified a small number of neighborhoods where performance can be improved for all customers in the neighborhood by temporarily increasing or maintaining download speeds and changing upload speeds for some of our service tiers."

Cox defended the temporary 10Mbps upload speed for its gigabit-download plan, saying that "10Mbps is plenty of speed for the vast majority of customers to continue their regular activity and have a positive experience."

Have any Soylentils had similar experiences with their ISP?

Is this a reasonable step for ISPs to take, or are they just trying to squeeze as much money out of their customers without performing infrastructure upgrades to support increased bandwidth requirements?

Cox imposes data caps on their broadband users. Is this appropriate?

Does your ISP impose data caps (neither of my two ISPs do so)?

Previously:
(2020-06-06) Small ISP Cancels Data Caps Permanently After Reviewing Pandemic Usage


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by datapharmer on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:13AM (2 children)

    by datapharmer (2702) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:13AM (#1005603)

    Yeah, I can literally see the fiber box from my property but Cox wanted $10,000 and a 3 year contract (in addition) to get it the few hundred feet to my house. Instead I have 3mbps dsl from at&t that goes down constantly, sometimes for days at a time. If I call at&t they tell me I am welcome to cancel if I want but I will not be able to reorder if I change my mind. But don’t worry, Ajit Pai just gave millions to solve this dilemma. The solution: I can now buy the same crappy satellite internet service from Excede I could have previously. No joke - they gave the satellite company money to serve my neighborhood’s underserved internet problem by doing.... nothing. But now we aren’t underserved per the fcc. 2 miles up the road you can get fiber to the home or gigabit cable (which obviously your mileage may vary on too).

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Informative=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by datapharmer on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:17AM

    by datapharmer (2702) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:17AM (#1005606)

    Oh, forgot to mention - the satellite broadband they are using USF/recovery funds for are 1mbps so it doesn’t even qualify as broadband under the fcc definition: https://www.viasat.com/news/wildblue-offering-low-price-for-high-speed-internet-rural-unserved-market-under-broadband-initiative [viasat.com]

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:21PM

    by Freeman (732) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:21PM (#1005922) Journal

    I would check to see, if you have any point-to-point wireless ISPs available in your area. It's the only reason why I've had a decent connection, which has actually improved over the last couple of decades.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"