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Stuck with Comcast? You may get stuck some more!
Ars Technica , Gizmodo, ZDNet, and a host of others are reporting that Comcast claims that the FCC has no authority to limit or prohibit the internet provider from distributing web histories to advertisers.
From the Ars Technica article:
As the Federal Communications Commission debates new privacy rules for Internet service providers, Comcast has urged the commission to let ISPs offer different prices based on whether customers opt into systems that share their data and deliver personalized ads.
Comcast executives met with FCC officials last week, and "urged that the Commission allow business models offering discounts or other value to consumers in exchange for allowing ISPs to use their data," Comcast wrote in an ex parte filing that describes the meeting. (MediaPost covered the filing yesterday.)
AT&T is the biggest Internet provider offering such a plan. AT&T's "Internet Preferences" program reroutes customers' Web browsing to an in-house traffic scanning platform, analyzes the customers' search and browsing history, and then uses the results to deliver personalized ads to websites. With Internet Preferences enabled, AT&T customers can pay as little as $70 per month for 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home service, but those who don't opt into Internet Preferences must pay at least $29 a month extra.
[Continues...]
The Washington Post adds:
Consumer groups who oppose Comcast have said that Internet providers have a unique vantage point over everything an Internet user does online. For example, Netflix's intelligence about its users is largely limited to what customers do on its own platform, with little visibility into how those same people watch videos on Hulu or Amazon. (Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Internet providers, however, can detect when a subscriber visits all three sites.
Many analysts expect the FCC to finalize its privacy rules for Internet providers this year. But there are a lot of details to be hashed out, including whether Internet providers will be able to share subscriber data by default with marketers or whether they will be required to first obtain customers' explicit approval.
It's still unclear whether Comcast has actual, concrete plans to roll out a discount, data-driven Internet program. But what is clear is that the company has at least considered the possibility and wants looser rules for the industry that would permit such plans. A Comcast spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gizmodo puts it succinctly: "Comcast has logged yet another tally in the competition for Shittiest Company In Existence."
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Saturday August 06 2016, @06:38AM
I've been where you are; Satellite and ready to die. Ditto on how terrible it is, which is even more fun when you have 5 people wanting to experience the terribleness. Hooking up a Wi-Fi AP for guests almost seems sadistic personally. Trying to use a SSH connection to fix remote servers? Very difficult was my experience too.
How far are you from a normal land-based Internet connection? You could gauge interest and start a small WISP cooperative. I'm involved in that and we have some links that are 15-20 miles apart. It's all line of sight too, so you may need relays. All said and done though? Providing 8mb/s down and 2mb/s up standard and latency is typically under 40ms for everything. Main links are gigabit and very low latency.
If you don't want to go the coop route, and have line of sight to a friend with Internet, get yourself a pair of Mimosa's. It'll be pricey, but you'll be able to stream HD video from your friends media center and can saturate a FIOS connection :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:56PM
Yeah, I'm sharing it right now too and it makes it even worse. :/
I'm not completely certain but I think I'm something like five or six miles from where the landlines stop. maybe up to nine, but that's probably the maximum, since that's about the distance to the middle of what passes for a town around here.
The real problem is it's a hilly area, lots of trees, and most of the land between here and broadband is owned by people that are just holding the land to keep anyone else from using it for anything, or people that don't care at all about internet access. So, getting anybody to cooperate for better connectivity is basically impossible, and there's no LoS to anything. Can't even get a mobile signal for a few miles around the house. :|
It sucks so much.