--- On Wed, 7/2/08, Brian Kelsay [email protected] wrote:
I'd bet they are trying to cut down on bandwidth usage also. Comcast has tried to block torrents, they have cycled connections so big downloads die, blocked home servers, the list goes on and on. It's almost like they don't want intelligent customers that use the service. If they had competition, they'd lose customers and possibly go out of business just on their poor customer service to cable TV customers.
From a free market perspective what they are doing makes a lot of sense. They want people who use a lot of bandwidth all the time to pay for a lot of bandwidth all the time. They want people who want business-class home servers to pay for business-class service, not try to sneak business-class service onto a home-level service line after signing a T&C saying they agree to penalties for doing so.
Most of the T&C documents people have to sign to get "unlimited" Internet service, the ones that no one actually reads, include some form of provision which says that unlimited only applies if you don't max out your bandwidth all the time. Saying "whoops, didn't read that, so you can't hold me to it" isn't going to hold up anywhere, and means most of the complainers on basic "unlimited" Internet are, strictly speaking, demanding that their ISP do something the customer agreed the ISP doesn't have to do.
Lets face it, the concept of "unlimited Internet" was nothing more than a marketing gimmick for ANY Internet Service Provider. All Comcast is doing is adjusting its service to fit what they have always been able to do, as opposed to what they have never been able to do.
Comcast and TWC will never go out of business, because most users aren't the highly technical type of people who might try to sneak business-class services out of a home-level "unlimited" Internet account. Most people will cheerfully use a huge pipe for E-mail and YouTube, and never touch the untapped potential of the pipe. Those complainers who are technical and who have lots of money will simply purchase business-class service and cease to complain. Those complainers who are technical and do not have lots of money don't have the purchasing clout to be taken seriously. In the end, the people who will be annoyed and stay annoyed won't hurt the companies much, short or long term.