renovation

i'ved thought for a bit my service has been messed with .but its the only cable supplyer i can get here .see im (my computer and internet runs 24 /7) so im sure they have me limited.

NEW YORK (AP) - Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) (CMCSA) actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

way more here --- http://apnews.excite.com/article/200...D8SCHANO0.html

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DarkFury

I'm still SOOOO glad I have completely gotten rid of Comcast from my home (as of 4 months ago... with AT&T Uverse.)


Comcast sucks (your wallet dry).

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Napoleon54

Oh crap, does Comcast suck? I'm not familiar with them. They're the only broadband provider available in my new area. Their cable broadband service is $59.99 per month, which is quite steep. Have you had issues with them in addition to cost... quality of service, support, etc?

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DarkFury

Seriously... you are asking this "seriously" right?



If you are serious... then my main reply is:

Comcast is in the business to maintain their monopoly. Their business model to date is built around giving YOU the consumer the least amount of services at a price that is well above what other providers are making available. On top of that, if a legit competitor comes into town, they will do as much as sectionalize their service and make agreements with those companies so that they have their "distinct" area and the competitor has their own area to provide service in so that they don't have to directly compete if they don't have to (My example here is how they have an "agreement" with the other cable provider in Indianapolis so that beyond a certain street address you can only pick one or the other...) The competitor basically is working in collusion as they don't offer their services beyond their negotiated area with Comcast.

On top of all of that, Comcast in my own personal experience has never ever lowered their prices in relation to the growth and expansion of their business. I was a Comcast customer for almost 14 years here, and in that time, I NEVER saw any of their services lower in price, yet I did see them gradually creep their prices up from time to time while still offering basically the same number of television channels (of course they will tell you that their "operating costs" are so high ... this and that.) Yet, when you look at other offerings now available (but not available 10 years ago) for the same amount of money you can get double to triple the amount of service yet Comcast in full grasp of their "monopoly status" never makes any effort to adjust their prices in light of the new offerings. Instead... what they do is market a "smear campaign" against their competitors and give "limited discounts" for new customers only.

Pretty much, as a long term customer, Comcast really didn't make me feel like they REALLY wanted (or earned) my business. In some ways, they kinda operate like AOL... they provide the same old "dog food" for the same price even though a much faster/better option is available yet they play on the FEARS and loyalty of their consumers in trying to retain you as a customer.

As far as "improvements' in the system go... well with Comcast, every little improvement is gonna cost you WAY extra. You want HD... well you will have to also buy their "digital package" on top of getting the HD service, even though the two offerings are "mutually exclusive" (i.e. HD service is available on Comcast basic, yet they don't package it that way... they basically force you to buy their digital service on top of your basic in order to get to HD... and even then they only offer like 7 to 12 total digital channels anyways.)


Basically to me, Comcast is a big RIP OFF artist and since I've gotten rid of them, I haven't missed having their service one bit.

Napoleon54

Yes it was a serious question, I wasn't at all familiar with Comcast. Based on what you've said I'm PO'd about them already. I've no interest in TV or landline phone service, but they're the only broadband internet provider (aside from satellite) at my new location. I might consider getting satellite instead, which would be like an extra $10 per month, but I really really don't want to do business with Comcast if what you've said about them is true. I don't tolerate crap like that and I will pay extra to avoid them on principle.

renovation

if i was not locked in to them i switch .but satellite wont work in my wooded area. so im screwed and dsl is also not avail.

DarkFury

Because of your situation... I wouldn't advise you to switch.

However, if given a choice, I'd run to a better option as soon as it was available to me.

More or less, many of the local cable companies act like this... mainly because they mostly own their own lines and they feel like the significant investments they made 10+ years ago should still entitle them to the premiums they charge today (kinda like a "toll bridge that continues to charge tolls and generate revenue long after the bridge has been paid for."

Pretty much, cable is a cash cow now even if they still complain that they have to pay high licensing fees for additional programming today (of which I say... hey, for the basic cable there really shouldn't be as many fees and most of what they offer in the base package isn't what we as consumers want anyways... I know that out of 70 offered channels, I'm really only interested in about 20 of them).

But yet, the cable company is in for a RUDE awakening. With fiber networks coming online now in mainstream America... it won't be long before they really aren't the "only game in town". And from what I've heard, fiber is much more scaleable than cable... so pretty much in the future we hope that more services will be offered at a better cost due to scaling. Either way, cable better start changing it's tune or else one day the music will stop (that is ... unless the folks who are "lemmings" refuse to acknowledge this and hang on to cable just because it's what they've "always had and are comfortable with"). Kinda like those AOL folks I mentioned before.

Napoleon54

I'm in the process of moving to New Hampshire and it is kinda the sticks so there aren't many options out here. Just found an apartment I like on Thurs night and unfortunately it looks like Comcast is all that's available there. I looked into HughesNet (satellite) and they want a 2 year committment at either $79/month with no setup fee, or $59/month with a $299 setup fee. As crummy as Comcast seems to be (I've found a ton of complaints online), I don't think I'm willing to swallow that much extra cost for satellite. Another thought though... I talked with my future neighbor; he says they have broadband through Comcast and said something about sharing it with me and split the cost. I'll have to look into that. I have no problem ripping off Comcast because it seems like that's what they're trying very hard to do to their customers. Grr. We'll see what happens.

Kevster

You can do what I did with my parent's neighbors: DSL is out of the question where they're at, so my parents got their internet access through the local cable company (which sucks, their local network usually bounces once a day and it takes ~30 minutes to reconverge). Most of the other neighbors have DirectTV, so they don't want to spend the $50 for internet access through the cable company.

I set up a high-power Buffalo Gateway Router, put a good 3rd party firmware on it from Sveasoft, and then mounted a large weatherproof 14dB Onmi antenna outside. The cost to me was about $170 with the antenna, lightning arrestor and mounting hardware included. I told the two neighbors chip in on the big antenna cost, buy their own high-power adapters and yagi antennas and point them at my parents' house. I gave them the SSID and the AES-tkip key and it works quite well. They get excellent signals on clear days and decent signals on rainy days (there's some trees in the way, and the distances are around 500ft). We have a gentleman's agreement not to overly abuse it and to help out my parents when I'm not there. It's worked pretty well now for a year and a half. I can even remote into the router via dial-up and troubleshoot any problems, which has happened a few times due to the cable provider's tech support being full of asshats.

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johnnymk

What is the distance, kevster? Do trees affect it? Does the line of sight have to be clear? Do you all have to watch the same channels or can you each select channels of your choice?

My mother gets standard cable and lives approx. 1/2 mile away.

LPMiller

i hate comcast, which is why I have Dish and DSL. They charge way too much for too little. They out and out lied to me on numerous occasions. And now they strip and block parts of your internet access if you use bittorrent? Screw that noise.

But fiber optic rollout is really really slow, and will continue to be so. And once it does get established and a true comcast/DBS competitor, well, it won't be long before they become jerks too.

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Napoleon54

Kevster, that is brilliant! My apartment is above a garage and the neighbor I was talking to rents the house, so the signal would only have to go maybe 50' across the driveway. Depending on where his router and my computer are placed in our respective residences, is it possible I might be able to get his wifi signal directly? If I can't see his wifi, what's the minimum kinda setup (antennas) I'd need to beam it over? We could probably even string a cat5 cable across the gap but that'd be kinda ghetto. (I'm not above going ghetto, but it sounds like there definitely are better ways to do it)

Edit: sorry to all for hijacking the thread, but y'know, this is my internet connection we're talkin' about... I think most here would see that as a pretty high priority (not 'cause it's specifically mine, but 'cause internet connectivity is something we as a group generally value quite highly)

rollings

I have a friend living in NY, says something problem he incurred last year similar to this one.

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Kevster

The system I set up with my parents and neighbors works with their distances of about 500ft. I had to mount the omni antenna outside in the front of the house since the stucco walls are a reasonably effective barrier to 2400Mhz radio. Trees will affect the signal, as they have leaves that have water in them. When it is raining the signal can be attenuated by the fact the trees are coated in water. I designed the system to have enough power margin to adequately compensate for this problem (picture Tim 'the tool man' Taylor saying, "...So I rewired it!"). Only one channel is active on this system (in this case, channel 1).

For your problem, JohnnyMK, you'd probably be interested in this: http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...int-bridge.php

I have used Radiolabs in the past and they have been very helpful and fast to ship. They also have great antennas and packages.

Oh, and to keep on topic with the thread, Comcast still sucks! It's Craptastic!

kimchicowboy

this totally made my day when i read it this morning! it's the coolest story EVER!

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nate el bueno

Apparently these aren't the only problems with comcast. I was reading maximum pc the other day, and it had an article about comcast. Comcast has been terminating services to people with out warning who they claim use excessive amounts of bandwith, even though there is nothing in the fine print that allows them to do this. The "limit" that comcast seems to claim is 400GB per month, which I agree is excessive, but do not agree with comcast for terminating service without warning.

Napoleon54

Update: Comcast has admitted they intentionally "delay" P2P file sharing. They may be shooting themselves in the foot 'cause this will likely serve as convincing evidence in support of Net Neutrality legislation.

Vindu's View: Comcast often pulls plug on some file-sharing
By Vindu Goel
Mercury News
Article Launched: 10/28/2007 01:49:33 AM PDT

You're at home and get a hankering to watch a movie. You fire up your computer, turn on your Comcast high-speed cable modem and start downloading a legal copy of the vintage Hitchcock thriller "The Man Who Knew Too Much" using BitTorrent, a popular file-sharing program.

Suddenly, the transfer stops. The computer sending you the file has dropped the connection. You wait a minute. Nothing happens. You try restarting the transfer. The data flows for a few seconds, then stops again.

What's going on? Comcast is breaking your connection. On purpose.

When it comes to your Internet service, the cable giant's user agreement means it can do whatever it wants - even if that makes it hard for you to use one of the best technologies available for distributing video.

The Philadelphia-based company, which dominates the cable TV and Internet market in the Bay Area, recently admitted that it sometimes "delays" the flow of large files being transferred using peer-to-peer, file-swapping software like BitTorrent and Gnutella.

It's not because many of the shared files are illegal copies of movies and television shows distributed without permission of the copyright owners. The nation's second-largest Internet provider says it doesn't like the way peer-to-peer programs hog capacity and crowd out other traffic.

So when congestion on its network is heavy, Comcast's system sends fake goodbye messages to individual computers performing file transfers, essentially cutting off the connection. It repeats the process if the computers try to reconnect.

"We need to make sure that a small group using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth isn't affecting the rest of our customers," said Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president and general manager for online services. "We're not blocking. We are managing the network."

As Bowling sees it, Comcast is "doing the right thing to improve the experience for all of our customers."

But the practice, exposed by the Associated Press a week ago, has infuriated many customers and open-network advocates, who complain that Comcast is blocking far more transfers than it's owning up to.

More important, the company is using its powerful position to deliberately discriminate against a single, popular category of Internet activity - a category that poses a long-term threat to the company's core cable-television business.

Peer-to-peer, or P2P, technology is great for distributing video files because it taps copies stored all over the Internet to fulfill a download request.

Right now, most of the files swapped are illegal copies put up by individual users. But some software companies are using P2P to distribute their products. And Hollywood and the networks are working with P2P providers to figure out how to use the technology to cheaply distribute authorized versions of films and TV shows.

"If you can't use P2P, you're closing the door on a whole new generation of services," said Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco cyberliberties group that confirmed the AP's findings through its own tests.

Comcast is a company people love to hate. It fares poorly in customer-service rankings, and complaints about it are common. Some people can choose AT&T's digital subscriber line (DSL) service as an alternative, but it's not available everywhere.

Comcast's user agreement officially bans file-sharing and "gives them the ability to do anything they darn well please," said California Deputy Attorney General Robert Morgester, who prosecutes Internet crimes in the state.

Do we really want a quasi-monopoly deciding which new Internet technologies to allow or block?

For several years, a coalition of "Net neutrality" activists has pushed the Federal Communications Commission and regulators to prevent Internet service providers from favoring some content over others. AT&T agreed to obey Net neutrality principles as a condition of its merger with BellSouth.

But the effort to pass national regulations has so far failed. One big reason: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and many lawmakers said there was no real evidence that Internet providers were discriminating against any content.

Now there is.

Linky

As I mentioned before, the only broadband available at my new apartment is Comcast. No DSL. I'm moving in on Thursday and I've decided to stick with dial-up rather than become a Comcast customer. Maybe FiOS will be avaiable soon.

renovation

for some like me dial up is not a option. also satellite wont work in my yard. so im stuck with comcrap.
(we are a cell phone only household)

Napoleon54

I would've loved to ditch landline phone and only use cell but, as it turns out, coverage is spotty at my place. I can get weak signal out on the porch or near a West-facing window, but nothing reliable inside. Grr.