I do have Qwest DSL available in my area, but I can honestly say that I’d go to dialup before going back to them. The connection was fine with them, but I’ve never in my life experienced worse customer service. I could go on for pages. The least egregious of the problems was when they shipped me (and charged me for) two $100 modem kits and then “lost” the one I sent back for credit. It took me six months to get that $100 back. And I’ve talked to three other people who had the exact same experience.
Qwest is on the top of my evil corporate bastard shitlist.
You may be right, but i have access to a bunch of sites from which i could easily download gigs and gigs a month, and it would all be legit. The sites i use are mainly databases and other academic sites to which i have access as a graduate student at my university. The stuff that i download includes things like dissertations, journal articles, newspaper articles, etc., and it is perfectly legal for me to do so as long as they are for educational purposes and are not reproduced for others.
Also, there are plenty of internet sites that have large amounts of free, legal stuff for downloading. For instance, i get copies of speeches and radio interviews from some left-wing radio websites, and those specifically offer their content for non-profit downloading. The Library of Congress has masses of public-domain, downloadable stuff, including heaps of picture files, many of which are large (20+Mb), archival TIF files. And i also like to download videos of people hurting themselves from punchbaby.com.
And what about the person who subscribes to pay sites on an individual level. I know that a Lexis/Nexis subscriber could download plenty of info in a month, as could someone who subscribes, for example, to The Nation magazine’s digital archive. And what about all the porn paysite subscribers out there?
While astro’s post might be true, if a company wants to impose limits, then these limits should be clearly outlined in the contract, rather than arbitrarily imposed when the company decides that you’re using too much bandwidth. I would apply the same argument in addressing cnotechris’s post; if Comcast wnat to limit residential users to a certain level of downloading, this should be made clear in the contract. I don’t care how much this guy is using; if he’s not breaking the explicit terms of his agreement, then he’s doing nothing wrong.
Sounds rather dangerous to me, and isn’t the business model I would choose. But on the other hand, these policies are shaped by market forces. Comcast could just have a per-gigabyte pricing scheme, instead of a monthly rate, but the market seems to have resondly rejected this model. People don’t like having to worry about how much each download will cost them, and are willing to put up with the inefficiencies of a monthly rate. They could put up a solid cap, but people don’t like those either. So they present the illusion of unlimited downloads without the actuality. And this seems to be what people prefer.
"took me six months to get that $100 back. "
So you paid the $100, then tried to get it back?
Well, it seems from The Ryan’s post that Comcast has covered itself legally in its agreement. Still, i don’t much like any agreement where the Company maintains sole discretion, with no apparent avenue for redress on the part of the customer.
If they don’t want you as a customer, they have no obligation to keep you as a customer. If you are one of those super heavy users, you’re increasing the costs for everyone. My only caveat is that they should be fair about cancelling service. They should refund any set up fees or equipment fees, and should give ample warning so the user can keep their usage reasonable.
I actually still am an AOL subscriber because Comcast goes down from time to time with no explanation.
(And if anybody else experiences this, let me know. My cable internet’s modem will have the 4 light blaring and the fifth blinking to let me know it’s sending, receiving, online etc. If there’s no connection, it’ll just have the first 1 or 2 lights on or blinking like it’s trying to connect. This will happen from time to time and sometimes last a day or two. I check the connections [and this cable internet is on a spliced cable installed by then AT&T that Ys to go to the TV as well as the cable modem. The TV keeps playing cable so I know that’s not unplugged from the wall]. I reboot, unplug, recycle the computer and the external modem until I finally plug in the phone cord and dial-up on AOL. The real kicker is, I make a service call to get this fixed. They plan on coming out a couple days later. By the time the scheduled repair date comes, it’s back up and running so I have to cancel the repair date or get charged as they only will do this gratis if they can find the problem, otherwise it’s just me. Anybody have this shit or know how to fix it?)
You must be awfully uncomfortable. Every EULA for every piece of software I’ve ever seen had clauses which allowed unilateral decision-making which could lead to a revocation of the license with no recourse from the other party. I’ll give you half a guess as to which side the clauses granted this power to. Please note that the SDMB’s license has similar caveats. The administration reserves the right to terminate your access at any time for any, or no, reason whatsoever. In their sole judgement and you are allowed no concessions(a goodbye post, notice, etc).
This is absolutely standard operating procedure in the vast majority of the contracts between companies and individuals. Especially in the information technology sector.
Personally I think it sucks, and I have a deep-seated loathing for any contract which is not open to negotiation by both parties. When I first signed my rental lease for the house I’m in right now the landlord handed over a boilerplate lease agreement he downloaded from some legal resource. I reviewed it and requested some changes. Being a fair person, he agreed and the corrections were made as appropriate. We also have a supplemental agreement which we negotiated as well. This is how contract negotiations for goods and services should work. This stupid click-through crap is going to have some serious repercussions as people begin to learn exactly how inequitable these “contracts” actually are.
I realize this is SOP. I’m sure that if i looked in the fine print of my Verizon DSL agreement, it would say that they can terminate my contract at any time. But it doesn’t mean that i have to like it. Like you, i think it sucks.
Also, i’m much more tolerant of such things when they apply to a free site like SDMB. I mean, i’m paying nothing for using the service, the owners of the site are making nothing from my membership, and one assumes than anyone giving such a service away for nothing is generally a pretty upstanding, good-faith type of person.
But when one pays a company for a specific service, and the company reserves the right to cancel the contract for no reason except its own, and wthout the possible reasons being clearly enumerated in the agreement, i think that sucks.
With regard to software, i did read somewhere on these boards the other day (sorry, no link) that no court has yet found click-through EULAs to be valid and enforceable legal documents. Does anytone know whether or not this is true?
Well, that depends on what one considers “clearly enumerated”. For instance, the Verizon DSL Terms of Service have very vague terms attached to their unilateral action sections.
Now, name me a use of the Internet which could NOT be covered by this particular clause. Explicitly OR implicitly, in their sole discretion. This also gives them the right to terminate your service if your machine gets hacked and the hacker uses it to do bad things. Kick the hacker off and secure your machine so he’s doing doing bad things anymore? Tough tittie. Someone breaks into your house and downloads the Tonya Harding wedding night video? Your service can be terminated.
It comes down to trust. They hold all the cards and the customer holds none. There are thousands of lines to hold a customer’s feet to the fire if they do anything the company feels is out of line, but who protects the customer? Reimbursement for dropped connections or crappy service? Well, they disclaim that as well.
A contract is supposed to be binding in both directions. These kinds of contracts are a joke.
Actually that isn’t a contract but rather the terms of service. There is no contract with Verizon. If you don’t follow the terms included in the TOS, Verizon can terminate their service. By the same token if Verizon does not provide the service promised, you can cancel and take your service to another provider since they do not require a commitment (no contract).
As a side note in Verizon’s case they send the TOS in the install kit and give the customer ample time and chance to review them before service starts. If they don’t agree with them or feel that they cannot comply with them they probably should not continue service.
Comcast apparently is pretty vague in their TOS but I can understand their stance. If this user is creating a signifigant slow down on their system it only seems fair to either disconnect him or charge him as a buisness customer.
I don’t know what causes this problem, but I have the exact same problem with Comcast, and it has been getting more and more frequent. I don’t think it’s load based, because I frequently lose connectivity at odd times like 1 am. It’s getting very frustrating and comcast never offers up an explaination or apologies.
pezpunk, I understand that in the legal sense, a TOS is not a contract. What I dispute is that these kinds of distinctions are actually differences. What you have is a document defining the relationship between two parties. What each should expect from another. Call it a TOS, call it a EULA, call it Betty as far as I care. Deliniate, if it isn’t too much trouble, the real, practical difference. A difference that can be percieved by a layman without handholding from a legal professional.
It details the behavior expected from the client and deliniates the responsibilities and liabilities of the provider. Fits most of the common definitions of “contract” as far as I can tell.
Sorry Mtgman I didn’t mean to dispute the term “contract” but rather the idea that calling it a contract gives the sense that the customer is legally bound to Verizon. In other words your intially statement sounded to me to say customers can be screwed by the Verizon and have no recourse because they are legally bound. This is not the case. That’s all.
Right. Road Runner threatened to kick my father off when he got infected by a particularily nasty virus (He was sending out copious amounts of Viagra knock-off e-mails). His only recourse was to fix the problem immediately (And they were helpfull, apparently) or lose his service. No if’s and’s or but’s.
That’s kinda shaddy in my opinion, but not totally unacceptable. I mean, what do you expect them to do?
At any rate, after reading through the thread on the DSL website, it appears this guy was indeed hogging up huge amounts of bandwidth. I saw a couple of estimates that put it at nearly 200-300 gigs a month. That’s a helluva lot.