Dave Winer uses a lot of internet. Too much, it seems, for Comcast’s tastes. They shut his connection down because he was clogging up the pipes.
From Scripting.com:
I was quickly connected to a man who told me I had been deliberately disconnected because they had tried to call me and I didn’t pick up. The number they called was my Blackberry, which I disconnected a couple of months ago because I never use it, I much prefer the iPhone. Then he threatened me. He told me I was in the top 1/10th of 1 percent of all their Internet users and that if I didn’t immediately stop using so much bandwidth they would suspend my service for 12 months. I asked if I could get this in writing, he said no. I asked how much bandwidth would be acceptable, he wouldn’t say. I told him this wasn’t much of a threat if they weren’t willing to put it in writing, and I wasn’t intimidated. I also told him I was a blogger and would be writing it up. He didn’t care.
We find the manner in which Comcast terminated Dave’s service and then refused to put their complaint in writing unacceptable.
In happier news, Dave sent a direct message to ComcastCares on Twitter, an account that is staffed by a very nice man named Frank who genuinely does seem to care about things. In fact, he recently apologized to me for an extremely ancient incident I had with Comcast back when I lived in (Sweet Home) Chicago (in which the term “fuckwiched” was born.)
We’re not sure how scalable Frank’s caring is, but its an interesting idea, and it seems to have helped mitigate Dave’s anger towards Comcast if nothing else.
A new reason to hate Comcast [Scripting News]
(Photo:cmorran123)
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@SRSco: They should care about someone who can out them for the two-faced greedy people they are. They advertise one thing, and offer another.
I don’t know anything about this guy or reputation, but this exact problem has been giving Comcast a lot of bad press lately. I’m honestly surprised they still try to do it.
Holy sh*t. They cut off Dave Winer for using the Internet?! That’s like cutting the water off from a fish pond because they realized fish swim too much.
Who’s next, Cory Doctorow or Markos Moulitsas?
ISPs would have a leg to stand on if they published specific limits and included these in each of their lovingly created ads they blanket the globe with. Instead their ads only hype the unlimited use, rich media-sucking uses that their customers seamlessly devour while the ISP smiles benignly.
And, if people that used less than the average amount got a refund. Since, after all, outliers run in both directions. Why aren’t they squawking about the REFUNDS they owe people who use LESS than average?!
If this is America, the greatest country, why do we have such shitty broadband?
I’m serious. It’s inexcusble and Walt Mossberg agrees with me.
Policies and capacities be damned– if they’re unwilling to provide the bandwidth I pay for, during the full duration that I pay for it, then they shouldn’t be telling me they can. If your cable can’t handle it, either get better cable or more modest advertising.
Put up or shut up– those are the choices. Don’t lie about what you can do in hopes that no one will actually ask you to deliver on it.
OK, I’m gonna attempt a car analogy:
The road has NO speed limit posted, and the cops just randomly pull over whatever car is going fastest, out of all the cars on the road. And it doesn’t matter what speed you’re going, so long as you’re the fastest of the bunch…
Actually, this car analogy gives you a better deal than the Comcast clusterf***. On your cable modem connection, you have no way of knowing how much your neighbors are downloading. With the car/road analogy, at least you can look at the other cars and decide to slow down a bit!
@Michael Belisle: Maybe you should reexamine your premise.
@backbroken:”By definition, there will always be someone within the top 1/10th of 1 percent. Will they perpetually shut those folks off until the top 1/10th of 1 percent is using less than 1 GB per month?”
GREAT POINT!
Hello, we need tax subsidies and high rates on our cable in order to increase broadband in America. There, we’ve taken billions from our customers and the government and put in place a backbone almost as fast as countries like South Korea. However, you have 50 mb download speed, but we are capping you are 2 gigs a month. Oh, and raising your rate again. Have a nice day!
@larry_y: Being a pretty big blogger is like being the mayor of a small town in rural Kentucky.
I hear there’s more internets out Californie-way. Maybe he can go there.
Wish I had a choice of internet providers. It’s either cablevision or dial up for me.
@AustinTXProgrammer:
Dave Winer’s whining and your ad hominem attacks aside, I don’t understand this at all. How would usage-based billing drive down usage, when apparently having a mystery devil standing on your shoulder waiting to smite you for using too much bandwidth (mind you, we’ll never say how much is too much) would not?
larry_y: I think about it differently. A company like Comcast is foolish for not bending over backwards to help him, because of the thousands of people he influences. I subscribe to him, and hundreds of thousands of other people do to(so mechanismatic is only revealing his own ignorance) and there’s no way it could be worth it to them to not cut him some slack.
Yes, I am advocating that he be treated differently from you. If you can get hundreds of thousands of people to listen to you for years on end, then you’ll deserve a little different treatment, too.
Notice how he unnecessarily and somewhat ludicrously fellates Apple in a comment about a Blackberry? You think that’s coincidental?
Now, all the inflammatory content dispensed with, the point it that the biggest users of your service are your biggest fans, and the people most likely to recommend your service to others. Certainly, everyone can’t use the service at such a high level, but the few that do will most likely make it worth it to you. Call it a marketing expense.
Same argument goes for mobile broadband, 3G, etc.
FLEB: See, the airlines get away with overbooking, so the cable companies feel like they should be able to get away with oversubscribing. The difference is that the airlines have to give you a credit when they bump you.
@mgy: I believe Winer lives in Califoria.
@backbroken: The less-facetious premise is the Internet was born here. Yet today, because the Internet is growing faster than fat pipes are getting to the home in the US, we end up with stories like this.
Other countries are addressing this problem while we’re busy fighting with Comcast over whether or not they agree with how we’re using their paltry bandwidth.
What do you do with a few gigs a day of data? When do you have time to look at it? Do you store it in boxes full of hard drives stacked one on another? It’s the electronic version of being a cat lady.
“Don’t f*ck with me, I’m a blogger!” is the new “Don’t f*ck with me I know karate!”
LMAO
It’s probably because they believe he’s running his business on a residential line. Every cable company does that.
The one I used to work for (Cablevision) it was better to be a business customer. The same cost, and better tech service (2-4 hours vs. next day)
i’ve very surprised they haven’t cut my net off yet (comcast). I watch a lot of shows online, like on adultswim.com and listen to music online from winamp and what not. Not to mention that friends and i have to always exchange files for games that we work on, music we make, etc, which in a monthly sum adds up to a lot, so i’m pretty positive i’ve been over 1gb of bandwidth every month.
@Aladdyn: Actyally this is a very bad example. When talking about test averages at the Educational level, they’re not talking about at one school, in one class. They’re talking about averages that are statistically worked out over several years. Bringing one score from 0 to 100, or bringing 1000 scores from 70 to 80 won’t have much of a statistical effect when the scores are being calculated against millions of other scores.
So in school sense, no, raising Every score at a single school above the average will not actually affect the average.
The Marionette: You think 1GB is a lot? You’re probably suing less than average.
@7degreesnorth:
According to this statement, you can’t actually even use their service at all, because everyone knows that more people using the service means that the general user will have degraded service. Therefore, just by connecting, you’re in violation of their TOS.
Comcast doesnt seem to cut off bandwidth hungry customers unless they are doing alot of uploading.
Forcing extremely high-data users into a separate tier = good (for 99% of users). Doing so rudely, refusing to put it in writing, and refusing to be reasonable in the transition = very, very bad.
@coan_net: It’s in their contract in an “acceptable use” clause. It’s purposely vague – you can thank the lawyers for that one. But he agreed to it de facto by continuing with his service. Done and done.
Why won’t they come out and say it? Because it’s not good PR/Marketing. Do I agree with it? Absolutely not. Is it an ethically proper thing to do? Not really. Is it illegal? Nope.
Dunno who’s the bigger a-hole–Comcast or Dave.
Meg,
Thank you for the acknowledgement! I am here to help anyone with Comcast. Just Tweet me at ComcastCares and I will be happy to assist. For those that have watched on Twitter, I am passionate about the Customer and creating the right experience. We are working to improve our Customer Service, and I represent a very small portion of that effort. I will always be happy to help or share feedback!
I look forward to some “Tweets” from my friends on the Consumerist.
Have a great day!
Frank Eliason
Comcast
Twitter: ComcastCares
@coan_net: “unlimited” doesn’t mean you can use as much as you want.
It means you don’t get charged per-minute.
@pinkbunnyslippers:
If you see a sign at the park that says “NO _____” then you can probably assume that everything else is OK as long as you’re not breaking a higher law. Comcast has put in their contract “NO USING OUR SERVICE ONCE YOU’VE PAID FOR WHAT WE’VE ADVERTISED.” I’m pretty sure that’s not legal, but I’m not a lawyer.
@7degreesnorth:
I’m not sure how he’s “clearly” doing anything. Comcast itself says that the limits they come up with are completely arbitrary and up to them. It may be clear that he was using a lot of bandwidth, but there’s no way of knowing how much is too much, how much is just right, or if you’re getting ripped off.
There is no way to know unless they tell you, and they could theoretically just make up any number since it’s their discretion. Shit, they could just as easily lie if they don’t like what you serve up, surf, or download.
Final statement: do you think that Comcast, knowing the average residential usage, suspends the service of users that AREN’T using their fair amount of bandwidth and offering to disconnect them or DOWNGRADE them to an appropriate tier once they call in to find out what’s going on?
FUCK NO. Fuck you Comcast.
@SRSco: No, I disagree completely. He came, he paid, he downloaded. That is all. Comcast needs to put it in writing what he can or can not do, and until then Comcast needs to STFU.
@SRSco:
tl;dr
Dave, are you one of those guys who sends out mass quantities of spam?
so this is basically the equivilent of an “all you can eat” buffet owner getting pissed off that you are eating a lot?
If you want there to be limits…. put it in writing so the customer knows where he stands.
Y’all who are hatin’ on Dave… if you don’t know who he is, you might want to check out his Wikipedia page. This is not some random blogger. He invented RSS, runs Weblogs.com, and was the driving force behind Userland.
I’ve had personal dealings with the guy, and I think he’s a dick, but he’s definitely not just some random blogger.
That said, if he’s not on a business connection with Comcast, he should be. I had a similar situation with Cox, and upgrading my personal account to a business account made the problem go away. You pay more but the rules are different.
The cops will just come along and stop you when you are going to fast, give you a ticket, but won’t tell you what is too fast or what the limit is.
I think that was the way it was in Montana for a while, no speed limit, but if it was bad weather it was up to policeman to determine if you were going the appropriate speed or not.
And remember people – Comcast is a monopoly in most towns. They are given exclusive rights to operate many towns and cities across the country.
Mom! Dave is using up all the internet! Make him stop!
Dave, save some internet for your little brother. Get off the computer.
Ma, it’s not like that. You don’t run out–
Mom! He’s uploading!
Dave, don’t make me come up there. I’ll unplug that computer. Leave the internet alone.
But–
Dave, read a book or something.
I hate books. The paper dries out my fingers.
It is all the consumer’s fault here.
Jesus, how much bandwidth does OP use?
I hit about 200 gigs a month and have yet to have them say anything to me. (Of course, I mask all a lot of my traffic)
Only 450 gb/month? I use way more than that and also have Comcastastic. (unfortunately). I guess its just Russian Roulette who they single out.
i can’t think of anything more obnoxious to say to someone in a customer service situation than “i’m a blogger, and i’m gonna write about it”. that classic line likely breeds nothing but resentment and hostility. “i’m a blogger”. what a dumb thing to say.
@failurate:
“Driving Too Fast for Conditions” is a co-offense. It is added on to another violation, but never used by itself.
If you wreck in the rain, you will frequently be given a “Driving Too Fast for Conditions” ticket along with “Failure to Maintain Lane,” in addition to whatever ticket you are given for the actual collision.
The offense is designed in this manner for precisely the reason cited above – “Driving Too Fast for Conditions,” without any posted limit, would allow the police to ticket nearly every driver on the road with absolutely no explanation. To avoid such abuse, the law requires that some evidence be provided that the individual was indeed driving too fast for the state of the roadway.
You are therefore free to drive as quickly as you desire, to the posted limit, so long as you are able to maintain control of your vehicle.
@prameta1:
Somewhat douchebaggy, but it provides the company fair warning of poor publicity.
The other people complain when journalists don’t identify themselves during hidden camera investigations – you can’t have it both ways.