Alex from Rochester, NY, says every year around this time his Road Runner high speed access slows to a crawl, and stays that way until April. It occasionally happens at other times throughout the year, too. Unfortunately, Time Warner won’t fix the problem. Alex says one technician who came out to look at the issue told him, “The wires were installed when Adelphia provided service, and they haven’t been upgraded since.” Another one told him, “The problem has been going on for years, and management knows about it, but enough people don’t complain.” [More]
broadband
Verizon FiOS Early Termination Fee To Double This Week
By 1.14.10
Are you planning to sign up for Verizon FiOS service? If you wait until this Sunday to sign up, you’re going to be liable for a higher early termination fee. The fee for ending a two-year contract will more than double, from $179 to $360. [More]
Guy Asks About His Comcast Bill, Comcast Kills His Cable Modem
By 12.30.09
Matt owns his own cable modem, and it’s worked fine so far with his $165-a-month Comcast Triple Play package. He wanted to check into how he could reduce that ridiculous $165/mo burden, so he chatted online with someone from Comcast to see what his options were. Then he ended the chat and went back to whatever it was he was doing, and Comcast killed his cable modem. Update: Comcast says the end of life (EOL) event was not related to Matt’s chat with the CSR. [More]
ISPs Trying To Scare You Into Buying More Internets
By 12.26.09
How much bandwidth does the average consumer need? Well, according to the totally unbiased folks at America’s major Internet service providers, more than they’re probably using now. According to Time Warner, Grandma needs Roadrunner with PowerBoost in order for you to send her photos. And AT&T thinks you need at least 3 mpbs to use Facebook. What? [More]
Comcast Settles BitTorrent Throttling Lawsuit
By 12.25.09
Comcast has settled a $16 million class-action lawsuit accusing the Internet provider of preventing customers from sharing files via BitTorrent. The suit alleges that Comcast sold users “unlimited” internet access that was, in fact, quite limited. Comcast still admits no wrongdoing, and affected customers will receive up to $16 each as part of the settlement. Ka-ching! [More]
Comcast Tool Shows You Just How Great Metered Broadband Is
By 12.1.09
Lucky Comcast customers in the Portland, OR, area got a new treat today: The cable giant rolled out a test of its new web-based bandwidth-usage meter, so that customers on metered access plans can see just what they’re getting for their money. Comcast says the online meter is “designed to be simple and easy to use and will help customers better understand how much data they consume in a month.”
Is AT&T Behind Grassroots Groups That Are Opposed To Net Neutrality?
By 10.27.09
In the net neutrality debate, there are a surprising number of grassroots organizations (well, surprising to me at any rate) that have filed statements against the FCC’s recent draft of rules. Matthew Lasar at Ars Technica just published an interesting article where he looks at some of these groups and tries to figure out whether AT&T is secretly influencing them, or whether they really do think net neutrality will hurt those they represent–frequently minority groups–in the long run.
Here's What The New FCC Net Neutrality Rules Mean
By 10.23.09
Yesterday the FCC announced new, expanded rules enforcing net neutrality, and they’ve set aside the next 60 days for public debate. Get ready to hear all sorts of creative end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it arguments from opponents like AT&T. We’ve checked out the official document (pdf) and below we summarize the changes that are open to public discussion for the next two months.
Verizon Snatches Away Divorced Man's Unlimited Broadband Plan
By 10.13.09
They say that for people going through a divorce it can feel like you’re losing half of yourself. As if it that wasn’t bad enough, Verizon Wireless has taken away William’s unlimited broadband plan on the account he used to share with his wife.
Frontier Communications Has To Pay Back Early Termination Fees
By 10.6.09
If you signed up for Frontier Communications’ Price Protection Plan—a combo phone and broadband package—between January 2007 and September 2008, and you canceled the agreement and were charged an early termination fee (ETF), you may be getting some cash back.
Comcast Unleashes CustomerCentral
By 10.2.09
Comcast sent me an e-mail with this alert/warning that the company is about to change its billing/customer service interface.
Internet Speeds Are Lower Than Advertised 50-80% Of The Time
By 9.30.09
Anyone who reads the fine print when signing up for Internet access knows that the speeds advertised are “best case” scenarios, or more cynically that they’re total fabrications meant to lure in customers. Now the FCC, as part of its larger study of how to expand broadband access, has reported that “actual broadband speeds lag advertised speeds by as much as 50% to 80%.”
Consumers Get $32 Billion More Than They Bargained For With Broadband, Says Study
By 7.16.09
Silly you — did you think you were overpaying for broadband access? Well, a study has gone and proven you wrong.
Qwest Says It's Throttling Customer's Online Video Streaming, Then Says It's Not
By 5.4.09
Update: It turns out the problem is with OpenDNS, not Qwest. The original post is below.
Metered Broadband A Necessity? TWC's Financial Statements Don't Think So
By 5.1.09
Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports and parent company to Consumerist, took a look at TWC’s most recent financial statements and couldn’t find any evidence that they “needed” to switch to metered broadband. In fact, TWC’s costs have dropped even as they added subscribers.
ISP Donates to United Way to Make Up For Internet Outage
By 4.23.09
Reader Jon in Washington state has some issues with his ISP, Broadstripe. Namely, the periodic outages he experiences, and how the company decided to make up for the most recent one.
Accept The Rate Increase Or Pay A "Downgrade Fee"; RCN Will Get Money From You Either Way
By 4.21.09
RCN knows some of you aren’t going to be happy with having your fees increased, especially in such a tight economy. They know that some of you will probably decide enough is enough and call them to request an account downgrade. They’re going to make money off of that, too.
