Can Your ISP Stop File Swapping?
from the how-quickly-they-forget dept
It's a bit of bait and switch by the cable companies to get many of their customers from people who are interested in using file sharing applications, only to turn around and tell them they can't use those apps any more. The reason people sign up for high speed internet access is to actually use that connection, so why is it that ISPs feel the need to suddenly tell people they can't any more?
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This is just how I felt...
> feel the need to suddenly tell people they can't any more?
This is exactly how I felt when I was a Comcast cable Internet customer in my last home and they revised their ToS to prohibit customers from using tunneling on their connections (i.e. such technologies upon which my work VPN connection relied). Their argument was that the service was not intended for "professional activities."
Hosers.
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Cable
The upstream bandwidth is quite sufficient to deal with the steady stream of HTTP GET/POST requests, DNS requests, etc., and the occasional uploaded file. But if even one person on a segment suddenly decides to start serving up a number of huge files from a responsive server, they can make it very difficult for the other 1000 subscribers on their segment to do much of anything.
For this reason, essentially all cable Internet services explicitly prohibit the operation of any servers by their subscribers. This is nothing new; it's been that way from the beginning.
If you want to run a server, including a p2p program, you should get DSL instead. The upstream bandwidth of even the smallest DSL line is bigger than the upstream bandwidth of most cable systems, and it's all yours! Nobody else is using your upstream bandwidth, and when your server is filling up the upstream bandwidth, you aren't bothering anybody else.
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No Subject Given
Unfortunately they grossly underestimated the tenacity of some users who are perfectly willing to que up a download (or upload) then head off to bed, school, work, the bar or whatever. They don't really care whether they get their filez at 1.5M or 56K, only that they get them. They certainly don't care how much bandwidth they're sucking down in the process, especially if they're not even there while it's happening.
Of course the cable bozos are so hungry for their $45 a month they'd rather cap everybody at 128K than terminate the abusers on a TOS violation.
And, like it or not, most "sharing" is of copyrighted materials, which is still theft.
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Its My Bandwith I Can Share If I Want To
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No Subject Given
And also they are starting a new push in my area (because there is no competition here which they freely admit) that for large downloaders there will be a 15gig per month limit and then for every 5 gigs over that you are charged an additional $12.95 per 5 gigs.
They also use this to push their new "Xtreme" package on you that gives you more bandwidth and a 20 gig per month limit. They call you, send you letters all kinds of stuff to make you feel like you are doing something wrong by using the bandwidth and playing off that notion to get you to upgrade to the more pricey package.
If I could get DSL and cable TV from some other company in my area I would do it in a second. Not to bring Microsoft into this, but if they were a monopoly I surely didnt feel the impact that I feel from the AOL/Time Warner monopoly to the tune of $60 to $80 more per month on my cable bill for less services and features other's with AOL/TW get just because they live in areas where there is competition.
Heck in 3 years it will be cheaper for me to start my own cable company than continue paying AOL/TW.
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Re: Its My Bandwith I Can Share If I Want To
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Re: No Subject Given
Actually, it's not. It's a Copyright Violation, which is illegal, it is a crime, but it's not theft.
Theft, Piracy and Stealing are all heavy-handed words that are tossed around by the various xxAA groups to make it sound like they are being robbed.
Like I said, sharing copyright materials is wrong, it is illegal, you can be sued for doing so, but it's not theft.
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Re: No Subject Given
You are thinking probably thinking of copyright infringement. That's an area where the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction and the penalties are (typically) statutory damages.
Software piracy, is covered under the 1997 Electronic Theft Act, not the DMCA, most certainly does include jail time in the penaly structure.
Bear in mind all that "shared" stuff ain't just .mp3 files.
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Comcast wants
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Re: Its My Bandwith I Can Share If I Want To
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