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Comments on news posted 2008-08-13 17:32:58: My conversations with Frontier insiders indicate that company executives really hadn't fully cooked their cap plans before burying a reference to a 5GB monthly usage cap into their customer acceptable use policy, and the company's website and support.. ..

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exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

1 edit

exocet_cm

Premium Member

5GB?

I blink and I've downloaded 5GB of data on my network.

Actually this week I've hit 11GB.

DaMaGeINC
The Lan Man
Premium Member
join:2002-06-08
Greenville, SC

DaMaGeINC

Premium Member

LSD

This is what happens when the entire country was on LSD in the 60's.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
Netgear WNDR3700v2
Zoom 5341J

KrK

Premium Member

said by DaMaGeINC:

This is what happens when the entire country was on LSD in the 60's.
Actually I think it's more likely they didn't have enough LSD and are way too far into the "Greed is Good" mentality.

They claim it's about network management, but then they say "but only everybody else's traffic..."

Uh huh.

DaMaGeINC
The Lan Man
Premium Member
join:2002-06-08
Greenville, SC

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Re: 5GB?

Ive done 15GB this week. I would never be able to use their service. Forget downloading anything. You wont be able to. I think my mother uses more than 5GB a month, and she well, hahahaha. Get it.
jc10098
join:2002-04-10

jc10098 to exocet_cm

Member

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If I were a customer, I'd call them up and say since I am billed based upon usage, do I get the money back for the parts I don't consume. Seeing full well if I pay for 10 gallons of gas, and use 5, they credit back my credit card. 5GB is bare bottom for anyone beyond the basics. Still, I am sure there's a good percentage who probably wont hit 1GB a month. Do they see an 80 percent refund? I'd seriously like to see someone challenge these plans in court on this very basis. If you are going to give a fixed price for a cap, and charge overage, then those who go under should see their money returned. I'd bet this would put a quick end to this shit.

insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN

1 edit

insomniac84

Member

Way out of touch

They are offering 12 days of online gaming. Last time I heard people buy those subscriptions by the month, so they are only allowing you to use half of your WoW or other 24/7 game subscription. I also wouldn't doubt their 300 hour estimation uses a conservative bandwidth figure. I think it would make the most sense to leave gaming off the list if you are going to implement a 5gb cap. At least they left VoIP off the list. I would also like to know how youTube fits into their 40,000 web page figure. They either have to lower that web page figure a lot or specify that number does not include webpages with videos or pictures.
SilverSurfer1
join:2007-08-19

SilverSurfer1

Member

Dollar Signs Get in Their Eyes

It's generally a good idea to actually know what you're doing before tasking your marketing and support departments with explaining the change to customers.
One would think that would be the way it's done, Karl, but, as evidenced by clueless executives running companies like Frontier & Comcrap, it is the exception rather than the rule.

IamtheBatman
@covad.net

IamtheBatman

Anon

Or ...

"We all love the Internet, and Frontier is committed to offering you all the bandwidth you need and want to take full advantage of the Web! Our basic residential Internet packages offers 5GB usage -- that's the equivalent of 500,000 basic text e-mails, 2,500 Photos, 40,000 Web Pages, over 300 Hours of Online Game Time, 1,250 downloaded songs, or a mixture of the above!"
one 720p Xbox Live movie rental.
45612019 (banned)
join:2004-02-05
New York, NY

45612019 (banned)

Member

Who is paying these morons?

I could take a shit and it would be a better CEO than whoever is running these companies.

This lowball cap is going to kill off this puny little company's already tiny subscriber base. I guess whoever's in charge here wants their company to go bankrupt.

funchords
Hello
MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA

1 recommendation

funchords

MVM

Memo to Frontier

Give it up. You were caught. Reverse course and admit it.

The best way to kill a scandal is to admit you were wrong.

Signed,

...the good people at...

Comcast
Martha Stewart
Balco
Worldcom
Arthur Anderson
Qwest
Tyco
Countrywide, and
the Office of Sen. John Edwards

Anon Coward
@verizon.net

Anon Coward to exocet_cm

Anon

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Re: 5GB?

said by exocet_cm:

Actually this week I've hit 11GB.
week! WEEK! I hit that daily on a regular basis. Arrrrrrggghhh!
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

How are they going to accurately track usage?

Seriously, how accurately can they track usage if certain stuff is free and outside stuff is not?


supergirl
join:2007-03-20
Pensacola, FL

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Member

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Re: 5GB?

Even Gordon Gekko wouldn't be that stupid! "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. However, the executives at Frontier have the brains of turnip. Therefore, I'm dumping their stock in the sh@#house it belongs in and suing for the 80% drop in the stock. I don't know what 5 gigs is but I'm sure my lawyers will make it ring in these idiots ears for years to come. Strange, never been to a annual stockholders meeting in a basement before. Imbeciles!"
voipdabbler
join:2006-04-27
Kalispell, MT

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Re: Who is paying these morons?

This isn't a puny little company. They're a nationwide RLEC. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones planning on implementing low caps. Clearly, the first word on TW's proposed caps is that it'll be the same--5 GB. (Maybe Frontier is waiting to see if TW goes through with a nationwide implementation of their cap.) Even Comcast's proposed cap, although clearly very generous when compared with TW and Frontier, is being lowered and could drop again, if they decide that TW, Frontier and others can get by with this level of greed. (I still say these CEOs' greed will kill their companies. They just don't get it--"It's the economy, stupid!"--broadband access isn't essential like food, shelter and energy. People will drop expensive broadband when their budgets get stretched to the hilt (and we're almost there). Caps are an under handed way that may enable them to get rate hikes without drawing as much scrutiny from state and local regulators (the only ones who've ever seemed remotely concerned about consumers). The other big issue is net neutrality, since so many of these companies are dual or triple-hatted. If they want to implement caps, then I think they need to spin off those portions of their companies that provide content or services and clog their own pipes. Make those companies play on a level field and have their content count towards caps (then let them take multiple revenue hits as they lose customers both as ISPs and content/value-added service providers.)
IanR
join:2001-03-22
Fort Mill, SC

IanR

Member

Frontier managment?

One has to wonder at the abilities of the Frontier management's thinking that they could sneak these "unrealistic" and "uncompetitive" and "unreasonable" caps on their customers. Do they seriously believe they can charge "unresonable" "overusage" fees on their customers without major and proactive opposition developing?
Any savings, they are computing, will most certainly be eaten up in legal fees and management fees, fighting customers and organizations promoting neutrality and fairness?

The end results:
0 Loss of good customers.
0 High legal fees
0 An ultimate climb down
0 Regulatory reviews
I could go on, but I think the message is clear. Frontier appear to have extremely poor management who are unlikely to be in place thru 2009.

logcabinboy
join:2001-07-23
Whitmore, CA

logcabinboy

Member

I will cancel

I won't use their broadband connection with only a 5 gig cap. I already pay 3 times the price opposed to AT&T for their most basic connection. I'll go back to dialup or Sat, since I don't game anymore. I can create a VPN tunnel to my mothers DSL and download the crap I want.

Khaos
-K-OS-
Premium Member
join:2007-03-12
West Palm Beach, FL

Khaos

Premium Member

That blows!

Man i hope Comcast doesn't do anything crazy like this. I just bought Age of Conan and that was 15GB, downloadable client.

winterforge
Premium Member
join:2000-07-23
Seattle, WA

winterforge

Premium Member

5GB?!

5GB?! You wouldn't even be able to download a few game demos or even download one decent sized game from Direct2Drive.com or similar websites. 5GB a week would even be too harsh, but monthly is beyond belief and completely infeasible.

Bagnon
Snoogans
join:2000-11-19
Hamilton, ON

Bagnon

Member

Brutal.

It will be very interesting to see the backlash once this is implemented. I can guarantee there will be a large amount of customers with red faces.

insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN

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Re: How are they going to accurately track usage?

Very easily. They can separately count traffic meant for the internet vs traffic on their own network. And exempt any internet IP addresses they want. Basically it's a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.

pog4
Premium Member
join:2004-06-03
Kihei, HI

pog4

Premium Member

They have their stats...

Well, I assume they have usage stats and know, in advance, who'll be affected.

However, I have to think their demographics are more than a little off... if they think they'll only be driving out belligerent, pimply-faced, file-sharing bandwidth hogs that is.

I know quite a few folks streaming audio/video from places like bluebeat or netflix that easily do 25-50GB per month... many of these were the stereotypical grandma-types that used to just stick to email, occasionally wandering off to cnn, etc.

I suppose the old stereotype will still exist but why cater to a dwindling marketshare? Why alienate the rest?

Glaice
Brutal Video Vault
Premium Member
join:2002-10-01
North Babylon, NY

Glaice

Premium Member

Hah

Good luck retaining customers who leave!

dellsweig
Extreme Aerobatics
MVM
join:2003-12-10
Campbell Hall, NY

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Re: 5GB?

Wow - Never really thought too much about this.

We are a typical household - VoIP for phone, work from home a few days a week - not too much in the way of downloads (no P2P)

Well - Look at my monthloy usage graph for July - June was worse

This is not going to be good......

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY
·Charter
Ubee EU2251
Ubiquiti UAP-IW-HD
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD

3 edits

Smith6612

MVM

5GB is low...

It seems like this month, even though it's only the 13th of August my Verizon connection has already felt the burn of 13GB of downloaded data just because of reinstalling Steam and all of my games, game patches (about 2GB of them for only 3 games), updates for Windows, AND Youtubing, gaming, and forum'ing. Steam itself on my 768k connection, just to download all of my games along with the game SDKs, and some extra games like TrackMania: Nations United and the Empires 2.1 mod took the connection 2 days to download it. Not to mention, the last 3 days I spent time uploading 1.6GB worth of backups to xDrive, going at 128kbps. Doesn't take me long to burn through rediculus caps.

So yeah, Frontier should consider not placing caps. Usage is only going to go up, and some day or another they'll end up like Comcast, getting lawsuits and everything for capping. Honestly, while I like Frontier as a company, they're just digging themself a hole.

EDIT: I've been downloading soo much, the modem finally decided to reboot itself earlier today.

tubbynet
reminds me of the danse russe
MVM
join:2008-01-16
Gilbert, AZ

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Re: Who is paying these morons?

said by 45612019:

This lowball cap is going to kill off this puny little company's already tiny subscriber base.
size isn't everything. you have to look at the areas that frontier serve. growing up in rural arizona, frontier was the first company that offered any xDSL offerings. i remember people paying over $120/month for a 1meg/128k DSL line and a landline with no features and they were more than happy to pay it. now that cybertrails has abandoned most everything in northern AZ, any DSL customers of cybertails will have to jump ship and move on to frontier or pay for satellite.
when any LEC has control over a rural user base that has been left out and forgotten by all of "the usual suspects", they can almost charge what they want when they want, especially when you have a technology driven society from the more "technologized" areas wanting to get their parents broadband for remote support/use at home/etc. these people won't use more than 5GB a month so won't notice any impact on their bill. this will keep happening until the ENTIRE subscriber base removes themselves from such a greedy company, especially when you have ILECs like verizon selling off rural areas to smaller companies because they don't want to pay for the infrastructure.

everyone wants a share of the pie. the major players take all they want and tease the smaller LECs/cable operators. because the smaller guys want a piece of what is left, they take the crumbs and tease the people who have nothing. plain and simple corporate greed, but i can honestly see many people not even knowing that the transition of the caps ever happened and won't ever know because they never exceed their caps.

q.
45612019 (banned)
join:2004-02-05
New York, NY

45612019 (banned)

Member

You can download more than 5 GB in a month with DIAL-UP

Assuming you run a dial-up connection 24/7, you can download around 15 GB a month.

That is pathetic. FrontierNet is planning on offering 1/3 the capability of a dial-up connection.
older dog
Premium Member
join:2005-06-09

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Re: Hah

said by Glaice:

Good luck retaining customers who leave!
Frontier specializes in providing telephone and internet in areas that have no competition.
They have customers from coast to coast affecting customers in New York to Calif and many areas in between

a guy pd
average - nothing special
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY
·Charter
ARRIS SB6190
Ooma Telo

a guy pd

Member

Contacted Frontier to cancel

I contacted Frontier by e-mail today, to inquire about the 5 GB cap. I have been having problems with our connection anyway (we lose our connection every time it rains) and asked if we could have the ETF waived, when we cancelled our service.
I guess we will see what their answer will be. I guess we know now why they have an ETF and the Time Warner doesn't. They figure that once they get you locked in, and then they do this, that you'll be too afraid of the ETF to cancel your service.

jmoz2989
join:2008-02-01
Moscow, PA

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Member

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Re: Hah

I wonder what Frontier was thinking when they purchased Commonwealth Telephone Company in northeast PA. Their main competition is Comcast and all Comcast has to do is get its CDV going and the people will start coming over from Frontier. Central New York however may have a problem, b/c TWC hasn't covered all areas of NY yet.

commbunch
join:2007-06-25
Hampshire, IL

commbunch to a guy pd

Member

to a guy pd

Re: Contacted Frontier to cancel

If they made this change to the TOS really recently and you just learned of it, you should be let out with no termination fees. It is a change of terms/contract that you don't accept.
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