If they choose to interpret negative comments as "conduct," they can do so until a court tells them they can't.

IMO, the term "conduct," as opposed to illegal activity is overly broad and can mean anything AT&T decides it means until a court defines it for them, or (more likely) there is already precedent that defines this sort of thing.

said by jsinaiko :

My point is that there are many illegal clauses put into contracts and TOS statements all the time. For example, many standard leases state that the lessor (landlord) has the right to evict the lessee five days after the delivery of a "Five Day Notice;" this is illegal and cannot be done - a court hearing must be held and the lessee has a further 30 days to meet the terms of the contract (lease) - but the leases still have that clause in them.

said by jsinaiko :

I don't think it is quite that simple.

In the end what matters is AT&T's interpretation of the legal term "conduct."

A newspaper does not have to print any old letter to the editor that it receives - that isn't suppressing free speech. But can a newspaper cut off a subscription to a person who sends them an obnoxious letter? I don't know. I doubt it.

There are a lot of gray areas out there. Nothing wrong with bringing it up and discussing it.

said by justbits :

By the way, does the latest AT+T TOS happen to sneak in a "right to arbitration" clause? Or did people only catch that change on the POTS TOS?

said by XBL2009 :

In a better world we would have more then two choices for high speed internet service like many other countries do. We would also have more speed and lower prices.

said by NormanS :

Actually, I do have more than two choices. And I don't see how the price can get much lower, considering the cost of deployment of DSL service. Even in Japan, the fastest service I could find was only 50Mbps; and for the equivalent of $39US, or so. I am sure that the subscriber must be withing 3,000 feet, or so, of the DSLAM. The physics of electronics is the same in Japan as in the U.S. Also economics. The only thing really different about Japan is that they pack half the population of the U.S. into a space about the same as California.

I really hope that half the U.S. doesn't decide to move here in the next ten months; I'd have to consider moving to where ever those people are coming from.

said by XBL2009 :

Why do people always bring up Japan and how dense their population is and blah blah blah. I mean New York, Chicago and LA are pretty dense as well and I don't see anybody offering 50mbps for $40.

said by NormanS :

San José isn't nearly as dense as LA, or NYC, but AT&T is deploying VRADs. Theoretically possible to support 50Mbps Internet, with pair bonded VDSL (but I suspect that there aren't enough pairs in the cable on the poles behind our premises for everybody on the block to get a second pair), but deployment of IPTV is the goal; no more than 6Mbps is assigned for Internet. AT&T wants to push their UVerse product. $40 per month for 50Mbps Internet? Probably would take them 15 years to recover their investment in hardware. Of course, are government tax structure doesn't help; it focuses the companies on short term profits. Heaven forbid we shouldn't make them pay for our social programs.

Anyway, you mentioned something about 100Mbps Internet. Even in Japan I could only find 50Mpbs Internet. I talked with an SBC (this was before they bought AT&T) tech who stated that they were conditioning the lines in this neighborhood for 25Mbps Internet, and talking of plans for 50Mbps service. I assume that they would get that through pair-bonding. And I know from their promotion of UVerse that the bulk of the bandwidth is being reserved for IPTV, not Internet.

Population density is important; even in Japan, 50Mbps Internet does not pass 60% of the population. The folks in Iwate, or Akita prefectures (among many others) are just too spread out for it. I expect very few places outside of the Kanto, or Kansai regions will ever see it.

The most popular DSL offering in Japan is less than 50Mbps Internet. When 50Mbps doesn't get most people that much more that 1.5Mbps, why pay $40 a month when $20 a month will get adequate service?

said by XBL2009 :

People seem to forget that the telephone companies had to be forced to provide people in rural areas with service. I suppose with high speed internet service we will have to force them to do this again as well as get them all to offer fiber.

AT&T wouldn't need vrads if they did what Verizon did and just offered Fios.

As far as money from 1994-2004 the telephone companies were given $200 billion to build the next gen network and never did: »digg.com/tech_news/The_$200_Bill···candal_4

said by NormanS :

I don't recall that anybody forced the old AT&T to provide rural service in western Placer County, California. Seems to me that was why a couple of farmers started the Roseville Telephone Company.
If they had done that, I'd be years away from FTTP instead of weeks away from FTTN.
Who gave them that money? It looks like the companies were not given cash, but tax breaks. And Ameritech and Pacific Telesis, despite those breaks, couldn't manage to deploy anything despite spending themselves to the edge of bankruptcy trying; inviting the buyouts by Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (which became SBC after buying them, and a regional ILEC, and an ISP).

said by XBL2009 :

It's people like you who buy the lies and corporate spin. If they had started in 1994 we would all be wired up with fiber and enjoying superfast connections. You wouldn't need to wait weeks for FTTN you would have fiber in your house now.

said by XBL2009 :

PS: »Verizon Stock Outperforms AT&T Stock

said by borked :

It funny how people tend to be shortsighted. That is only the past 6 months, let's compare the 2 stock prices over the past 2 years.

»ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=VZ&···&a=v&p=s

Or past 5 years
»ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=VZ&···&a=v&p=s

said by NormanS :

I am not buying anything like that. I worked for SCS Security in 1997-8. One of our clients was Roseville Telephone Company. I talked with a few of their employees. They were laying a fiber ring; but there was no product to justify the cost of FTTP then. Last I checked, they were bought out by Surewest; probably something about the hole they dug themselves into. Not just for the fiber, but no ROI on it.

You still have not answered my question about who gave what to whom? Taxes not collected != money spent by consumers.