funchords
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3 edits | reply to kcir
Your idea is creative, and it's even better than what's been going on -- but it still has a "bait and switch" quality to it. Customers ought to have the right idea up front, before they've made the decision.
Years ago, I signed up with Verizon DSL because their online tester said I qualified for 1.5 Mbps service, modem shipped, run-around and put filters on and replaced the wall phone jack with a filtered one. Swapped in the DSL modem. Fought with the 2-3 issues that Verizon always manages to leave out of their install steps, and I was online 4-5 hours after their long-delayed startup date . . . at 768 Kbps. They had "no idea" why I thought 1.5 Mbps was available there. I was irate!
I had to undo all that and ship it all back. It didn't meet my needs but, even more important to me, it just wasn't what I asked for or expected. At that point, it was the principle of the thing. (Now I've watched Verizon long enough to suspect that it was likely ineptitude over cleverness -- their automated systems for broadband availability have just never failed to fail for me.)
At the recent FCC hearing in Pittsburgh, this was reported by Reuters:
AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn told U.S. regulators the company would offer "non-overlapping tiers" of broadband service, rather than its current offerings which go "up to" varying speeds of data transmission.
"When we provide broadband services based on speed, we will do so in discrete tiers that are disclosed to our end-user customers," Quinn said. That's really what those tiers are about, I think, and that's really a good thing overall. What worries me is the vagueness about the new terms about reducing the traffic. Are they talking about reducing it to a point below those tiers? If so, then what's the point?
Very occasional performance dips below a tier due to momentary surges of congestion are one thing -- surprises happen. Declaring a floor and then regularly throttling usage beneath it to support the video side during prime time is another thing entirely!
I'm still not sure what this means, anyone?
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
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