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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
 ·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to calvoiper
Re: So I crawled out from under my rock last night
said by calvoiper  :
Yes, ISPs can change prices and service terms overnight. And you can change ISPs.
Suuuurrreee you can.
How many choices of DSL/cable providers/broadband do you have? I know some areas have choices among a FEW ISP's on DSL, and maybe a CLEC if that fails... and maybe a few areas have more then one choice on Cable ISP's.
But most of us, this area included, basically have 2 choices. The Telco DSL and their ISP, or the Cable company and their ISP.
So, if one sucks, you could change to the other.... but what if they suck as well? You've just hit the brick wall.
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"When the day comes that anyone can bend our country’s laws and lawmakers to serve selfish, competitive ends, that day democratic government dies" -- Preston Tucker, 1948 (Yep, it's dead.) | |
calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Hopefully, there will be others. They will come faster if the existing providers take their market for granted and screw their customers. (In much the same manner the Asian auto manufacturers stormed the US when the "big three" kept building models Americans didn't really want.)
There may be a more telling arrow in your quiver, though, HALG. Upon reflection, it would seem that caps are just a rate tool to suck blood from heavy (and presumably more "attached") users. Time of day pricing (or throttling) is a much more responsive approach to true capacity concerns, and while throttling may be difficult, it's hard to believe that my ISP can count all my bits but not be able to pigeonhole them into hourly boxes....
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| Agreed there!
They want people who actually put the connections to use to have to pay much higher rates (and, like your supposition, it will probably work because they are the 'attached' users) while still making a lot of money on people who are just casual surfers and emailers.
They don't have to worry about stiff competition forcing them to be competitive on prices, nor offer bang for the buck. They can sit back and charge as much as the market will bear and deliver as little as they can get away with.
The situation doesn't look like it's going to improve soon, but hopefully, longterm, it will.
--
"When the day comes that anyone can bend our country’s laws and lawmakers to serve selfish, competitive ends, that day democratic government dies" -- Preston Tucker, 1948 (Yep, it's dead.) | |
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