I'm not sure that I would label Cox Broadband a monopoly as they do have competition from DSL and satellite. Also, to be frank here, it's their cable. At worst you can argue a breach of contract if they are restricting service that you have already paid for. I would bet though that they have a clause in their customer service agreement or AUP about the use of bandwidth and privileged ports.
Also, I think that it's becoming more evident every year that $40 a month for this kind of service is not making anyone rich. From what I've read $40 a month really just covers the cost of providing the service for any broadband provider. Anyone else have any data on this? Scott? At 09:38 AM 3/31/2003 -0600, you wrote: >On 2003.03.28 15:57 Dustin Puryear wrote: > > At 03:43 PM 3/28/2003 -0600, you wrote: > > > > > > I agree. If you get a consumer service and the ISP blocks web serving and > > so forth then I don't see an issue. If you want to run a service that > could > > potentially use up the full bandwidth 24x7 then get a higher grade of > service. > > > >So just what is my $40/month Internet Service Provider selling? Potential >service? Very few web servers use lots of bandwith, not even active ones >such as the BRLUG. Email does not eat that much either, unless you are a >spammer but blocking incomming mail does nothing for that problem. Want >to charge me more because I use apt-get? The only people who actually use >ALL of their bandwith 24x7 are warrez losers who use bots to collect >movies they will never watch and software they will never run. I did not >see anything in my contract about blocked ports, though I've paid careful >attention to it's ever degenerating terms. There are lots of things $40 >a month can buy. > >The only reason Cox gets away with such lame pricing schemes is because >they have a monopoly. They do offer a "higher grade of service" for us >meer "consumers" over the same lines thought the same box. It costs >$75/month for something slower than a DSL. I doubt they will have many >takers and believe that they could be earning more money being less >greedy. Clueless, just the kind of thing you would expect from someone >that runs their network with Windoze. A windoze virus was the excuse they >used to block ports in the first place, by the way. Things are better in >places like Chicago where they had six broadband companies offering >service. Monopolies where none are needed are harmful. Unregulated >natural monopolies are equally harmful. > >The world is a poorer place for all the blocks and crimps Cox puts on it's >lines. There's content that's not being shared, money wasted on external >servers and time to move the information to them. We are swiftly moving >to a world that has universal connectivity but a limited number of >publishers. The situation is only required to protect current >publishers. It's stupid and people will find a way around it. The >ultimate route around Cox will obsolete Cox. > >_______________________________________________ >General mailing list >[email protected] >http://oxygen.nocdirect.com/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net --- Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Puryear Information Technology Windows, UNIX, and IT Consulting http://www.puryear-it.com
