Broadband Crackdown 790
MrPeach writes: "In a move unsurprising to those of us who have had interactions with their so-called customer support, AT&T Broadband and Excite@Home are indefinitely filtering all incoming traffic on http port 80 for residential customers. They could have cut access to those running compromised servers, but instead chose to deny the ability to run a web server to all subscribers to their service. DSL anyone?" DSL won't save you. Verizon is apparently also blocking port 80 for their DSL customers, in addition to blocking outgoing port 25 and requiring use of Verizon's SMTP servers to send email. Verizon is also cheerfully paying fines for screwing over their competitors - the fines will be much less than the extra profit they can squeeze out once their competition is gone.
Re:Move to Canada (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm one of the earlier @home customers in Fremont CA. which was a test city for the technology. The terms of service I signed didn't limit the things I could run on the system. I checked for that before I signed it.
Unfortunately there is the "out" in the contract where they can unilaterally change the terms of service by simply publishing new ones at a given URL:
So is that binding on me? Not sure - IANAL, but it isn't really fair either. On the other hand, it has been true for most of the time that I've been on the service that they "officially" not allowed ANY kinds of servers on the home systems. For that matter, they even had one version of the dang TOS that let them prohibit me from doing any business over the internet - yeah like going to amazon.com and ordering a book was prohibited. That part got dropped like a hot potato because of a ton of public criticism locally.
I do think they are being heavy handed, and extremely short sighted. They are in many ways restricting freedom of speech by such filters. They are probably legal - but they suck!
Re:Servers were never allowed out on cable (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We haven't done this yet.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Verizon DSL is NOT THAT EVIL (Score:3, Insightful)
Verizon IS blocking port 80 from outside verizon's network, and the reason verizon has been giving its tech support people, is that this is a temporary port block becuase of Code Red.
The block started yesterday, and affects in bound traffic into verizon's network. I can get to my website from other verizon addresses, but not from outside of verizon's net. I couldn't get a specific time frame on how long the block is going to be up, but the tech support people have been told that its not permenant.
Does Verizon have a legitimate concern about Code Red investation across its network? Maybe...but since I'm not running in MS products on my LAN and I take the time to secure my stuff, I'm pretty unhappy that my services get knocked off the net like I'm one of the clueless masses.
The best solution to get Verizon to hurry up and unblock the port is for everyone who has a verizon DSL account to call them and tell them in a very nice calm manner that if the block stays in place, your business will go elsewhere. I was call 25 this morning. Let's see if the slashdot effect works over the phone as well....I want to see the number of complaint calls jump to 2000 in the next 30 minutes.
Verizon Tech Support:
1-800-567-6789
-jef
Re:Quite common already (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that I like XP. But I can see this causing lots of angery letters...
Re:The problem is.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately that isn't all it is....as I said in a previous post.
"Bundling server software with win2k was stupid, I know several people who werent even aware they were running servers until just the last few day, I guess they were just playing around with add/remove windows components and ended up installing the software which then ran as a service without their ever being aware of it, I imagine quite a few people are in that situation right now. Microsoft could and should have made it a free download for those who knew they wanted it."
I suppose the argument could be made that people were stupid for playing with "add/remove windows components", but microsoft has in many ways gotten as big as they are by claiming their products are almost idiot proof. I guess this is proof they are the idiots.
Re:Why not force a download of the patch? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've read my TOS and it sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if that were true, so what? I bought bandwidth from my ISP and I expect them to deliver that bandwidth. If my machine has a security problem and starts attacking other sites on the Internet, that should be my problem, not my broadband provider's problem. My broadband provider may choose to limit my outgoing and incoming bandwidth to a previously contractually agreed-upon minimum, but no further.
By your reasoning, the telephone companies should listen in on our telephone conversations to make sure we don't do anything illegal and don't make prank calls. Wisely, we have chosen not to place that authority in them, and we should take a similar approach to security with broadband providers.
Time to change ports. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:imagine if other utilities did this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Read your TOS! (Score:4, Insightful)
From a social standpoint -- where our priorities are less about the "bottom line" and more about providing for a healthy, vibrant, diverse democracy -- there isn't an incredibly good reason why web servers or other content servers are prohibited on so-called "consumer" Internet service providers.
In some cases the bandwidth isn't there-- I understand that, however, in general, the speeds are suitable for most people's private soapboxes... further, overall and in general, home servers do little harm to the network, Code Red notwithstanding.
And in all seriousness, I doubt anyone expects strict uptime SLAs or performance guarantees from your local @Home franchise. I'm not suggesting that "consumer-grade" Internet access claims to offer such things or even really ought to... However, I tend to believe that the prohibition on servers is more an effort to control media content creation & affordable distribution more than it is an effort to ensure network stability.
In effect, a ban on servers prevents citizens from competing affordably for so-called "mindshare" with big corporations and others who don't sweat the cost of dual redundant T3 connectivity.
Broadband internet access has the potential to really revolutionize media distribution by empowering individuals to affordably control & create new and innovative media outlets.
On the other hand, most home servers probably aren't even public servers but private servers used for, say, development purposes or sharing files between office & home. These uses are of course even less stressful on the network and certainly more benign.
Meh... just some food for thought.
BRx.
Perfectly Reasonable Response (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that this is a perfectly reasonable response from @home. I work at a large ISP and I've seen how rapidly this code red garbage spreds. The little editorial comment that they can "simply block infected machines" is, quite frankly, garbage. Code Red 2 spreads faster than anyone could possibly keep up with blocking one machine at a time.
Code Red 2 is tearing up bandwidth at these cable companies. Its noticeably slowing down my speeds on my home internet connection. Something needs to be done in a hurry, and blocking port 80 is a fast solution that works.
Instead of blaming the broadband providers, why don't you blame the real culprit in this situation: Windows. Get angry at Microsoft; if it weren't for their lousy code and lousy security this problem would not have been possible in the first place.
The problem is.... (Score:2, Insightful)
End of story. If a few dumb assholes would patch their shit and keep current with it, then the majority wouldn't suffer. But no.......... This is military logic, one person screws up, and the whole unit pays the price. The problem is, we can't give a blanket party to the fucking dumbasses who refuse to keep current with secuity patches. This goes for Linux/Windows/Macintosh/Amiga/NeXT/BeOS/Solaris/CP /M/DOS/HP-UX/AIX/OS9/QNIX/FreeBSD/OpenBSD
I don't care what you run, if you don't keep current on security patches, you are an asshole.
"If it weren't for dickheads like you, there wouldn't be any thievery in this world Pyle"
Re:Leased Line (Score:5, Insightful)
> Granted I don't know how much one costs but I
> figure at around $40 a month a group of about
> 20-30 should be able to gets something way
> faster that DSL/Cable and without the bullshit.
We have an LADC line (which while only rated for 9600baud, but can do 768k unreliably via HDSL), that runs 4 blocks. It has a heavy distance limitation. It costs $80/mo. This does not include bandwidth charges. Distance matters. A lot. Too far away? Too bad, you'll either need to 56k lease line (haha), or frame relay, or ptp t1. None of these (well except 56k) are in your pricerange.
> around $40 a month a group of about 20-30
> should be able to gets something way faster
> that DSL/Cable and without the bullshit.
Ok, let's say 25 people @ 40bucks, not including the line charge. that's $1k. Call up qwest, or maybe sprint, or maybe a tier 2-N (because that's all you can afford), and if you live near a POP and you're lucky, maybe you can get a full T1.
Ok, now we have a shared T1, for 25 people (who i'm assuming will all be geeks, and will be downloading stuff late at night...) Assume a T1 can get maybe 160k/s throughput (you can't get 100% util on a T1 w/o severe latency problems), you get 6.4k/s. Congrats, you've gotten isdn speeds, for the cost of approximately $120/mo/person. This doesn't include startup costs. xDSL equipment costs a few hundred dollars on each end, and 802.11b accesspoints are a lot more expensive than the cards (no, airports don't count, their distance sucks) and the costs of outdoor antennas are horrendous, not to mention you'd have to find/hire someone to do the professional antenna install for you. You'd need a router for your shared T1, add another $600 in startup there.
> What happens when the network / connection goes
> down. Either we set up some sort of rotation
> but we need an admin to fix stuff and that can
> be expensive.
Expensive is right. You can get a crappy consultant for $75/hr. Say something significant happens once a month for two hours (that's not too unreasonable, given the current codered/sircam problems, and general maintainence, mailserver/dns crap).
Your cost is now $125/mo for slightlyhigherthan isdn speeds. See why this idea isn't that great?
I'm not a big fan of the quality of service of @home or Roadrunner. But at $40/mo, what can you really expect? Does your cable modem/dsl occasionally do over 200k/s? It does? Guess what, just that bandwidth capability alone, would cost you $1.5k/mo to do.
Re:Taking business elsewhere - !@#$% (Score:2, Insightful)
This attitude makes me sick. The idea of capitalism seems great, but it just doesn't work. How can I take my dollars elsewhere, when there's nowhere else to go? Every saturated market ends up in the hands of an oligopoly - not much better than a monopoly. In the case of broadband access, it's even worse, because of the government sanctioned monopolies on cable. Go on, ask me what choices I have for broadband access. [sigh]
One frustrated broadband user,I must be the only one... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see any reason why providers shouldn't block port 80 incoming. The only reason to have that open is to run a webserver -- something most broadband providers explicitely disallow for residential customers. That's one of the reasons why a "business" account usually costs a lot more, even for the same speeds.
Just because they let it ride up to now, doesn't mean they have any less a right to block it now. If they'd been doing this all along, I'm sure most people wouldn't be complaining now.
Sure, it's nice to run a webserver at home, but residential service doesn't usually come with any kind of real uptime guarantees, etc. It just makes more sense to either get a business account, or get a real webserver (lease one, or use a shared provider, whatever).
With the amount of port 80 requests in my firewall logs on my cable connection, I would welcome a block on port 80 personally. I've already bored of looking at 'dir' listings and deleting files on these idiot Windows/IIS machines... but seriously, it's time to put this thing to rest and move on. And get a webserver.
Re:Read your TOS! (Score:5, Insightful)
It also creates an artificial market-- why would I buy "business class" bandwidth or co-locate a server for a site that's adequately hosted on broadband for a fraction of the price? We're not talking "enterprise, mission-critical, ecommerce" web applications or anything... we're talking about noncommerical, nonprofit media forums.
I run a site that gets maybe 100 hits a day, is frequented by only a small group of 15 visitors. However, we have very complicated custom web applications the drive the sorts of things we do... free or paid shared hosting is not an option. Nor is it a real possibility to shell out money for co-location or "business class" bandwidth for this sort of thing -- that of course generates no profit. The idea that the home user should settle for less (yanno, the idea that a 5MB, add-riddled, censored, GeoCities account "is good enough") -- that only big corporations should have access to high quality server applications -- is disturbing. It reinforces the idea that the Internet is here for business-- not for culture, not for recreation, not for academia, not for the free exchange of ideas.
Access to the tools big business uses is a real possibility with broadband since a lot of hobbyists, enthusiasts or professionals working in their spare time can put together a lot of the same things that corporate and "ecommerce" sites can...
As I say, I'm not claiming that broadband needs to come tethered to the sorts of service levels that corporate folks are expecting-- nobody suggests such a thing... but there's no good reason to limit people to Geocities because... "pfah! if you're serious, you'd co-locate in an Exodus data center."
That argument is pretentious and elitist. I get no Darwinian thrill from seeing only the moneyed have access to technologies all of us could use, enjoy and share at minimal cost.
BRx.
Re:I've read my TOS and it sucks. (Score:1, Insightful)
If 99.9% of all security problems are redhat, then the Code Red II worm is only 0.1%. So, you multiply the code red worms by 1000, that is the number of unsecured redhat boxes, clearly a realistic number.
Lord knows, linux is very insecure, switch to NT/2000 today!
Re:Read your TOS! (Score:4, Insightful)
And what exactly is a "server"? Is accessing your Pilot calendar remotely using a server? Is using an FTP client a server? What about identd? What about my PC vendor's remote Windows support system? Is running a client connection to establish a VPN to some other host on the Internet and poking out a server socket on that machine "running a server"? Let's be concrete please, because my TOS don't actually say. They are so vague that the provider can make up what they mean whenever they like.
And especially don't start with the geek indignation, because consumer broadband is not meant, nor sold, under the pretense of running home servers.
That would be true if broadband providers fully owned all the rights of way and infrastructure. They don't. They tear up public streets and use public spectrum only because the communities where they deliver service let them. They can be kicked out if they don't satisfy the needs of the community. And peer-to-peer and servers are crucially important in particular for non-commercial and non-profit uses.
Furthermore, for broadband providers to try to control whether you may run a "server" is the beginning of content controls. The next thing you know, you'll only be able to connect to the commercial sites of your provider's choosing.
Broadband providers should be legally required to provide universal Internet connectivity and set rates and limitations based on bandwidth and volume only. Possibly, there might be two rate structures, one for non-commercial and another for commercial customers. But providers should have no business deciding what content or packets travel over their networks, as long as the packets are properly addressed and their format is according to spec.
Re:Servers were never allowed out on cable (Score:4, Insightful)
@Home and others had the exact same philosophy that we did, "we really don't care, unless it starts to become a problem." We (as in the ISPs), were quite lenient (yes, i have a webserver running at home) because we believe in the exact same things you do, we're geeks too.
But frankly, you guys failed. If everyone had just patched their servers regularly, and knew the least bit about their computer, and wtf it was doing, then this would never have been a problem, and we wouldn't have to do such rediculous measures such as this. Yes, i think this is a rediculous measure, but so is leaving your computer unpatched for any decent amount of time. So please, stop deflecting the blame when really you yourselves (or your friends who don't patch) are at fault.
Re:Read your TOS! (Score:2, Insightful)
If I pay $50/month for a 256k pipe, and if I want to do my own personal development and want to be able to show others my site from work, or setup a private FTP so that I can grab files offsite, they sure as hell better not stop me.
Or what? You'll beat them up? They can do whatever they want, and if you don't like it you can look at the competitors (which in this case would be one of the many tetering on the edge of bankruptcy DSL providers). Let your dollars do the voting for you, but as the previous poster mentioned indignation is just sad: They don't owe you anything, and you know what the deal is every month that you pay the bill.
Re:We haven't done this yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
you know, t1s and t3s have been around for a while. it's just that in the old days you had to Know Things to get access to them.
now, the idiots have broadband. is this better? I am not sure. I suppose in a way. I now have DSL whereas a few years ago I was running SLiRP on my university's sun box for free 'net access.
Re:No blocking yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Could you provide a URL for what you are quoting?
The explanation given and the clause given as an excuse are (quoting from the above links) an extremely long stretch in IMO:
Why Can't AT&T@Home Residential Customers Run Web Servers?
The AT&T@Home residential service offering is a consumer product designed for your personal use of the Internet. Customers must ensure that their activity does not improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the Services, nor represent (in the sole judgment of AT&T Broadband) an unusually large burden on the network itself.
The benefits and privileges available from the AT&T@Home, and the Internet in general, must be balanced with duties and responsibilities so that other customers can also have a productive experience.
Under the terms of the AT&T Broadband Subscriber Agreement customers are not to restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy the AT&T Equipment or the Service. See Prohibited Uses of Service (g) in the AT&T@Home Subscriber Agreement.
The clause referred to:
g) restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy the AT&T Equipment or the Service, including, without limitation, posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a virus or other harmful feature; or generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information;
So, where do they get off filtering a small, low-bandwidth server that doesn't do what "clause g" prohibits?
Re:Read your TOS! (Score:3, Insightful)
However, use of so-called "shared" or "virtual" web hosting services limits greatly the sorts of applications you can create and run. It also limits your ability to administer your machine and configure the applications you use the way you see fit.
Some hosts are more forgiving than others, but, for highly specific development environments any shared host is less than ideal. Also, censorship considerations by [corporate] hosting providers may also be a concern...
Further, shared web hosting says nothing of other content servers which may be unavailable completely or available in shared configurations only in highly restricted circumstances.
BRx.
They should remain blocked (Score:5, Insightful)
virus protection (Score:3, Insightful)
And for anyone complaining, read your TOS first. As several other people have pointed out, it specifically prohibits running servers, and allows this in other ways as well. You're not guaranteed an unbreakable or complete Internet connection for your $35 a month.
Re:We haven't done this yet.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it pisses them off. So they call you up and say "Why can't I access the web?". And you look up their ISP and say "Because your computer is infected with a worm that is taking up significant bandwidth and trying to infect other computers to do the same. If you fix that, we'll let you surf the web again."
At least if they're pissed off, they'll go and get the fix so they can surf to their pr0n again.
[TMB]
Re:We haven't done this yet.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've read my TOS and it sucks. (Score:2, Insightful)
99.9% of security issues comes from companies that don't believe they are at risk. There are those running unpatched linux boxes at home. But compare that number to the number of companies with admins who either dont know any better or just don't care and it pales in comparison.
If you think the AUPs are that strict for any other reason than marketing, then you don't know corporate america well enough.
so what (Score:2, Insightful)
@home users can still infect other @home users, along with the rest of the net.
We haven't done this yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Its great. So instead we just let the network FLOOD. But good thing we aren't blocking port 80, that would SCREW over like what, .1% of our cusomters?
Clause? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite common already (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, cable and DSL providers are already blocking port 80 (and most lower ports) for months. I am a Charter cable customer. When I first signed up, all ports below ~1500 where blocked. (With the expection of 53, 113, and a few of others) Customers where forced to use there proxy server. Even outbound port 80 was blocked.
After complaining for 4 months about it. and many phone calls to there head techs and managers. I finally won. I proved to them why blocking all of those ports was insaine. I simply wanted to run NTP on my machine. (Well, my entire LAN, but they didn't know anything about that :) Which requires 123/UDP.
As the months went on, more and more ports started opening. One thing that they have relized is that people will run servers regardless. People who abuse it (setting up high traffic sites) will be shutoff. Personally, I think its insaine. I should have the right to run a personal site, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. If it did get to that point, I wouldn't be hosting on cable.
So, they blocked the ports. I wonder how long it will stay. I would be very carefull, they may use this as an excuse to keep the ports blocked.
Working with the large companys his difficault, tring to convince them that they should unblock them. I can kinda of understand there postion. But, then again, it kinda upsets me.
Linux is not a contender.. (Score:-1, Insightful)
Linux costs not only more because of the frequent updates which require new cdrom's to be bought.
Another factor in Linux cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to need maintenance continuously.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose loses water, when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coave low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I can go on and on and on, but the message is clear. In this world, there is no place for Linux. It's not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc. The best place it should ever reach is the toy store, and even that would be flattering
Re:Move to Canada (Score:1, Insightful)
Personally, I think its my god given right to use allocated bandwidth however I choose. Its one thing to limit bandwidth, quite another to censor what bytes are allowed in my incoming or outgoing tcp segments.
Not a huge surprise.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now they're doing the sensible thing to contain potentially hundreds of thousands of machines running IIS (Mostly run by people who probably have no idea about worms and the like anyway - even if they knew they were running a web server in the first place).
Seems pretty sensible to me, although my DSL ISP has no problems with me running servers, so I'm happy either way..
It would mean them having to do real work (Score:3, Insightful)
Read your TOS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Signing on with a domestic oriented ISP means that you are essentially "users" on their network. Blocking inbound port 80 access is a good starting point for at least protecting their internal network segments. If you were running what is essentially a DHCP/DNS/proxy service for thousands of users, wouldn't you at least take this step to protect the integrity of your network?? (I admit it doesn't begin to solve all the problems, but...)
If you want to run your own "mini NOC", then pony up the cash and get ISDN, a T1, or something faster put into your basement. But if you are subscribing to a consumer grade ISP's offerings, don't be suprised when this happens. And especially don't start with the geek indignation, because consumer broadband is not meant, nor sold, under the pretense of running home servers.
imagine if other utilities did this (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if the phone company checked your lines for "business use" and shut you down unless you got a business contract.
Or how about the power company, charging you differently depending on how you use the power, and limiting you to, say, 10 amps peak if you don't have a business contract.
I wonder if it isn't appropriate to have a little (eek) government regulation when it comes to these things? Like not blocking any ports for any customer unless it is clearly marked in advertising or something?
I always wonder when my ISP will decide, for the good of all customers, to shut down this or that port or filter or monitor traffic. They'll probably not even notify me, they'll just update the terms of service buried in their web page someplace.
People are becoming consumers, not content creater (Score:5, Insightful)
The average American is a mere couch potato which the corporations feed information to the unwashed masses the same way the inhabinents of Huxley's Brave New World were fed soma. The average consumer has nothing to say unless what they have to say is under corporate control. While people running web servers were tolerated when what they did was not attracting the attention of the corporate suits, they are being cut off by those who feel that people really shouldn't be running personal web servers.
I am also annoyed that, while Apache and other UNIX web servers are able make a web server without countless remote root exploits, all UNIX users on these cable modems suffer because Microsoft did not make a secure web server.
Thankfully, this is easy enough to work around. E.G:
- Sam
Re:No blocking yet (Score:4, Insightful)
From their service agreement.
AT&T Broadband does not allow servers to be connected to the cable modem. This means that no computer in a personal network can be used as a server.
Hmmm, sounds like a pretty good clause to hide behind, eh?
I've read my TOS and it sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone can explain a good reason for banning servers rather than limiting data volumes, I'm all ears. I think it's either a combination of laziness and sloppy thinking on the part of the providers, or a desire to force the "users" to also be "content consumers" rather than "content providers". Hanlon's razor, I believe, favours the former explanation.
Re:imagine if other utilities did this (Score:4, Insightful)
The have do so for many years with regard to digital service. To residential customers, a phone line is sufficient if if passed voice. If you managed to get over a 300 baud connection , consider yourself lucky and don't complain if bandwidth sucks or you have drop offs.
However, if you want higher bandwidth or guarantees, then you are supposed to order a data grade line (which is usually a business line). In fact, they tell you in their service agreement that if they detect business use of the line, they will charge your more for it.
Telephone service is not a right but a priveledge to those willing to pay for use of the network. Same thing goes for most residential services like @Home. It is their network. You agree to their terms of service prior to them turning the service on. If you want to go outside the bounds of that agreement, then you are expected to pony up and purchase the appropriate service.
There is nothing wrong with them enforcing the terms of their agreement. If you don't like their actions or policies, then take your business elsewhere. However, these actions are being taken to protect their customers from others as well as themselves through their own incompetence and negligience.
The warning signs were plastered everywhere, remedies were posted in accessible locations, and these people did nothing to protect themselves. Now, they complain because their systems have been compromised. Oops.
Or how about the power company, charging you differently depending on how you use the power, and limiting you to, say, 10 amps peak if you don't have a business contract.
They can and do. Power companies routinely offer reduced rates for certain customers willing to meet certain guidelines. Example might be reduced rates for home owners willing to curtail power consumption during peek hours. They provide power real cheap so you can run your refrigerator and other minimal services (like keeping your house at 60 degrees). If you use the added circuits outside the conditions imposed on the line, the will either charge your a fortune or cut you off from the special deal altogether. It's not rocket science.
Re:We haven't done this yet.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait, there *was* no broadband access until all these losers showed up. Must just be a coincidence.
Re:What the hey? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Disclaimer: I have no association with @home)
You might have a leg to stand on if @home was bringing in huge profits and denying you features just to bring in a cent more. But guess what, they aren't, and those downsides of cable modem service are precisely what's enabling them to offer it at the price you are paying now.
Don't like it? Tough. Go out and buy some real Internet bandwidth. It will cost you at least $200 per Mbps per month, in addition to the circuit costs.
My short reply... (Score:2, Insightful)
Formerly Telocity.
1.5 down. 256k up.
They don't care what you do.
They don't block any ports.
Their terms of service even say they don't mind what you do. It's your bandwidth.
They only have one rule. If you run something funky, don't go crying to their tech-help for support.
That's MORE than fair.