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  1. #1

    Google, Verizon Propose Open vs Paid Internets

    Kind of confused about this new policy and would love to see what the techies here think of this "policy", what it means for us consumers and the net as a whole. (Halp! laymen's terms prs..)

    FCC page headlines (First link on FCC page has a acrobat or word download of their file on the policy.)
    FCC Seeks Public Comment on National Broadband Plan Recommendation to Create a Cybersecurity Roadmap.
    http://www.fcc.gov/

    Google's policy blog on the new policy.
    http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.c...-internet.html

    Verizon Joint Policy Proposal page.
    http://policyblog.verizon.com/BlogPo...nInternet.aspx

    Wired article quoted below..
    http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/...aid-internets/


    By Eliot Van Buskirk August 9, 2010

    Google and Verizon announced a joint proposal on Monday that would allow ISPs to offer premium content bundles in addition to the regular, open internet, in an effort to stave off new net neutrality regulations. The two companies say the guidelines would ensure that no internet traffic of any kind is prioritized over other (with the exception of viruses, spam and the like) on the internet. And on the flipside, it would grant content companies looking to deliver services that require too much bandwidth for the regular internet to do so in return for payment, via a second set of pipes.


    “There should be a new, enforceable prohibition against discriminatory practices,” reads part of their proposal, posted on both Verizon’s and Google’s websites. “For the first time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition.”


    According to both Google president Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEP Ivan Seidenberg, the proposal does not include the paid prioritization of one company’s traffic over another — a victory for net neutrality proponents. But it does call for so-called “fast lanes” they’ve been clamoring for — just not on the regular internet. The two executives made clear during a call with the press that these paid services would be transmitted on something besides the internet we know today.


    “Our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the internet access and video services (such as Verizon’s Fios TV) offered today,” continues the proposal. “This means that broadband providers can work with other players to develop new services. It is too soon to predict how these new services will develop, but examples might include health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options.”


    “Our proposal also includes safeguards to ensure that such online services must be distinguishable from traditional broadband Internet access services and are not designed to circumvent the rules,” it continues. “The FCC would also monitor the development of these services to make sure they don’t interfere with the continued development of internet access services.”


    In other words, to avoid creating tiered access on the internet and dealing with associated governmental red tape, Google and Verizon have proposed creating a second, paid-access-only internet.


    Won’t ISPs such as Verizon have an incentive to develop the paid internet while leaving the “open” internet behind? Schmidt said that in addition to the FCC monitoring the situation under their proposal, Verizon will be incapable of ever prioritizing paid traffic over open internet traffic.


    “There seems to be a concern that somehow the investment, because of this, would move from the open internet to other things,” said Schmidt. “They way [the proposal] is written, that’s not possible. Furthermore, Verizon and others have a large financial incentive to make the open internet — the public internet — more useful, simply because it’s what their customers want. Frankly, if they were to choose to degrade it, other competitors would enter the market. But of course, they’ve promised not to do that anyway… there’s enough excess supply that they should be able to handle both. And according to this, they’re not allowed to prioritize against the open internet. And I told our friends at Verizon that we will continue to enforce these principles.”


    Google, for one, will stay on the open internet, according Schmidt.


    “We love the internet and we have no intention of using anything other than the internet,” said Schmidt, adding that YouTube and all other Google services would “always” travel over the open internet.


    Under Google’s and Verizon’s proposal, the FCC would have authority it doesn’t currently have to police ISPs for transparency in all of their offerings and fair distribution of content on the “open internet,” fining transgressors up to $2 million per infraction. And all of these wireline broadband rules would apply to the wireless internet as well, with the exception of “transparency,” presumably because wireless networks still aren’t in a position to make any promises about the quality of their service.


    What about the deal between Google and Verizon that would see Google paying Verizon to speed its content through Verizon’s internet pipes? You know, the one that was reported by the New York Times? No such deal exists, said Schmidt.


    “There is no business arrangement [between Google and Verizon] and reports that there was a business arrangement are false, misleading, and not correct,” said Schmidt in response to the query of a Reuters reporter. “I hope that that is a very clear answer to your business arrangement question.”


    What about the deal between Google and Verizon that would see Google paying Verizon to speed its content through Verizon’s internet pipes? You know, the one that was reported by the New York Times? No such deal exists, said Schmidt.


    “There is no business arrangement [between Google and Verizon] and reports that there was a business arrangement are false, misleading, and not correct,” he said. “I hope that that is a very clear answer.”


    Internet meme-sters have long referred to “the internets” as a sort of inside joke, because of course there’s just one internet.


    But if Google’s and Verizon’s proposal goes through, we really would have two internets — one free, where Google pledges to stay, another paid, where services such as 3D television, remote medical procedures, and bandwidth-intensive games appear — for a price.


  2. #2

    Letting Google and Verizon decide how to monitor, police, and travel the internet sounds to be about as good of an idea as having the RIAA enforce copyright law.

  3. #3
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    But what about the deal between Google and Verizon that would see Google paying Verizon to speed its content through Verizon’s internet pipes? You know, the one that was reported by the New York Times?

  4. #4
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    I think Ive read blogs and whatnot about ISPs starting to charge people for internet. Maybe the outlining of this specific proposition says there will be a "free" (current version) internet and a premium version with less of a bottle-neck etc.etc., but that just means the death of net-neutrality as it is anyway with the FCC going fucking monkey-shit-crazy over hunting down anyone even remotely downloading something without paying them $10 for every file or whatever.

    tl;dr
    its disgusting bullshitting to get payed for something thats free today

  5. #5

    Fuck Google.

    In 2009, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt warned users,

    "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. "
    Letting Google and Verizon decide how to monitor, police, and travel the internet sounds to be about as good of an idea as having the RIAA enforce copyright law.
    Yeah that's got to be the stupidest thing i've heard of. "Lets let the ones who stand to profit from abusing the system..run the system!"

  6. #6
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    A couple years back, Time Warner tried to pull the tiered pricing internet access. In their system, you'd be limited in how many GB of access you had each month, as well as how fast your connection would be. There was also no unlimited option set in stone, and if I recall, the amounts were ridiculously small, so it'd be hella easy to hit the cap and be stuck with overcharge fees. They had tested it in some really small towns that were like retirement communities, so their data was incredibly skewed and ya.. But there was a huge outcry against it, and they ended up dropping the plan.

    One of the big issues with net neutrality is that in a lot of areas, people don't have many/any alternatives for internet access. In the example above with Time Warner, you can bet if there was better competition, they'd have never even considered pulling something like that. But, even in a city like Austin, they were the best alternative in a lot of places, so they could suggest things like that.

    Anyway, back to the topic at hand.. The Google/Verizon proposal has 7 points, and rather than go into them, I'll just defer to Engadget since they had a good analysis of all of this that I feel was less skewed by 'omg, these guys are trying to crush net neutrality, let's burn them down':
    http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/09/g...sal-explained/

    From what I can gather from reading about this on various blogs/sites, it sounds like Google used their position to strong arm Verizon into accepting net neutrality for their wired networks, but conceded regarding the wireless networks (aka cellphones). Essentially the system that At&t has now (what is it, 200mb or 2 gb) would be the norm for wireless. There are some who feel Google conceded on this due to the fact that Verizon is where they have the strongest foothold for androids. Personally, this is my own speculation, but I can't help but wonder how badly Google's desire to dethrone Apple's position at the top of the cellphone pile played into this. After all, there're constant rumors of the iPhone on Verizon, and maybe Google wanted to keep Apple out of At&t's strongest competitor. That speculation aside, it'll be unfortunate if this proposal gets accepted for wireless since that's the clear path for the internet to evolve to. At the very least, in my mind, it seems like it's gonna cripple the growth of wireless internet/technology -- at least from the perspective of a consumer.

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    too many tubes.

    that said, i like the idea in theory, of course in practice i don't know how much i'd actually enjoy it

  8. #8
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    the internet sucks anyways

  9. #9
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    attack on net neutrality that, if unchecked, will be important enough to wind up in the history books of the future; if the future has history books or analogues. net neutrality is the most important issue of our time.

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    google is the man

    cue mass dissonance in hipster cognition

  11. #11
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    My response is related to Serra's but also just a general line of reasoning that I don't feel is told enough. Maybe a bit too philosophical but I like these kinds of discussions.

    I agree with the principle of regulating the amount of data I am definitely for internet that has a cost/MB feature, here is why. I am operating on the theory that more internet used=more expensive to the ISP. Currently where I live there is one option for high speed internet. It's DSL for about $55 a month after all the fees and such. Everyone has to pay this fee that has DSL around where I live, no matter how much data they transfer.
    My argument against the current way DSL is sold here is two-fold. First off, people that don't use as much data to transfer should not have to pay as much. I know people in my neighborhood that only use their internet occasionally, but they do like having DSL for the fast speed when they do want to use it. However, they have to pay just as much as everyone around them, those that are downloading movies, songs, pictures, and everything else all of the time. It just doesn't seem right that it works that way when every other utility is metered. Think about electricity, trash, things like that. You pay for how much you use, why is internet not the same?

    My second reason is that I believe an unlimited amount of data transfer encourages piracy. Yep, you heard it right. I'm as guilty as the next guy when it comes to possessing music and movies that I didn't pay for, but why did I get them in the first place? A big part is because no matter what, I have to pay the internet bill, and I might as well make the most of my unlimited amount of data transfer. I think people have glossed over it sometimes, but I think people subconsciously equate their internet bill with actually paying for the items they view, and because their fee is flat, they download all they can. A buffet of sorts.

    Of course there are many negatives to my proposal, first one is obvious, people use the internet for purposes that are not related to piracy that also consume a lot of bandwidth, what to do about that? People changed their habits to unlimited data, they can change back, people did just fine without internet as a part of their daily lives twenty years ago. Secondly, people have come to accept internet as the basically flat-rate utility it is, so why change? I believe that it would cause people to actually consider their use of megabytes, and would make for a more fair pricing scheme?

    Of course my idea is not very well-formed yet, but I would like to see something implemented along these lines.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Serra View Post
    A couple years back, Time Warner tried to pull the tiered pricing internet access. In their system, you'd be limited in how many GB of access you had each month, as well as how fast your connection would be.
    Wait, there isn't normally a tiered system in the US?

    Here in Canada we have to select from a set of plans that determine your connection speed, and the amount of bandwidth you got.

    Speaking of which, Rogers did a douche move recently and nixed 10gb off the bandwidth cap for all their plans very shortly after the announcement of NetFlix for Canada.
    (making for an 80gb cap on their 'extreme' plan, which runs $59 a month)

  13. #13

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaisha View Post
    Wait, there isn't normally a tiered system in the US?

    Here in Canada we have to select from a set of plans that determine your connection speed, and the amount of bandwidth you got.

    Speaking of which, Rogers did a douche move recently and nixed 10gb off the bandwidth cap for all their plans very shortly after the announcement of NetFlix for Canada.
    (making for an 80gb cap on their 'extreme' plan, which runs $59 a month)
    Yeah, Canada doesn't get enough credit when it comes to the amount of corporate assrape on the public. But, I think alot of people know Canada a little better from more recent public mockeries(G8 & Olympics).

    As for the OP, I see this kind of gameplan easily coming to fruition within the next couple of years for the entire US ISP market. All they would need to do is create a bunch of seemingly "good" internet speed packs and only the minority will actually know how they're really getting fucked lol

    The quality of internet has been intentionally horrible both on value and infrastructure over here that people could easily be persuaded by a marginal upgrade in MBps/per$ or accessibility for an enforced cap.

    I just can't see people giving a shit for net neutrality these days. God forbid people actually defend something as vital as freely accessible information for all.

    Slightly related note: Anyone know what ever happened to that push for eliminating texting service fees? I vaguely remember an attempt at proving cell phone companies were fraudulently charging customers for "operating costs" or however they justified their fees for sending text messages lol

  14. #14
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    I didn't read it much, but I am for net neutrality just for the fact I don't want ISPs to determine what we can/can't access. I'm not sure if this proposal will change or endanger that (Since when it comes to networking, it goes out one ear and out another for me).

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaisha View Post
    Wait, there isn't normally a tiered system in the US?

    Here in Canada we have to select from a set of plans that determine your connection speed, and the amount of bandwidth you got.

    Speaking of which, Rogers did a douche move recently and nixed 10gb off the bandwidth cap for all their plans very shortly after the announcement of NetFlix for Canada.
    (making for an 80gb cap on their 'extreme' plan, which runs $59 a month)
    Normally it's just pay for internet, have access. I've only really been around Time Warner for the past like 5 years, so that's the only thing I really know, but they do offer 'power boost' which I think is supposed to be faster internet or something -- least that's what the name implies..

    Quote Originally Posted by notorious bum View Post
    Slightly related note: Anyone know what ever happened to that push for eliminating texting service fees? I vaguely remember an attempt at proving cell phone companies were fraudulently charging customers for "operating costs" or however they justified their fees for sending text messages lol
    I'm not 100% sure, but if I remember correctly, around the time At&t got rid of their unlimited plan, I read that texting takes like no bandwidith and just piggybacks on whatever signal is available. That's why texting didn't affect how much you used per month in their plan. Can't say if I've heard anything about what you're asking though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Alvein View Post
    My response is related to Serra's but also just a general line of reasoning that I don't feel is told enough. Maybe a bit too philosophical but I like these kinds of discussions.

    I agree with the principle of regulating the amount of data I am definitely for internet that has a cost/MB feature, here is why. I am operating on the theory that more internet used=more expensive to the ISP. Currently where I live there is one option for high speed internet. It's DSL for about $55 a month after all the fees and such. Everyone has to pay this fee that has DSL around where I live, no matter how much data they transfer.
    My argument against the current way DSL is sold here is two-fold. First off, people that don't use as much data to transfer should not have to pay as much. I know people in my neighborhood that only use their internet occasionally, but they do like having DSL for the fast speed when they do want to use it. However, they have to pay just as much as everyone around them, those that are downloading movies, songs, pictures, and everything else all of the time. It just doesn't seem right that it works that way when every other utility is metered. Think about electricity, trash, things like that. You pay for how much you use, why is internet not the same?

    My second reason is that I believe an unlimited amount of data transfer encourages piracy. Yep, you heard it right. I'm as guilty as the next guy when it comes to possessing music and movies that I didn't pay for, but why did I get them in the first place? A big part is because no matter what, I have to pay the internet bill, and I might as well make the most of my unlimited amount of data transfer. I think people have glossed over it sometimes, but I think people subconsciously equate their internet bill with actually paying for the items they view, and because their fee is flat, they download all they can. A buffet of sorts.

    Of course there are many negatives to my proposal, first one is obvious, people use the internet for purposes that are not related to piracy that also consume a lot of bandwidth, what to do about that? People changed their habits to unlimited data, they can change back, people did just fine without internet as a part of their daily lives twenty years ago. Secondly, people have come to accept internet as the basically flat-rate utility it is, so why change? I believe that it would cause people to actually consider their use of megabytes, and would make for a more fair pricing scheme?

    Of course my idea is not very well-formed yet, but I would like to see something implemented along these lines.
    I understand the idea of paying for how much you use, and I will admit that we have become spoiled on our free internet, but I feel that limiting the access people have will stifle growth and development of the internet, and various other businesses. Also, I won't deny that I'm cheap and don't want to pay more >.> <.<

    (I'm gonna keep using the Time Warner example since that's what I was exposed to and know best, so I'll be using that in my arguments. I looked it up, and their plan was broken up from 5gb (at the current price) to 40gb (at almost double the current price) a month. There was also a 100 gb tier that didn't have a price disclosed. If you went over your limit, you'd be charged $1 for each additional gb.)

    For instance, have you looked recently at how large DLC on PSN or Xbox live is? If I only had 10 GB, 20 GB, or even 40 GB a month, I'd definitely be more hesitant to make those purchases. Also, as BG started as an FFXI board -- does anyone know how much bandwidith playing MMOs or games on PSN/Xbox live uses? And, what if you use Netflix to stream movies? HD movies are massive -- I've heard figures that range from 5 gb to 8 gb, but for arguement sake, let's go with 8. If you watch 5 movies a month, not unreasonable (1 movie a weekend in some months), you're already at the 40gb cap, and that's without doing anything else. Another business example is Hulu. With DVR, people skip commercials, so companies are paying less to tv networks for commercial slots. But, they make up that money by charging more for internet advertisements since you can't skip those. I've had things recorded on my DVR, but at the least was too lazy to get out of bed so I'd use my laptop to watch them on Hulu. If that started being a risk of making my internet more expensive, I'd stop using Hulu, as I'd imagine would a number of people.

    To me, a similar example is Pandora. They recently changed to only 40 hours (I think) free a month, and after that you have to pay a subscription. Well, I haven't been using Pandora much lately, but a friend of mine hits that at work after like 2 weeks. So what happens when after half a month you approach your cap and thus have to stop playing online games/watching movies/etc?

    Also, it's not measured like electricity (and isn't trash just a flat fee?). Instead you're given a cap, and if you go over the cap, they hit you with crazy overcharge fees. Does it actually cost them more if people use it more, or is it just there? I don't know enough about it, but I was actually under the assumption that it doesn't cost them more if more is used and this was all a money grab.. I mean, apart from the electricity they have to use, which they'd be using regardless since they can't tell all their customers they can only access the internet from 8-5 or w/e. But yeah, if anyone can clarify that point, that'd be great.

    I can't argue the piracy issue, cause I'm definitely in the same boat. But as you can see, it's not just piracy that relies on free access to the internet. And I don't think you can say that people managed to live without it once, they'll be fine if we change it. The internet has become so crucial in our lives, and too much relies on it. I think it's either Sweden or Denmark that feels that there is a societal need for universal access to the internet and is in the process of instituting a country wide network. I'd actually be very interested to know how that's going/how they handled the businesses and lobbyists when that was proposed/passed.

  16. #16

    Google has nearly 100% of the mobile search engine market, and 90% of the general search market:

    http://searchengineland.com/estimate...near-100-47626

    http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-...AM-500x431.png

    Crazy stuff.

  17. #17

    I understand the idea of paying for how much you use
    Clearly you(and in fairness, most people) do not.

    Let's say this outloud a few times, in hopes that it will stick.

    Bandwidth is not a commodity.
    Bandwidth is not a commodity.
    Bandwidth is not a commodity.
    Bandwidth is not a commodity.
    Bandwidth is not a commodity.
    Bandwidth is not a commodity.
    Bandwidth is not a commodity.

    There isn't a bandwidth mine somewhere where we mine bandwidth and when it's all out it's gone.

    It is just a speed limit, nothing more. We all share the speed limit as a whole.

    Guess what though? We can increase it nearly infinitely just *by adding more hardware*, a nearly negligable cost, we're not even remotely close to the physical limits of cable and fiber-optic lines, and even then, you just keep running them parralel.

    Telcoms have spent a great deal over the past two decades manipulating the public into thinking of bandwidth as a limited resource...you use it and are limited to a certain amount of it.

    Why? To charge you fees for something that is practically free, of course.

    Be an informed consumer and stop buying into the bullshit.

    The actual cost of "bandwidth" is something along the lines of $17 per petabyte(and going down constantly), and that's really just electricity.

    An analogy is if you bought a router for your home and the company charges you by the megabyte for information sent over it...sounds retarded...internet works the same way.

  18. #18

    Quote Originally Posted by Serra View Post
    A couple years back, Time Warner tried to pull the tiered pricing internet access. In their system, you'd be limited in how many GB of access you had each month, as well as how fast your connection would be. There was also no unlimited option set in stone, and if I recall, the amounts were ridiculously small, so it'd be hella easy to hit the cap and be stuck with overcharge fees. They had tested it in some really small towns that were like retirement communities, so their data was incredibly skewed and ya.. But there was a huge outcry against it, and they ended up dropping the plan.

    One of the big issues with net neutrality is that in a lot of areas, people don't have many/any alternatives for internet access. In the example above with Time Warner, you can bet if there was better competition, they'd have never even considered pulling something like that. But, even in a city like Austin, they were the best alternative in a lot of places, so they could suggest things like that.

    Anyway, back to the topic at hand.. The Google/Verizon proposal has 7 points, and rather than go into them, I'll just defer to Engadget since they had a good analysis of all of this that I feel was less skewed by 'omg, these guys are trying to crush net neutrality, let's burn them down':
    http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/09/g...sal-explained/

    From what I can gather from reading about this on various blogs/sites, it sounds like Google used their position to strong arm Verizon into accepting net neutrality for their wired networks, but conceded regarding the wireless networks (aka cellphones). Essentially the system that At&t has now (what is it, 200mb or 2 gb) would be the norm for wireless. There are some who feel Google conceded on this due to the fact that Verizon is where they have the strongest foothold for androids. Personally, this is my own speculation, but I can't help but wonder how badly Google's desire to dethrone Apple's position at the top of the cellphone pile played into this. After all, there're constant rumors of the iPhone on Verizon, and maybe Google wanted to keep Apple out of At&t's strongest competitor. That speculation aside, it'll be unfortunate if this proposal gets accepted for wireless since that's the clear path for the internet to evolve to. At the very least, in my mind, it seems like it's gonna cripple the growth of wireless internet/technology -- at least from the perspective of a consumer.

    I will read the link you posted and thank you.
    Lots of good information in replies here. Starting to make more sense though I am still trying to grasp the picture. I think a flow chart is needed in my case XD .

    I am not the least bit concerned about lack of piratability being the result of this proposal if it passed because I have never taken "free" downloads for granted and don't depend on them.

    I just keep thinking of what it would be like if I wanted to play a mmorpg and it only came available on the non-free internet. I imagine what it would be like if all of the resources and valuable content on the net was moved over to the pay side because companies are tired of relying on pop up ads and clicks for money and want to take advantage of the other side's potential.

    I wonder why wireless is excluded.

    With my limited knowledge at this point, about the proposal's true meaning, I also think it might be interesting to see what is left when the two sides evolve and which would end up having more quality content.

    I am more adjusted to the ideas and environment of the present internet. Nothing bothers me more than having to think about advertisements while reading something on line.

    Ah more reading to do.

  19. #19

    Quote Originally Posted by Serra View Post
    A couple years back, Time Warner tried to pull the tiered pricing internet access. In their system, you'd be limited in how many GB of access you had each month, as well as how fast your connection would be. There was also no unlimited option set in stone, and if I recall, the amounts were ridiculously small, so it'd be hella easy to hit the cap and be stuck with overcharge fees. They had tested it in some really small towns that were like retirement communities, so their data was incredibly skewed and ya.. But there was a huge outcry against it, and they ended up dropping the plan.

    One of the big issues with net neutrality is that in a lot of areas, people don't have many/any alternatives for internet access. In the example above with Time Warner, you can bet if there was better competition, they'd have never even considered pulling something like that. But, even in a city like Austin, they were the best alternative in a lot of places, so they could suggest things like that.
    .
    Just saw your post, and I remember this. Where I live, upstate NY, Time Warner is all we have. It's goddamn infuriating. They outsource their work to some shit up here, all the wires are absolute crap. The City of Amsterdam is so taxed that a slight wind will knock your internet out for 15mins. Anytime it's really hot or really cold, slightly windy...or just at random your internet drops out. And usually you have digital phone too so that drops as well so you can't even call Time Warner to complain. When you do call they treat you like a retard no matter how much experience you have on your end and things you have tried...then tell you it's YOUR fault.

    Not to mention their pricing. I recently moved out, looked at their pricing bundles for certain things (Phone,Cable,internet)...their bundle packs of 2-3 items make it sound as if you're getting a deal. Which you should, you're buying more then 1 service so give me a little discount...well bundle prices are just the regular prices added up, there is no discount at all. I called them up and asked them why and they were like "Oh there's a discount there!". I told the guy "No, I can do basic addition".


    Back on topic. Like Darus said. "Bandwidth is not a commodity."

    Sick of these companies trying to make it sound as if the internet is a piece of pie, and once it's all eaten you're fucked! So pay extra for more pieces now or you won't get ANY when your neighbor takes them all!!!

  20. #20
    TIME OUT MOTHERFUCKER

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    at least you cant get kidnapped and locked in a rape facility because you don't follow google's rules.

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    By djzombie in forum General Discussion
    Replies: 12
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