Comcast-Time Warner Merger

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but some of us like Internet porn.

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's interesting. Anecdote being what it is, we're a FIOS household and Netflix has never been great on it, but I haven't seen anything new. I often wonder if people are more looking for places to blame that accepting some different limitations.

I would also gladly cut the cord, but local baseball blackout rules make that an intolerable situation for me.

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

We have business class cable, so it's pretty fast. We've got subscriptions to the major internet providers and watch everything next month/day. We have an internet subscription for the NFL football season and my husband watches multiple games on multiple devices. We listen to baseball games on the internet/radio on the porch since the MLB hasn't seen fit to provide a way to let us give them money.

All of that is still WAY less expensive than cable television.

I grew up with three channels that were always fuzzy. I adore television, but if it disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't die.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I would love to give the MLB money for the season pass/extra innings thing. That + Hulu + Netflix + Amazon + an antenna would cover 90% of our watching at a fraction of the cost. Alas.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

That's interesting because I've read the one thing that's driving increasing costs for cable carriers in terms of CONTENT, are major league sports fees.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

ESPN in particular, yeah. Plus, the blackout stuff makes it really easy to push the extra fees because they're basically guaranteed ratings.

NESN and YES make money hand over fist, it's crazy.

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

It's a really long story, but we weren't able to see our beloved Yankees play because regional sports is run very badly on cable television. Since we weren't able to watch the Yankees play on cable, we found other ways to see/hear the games and cut the cord.

Baseball is still an excellent sport on the radio - Especially when you can sit on the porch with a beer on a hot day and listen. It's just summer.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

http://davesblog.com/blog/2014/02/05/verizon-using-recent-net-neutrality-victory-to-wage-war-against-netflix/

Verizon has an interest in making Netflix look bad as they've been partners with Redbox Instant since its inception in 2012.

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

I've been reading about the deal with Verizon. If I had Verizon, I'd be really ticked off. But, we have TWC and noticed the same slow down on Netflix only - Hulu and Amazon work just fine.

There's a war brewing between the major carriers and content providers and it's gonna get ugly. Unfortunately, it's the consumer that gets hit in the crossfire. My husband is in the middle of watching Breaking Bad on Netflix and the buffering is infuriating!

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

That's the point where I get a torrent and don't feel bad about it. You guys think you have it bad, we have no way of legally acquiring Game Of Thrones without a $75/m cable TV subscription or waiting 12 months for the DVDs to come out (this is happening more and more with TV). Then some things, like The Daily Show, are impossible to get legally.

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

Yup. There are some things that can't wait. And I don't feel bad about it.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Most piracy is market failure, not a crime. If I have to put up with the market in my education system, then I'll happily use these excuses in my markets.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know one guy can do some traceroutes and he thinks he then understands how the traffic works on the other end, but this reads like a lot of low-evidence theorizing.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

lol ok

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

But, that is the tool you would use to gather such evidence.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

If you had access to all areas, yes. He doesn't. And neither does random customer service rep.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

The consumer's approach is solid with what tools he has. Discover a slow down, trace it, then ask the provider. Not sure what better report he could have made. And the provider told him flat out "yes", after they were caught though, could have been ignorance.

The providers are admitting they are doing so and patenting algorithms (https://torrentfreak.com/att-develops-credits-system-to-limit-file-sharing-bandwidth-140129/) for throttling and such, clearly its going that direction.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's a good approach from the consumer end, yes. It tells us nothing about the parts of the traffic he can't see.

And the provider told him flat out "yes", after they were caught though, could have been ignorance.

There is no way a random customer service rep knows this. You know this, right? He doesn't have access to the backend data either.

The providers are admitting they are doing so and patenting algorithms for throttling and such, clearly its going that direction.

The providers can do it, there's just nothing to indicate that they are at this time.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

here is no way a random customer service rep knows this.

Why wouldn't customer service reps know when certain [popular] sites are having their data throttled on their networks, if enough customers are asking about it?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

That's not information they'd want to have customer service people screw up. You know, like this guy did.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

How did the customer service person screw something up?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

There is no way a random customer service rep knows this. You know this, right? He doesn't have access to the backend data either.

It's legal, why wouldn't they admit it?


The providers can do it, there's just nothing to indicate that they are at this time.

You yourself said you personally have problems accessing Netflix and nothing but Netflix for some long period of time. But I guess your own experiences aren't evidence of anything.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's legal, why wouldn't they admit it?

The consumers are idiots, mostly.

You yourself said you personally have problems accessing Netflix and nothing but Netflix for some long period of time. But I guess your own experiences aren't evidence of anything.

That's correct, anecdote is not data. And no, not "nothing but Netflix." FIOS has had issues with Spotify and YouTube as well, but it's not an issue of neutrality, but one of network consistency.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

There is no way a random customer service rep knows this. You know this, right? He doesn't have access to the backend data either.

Provider customer support must field calls like this all day. I bet they have more insight than do consumers. Or I would if I worked there! ;-)

You don't need complete transparency to determine where a delay occurs though, IP is cool like that.

But to know why its happening would take some insight, I agree.


there's just nothing to indicate that they are at this time.

Throttling is standard operating procedure for good or ill. Companies see the throttling techniques themselves as intellectual property (http://www.google.com/patents/US20140010082). The questions are more why and how. Again, companies are patenting technologies to more intelligently and effectively throttle based on a variety of situations. I'm thinking its part of the business model of all providers.

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[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

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[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Those sorts of techniques are important to have handy in order to combat rogue operations and attacks and such. It's not always sinister.