We really need to mandate serious fines for companies that violate trust regulations, like 20% of the estimated annual profits (based on the previous five years) or 5% of the company's valuation. You know, the way a traffic ticket is about a week's pay.
If their contempt of law is recurring or particularly egregious, nationalize the fucker.
It's crazy that this isn't being properly implemented (probably easier to say and talk about, but stil) because really hefty fines are the only way to stop companies from bullshitting their literal customers.
If there is one thing we know, than it is that companies will not stop at hurting people, the environment or fucking over their customers if it means they make a good profit off of it and can get away with it. It's literally a simple calculation for them, nothing more. Literally kill an entire ecosystem and risk poisoning tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of humans? No problem, as long as it pays off.
Ceo's in orange jumpsuits.
Municipal Broadband would be nice to have.
So they broke the law, so somebody there who signed off on this will be going to jail, right?
Right?
US is a weird country.
I live in EU, and I haven't even heard of bandwidth quotas on home fiber. Cheap mobile subscriptions have some, though. But mostly it's just no limit.
It used to be that way in the U.S. but Americans love companies extracting rent at the same time the public is subsidising them.
Americans are ignorant and utterly obsessed with laissez-faire capitalism
greedy mf's, they don't give a shit about their customers
what's funny is all these internet companies can just give everyone affordable high speed and still make a profit
In my country it is a normal practice that internet providers start fucking your connection up so you move to a different plan. Faking that the connection is failing, limiting downstream...
This is one reason why privacy is important, companies knowing your info directly impacts your wallet.
This particular one has nothing to do with privacy. They have to offer a specific type of plan by law, they nerfed that plan.
Which is not to say corporations knowing everything about you is good in any way, but this is simply a different issue (with corporations)
Agreed. Whether they can see your traffic or not, they can still determine how much bandwidth you're using and what plan you're using.
Technically under the most private way of doing things we could just lump all traffic from a geographical area into one and not let them know who is who. So then they wouldn't even know how much bandwidth you used. They also wouldn't be able to do seperate "plans" it would just be you paying a flat rate for access to the same internet connection everyone else uses.
I'm not sure if that would be the most equitable solution either as what would prevent Netflix or YouTube from setting their servers up in your geographical region and consuming all your bandwidth for their own profit while only paying the same rate that you do? It could also be challenging for rural regions as they'll have a lot fewer people sharing the cost of the infrastructure over a large area.
Reminder that net neutrality is dead. I use a VPN because otherwise my ISP decides on my behalf when I've had enough 1080p YouTube and slows down specifically that connection
Wait, you can get around T-Mobile's YouTube throttling with a VPN? 50GB is a pittance; I am beyond done with having to switch to 480p after I use it all up in a day. Most games are 100+ GB these days and a Blu Ray REMUX can easily top 70GB, so it's stupid easy to tear though 50GB simply by downloading one single game or movie. Unlimited should mean unlimited.
You might even be able to bypass hotspot limits on mobile data by setting client device's TTL to 65, which gets reduced to Android's default of 64 once routed through your phone. This can be done with sysctl on Linux.
Alternatively, if that doesn't work, just run an HTTP proxy server on your phone. Tinyproxy is easy to set-up, and is available in default Termux repository.
bigger they get, shadier they deal
ISPs doing dirty tactics, what else is new?
The same companies who display in the open "up to" on all of their plans. Their speeds are never guaranteed.
Up to includes zero.
This is exactly why I refuse to even consider those silly hot spot cellular based services for your home. They spend decades capping and throttling that shit. There is no trust there.
What's fun is that I don't even get the throttled speed before hitting my cap, but if I go over due to however they actually throttle it my Internet becomes useless.
I tried to use one for a month when I cancelled Comcast. They’re garbage. For home internet, you need it to always work. Having no internet is unacceptable, especially if you work from home. Well, the cellular hotspot services go back and forth between having signal and not having signal, so the internet is routinely not working.
50 GB? That’s a couple iOS or other OS update, or just streaming video a lot. A quick check shows my house over 500GB last month.
From the linked press release:
Governor Kathy Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced an agreement with T-Mobile USA, Inc. (T-Mobile), requiring the company to improve and expand the home internet service it offers eligible New Yorkers under the New York Affordable Broadband Act (ABA).
As a result of OAG’s investigation, T-Mobile will remove the data caps associated with its ABA plans and deliver 25 Mbps download speeds to all ABA plan subscribers, unless network congestion requires temporary reductions. In addition, T-Mobile will offer ABA plans in all areas where it provides home internet service and make its ABA plan webpage discoverable by search engines.
WHERE'S THE MOTHERFUCKING PUNISHMENT?! All I see is where they're making T-mobile pinky-promise to start following the law they've been breaking all this time, while being allowed to keep every single goddamn penny of their ill-gotten gains!
NO mention of prison time for executives.
NO mention of punitive fines.
NO mention even of restitution to wronged customers, which is less than the bare fucking minimum!!!
The only even slightly useful part of that press release is this at the bottom, because every New Yorker should be absolutely livid about this weak-ass corporatist shit:
Contact the Governor’s Press Office
Contact us by phone:
Albany: (518) 474-8418
New York City: (212) 681-4640
Contact us by email:
Press.Office@exec.ny.gov
What do you mean? Low-income consumers who feel they were wronged have the right to fair compensation through forced arbitration.
(Tonge firmly in-cheek, if not obvious)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
