ISPs are starting to reveal precisely how they’re going to punish violators of the Copyright Alert System six-strike anti-piracy policy. My favorite punishment, so far, is from Comcast, which will castigate its customers by being dicks. According to TorrentFreak:
After four alerts the ISP will “hijack” web-browsers of suspected serial pirates with a persistent pop-up notification, making it impossible to browse the Internet. The pop-up will disappear after the customer “resolves the issue” with a Customer Security Assurance professional.
Well…that’s one way to do it. For many people, losing Internet service is a worrisome penalty. Adding obnoxious pop-ups to the mix seems unnecessary. It also costs money to implement the notification system and to pay the Customer Security Assurance professionals that respond to appeals. It’s Comcastic!
*sigh*
This whole thing is a fantastic waste of time and money. It’s so frustrating, but hardly surprising, that ISPs are making huge efforts with the Copyright Alert System instead of taking Internet speeds — and technology that would take advantage of those speeds — to the next level.
I wish ISPs had faces, so that I could punch them.
I wonder if it is a real person or a recording you’d have to interact with?
I am amazed at what some of these companies believe are rational decisions.
“How should we best serve our customers?”
“Let’s aggravate the hell out of them by overcharging them and then wasting money on unnecessary pop-ups instead of fixing our infrastructure.”
“Brilliant!!”
This is G-4’s parent company. The fact that they make stupid decisions is not news to me.
Ha! That was true during the time I was there. NBC Universal is the big boss now.
Cablevision will turn off your connection for a 24 hour period. I bet there will be no issues with your modem being reprovisioned after that period.
I’d thought you’d get a kick out of this article:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/01/time-warner-cable-there-is-no-consumer-demand-for-google-fiber
-M
Ha yeah. I wonder how wired will compete with LTE and LTE advanced in the future if they aren’t offering ludicrous speeds (haha) in conjunction with 1TB caps or no caps at all. Soon a consumer will easily have a mobile connection faster than what is available at home and is also now portable. A company like TW has to differentiate itself and provide something that makes a consumer feel that connection is necessary.
I do like their rubric though: consumers in our area aren’t leaving us for faster speeds or demanding faster speeds from us. RPad.tv regulars are smart enough to realize this is a load of garbage. Of course consumers won’t flee your service when you are the only show in town and lobby state legislatures (Georgia and North Carolina) to outlaw municipal fiber plans in underserved and unserved areas. I need a drink now.
I wonder if Sony will be a factor. The company is going big with 4KTV and the PlayStation 4 is a potential gateway device. The current speeds and caps used by most American ISPs make downloading 100GB movies a PITA. I was thinking about this earlier in the week for a potential Coffee Talk. I shall think about it more over the weekend.
I don’t see how Sony could be a factor unless they plan on writing checks to ISPs to violate net neutrality.
This won’t be an issue until a 4KTV is considerably cheaper.
Think about subsidized boxes. There are many ways Sony could partner with ISPs.
I don’t see it Ray. Sony isn’t known for infrastructure for content delivery and I don’t think ISPs are going to let people subsidize a PS4 to stream 4K movies on their network. They seem to be just as content to let you pay a king’s ransom for a 720p stream with bi-annual rate hikes.
The only content provider that I see as a potential for this idea would be Dish and there surely isn’t any infrastructure in that situation that would accommodate 720 much less 4K.
well thats Comcast for ya . i have had them for over 3 years ( its AT&T or Comcast) since I am online have 3 kids with xboxes , blu ray players , iphones , Android tablets I am kinds stuck with Comcast as AT&T just bites . But in over 3 years they have yet to fix the lines outside every time it rains my net goes physco… I guess they cant afford to fix what needs to be fixed for their customers but they can afford to be a** hol es when they want
That’s Comcastic! Sorry, had to be said.