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When I pay for a carrier, I want to know what I should be able to count on, and what I can't count on. I can't up vote this enough. I think false advertising

When I pay for a carrier, I want to know what I should be able to count on, and what I can't count on. I can't up vote this enough. I think false advertising really needs to be clamped down on across the board, but when it's something I understand the nuances of it really gets to me. Why do companies find it so difficult to just say what it is they are selling in clear concise language, without being purposely misleading, or hiding things in fine print?

clairity 7y ago
> "Why do companies find it so difficult to just say what it is they are selling in clear concise language, without being purposely misleading, or hiding things in fine print?" because it's more profitable? it's a pretty direct line between the pressure to produce profits and lying to people to get it, particularly as it gets harder to produce profits through honest means. remember that capitalism entices participants with profits to spur innovation, not to indulge the profit-taking itself, so any temporarily profitable enterprise should attract interest and drive down profits as competition enters the industry. so professional managers (e.g., executives) sometimes (often?) choose to lie & cheat to lengthen the period of profit-taking. it's inexplicable that we accept that as normal, as if holding people & companies accountable for their words would stifle commerce and descend us into a totalitarian dystopia. instead, such accountability would only mean that getting filthy rich would be harder, while attaining comfortable wealth would be unchanged, if not more attainable.
stochastic_monk 7y ago
When I pay for compute on AWS, I get an SLA with guarantees. Why are citizens afforded any less?
- mattnewton 7y ago
  Because AWS is competing for savvy customers, and US telecoms increasing look like a cartel.
- rayiner 7y ago
  You can pay for a fiber line with an SLA, etc. They cost hundreds to thousands of dollars a month, even in downtown areas with several business fiber providers to choose from.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dboreham 7y ago
  You do realize that AWS SLA is about as much BS as the "unlimited" cell data plans we're discussing here, right? All it says is that if they fail to deliver service, with a bunch of exclusions that make it very unlikely they will ever do so, then you get to not pay for that service that you didn't get. http://aws.amazon.com/compute/sla/ http://aws.amazon.com/compute/sla/
  - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
    That is very much more real than what you get from an ISP. If an ISP doesn't meet the advertised bandwidth, at best you get an apology. More likely you get nothing. You definitely aren't getting a refund for the service you didn't get.
    - krageon 7y ago
      > with a bunch of exclusions that make it very unlikely they will ever do so I think the meat of their argument was that they have weaseled it in such a way that you're not getting what you expect unless you read all the fine print. Then it turns out you get basically nothing. From that point it's not a stretch to say the situation has not improved when compared to consumers: They also get nothing.
lrem 7y ago
What false advertising? The ad clearly reads "up to 50mbps" and the 1.1mbps the copper in your neighbourhood allows is indeed positively in the 0-50 range! Damn I hate consumer ISPs, with a few small exceptions.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Why is the bill not "Up to $50" though?
- lugg 7y ago
  We cover false and misleading advertising with the same laws here in Australia. ISPs are required to give estimated primetime speeds you can expect for a given plan. E.g. for my 100mbs plan, they tell me that in my area, I can expect 82mbs during evening peak. We also have some ISPs who are being transparent about over provisioning and even go as far as stopping selling into an area until they acquire more bandwidth into a node. More on topic, this is being caused by companies milking their old networks unwilling to upgrade. I suspect it is due to execs believing their underlings when they're told their network upgrades were supposed to alleviate capacity problems at a great cost. Fact is, usage is evolving, go to somewhere like south Korea and YouTube streaming 4k on your phone during your commute is the norm. People have the bandwidth there, and they use it. Here, people don't have the bandwidth, so they don't, but they would. ISPs don't seem to realise this and think it's a select few ruining the service for the whole with their pesky streaming. When really it's just changing customer needs and reluctance to serve.
- Swizec 7y ago
  To be fair I have Comcast and pay for "up to 1Gbit" but on the weekend late at night when everyone is asleep I get 1.5Gbit. Of course during the day when people actually use the network it's down to 0.5Gbit, down to 0.3Gbit during prime Netflix hours.

clairity 7y ago

> "Why do companies find it so difficult to just say what it is they are selling in clear concise language, without being purposely misleading, or hiding things in fine print?" because it's more profitable? it's a pretty direct line between the pressure to produce profits and lying to people to get it, particularly as it gets harder to produce profits through honest means. remember that capitalism entices participants with profits to spur innovation, not to indulge the profit-taking itself, so any temporarily profitable enterprise should attract interest and drive down profits as competition enters the industry. so professional managers (e.g., executives) sometimes (often?) choose to lie & cheat to lengthen the period of profit-taking. it's inexplicable that we accept that as normal, as if holding people & companies accountable for their words would stifle commerce and descend us into a totalitarian dystopia. instead, such accountability would only mean that getting filthy rich would be harder, while attaining comfortable wealth would be unchanged, if not more attainable.

stochastic_monk 7y ago

When I pay for compute on AWS, I get an SLA with guarantees. Why are citizens afforded any less?

mattnewton 7y ago
Because AWS is competing for savvy customers, and US telecoms increasing look like a cartel.
rayiner 7y ago
You can pay for a fiber line with an SLA, etc. They cost hundreds to thousands of dollars a month, even in downtown areas with several business fiber providers to choose from.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dboreham 7y ago
You do realize that AWS SLA is about as much BS as the "unlimited" cell data plans we're discussing here, right? All it says is that if they fail to deliver service, with a bunch of exclusions that make it very unlikely they will ever do so, then you get to not pay for that service that you didn't get. http://aws.amazon.com/compute/sla/ http://aws.amazon.com/compute/sla/
- TheCoelacanth 7y ago
  That is very much more real than what you get from an ISP. If an ISP doesn't meet the advertised bandwidth, at best you get an apology. More likely you get nothing. You definitely aren't getting a refund for the service you didn't get.
  - krageon 7y ago
    > with a bunch of exclusions that make it very unlikely they will ever do so I think the meat of their argument was that they have weaseled it in such a way that you're not getting what you expect unless you read all the fine print. Then it turns out you get basically nothing. From that point it's not a stretch to say the situation has not improved when compared to consumers: They also get nothing.

lrem 7y ago

What false advertising? The ad clearly reads "up to 50mbps" and the 1.1mbps the copper in your neighbourhood allows is indeed positively in the 0-50 range! Damn I hate consumer ISPs, with a few small exceptions.

NullPrefix 7y ago
Why is the bill not "Up to $50" though?
lugg 7y ago
We cover false and misleading advertising with the same laws here in Australia. ISPs are required to give estimated primetime speeds you can expect for a given plan. E.g. for my 100mbs plan, they tell me that in my area, I can expect 82mbs during evening peak. We also have some ISPs who are being transparent about over provisioning and even go as far as stopping selling into an area until they acquire more bandwidth into a node. More on topic, this is being caused by companies milking their old networks unwilling to upgrade. I suspect it is due to execs believing their underlings when they're told their network upgrades were supposed to alleviate capacity problems at a great cost. Fact is, usage is evolving, go to somewhere like south Korea and YouTube streaming 4k on your phone during your commute is the norm. People have the bandwidth there, and they use it. Here, people don't have the bandwidth, so they don't, but they would. ISPs don't seem to realise this and think it's a select few ruining the service for the whole with their pesky streaming. When really it's just changing customer needs and reluctance to serve.
Swizec 7y ago
To be fair I have Comcast and pay for "up to 1Gbit" but on the weekend late at night when everyone is asleep I get 1.5Gbit. Of course during the day when people actually use the network it's down to 0.5Gbit, down to 0.3Gbit during prime Netflix hours.