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The author had me up until the moment he claimed that internet access is a "right". Ok, so let's say internet access is a "right". Rights often come within a fr

The author had me up until the moment he claimed that internet access is a "right". Ok, so let's say internet access is a "right". Rights often come within a framework. You have many rights that are yours for the losing. Your freedom to come and go freely, for example. If you break a law, you lose your freedom by being put in jail. To say something is a "right" is to say that it ought to be available, or that the government should not infringe upon your ability to seek that right unduly. In this case, the author broke the rules of the framework, and thus his right was suspended. What a right to broadband is not: an irrevocable license to use as much of a shared resource as possible for a fixed price you deem appropriate. Author, if you're reading, this is why people are saying you sound entitled. You're conflating "rights" with your own viewpoint that you should have unlimited internet access at a fixed price.

beaumartinez 15y ago
The UN recently proposed that Internet access be a human right.[1] [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-ri...
megaman821 15y ago
Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Except if you go over a few times they won't ban you from their service for a year. They just want you to curb your use, which is exactly what this guy was willing to do.
- reduxredacted 15y ago
  To be clear, though: Water and Electric utilities in the US (and I believe this is true of Canada) are also heavily regulated, including the requirement of a government approved meter that measures in a consistent and accurate manner. In addition, one pays based on what one consumes at rates that are at least partially controlled by another regulatory body. In our area, this is the case because there we have no choice to use a different electricity or natural gas provider. The same could be said about our options for broadband service, except that it lacks the same oversight. As a result, municipalities that have AT&T, Wide Open West, Comcast and a variety of less-fast DSL options have significantly better "specials" and even service options. I, for instance, can subscribe to Comcast Business service, whereas my parents a few cities over, where Comcast is the only reasonable choice, can only use their residential option. I agree, it's not a right, but I think the author is correct in stating that Internet access is an essential utility.
  - knowtheory 15y ago
    One should add that it's ridiculous that Comcast counts 250gb transferred up or down, since almost all of their customer related information refers to down speeds.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  My water and electricity utilities charge per gallon and kilowatt-hours, respectively. Comcast does not charge by the megabyte. Instead, it is all you can eat, until Comcast says that is all you can eat. This guy was actually using his residential account for business purposes.
  - mentat 15y ago
    Both of these utilities have sliding scales (at where I've lived in California) which become punitive at higher levels. Comcast could do that same as long as they provided reasonable visibility.
  - jerf 15y ago
    "Instead, it is all you can eat, until Comcast says that is all you can eat." No. A year or two ago, Comcast clarified their position on bandwidth usage as allowing you to use 250GB a month. This is now visible on their account, although I always have to poke around to get it: After logging in at comcast.com, go to the Users and Settings tab and look in the middle column. There's a link there to click that will let you look at your last three months history. I have 16GB in April, 80 in May, 57 in June, and 7 on my current billing cycle. They no longer advertise "all you can eat" and you are provided tools to see what is going on. It is still bizarre to me that you can't pay for more usage, and you are free to disagree with the policy in philosophy or in detail, or to be annoyed at how much brow-beating it took to get Comcast to this point, but they are no longer just randomly cutting you off when you silently cross an arbitrary standard. It is now cutting you off when you cross a public threshold, and you can easily see where they think you are in the month.
    - sitkack 15y ago
      And why can't you pay $60 for the next 250 GB?
    - keenerd 15y ago
      But it is very very easy to go over 250GB in a DAY, let alone a month. 250GB ÷ 15MB/sec = 4 hours 36 minutes Doesn't it seem a little odd that you can blow through an entire month's service in less than a day?
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  At least in Canada, there are rules governing when the electricity company can cut you off. To oversimplify, you cannot be cut off during winter.
  - someone13 15y ago
    Really? Can you point to a link about this? I'd love to see what the rules actually say. NOTE: What I wrote above sounds kind of confrontational - it's not. Badly worded, yes, but I believe you and am actually interested in seeing the rules.
    - timmaah 15y ago
      Turn to google my friend.. http://liheap.ncat.org/Disconnect/disconnect.htm http://liheap.ncat.org/Disconnect/disconnect.htm
    - bryanlarsen 15y ago
      It looks like you were right to be confrontational. According to Google, that was a temporary moratorium that has expired: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/electricity/articles/2004/ltw04a27.phtml http://www.ontariotenants.ca/electricity/articles/2004/ltw04... It's certainly a common misconception. I certainly know that people in the "which bill do I pay this month" scenario often choose to hold off on paying Hydro during the winter. It's also quite likely that Hydro is less likely to disconnect during the Winter. Frozen water pipes can cause a lot of damage...
      - pyre 15y ago
        To be clear Ontario residents (really just in the GTA) refer to electricity as 'Hydro' because most(?) of it comes from the hydro-electric plant near Niagara Falls, and the company is called Toronto Hydro. Personally, whenever someone refers to the 'hydro bill' I have to internally connect the dots that it's not the water bill. In this case, it's even less clear to those not in the know, because the next sentence refers to water pipes.
- fr0sty 15y ago
  >Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. They do? Where is this the case? My water and electricity usage have no monthly cap and are only shut off if I fail to pay the bills.
  - evan_ 15y ago
    My friend had some kind of washer hose burst in his house when he was away for the weekend. The damage was minimal (it was in his unfinished basement) but the water company, detecting a large amount of water being used, came by and shut his water off. "Oh but that's different" - not really. Same thing would have happened if my friend was intentionally trying to fill his basement with water.
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      What about a pool?
      - EdwardMSmith 15y ago
        (not relevant to the article, but...) when you fill a pool, generally you call the water company and they'll hook a meter to a fire hydrant. This will fill a lot faster then a 1" home service, and you also won't be charged for sewer as well as the water. This can save significant money, since, at least where I live, sewer fees are about 8x the actual water cost.
    - Luyt 15y ago
      I suspect that would not have been a problem. The water company guy rings at your friends door: Water Company Guy: "Just checking, we think there might be a burst pipe around here somewhere. Have you noticed some flooding?" Your friend: "No. I'm just filling up my pool however, but everything is fine." Company guy: "Ah, ok. Excellent. Have a nice day!"
      - evan_ 15y ago
- matwood 15y ago
  Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Most utilities cannot just shut you off. Many states have laws that determine when and how. The biggest thing about a utility though is that you pay for usage. If you want to leave your lights on all day, they really don't care as long as you continue to pay your bill. Personally, I don't see a problem with metered broadband, and only have a problem with the current pricing structures. Look at the mobile space to see how messed up it can be. Companies set prices at a usage level that is just below what a person really needs so they force people into the next tier with the hopes the person will not actually use it. Instead, I would support a flat rate per GB. I've seen numbers like $6/GB thrown around for mobile (it would obviously be a lot lower for line connected broadband, but you get the idea). If we do end up with broadband treated as a utility in the US, I would bet that it will be metered and charged for usage. It's the most fair way to support the system and will naturally prevent people from doing something similar to leaving their lights on all day.
  - aeontech 15y ago
    $6/Gb on mobile? That would be wonderful compared to, let me check... $20/Mb that I just paid for checking google maps over AT&T roaming when lost in another country. Sigh.
    - matwood 15y ago
      I think the $6/GB came from the original unlimited plans in the US that were $30/month and had soft caps of 5GB. Pretty much all those plans have since disappeared. The point is, I think most consumers are fine with metered data if they feel like it's mostly fair.
      - chris11 15y ago
        Virgin mobile has unlimited internet plans that start at $25 a month. I'm not sure what the soft cap is though. http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-plans.jsp http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-...
martianpenguin 15y ago
He never said he wanted unlimited data for a fixed price... he just wants access to the internet, and they cut him off. They didn't offer him another 250gb for 60 bucks or another 50gb for 10 bucks or anything...
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Agreed. A better way of putting this would be "electronic access to the world web of information and services is becoming an extension of our brains, and as such some degree of connectivity should be considered a public commons that the government is required to provide to each citizen, much the same as parkland, airspace, or waterways." This implies that some parts of infrastructure are private (personal access devices), some parts are public (perhaps a limited amount of bandwidth donated to the public in return for use of the airwaves), and some are commercial (the infrastructure from the ISP to the rest of the net). Each segment in this scheme has special needs, responsibilities, and privileges. Using the word "right" as a blanket statement doesn't cut it -- it begins to substitute ranting for reasoning. I sympathize with the author, but their problem is lack of competition, not abuse of their rights.
fleitz 15y ago
"Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest that the authors impression of the services is exactly what you say it isn't. If you read this you can see that Comcast does indeed try to convince the consumer that you can transfer any amount of data you want for a fixed monthly fee: http://consumerist.com/2010/03/comcast-unlimited-usage-doesnt-mean-unlimited-usage.html http://consumerist.com/2010/03/comcast-unlimited-usage-doesn... Comcast as what is essentially a public utility operates within a framework of the FCC which creates a non-competitive marketplace so that service providers such as Comcast can ostensibly focus on providing better service to the public rather than focusing on competitive efforts such as better marketing, customer service, etc. The deal between Comcast and the gov't is essentially "We'll take care of competition, you focus on providing great infrastructure to the public" In a very close to completely free market such as a bakery I'd agree with you but Comcast operates in a different kind of market, also depending on when the person signed up one of the terms marketed might have been "Unlimited Internet" which would suggest that you could consume unlimited services for a fixed price. Also, if there is a 250GB cap then Comcast should just terminate the service for the remainder of the month, and change the wording of their marketing to "Transfer upto 250GB per month for a flat monthly fee" In a non-competitive market fueled by public expendature I don't see why it would be inappropriate to force service providers to provide access to the infrastructure to all under the same terms. For example: You pay a fixed price for a fixed amount of bandwidth and your service stops working when you exceed that. Comcast is the Internet Soup Nazi: "No internet for you! 1 Year!"
- dspillett 15y ago
  > "Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest The weasely way around that, used certainly by UK ISPs in defending their use of the word "unlimited" is that you have unlimited access (24/7/365.25) rather than unlimited bandwidth use. While they meant "use as much bandwidth as you like" they never specifically said that, so they no claim they didn't mean that and noone can proove otherwise. The claim is that it is unlimited compared to dial-up days when ISPs had to maintain a massive rack of modems so, particularly for cheap or free-call ISPs, you would have limits like "up to X hours per day" and "no session longer than X hours". So while it can be said to be deceptive and dishonest, it doesn't actually breach truth-in-advertising laws (at least over here). There is an ISP over here (Sky) making a big thing of actually offering "use as much bandwidth as you can", though there is more weaseling there - there is heavy protocol level traffic shaping which limitis how much you can actually use and there is still a "fair use policy" which is sufficiently vague that it could mean anything. I pay good money for what is essentially a business account. It has a 300G limit, but that can carry over from month to month and if I go over (unlikely) and don't have any carry-over left from last month they'll just charge me a known rate for the extra (charging by byte, not in much larger blocks). That is the only way (here at least) you can get a proper, unfiltered, unshaped, un-anything-you-didn't-ask-for-ed connection. Pay for what you want and you have a chance of getting what you pay for.
JamieEi 15y ago
Sorry, Comcast has been handed a monopoly franchise for broadband in many parts of the US, including Seattle. With their obscene profits comes an obligation to provide acceptable service in all reasonable cases. This is not an equal bargain between two independent parties -- the OP has ZERO alternative broadband providers and the real battle Comcast is fighting is against Netflix.
- koenigdavidmj 15y ago
  Sorry, but Qwest and Clearwire both cover nearly all of Seattle as well. You can argue about how broad you have to be to be called broadband, but they are both going to be suitable for a home user.
  - JamieEi 15y ago
    I have Qwest because Comcast can't provide reliable service to my 1920s apartment building, and I only get 2.6 Mbps down. I wouldn't think I'd have to explain on HN why that's not a viable alternative. It's certainly not for the OP's use case of streaming video.

beaumartinez 15y ago

The UN recently proposed that Internet access be a human right.[1] [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-ri...

megaman821 15y ago

Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Except if you go over a few times they won't ban you from their service for a year. They just want you to curb your use, which is exactly what this guy was willing to do.

reduxredacted 15y ago
To be clear, though: Water and Electric utilities in the US (and I believe this is true of Canada) are also heavily regulated, including the requirement of a government approved meter that measures in a consistent and accurate manner. In addition, one pays based on what one consumes at rates that are at least partially controlled by another regulatory body. In our area, this is the case because there we have no choice to use a different electricity or natural gas provider. The same could be said about our options for broadband service, except that it lacks the same oversight. As a result, municipalities that have AT&T, Wide Open West, Comcast and a variety of less-fast DSL options have significantly better "specials" and even service options. I, for instance, can subscribe to Comcast Business service, whereas my parents a few cities over, where Comcast is the only reasonable choice, can only use their residential option. I agree, it's not a right, but I think the author is correct in stating that Internet access is an essential utility.
- knowtheory 15y ago
  One should add that it's ridiculous that Comcast counts 250gb transferred up or down, since almost all of their customer related information refers to down speeds.
chopsueyar 15y ago
My water and electricity utilities charge per gallon and kilowatt-hours, respectively. Comcast does not charge by the megabyte. Instead, it is all you can eat, until Comcast says that is all you can eat. This guy was actually using his residential account for business purposes.
- mentat 15y ago
  Both of these utilities have sliding scales (at where I've lived in California) which become punitive at higher levels. Comcast could do that same as long as they provided reasonable visibility.
- jerf 15y ago
  "Instead, it is all you can eat, until Comcast says that is all you can eat." No. A year or two ago, Comcast clarified their position on bandwidth usage as allowing you to use 250GB a month. This is now visible on their account, although I always have to poke around to get it: After logging in at comcast.com, go to the Users and Settings tab and look in the middle column. There's a link there to click that will let you look at your last three months history. I have 16GB in April, 80 in May, 57 in June, and 7 on my current billing cycle. They no longer advertise "all you can eat" and you are provided tools to see what is going on. It is still bizarre to me that you can't pay for more usage, and you are free to disagree with the policy in philosophy or in detail, or to be annoyed at how much brow-beating it took to get Comcast to this point, but they are no longer just randomly cutting you off when you silently cross an arbitrary standard. It is now cutting you off when you cross a public threshold, and you can easily see where they think you are in the month.
  - sitkack 15y ago
    And why can't you pay $60 for the next 250 GB?
  - keenerd 15y ago
    But it is very very easy to go over 250GB in a DAY, let alone a month. 250GB ÷ 15MB/sec = 4 hours 36 minutes Doesn't it seem a little odd that you can blow through an entire month's service in less than a day?
bryanlarsen 15y ago
At least in Canada, there are rules governing when the electricity company can cut you off. To oversimplify, you cannot be cut off during winter.
- someone13 15y ago
  Really? Can you point to a link about this? I'd love to see what the rules actually say. NOTE: What I wrote above sounds kind of confrontational - it's not. Badly worded, yes, but I believe you and am actually interested in seeing the rules.
  - timmaah 15y ago
    Turn to google my friend.. http://liheap.ncat.org/Disconnect/disconnect.htm http://liheap.ncat.org/Disconnect/disconnect.htm
  - bryanlarsen 15y ago
    It looks like you were right to be confrontational. According to Google, that was a temporary moratorium that has expired: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/electricity/articles/2004/ltw04a27.phtml http://www.ontariotenants.ca/electricity/articles/2004/ltw04... It's certainly a common misconception. I certainly know that people in the "which bill do I pay this month" scenario often choose to hold off on paying Hydro during the winter. It's also quite likely that Hydro is less likely to disconnect during the Winter. Frozen water pipes can cause a lot of damage...
    - pyre 15y ago
      To be clear Ontario residents (really just in the GTA) refer to electricity as 'Hydro' because most(?) of it comes from the hydro-electric plant near Niagara Falls, and the company is called Toronto Hydro. Personally, whenever someone refers to the 'hydro bill' I have to internally connect the dots that it's not the water bill. In this case, it's even less clear to those not in the know, because the next sentence refers to water pipes.
fr0sty 15y ago
>Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. They do? Where is this the case? My water and electricity usage have no monthly cap and are only shut off if I fail to pay the bills.
- evan_ 15y ago
  My friend had some kind of washer hose burst in his house when he was away for the weekend. The damage was minimal (it was in his unfinished basement) but the water company, detecting a large amount of water being used, came by and shut his water off. "Oh but that's different" - not really. Same thing would have happened if my friend was intentionally trying to fill his basement with water.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    What about a pool?
    - EdwardMSmith 15y ago
      (not relevant to the article, but...) when you fill a pool, generally you call the water company and they'll hook a meter to a fire hydrant. This will fill a lot faster then a 1" home service, and you also won't be charged for sewer as well as the water. This can save significant money, since, at least where I live, sewer fees are about 8x the actual water cost.
  - Luyt 15y ago
    I suspect that would not have been a problem. The water company guy rings at your friends door: Water Company Guy: "Just checking, we think there might be a burst pipe around here somewhere. Have you noticed some flooding?" Your friend: "No. I'm just filling up my pool however, but everything is fine." Company guy: "Ah, ok. Excellent. Have a nice day!"
    - evan_ 15y ago
matwood 15y ago
Your water and electricity utilities most likely also have caps on how much water or electricity you can use before they cut you off. Most utilities cannot just shut you off. Many states have laws that determine when and how. The biggest thing about a utility though is that you pay for usage. If you want to leave your lights on all day, they really don't care as long as you continue to pay your bill. Personally, I don't see a problem with metered broadband, and only have a problem with the current pricing structures. Look at the mobile space to see how messed up it can be. Companies set prices at a usage level that is just below what a person really needs so they force people into the next tier with the hopes the person will not actually use it. Instead, I would support a flat rate per GB. I've seen numbers like $6/GB thrown around for mobile (it would obviously be a lot lower for line connected broadband, but you get the idea). If we do end up with broadband treated as a utility in the US, I would bet that it will be metered and charged for usage. It's the most fair way to support the system and will naturally prevent people from doing something similar to leaving their lights on all day.
- aeontech 15y ago
  $6/Gb on mobile? That would be wonderful compared to, let me check... $20/Mb that I just paid for checking google maps over AT&T roaming when lost in another country. Sigh.
  - matwood 15y ago
    I think the $6/GB came from the original unlimited plans in the US that were $30/month and had soft caps of 5GB. Pretty much all those plans have since disappeared. The point is, I think most consumers are fine with metered data if they feel like it's mostly fair.
    - chris11 15y ago
      Virgin mobile has unlimited internet plans that start at $25 a month. I'm not sure what the soft cap is though. http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-plans.jsp http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-...

martianpenguin 15y ago

He never said he wanted unlimited data for a fixed price... he just wants access to the internet, and they cut him off. They didn't offer him another 250gb for 60 bucks or another 50gb for 10 bucks or anything...

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Agreed. A better way of putting this would be "electronic access to the world web of information and services is becoming an extension of our brains, and as such some degree of connectivity should be considered a public commons that the government is required to provide to each citizen, much the same as parkland, airspace, or waterways." This implies that some parts of infrastructure are private (personal access devices), some parts are public (perhaps a limited amount of bandwidth donated to the public in return for use of the airwaves), and some are commercial (the infrastructure from the ISP to the rest of the net). Each segment in this scheme has special needs, responsibilities, and privileges. Using the word "right" as a blanket statement doesn't cut it -- it begins to substitute ranting for reasoning. I sympathize with the author, but their problem is lack of competition, not abuse of their rights.

fleitz 15y ago

"Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest that the authors impression of the services is exactly what you say it isn't. If you read this you can see that Comcast does indeed try to convince the consumer that you can transfer any amount of data you want for a fixed monthly fee: http://consumerist.com/2010/03/comcast-unlimited-usage-doesnt-mean-unlimited-usage.html http://consumerist.com/2010/03/comcast-unlimited-usage-doesn... Comcast as what is essentially a public utility operates within a framework of the FCC which creates a non-competitive marketplace so that service providers such as Comcast can ostensibly focus on providing better service to the public rather than focusing on competitive efforts such as better marketing, customer service, etc. The deal between Comcast and the gov't is essentially "We'll take care of competition, you focus on providing great infrastructure to the public" In a very close to completely free market such as a bakery I'd agree with you but Comcast operates in a different kind of market, also depending on when the person signed up one of the terms marketed might have been "Unlimited Internet" which would suggest that you could consume unlimited services for a fixed price. Also, if there is a 250GB cap then Comcast should just terminate the service for the remainder of the month, and change the wording of their marketing to "Transfer upto 250GB per month for a flat monthly fee" In a non-competitive market fueled by public expendature I don't see why it would be inappropriate to force service providers to provide access to the infrastructure to all under the same terms. For example: You pay a fixed price for a fixed amount of bandwidth and your service stops working when you exceed that. Comcast is the Internet Soup Nazi: "No internet for you! 1 Year!"

dspillett 15y ago
> "Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee" this would suggest The weasely way around that, used certainly by UK ISPs in defending their use of the word "unlimited" is that you have unlimited access (24/7/365.25) rather than unlimited bandwidth use. While they meant "use as much bandwidth as you like" they never specifically said that, so they no claim they didn't mean that and noone can proove otherwise. The claim is that it is unlimited compared to dial-up days when ISPs had to maintain a massive rack of modems so, particularly for cheap or free-call ISPs, you would have limits like "up to X hours per day" and "no session longer than X hours". So while it can be said to be deceptive and dishonest, it doesn't actually breach truth-in-advertising laws (at least over here). There is an ISP over here (Sky) making a big thing of actually offering "use as much bandwidth as you can", though there is more weaseling there - there is heavy protocol level traffic shaping which limitis how much you can actually use and there is still a "fair use policy" which is sufficiently vague that it could mean anything. I pay good money for what is essentially a business account. It has a 300G limit, but that can carry over from month to month and if I go over (unlikely) and don't have any carry-over left from last month they'll just charge me a known rate for the extra (charging by byte, not in much larger blocks). That is the only way (here at least) you can get a proper, unfiltered, unshaped, un-anything-you-didn't-ask-for-ed connection. Pay for what you want and you have a chance of getting what you pay for.

JamieEi 15y ago

Sorry, Comcast has been handed a monopoly franchise for broadband in many parts of the US, including Seattle. With their obscene profits comes an obligation to provide acceptable service in all reasonable cases. This is not an equal bargain between two independent parties -- the OP has ZERO alternative broadband providers and the real battle Comcast is fighting is against Netflix.

koenigdavidmj 15y ago
Sorry, but Qwest and Clearwire both cover nearly all of Seattle as well. You can argue about how broad you have to be to be called broadband, but they are both going to be suitable for a home user.
- JamieEi 15y ago
  I have Qwest because Comcast can't provide reliable service to my 1920s apartment building, and I only get 2.6 Mbps down. I wouldn't think I'd have to explain on HN why that's not a viable alternative. It's certainly not for the OP's use case of streaming video.