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I worked for a dial up ISP as a network engineer around the same time frame mentioned in the article. A standing instruction was to, as time allowed, manually

by rus20376 3y ago

I worked for a dial up ISP as a network engineer around the same time frame mentioned in the article. A standing instruction was to, as time allowed, manually look at usage across members and force resets on any long standing connections! Mainly this was because it was a small company and this freed up the number of possible incoming connections to avoid busy signals. I was very junior and cringe at how naively unaware I was of any ethical considerations!

sdenton4 3y ago
It's not necessarily unethical - it's a problem of resource allocation under constraints. You can either let the person who stays connected for weeks stick around, or free up space for less frequent users who are also paying customers.
- pengaru 3y ago
  The overcommit ratio for its phone lines and modems is a knob the business selects, and it's directly linked to their profits. There's clearly an incentive to skimp here and resort to underhanded tactics. If you've promised unlimited use to the customer, it's definitely unethical.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Eh, many times, especially in the 95-97 era overcommit was not optional... that is the telco could not physically provide enough lines. The other issue we ran into was 'short-distance' calls over telco borders. In our case GTE didn't have enough connectivity to SWB to handle the number of long running connections our users. Customers in those cities would get a different mix of busy signals when we had available capacity. Was over a year before a new fiber project between the telcos was finished before the situation was resolved.
    - pengaru 3y ago
      > Eh, many times, especially in the 95-97 era overcommit was not optional... It's not an all-or-nothing switch. Obviously the less ethical/more greedy players overcommitted more than others.
      - Alupis 3y ago
        Not everything you disagree with is greed or unethical. The parent clearly explained physical constraints of small dial-up ISP's and their Telco providers. The early internet and it's ISP's were vastly different than today. It wasn't uncommon for your local city to have several, or dozens of small startup ISP's available. Few, if any, were big enough to just let anyone do whatever they wanted - these were tying up phone lines, a more-or-less physical resource at the time.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      IMO this is all fine so long as it is clearly explained and advertised as such.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  It is unethical to tell people something based on assumptions you made and then do something else when it doesn't work out. If it comes down to kicking people off, you need to reimburse them for their payment and say 'don't come back' and keep only the 'good' customers, or you need to invest in more phone lines and hope you make the money back. The solution is not to advertise one thing then appeal to 'but we actually meant this other thing' when it doesn't work out the the way you think it should.
- oxygen_crisis 3y ago
  I'd say it depends on whether they were doing it only when connections were near 100% utilization or if it's something they did arbitrarily. Seems like if you're advertising unlimited service the least you could do is deliver it as much as possible for extreme users and only bump them when they might be denying other customers access to the service. If it's something that happens routinely you need to expand your capacity to make good on your advertised offering.
fatnoah 3y ago
> I worked for a dial up ISP as a network engineer around the same time frame mentioned in the article. I was an intern at a large tech company (rhymes with bun) at the time, and one of my tasks was to reset idle ISDN connections that were eating the capacity of our POPs.

sdenton4 3y ago

It's not necessarily unethical - it's a problem of resource allocation under constraints. You can either let the person who stays connected for weeks stick around, or free up space for less frequent users who are also paying customers.

pengaru 3y ago
The overcommit ratio for its phone lines and modems is a knob the business selects, and it's directly linked to their profits. There's clearly an incentive to skimp here and resort to underhanded tactics. If you've promised unlimited use to the customer, it's definitely unethical.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Eh, many times, especially in the 95-97 era overcommit was not optional... that is the telco could not physically provide enough lines. The other issue we ran into was 'short-distance' calls over telco borders. In our case GTE didn't have enough connectivity to SWB to handle the number of long running connections our users. Customers in those cities would get a different mix of busy signals when we had available capacity. Was over a year before a new fiber project between the telcos was finished before the situation was resolved.
  - pengaru 3y ago
    > Eh, many times, especially in the 95-97 era overcommit was not optional... It's not an all-or-nothing switch. Obviously the less ethical/more greedy players overcommitted more than others.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      Not everything you disagree with is greed or unethical. The parent clearly explained physical constraints of small dial-up ISP's and their Telco providers. The early internet and it's ISP's were vastly different than today. It wasn't uncommon for your local city to have several, or dozens of small startup ISP's available. Few, if any, were big enough to just let anyone do whatever they wanted - these were tying up phone lines, a more-or-less physical resource at the time.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    IMO this is all fine so long as it is clearly explained and advertised as such.
Eisenstein 3y ago
It is unethical to tell people something based on assumptions you made and then do something else when it doesn't work out. If it comes down to kicking people off, you need to reimburse them for their payment and say 'don't come back' and keep only the 'good' customers, or you need to invest in more phone lines and hope you make the money back. The solution is not to advertise one thing then appeal to 'but we actually meant this other thing' when it doesn't work out the the way you think it should.
oxygen_crisis 3y ago
I'd say it depends on whether they were doing it only when connections were near 100% utilization or if it's something they did arbitrarily. Seems like if you're advertising unlimited service the least you could do is deliver it as much as possible for extreme users and only bump them when they might be denying other customers access to the service. If it's something that happens routinely you need to expand your capacity to make good on your advertised offering.

fatnoah 3y ago

> I worked for a dial up ISP as a network engineer around the same time frame mentioned in the article. I was an intern at a large tech company (rhymes with bun) at the time, and one of my tasks was to reset idle ISDN connections that were eating the capacity of our POPs.