Rant: What are you paying for internet in your country?

[questio verum]

While doing a little all-too-rare websurfing today; I ran across a topic in a feedback column that really got my pulse up. This may be old news to some of you, but my work keeps me away from the 'net a lot these days, so I was surprised to read the report Comcast admits stacking the room for FCC hearing. It outlined Comcast's questionable behaviour at a recent FCC public hearing. Specifically; hiring street people to stand in line for admission, and in many cases to actually fill seats inside the hearing room. I found that there's actually quite a bit of related coverage on the 'net. Ars technica parses it out quite nicely (as you would expect). And Portfolio.com posted a picture that speaks volumes.

This was obviously a ploy to skew the room in Comcast's favor. Something about that really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The hearing was on Comcast's practice of throttling bandwidth and dropping connections for p2p or media file downloads that are not owned or controlled by Comcast. Amazingly, Comcast publicly admits as much. They are not the only bsp to get 'ig'nant' with customers and the surfing public (Case in point: AT&T's recent announcement) but they do seem to excel at it.

Having said this, let me disclose that I am a Comcast customer. There no longer exist any competitors in my area. (They were all swallowed up by Comcast)

All of this got me wondering about isp's and bsp's in other countries. Is it like the pharmaceutical industry, where US-based pharmcos rape their US customers while selling their products at a discount in the rest of the world. I know that telcos are not multinational in the same way as pharmcos, but I wonder how many individuals are sitting board members in multiple telcos across the globe. Am I just being paranoid? I've heard some glowing reports about internet service in parts of Europe and Japan. I get the feeling that progress and the cost-to-benefit ratio for the end-user here in the US has entered the dark ages. I'm wondering what the real skinny is.

So back to my original question: What are you paying for internet? I especially would like to hear from our members outside of the US. Are you happy with the service you're getting. Are your isp/bsp's policies too restrictive? What would you change about it if you could?


qv

[cousinlucky]

I'm afraid Comcast is only the tip of the Iceberg!! All of the ISP's want to " tier " their service so that they can get more money out of their customers.

I live in New York City and only have dial-up that costs $9.95 per month. The " lawmakers " in Albany intend to tax purchases made over the Internet in the near future. If and when that happens it will not be long before they will be " taxing " the kind of Internet service each and every New Yorker has.

" Milk the Public for Every Nickel Possible " is alive and well in the U.S.A.

[fingal]

Pipex is my ISP, and I chose them because they appear 'Linux friendly'. I don't hear much controversy about tiered services here in the UK. Our business models seem less aggressive and more customer friendly than in the US.

I do think that if tiered services come into play in the US then the idea will spread! I pay £15 per month for my connection (that's around $30 - so not all that cheap). I also have to pay my phone company a monthly standing charge of £30... By now you can work out the conversion rate.

On a side note, my broadband connection wasn't very special... until recently. My speeds were low, but there must have been a network upgrade because I'm getting much faster downloads.

So yes, I'm happy with the service I get. There are no download restrictions, the speed is good. It's a bit more expensive than I would like, but my ISP leaves me alone and they don't rock the boat.

[MikeTbob]

First off, let me say that I don't think you are being paranoid at all. These are real issues involving every single one of us, whether we're on broadband or dialup connections. We all know that the Industry is watching Comcast, and if they are allowed to get their way then the rest of the industry will follow suit.
I haven't had any troubles with my ISP yet (Charter), but I suspect it won't be long after Comcast "Sets the standard".

My family gets the "package deal": Phone, Broadband,Cable TV, Tivo-like features and extra options like HBO, Showtime, Etc.. for about $190.00 USD. per month.

" Milk the Public for Every Nickel Possible " is alive and well in the U.S.A.

Nay, it's become our national Moto! heh

[jayd512]

I can't really give an answer to the question at hand... I happen to work for my ISP so I get a hefty discount. But $30 is the standing price in the area. Very fast, very stable. Had a few problems last night when I got home from work, but that's rare.

In a side note to you, Mike... you're absolutely right about Charter eyeballing Comcast and how they do in "Setting the standard." I say this because I used to work there, and still have friends there that keep me in the know.

[darkrose0510]

Well I'm in Australia, with Pacific Internet as my ISP. I pay AU$120/month for my ADSL connection, I think that's about US$110. I have a business account, which costs more, but it does mean I have a 99.9% SLA and a dialup backup; so if anything gets blocked, or if the connection drops out at all, I can ring them up, scream bloody murder, and get a big discount for that month.

There's about 5 ISP's in my area, one of which offers cable, but their uptime is crap - constant dropouts for long periods - and they block a pile of ports. So I'm paying more for a slower connection than what I could get, but a pretty much guaranteed connection and not having anything blocked is worth it IMO.

[MikeTbob]

So I'm paying more for a slower connection than what I could get, but a pretty much guaranteed connection and not having anything blocked is worth it IMO.

Amen Sister!
I'd rather pay a little more for what I want, not what some ISP gives me.
I am utterly shocked at the behavior of Comcast. Groklaw.net keeps a good watch on them, so that's where I get most of my Info on this kind of behavior in general. I think we have a few Providers in my area, If my ISP starts acting like Comcast, you can bet your last dollar I will be moving to a more friendly ISP.
(I hope this isn't consider "bashing", I don't want this thread locked)

[devils casper]

I am using AitTel Broadband connection + phone at Rs. 500 per month ( thats around US$12 ). There is a lot of competition between four major ISPs here. BSNL, Reliance, Airtel and Connect. All of these try to their best to lure customers and support is damn good. No problems at all till now.

[daark.child]

My ISP is Virgin Media. I pay £35 (US $70) for a 20 megabit connection (soon to be 50 megabit for the same price). There are no download caps, but they do traffic shaping for a few hours during the evening. Personally this hasn't affected me much because I tend to use the connection heavily during the day or early hours of the morning, but I can see how it can annoy some users. The service in my area tends to be very reliable and we have had very little downtime over the years.

[djrsml]

My ISP is HughesNet, I live in farmland USA so choices are very limited here. I pay $59.00 per month for my services, so far I'm satisfied with the quality of service except for the "fair use policy" which limits me to a maximum of 200MBs in a 24hr
period except for the hours of 3to6a.m.
I can't wait for some competition to arrive so prices will fall, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.