RE: The home user problem returns

["Brian Loe" <knobdy () stjoelive com>]

> I think you're wrong.

Well, you are entitled to think that. :)

 
> When you have irate customers on the phone saying that the 
> fact their computer is infected is your fault, or that they 
> are getting all this spam and we should be doing something 
> about it, or that their connection is horribly slow and we 
> explain that it's because their computer is filled to the 
> gills with spyware and the customer has accidentally left a 
> p2p app running that allows un-restricted uploads, then I do 
> think that the ISP should be doing something about it. 

I think you're wrong. I don't think an ISP should baby-sit anymore than I
think the government should. We are all responsible for our own actions.
That's life. Its called personal responsibility and I support it
wholeheartedly.


> If enough customers demand something of a business, it's 
> generally within that business's best interest to listen to 
> their customers.

ONLY, and I mean ONLY, if that business has provided its customers with the
idea that it CAN control such things. What we're finding now is that
customers are getting even more dissatisfied with their providers because
they can NOT prevent it from happening - it's CUSTOMER INITIATED!!!! The
spam, the viruses...you can't prevent me, your customer, from being stupid.
Trying to do so only ruins the service for all of us. Now MY bandwidth is
getting eaten by your good intentions just because my neighbor can't keep
his teenager off the porn sites.

Conversely, my sharing music over a P2P connection has absolutely NO bearing
on my neighbor, or you - my ISP, because I'm PAYING for that bandwidth...and
surely you're not going to give me extra, right? Of course not. In fact, if
you're an ISP of any size you're actually selling more bandwidth than you
can actually provide. Sure, you can have a 5 meg pipe to your house - all
50k of you - our DS3 can provide that!! 


> If you happen to be in the minority that 
> doesn't want or need this sort of service, then perhaps the 
> ISP can find a way to give you access to your crap, but if 
> it's going to affect the other users that have expressed that 
> they don't want that crap, then you're probably going to find 
> yourself hunting for another ISP.  I expect and hope that 
> this is exactly what more and more ISPs will begin to do, now 
> that the problems are getting so bad.

PLEASE explain to me how my P2P app is going to affect you - my ISP - or my
neighbor?



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