Fair Access Policy Notice

[News]

Originally Posted by Terabyte

The "I didn't know excuse" has never washed.

CSRs, I'm sure, have heard it all...guess what...over, and over, and over, when consumer gets throttled, here comes the calls.

A number of years ago, DishNetwork put on the NASA channel, which would have long minutes of silence....guess what a large number of consumers did? Yes, they called CSRs to complain there was no audio on NASA channel.

Human behavior can be predictable....hence, I suspect WB is attempting to deal with an issue that comes up, over and over, via consumers calling CSRs.

[Terabyte]

So again, we have a basic disagreement, News. You want to save the CSRs, who are paid to take these calls; and I want you, me and other customers, who have paid for internet service and not nanny net, to not have to put up with intrusive redirects and click-throughs when we have done nothing wrong.

[YellowHammer]

If it were the government hijacking his links, he'd be on the other side of the fence.

When an ISP is allowed to hijack links, where do they stop?
-"Wildblue has deemed www.youtube.com unsuitable because it consumes excessive bandwidth."
-"Wildblue has blocked access to www.peakoil.com. TP deem it necessary!"
-"Are you sure certain that you want to see nekkid women? We suggest www.disney.com. This message is sponsored by Disney!"
-"Remember to drink your ovaltine!"
-"Winchester.com is blocked by Wildblue. You'll shoot your eye out!"

[News]

Originally Posted by YellowHammer

When an ISP is allowed to hijack links, where do they stop?

My Online Credit Card company sometimes has IN YOUR FACE advertisement, before you can access your account.

WB stops with their FAP warning....for the new meat...this would be ideal.

[YellowHammer]

ideal would be a newbie friendly tool for monitoring usage. Don't hijack my browsing experience.


That is my opinion. I'll keep mine, you keep yours.

[Terabyte]

Originally Posted by News

My Online Credit Card company sometimes has IN YOUR FACE advertisement, before you can access your account.

WB stops with their FAP warning....for the new meat...this would be ideal.

Some people see things one way and some another.

I see what happens at your CC company as something they choose to do with a web site they own. It literally and figuratively is their domain and you are a visitor to their web site even if you are a customer of their services over all.

With WildBlue, the service I've bought is high-speed internet access with some rules I agree to, but the primary product is internet access. If upon accessing the WildBlue site I get an advertisement, that is their property and they can do what they want with it. If I don't like it I need not visit it. However, if WildBlue redirects my web surfing in general and interjects an ad, and no less one I have to click-through to resume my legitimate activities, that is not alright. The fact that is a warning and not an ad makes it just as wrong to me. It is an inappropriate means of informing customers of their usage.

Being a long time Netizen (so old I still know that word) I know that most informed internet users would be up in arms if they knew what WildBlue were testing, because when ISPs have tried similar in the past, they have been roundly condemned. Since this test is limited and WildBlue is a very small piece of the internet pie, they can quietly go about it. If this were AT&T or Comcast there would be a huge outcry and this would be front page news.

Sometimes the internet only remains useful by masses of outrage when the rules, written and unwritten, are broken. All my experience tells me that WildBlue is pushing into territory that if allowed to stand will be a free-for-all for other ISPs and a huge loss for the users/customers.

Further, for many of us voting this down with our pocketbooks puts us back on dial-up which is the only other affordable option at this point, and this makes for a rather untenable situation if they go live with this system wide.

The only reason I'm holding back and not trying to sound a more widespread alarm is that this is still a test and I'm not a test subject.

[equivocal]

You have a cell phone plan with 7500 minutes. You understand standardized usage is that you make calls by pressing the digits then Send and get connected to the called number. Suddenly, without warning, all of a sudden instead of being connected to the called party you get a message: "Your carrier, AV&S, always acting in your best interest, has noticed a recent spike in the number of minutes you have used. You may use all of your minutes soon. Press or say # to hear your contract. Once you have finished you will be connected to the number you requested. It's for your own good."

Based on the discussion of WB's warnings, there would be 3 reactions:
1) AV&S didn't given any warning that they were going to do this.
2) AV&S did this so that their customer support drones won't be tied up with people complaining about using all their minutes.
3) AV&S has interfered with the fundamentals of the service they are paid to provide.

I think people have enough experience with the real world to realize that once a company has a captive audience they rarely resist the temptation to pitch other "valuable offers".

Since I have Reaction 3 I hope that 1 & 2 people would reconsider if the same problem were presented in a context they might understand more intuitively. Of course, this is the real world and that's just naive.

[Spice300]

Originally Posted by Terabyte

It is an inappropriate means of informing customers of their usage.

WB is testing this redirected page while they are shutting down the servers that Fapzilla can use to read the FAP meter. They are actively eliminating our ability to read our FAP meters in a way that provides useful information to manage our usage while providing and testing inadequate, annoying replacing tools. 100 MB resolution for the FAP meter is too vague. A message that warns about the rate of usage is intended to control our usage. Here comes the new Wildblue. Same as the old Wildblue except with lipstick.

[Terabyte]

equivocal, your analogy is spot on. Thanks for writing it.

Spice, you are right. You can put lipstick on it, but it is still a... I agree with you. As I pointed out in a previous message, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that intimidating customers into using less bandwidth is exactly the point. Still it is one thing to mess with the FAP Meter and quite another thing to break the internet with click-through redirects.

[News]

Originally Posted by Terabyte

With WildBlue, the service I've bought is high-speed internet access with some rules I agree to

There you go...WB reserves the right to change in the future...signed contract.

Like I stated, there should be an opt-out or opt-in option....I doubt if this will lead to other in your face ads/etc.

[Terabyte]

Originally Posted by News

There you go...WB reserves the right to change in the future...signed contract.

Like I stated, there should be an opt-out or opt-in option....I doubt if this will lead to other in your face ads/etc.

News, how trusting you are! If I had told you last year that I was afraid of WildBlue dong click-through redirects for any reason this year, you would have been the first to say, "I doubt that they will".

Sure I agree to some rules and WildBlue gives me internet service. For example I knew about the FAP and made an informed decision that the FAP was still better than dial-up. And yes, they like all other ISPs have lopsided contracts (and very "uneven" contracts are sometimes found by courts to be so lopsided as to not be valid contracts.) I'm month to month -- have been for a long time, so there is only a contract as long as I pay my money and they give me the basic internet service I pay for. This redirect click-through breaks that basic internet service.

The point was and still is that what WB is doing breaks the internet and there is no opt-out or opt-in. They haven't done it to me yet, but if some of us don't raise an alarm they will roll this out and it is basically and inherently wrong. And just what is to stop them from doing more of the same? You tell me. Like you said, they can change anything at any time.

Of course. I'm month to month and I can leave WB. I don't want to go back to dial up or have to invest in Hughes equipment, so leaving isn't easy, but I will if I have to (and no, I can't get EVDO, a WISP or other service at my home). Obviously like most here, if I had a better choice I'd already be gone.

I don't trust WildBlue to have my best interests at heart. So, please tell me on what basis I should trust WildBlue?

[News]

Originally Posted by Terabyte

So, please tell me on what basis I should trust WildBlue?

Money talks...and bS Walks....hence, offend the customer, and kiss your business goodbye.

[Terabyte]

Originally Posted by News

Money talks...and bS Walks....hence, offend the customer, and kiss your business goodbye.

Finally, we agree

[Spice300]

Customers were very upset when WB reduced our usage thresholds in March 2006 and degraded service with DAMA. They offended the customers and remained in business.

Wildblue is messing with one of the features that makes its service better than HughesNet's: they have left us alone to manage our usage as we choose provided we stay under the usage thresholds. WB is becoming a nanny.

[News]

Originally Posted by Spice300

Customers were very upset when WB reduced our usage thresholds in March 2006 and degraded service with DAMA.

Unless there was heavy downloading/uploading, I rather doubt most people were aware of lowered Caps.....but for DAMA, they may have noticed web pages, especially https pages, loading a pinch slower, but downloads/uploads would have been normal.

Myself, I've never come close to maxing out usage....but, with children in household, I would suspect those parents may have been affected if kids were P2Ping/etc.