🚀 go-pugleaf

Jacob Suter <jsuter@intrastar.net> wrote...
:
:Any use of the term "unlimited" by any ISP is a pure lie 

  Most--but not all.  Some really are unlimited--MSN never
tries to kick you off nor does AOL (although that was the
result of a lawsuit by many states Attorney Generals).  

:and you should avoid the ISP like the plague...  If its 
:really unlimited, 

  Or they are a real large national and can absorb the
cost of a small number of users actually using it that
way (which is certainly they're right) by the larger
base of users who just use it for email and an occasional
web browse.  It's the smaller ones that especially run
into trouble with REAL Unlimited.

:its dedicated, and then if they have anything higher than 
:a 1:1 user-to-line ratio, you're limited by busy signals.

  Which constitutes fraud as well when you've paid for
unlimited.  In this day and age no user should tolerate
a busy signal from an ISP.

:Unmetered is a much better term.  Its also legally much 
:safer, unless

  Same damn thing-you can't advertise 'Unmetered' and then
meter it!  That's just as crooked.

:you think you're better than Webster when defining words, or
:bastardizing them.

  That's the speciality of Texas.Net--perhaps they'll publish
their own dictionary and redefine all our words.


:Its sad how many liars and rip-offs there are in the industry.

  That's quite true.  Texas.Net though has been amoung the
most blatant I've see--and their Rosenthals censorship
of Jerry and others who try to critisize them is really
sickening (they cancel all his posts to any of the austin
groups.


:Jacob H. Suter
:Intrastellar Internet Service

  I hope you don't advertise "Unmetered" sir and
then Meter--I get the feeling you don't.

  I don't understand why most ISPs don't drop the
unlimited nonsense and charge $20 a month or whatever
for some reasonable baseline of hours--like 250 hrs.
a month and then charge 20 cents and hour or so when
users exceed that.  For some strange reason many in
the ISP industry think they are somehow immune from
ordinary business ethics.

:
:(Come on, spam me, please :)

  Well if you keep it up for any length of time
Mr. Rosenthal will start forging cancels on all
of your posts.

                      Steve
                      news.admin.censorship

:
:Jerry wrote:
:> 
:> On Thu, 06 Aug 1998 01:24:50 GMT, "A Texas.net Customer"
:> <aCustomer@texas.net> wrote:
:> 
:> >Dusty Rhodes wrote:
:> >> ...
:> >
:> >Exactly.
:> >
:> >Andy Macfarlane wrote:
:> >> Bear with me a minute here and I'll try to answer your questions.
:> >
:> >Thanks for your response.  Actually, I didn't have any questions,
:> >just pointing out the inappropriateness of the term "unlimited".
:> >The solution is simple, as Dusty Rhodes suggests: Get rid of the
:> >term from the web site description.
:> >
:> >> But nobody is ever disconnected at 3 hours or 5 or 10 more. You get an
:> >> e-mail suggesting that your configuration is out of whack maybe.
:> >
:> >No, I didn't.  I didn't get any e-mail warning.  Instead, my
:> >account was locked ("put on security hold") without warning.  I
:> >had to call in to find out what happened, and what I needed to do
:> >to have it unlocked.  I was told by the AUP Dept. that they have or
:> >are trying to have an e-mail warning system, rather than just
:> >locking people out without prior notice.  But it certainly
:> >didn't happen in my case.
:> >
:> >I would like to suggest that, in cases of AUP time violations,
:> >customers be e-mailed a warning notice first, before being
:> >locked out and their accounts "marked for deletion".  And not
:> >just if they go little bit over, but also if the go *way* over
:> >the limit.  In my case, I went *way* over, not intentionally
:> >but because my reading of the AUP several months ago
:> >turned out to be behind the times.  As I stated, the
:> >AUP stated 8-10 hours per session (not per day) several
:> >months ago.  It now reads per day.   But I wasn't
:> >regularly checking it for changes since I signed up.
:> >
:> >Locking without some kind of warning seems a bit
:> >heavy-handed.  Of course, Texas.net can do whatever
:> >it wants.  But how about a little courtesy?  Innocent
:> >until proven guilty?
:> >
:> >> As of this moment, the word "Unlimited" does not appear
:> >> in our description of account types.
:> >
:> >You're right, now it doesn't anymore!  You (or someone there)
:> >must have just changed it. :)  It now says "unmetered".
:> >It also no longer says, "That means that you can dial
:> >in as often as you like whenever you like without
:> >having to worry about payment schedules or hourly fees."
:> >You must have just deleted that sentence. :)
:> >
:> >Unmetered?  Oh, alright.  Sure, service isn't charged like a
:> >parking meter, but you *do* measure (= meter) the time in
:> >order to enforce the limitation.  But I'll let that go.
:> >
:> >> I will still describe the Lonestar account as
:> >> giving "Unlimited access" to users...
:> >
:> >If you *have* to use the darn word, say "almost unlimited" or
:> >"practically unlimited" or some such.  The term "unlimited"
:> >without a qualifier in close proximity should be reserved
:> >for a 24 hour/day service, such as a dedicated account or
:> >cable modem service.
:> >
:> >> No trickery here, I assure you. We don't deceive people
:> >> just to get their business for a month or two, I assure you.
:> >
:> >Oh, I believe you.  I'm told that at least one person
:> >there has been trying to get your webmaster to change
:> >the description, but he/she apparently hasn't gotten
:> >around to it, being busy doing other "higher priority"
:> >things than maintaining the web site.
:> >
:> >But it seems fixed now (ignoring that questionable
:> >word, "unmetered").  Thanks.
:> 
:> A Texas.net Customer,
:> 
:> Macfarlane has regularly "blown smoke" in defense of the less than
:> forthright advertising tactics of Texas.Net and this episode is just
:> more of the same.
:> 
:> Texas.Net wants to reap the benefits of appearing to be unrestrictive
:> while at the same time eliminating users who consume so many resources
:> that they lose money on them.
:> 
:> To use Mcfarlane's all-you-can-eat buffet example, TN wants to be
:> perceived as being  all-you-can-eat but when a customer eats too much,
:> TN tries to coerce him into eating less or bans him from returning for
:> future meals.
:> 
:> There are still many ISPs who do not impose usage limits with peculiar
:> definitions of "unlimited" or "unmetered". Still others have decided
:> not to absorb the hit of heavy resource users and have gone to a
:> monthly hour limit. That is far more honest than the vague doublespeak
:> that Mcfarlane offers up.
:> 
:> I sometimes make mutli-hour transfers of data while I sleep. I suspect
:> that my ISP loses money on my account but I've signed up ~20 newbies
:> for them and they're all likely online less than 50 hours a month. TN
:> would want to take the profit from the low resource users that I
:> signed up and TOS me.
:> 
:> I would never recommend a company that takes a "buyer beware" approach
:> to advertising. I think the best approach to such advertising is to
:> advertise the truth that lurks behind the curtain and I can find no
:> more on-topic groups than austin.internet, houston.internet.providers,
:> dfw.internet.provides, dfw.internet.
:> 
:> --
:> jw
: