Sprint’s WiMAX in Baltimore: FUP again
In Sprint Nextel’s unveiling of its new Xohm WiMax service in Baltimore, it also revealed rules for using its service that one public interest group warns may prevent users from full and unfettered access to the Web. At question is Sprint’s Acceptable Use and Network Management Policy for its high-speed data network. In the usage policy statement, Sprint warns against usage that could “result in an excessive burden of system or network resources.” In those cases, “Xohm may use various tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain bandwidth intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing,” the company states. Sound familiar? Didn’t Comcast just get dinged by the Federal Communications Commission for deliberately slowing traffic of file-sharing application Bit Torrent?
Comcast is fighting that order in court and says now it won’t target specific applications but will continue to manage its traffic. Sprint’s policy statement is pretty similar to those of other wireless carriers. But after the decision against Comcast last August and the evolution of wireless to more and more Internet services, Sprint’s practice of managing its network traffic is coming under scrutiny. Sprint said by managing traffic of heavy users, it helps the carrier provide better overall service for all its users. But public interest group Free Press said Sprint’s policy could go against the FCC’s broadband policy statement which promotes open Internet access and prevents Internet service providers from intentionally slowing down service for use of certain applications – such as file-sharing applications. Sprint, which has been working to stem customer losses from its existing services, said consumers in Baltimore would be able to try out the service for $10 a day or pay $25 a month for home access or $30 a month for mobile service.
Source: Reuters, Washington Post
Comments(7)
Step right up, Step right up….
Ride the bumper cars for only a dollar and hit anyone you want. Yes sir all the fun you can have for just a dollar.
Bob says: Heck yea Bumper cars.. I love bumper cars and pays the man.
Bob gets in and fastens his belt and steps on the pedal.
WOOHOO bob thinks, this is awesome as he turns to veer into an elderly woman riding in a pink and purple polka dotted car.
Take that grandma, says Bob.
All of a sudden Bobs car slows to a crawl as the little old lady drives away.
Bob looks up and asks the man taking the money; Hey What gives buddy?
The man smuggly replies well we cant have you running around hitting everyone like that, its just not fair to them. So we leveled the playing field on you.
Bob thinks , Imagine that they let me pay for this ride only
to let me find out later that its not really bumper cars at all.
second post!
dont forget that kids are here on bord, so dont be too harsh to them
so in USA most ISPs don’t have a a Fair Usage Policy? Pretty much every ISP in the UK has one, which goes from putting you on a really crap connection with all the other ‘downloaders’ so basically you can’t do anything on your connection, or they lower your speed to a certain MB (not as drastic as the pervious measure i mentioned)
SO I have been really excited about WiMax since I read about it years ago on Wikipedia. But it never occurred to me that private businesses would run it instead of what would seem the place of city governments.
This is 100% for the fail, if it’s run by big corporations.
Comcast has just implemented the European sytle consumption policy. Comcast say’s “One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online”. The monthly limit is 250GB. After that you get a stern warning.
250GB a month I can live with. I wish comcast would provide a wya to check your current status like cell phone companies do. Monitoring your bandwith would be nice. I have four PC’s networked at home using a residential gateway and most bandwith monitoring programs are made for large companies. This software can run into the thousands of dollars!
Since this type of consumption rule has been a staple of the European ISP’s for sometime, what type of software is out there to effectively monitor your bandwith usage? This is new here in the USA and we’ve had it pretty good her up until now. Time/Warner is the largest ISP with Comcast in second place. Time/Warner is will soon adopt a similar plan to curtail the “heavy users” from hogging the bandwith.
This is something that just does’t make sense to me. Comcast states that “We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.” They have got to be kidding! Does Comcast expect us to believe that a mere 1% of their users are responsible for poor service?!? The management at Comcast at are about as smart as a bucket full of slugs.
That is the problem with cable service. Shared lines. I can get ADSL with NO RESTRICTIONS and 6MB down and 1.5MB up for about the same price. I’ve it in the past but with much slower speeds (768/256). Then Comcast broadband came to town and I jumped ship in favor or much faster speeds.
Ok, my fingers are sore now. Just had to vent but still would like some suggetions on bandwith monitoring. Thanks folks!
^ Online Eye Pro