From: Dobbins, Roland [mailto:rdobbins@arbor.net] On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:53 AM, Mark Andrews wrote:
Such lines are tantamount to extortion especially if the ISP supplies commercial grade lines.
Patrick's talking about consumer broadband access. Such AUP stipulations are quite common.
This is in no way 'tantamount to extortion'. Folks can either accept the AUP, or choose not to enter into a contract for the service in question under those conditions; there is no compulsion or coercion to do so.
And that would be a valid response if we actually lived in a place where I, or anyone else, had more than two choices, both offering roughly the same terms and pricing. In my little corner of Fairfax Co, we have Cox or FiOS. Across the Potomac in Montgomery, they can pick between Comcast and FiOS. I hear that in other bits of the US, your cable and telco might be different, but other than the label, nothing else is. Jamie