"Cable Modem Depreciated (7 of 6)" by Troy H. Cheek on Sep 06, 2004

A few people have written in asking how my cable modem is working out. To quote my buddy Hoyt, "Not too good!"

As you might remember from my Cable Modem series of articles which I started writing years ago and finally finished weeks ago, my distant (and possibly unrelated) cousin Bill Cheek of scanner modification fame talked me into signing up for Ultra Fast Internet Service through my local cable company. Said service was not available at the time.

Bill was convinced that it would be available in my area soon. It wasn't. In fact, it was many years before it was available. It was even longer before I could convince my local cable company to sign me up. The sales staff and the tech staff apparently didn't agree on whether or not such service was actually available in my area. The same sales staff that was trying to sell me digital premium movie channels was also telling me that I couldn't have internet access because it required digital service.

Once I got the cable company to admit that service was available in my area, I discovered that Cardassian Cable located in BFE, Tennessee was just a little different from Bill's cable provider just outside of Silicon Valley, California.

Bill took down his Hertzian BBS and put up his own website, served from his home computer via his cable modem. The great thing about this was that he had complete control over the files. He had written simple BASIC programs that could automatically update his files.

Cardassian Cable told me that this might stress their serviers and be considered a violation of my terms of service agreement. Instead, they told me about their generous webhosting program. This generous program, I discovered, offered about enough storage space for half a dozen image files on a single webpage. If I tried to use more space than that, it would be considered a violation of my terms of service agreement. I could purchase more webspace, but it would cost me.

Bill stopped picking up his Fidonet mail and instead began running his own mail server on his home computer via his cable modem. The great thing about this was, again, the complete control he had. Even though spam wasn't a big problem back then, Bill had already written simple BASIC programs which sorted his email by topic and put junk mail into the trash.

Cardassian Cable told me that this would be a violation of my terms of service. Instead, they told me about their generous email service. This generous service, I discovered, offered about enough storage space for three days of email. They had spam fighting programs, but the controls could not be accessed by the end user. In other words, I had to live with what Cardassian Cable thought was spam. Curiously enough, advertisements for extra Cardassian Cable services are never considered unwanted, while email from my friends who are using a rival cable company are flagged as spam and automatically deleted.

In further spam fighting news, Cardassian Cable told me to never give out my Cardassian Cable email address. That would attract spam. In fact, if it attracted too much spam, I'd put too big a strain on their mail servers and they'd have to cancel my account, as straining the servers was a violation of my terms of service agreement.

Instead, I should sign up for any of a number of free email redirecting services. I could give out that email address, and all mail received there would automagically be forwarded to my Cardassian Cable email address. I signed up for a redirect service and it worked great.

For about a month and a half.

When my friends started asking me why I wasn't answering my email anymore, I searching the CC website. It turned out that they had added a new spam fighting program and had by default turned it on for all users. I turned it off.

About a month and a half later, I started getting complaints from my friends again. The new spam fighting option had been turned back on. I called customer service and asked about that. They told me that somehow the option had gotten turned off so, as a special service to me as a CC customer in good standing, they had turned it back on for me. It took me an hour to convince them that I had turned the option off myself so I could get email from my friends. They couldn't understand why my friends were tripping the spam alert. They also suggested that perhaps I shouldn't associate with such people. But in the end, they agreed to leave that option turned off.

A few months later, my friends were complaining again. I checked and found that the spam fighting program that had been giving me problems was still turned off. As was every other spam fighting program I could access. I called customer service again. Apparently, email from my redirecting service was failing a reverse DNS lookup test. This was only natural, as the redirecting service had one DNS entry, while my friends no doubt had a different one. Customer service's suggested solution? Stop using a redirect service. They were all fronts for spammers, anyway. In fact, using one might be considered a violation of my terms of service agreement.

I did not bother to try to explain to them that the only reason I started using a redirect service to begin with was because they suggested it as a way to avoid violating my terms of service agreement. Instead, I simply turned on Cardassian Cable's email forwarding services and had all my email sent to a free service.

To further avoid violating my terms of service agreement, or TOS for short, I was supposed to turn off my cable modem when I wasn't using it. "Always connected" I might be, but if I was really always online, I'd be open to hacker attacks, worms, and other really bad things. These might take over my system and cause it send out spam or hack into other computers, which would of course violate my TOS.

However, when dealing with customer service once, I made a comment that I would have to turn on my cable modem before I could check something for them. Their immediate response was that I should never turn off my cable modem. Only with the cable modem on could they monitor my Ultra Fast Internet Service, send out essential updates, make sure I was following all the rules, etc. Turning my cable modem off was a violation of my TOS.

It occurred to me that disconnecting the cable wire from the modem would also keep them from monitoring my Ultra Fast Internet Service, et al. That would no doubt be violating my TOS. Of course, the manual which came with the modem tells me to disconnect the cable wire any time there's a storm in the area or when I'm not planning to use my Ultra Fast Internet Service for an extended period of time. Failure to do so violates my TOS.

One of the selling points of the Ultra Fast Internet Service was that I could use VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to make telephone calls without needing a telephone line. I could also watch streaming video and not need a television. I could also listen to streaming audio and not need a radio. However, all these things require a little thing known as bandwidth. While I have plenty of bandwidth thanks to my Cardassian Cable Ultra Fast Internet Service, I discovered that making an internet phone call while recording internet video on my VCR and piping internet audio into the kitchen uses so much bandwidth that it qualifies as a violation of my TOS.

Bill told me about 10 mbit/sec download speeds. That may be the case where he lives. Here, 10 is a theoritical limit for the whole neighborhood, and I'm limited to 1.5 which will degrade from there if more than just a few people are using the internet at a given time.

Online gaming? I like to do that for hours on end, which ends up taking up a lot of bandwith, which brings me back to the TOS.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't enjoy instant-on connectivity and surfing the net at blazingly fast speeds. It's just that aside from the instant-on connectivity and surfing the net at blazingly fast speeds, there's nothing to do. All the great and wonderful things Bill told me to sell me on a cable modem turn out not to apply.

Oh, and don't bother complaining to your local franchise authority. They just use customer complaints to renegotiate higher franchise fees from the cable company. These will appear on your monthly bill as "franchise fees."

I'd really like to put a punchline here, but I'm afraid I just can't come up with one.

Copyright 2004 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to $mail:theview$