Earthlink to Shut Down Home Networkers!!!!!!?
A friend of mine just forwarded the following email to me. This is VERY disturbing if it means that my home network is going to be made invalid without an additional $10/month. Can anyone else tell me what this means, and how (technically) they do this?
Dear EarthLink DSL Subscriber,
We are making changes to our network, beginning
June 24, 2003, after which you will no longer be able
to connect multiple computers to the Internet with a
single DSL connection, as you may have done in the past.
We apologize for any inconvenience this network
change may cause you.
The Terms and Conditions of your EarthLink DSL
service only allow for one computer to use your
EarthLink DSL connection at a time.
If you would like to use your DSL connection on multiple
computers at the same time, please check out
EarthLink Home Networking, which will allow all the
computers in your home access to the Internet at the
same time for one low price of $9.95 per month on top
of your regular DSL monthly fees:
http://www.earthlink.net/home/broadband/homenetwork/
If you have any questions about this policy, or about home
networking in general, please don't hesitate to let us
know. You'll find help in a hurry at the EarthLink Support
Center:
http://support.earthlink.net
Click on "Contact Us By Live Chat" to trade helpful, real-
time messages with a friendly Live Chat representative.
Or to send us an email, click on "Contact Us By Email."
Your business is important to us, and we work hard to
give you the best possible service.
Thank you for choosing EarthLink.
Sincerely,
The EarthLink High Speed Internet Service Team
************************************************** ***
This is an Administrative Message from EarthLink.
It is not spam. From time to time, EarthLink will
send you such messages in order to communicate
important information about your subscription.
EarthLink does not provide subscriber email
addresses or other personal information to third
parties without your permission. The complete
EarthLink privacy policy is available online:
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/privacy.html
************************************************** ***
Dear EarthLink DSL Subscriber,
We are making changes to our network, beginning
June 24, 2003, after which you will no longer be able
to connect multiple computers to the Internet with a
single DSL connection, as you may have done in the past.
We apologize for any inconvenience this network
change may cause you.
The Terms and Conditions of your EarthLink DSL
service only allow for one computer to use your
EarthLink DSL connection at a time.
If you would like to use your DSL connection on multiple
computers at the same time, please check out
EarthLink Home Networking, which will allow all the
computers in your home access to the Internet at the
same time for one low price of $9.95 per month on top
of your regular DSL monthly fees:
http://www.earthlink.net/home/broadband/homenetwork/
If you have any questions about this policy, or about home
networking in general, please don't hesitate to let us
know. You'll find help in a hurry at the EarthLink Support
Center:
http://support.earthlink.net
Click on "Contact Us By Live Chat" to trade helpful, real-
time messages with a friendly Live Chat representative.
Or to send us an email, click on "Contact Us By Email."
Your business is important to us, and we work hard to
give you the best possible service.
Thank you for choosing EarthLink.
Sincerely,
The EarthLink High Speed Internet Service Team
************************************************** ***
This is an Administrative Message from EarthLink.
It is not spam. From time to time, EarthLink will
send you such messages in order to communicate
important information about your subscription.
EarthLink does not provide subscriber email
addresses or other personal information to third
parties without your permission. The complete
EarthLink privacy policy is available online:
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/privacy.html
************************************************** ***
Comments
absolutely no way they can tell how many machines are behind it.
I had to google NAT
then a couple years later, they turn around and sign a big deal with a routing company (maybe d-link? i only paid enough attention to get really ticked off) to sell routers to anyone and acting like this was a new service or something that the old service had previously been incapable of. basically preying on the ignorance of their consumers in the hopes that there'd be enough of them to shell out some cash for these specific routers.
and then when they started CHARGING for extra monthly bandwidth (when their initial ads all said "sign up with us, and never watch the clock again when you're online!"), i wanted to sue their ass for false advertising. but, of course, there's probably some document at their home office that has my signature and reads something to the effect of "and i promise that should bell up and die, ro decide to replace my internet access with weekly printouts, tin cans and string, i will gladly roll over and accept this travesty, and fork over more money because i need the internet access."
i swear, if my wife didn't need access to our sympatico email for replies to her job applications, i would have switched to rogers cable access in a second. grrrrrrr.....
*rok hulking up* rrrrrrrrrooooooaaaAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!
Originally posted by rok
coming from someonee who has had to deal with a national f*ckwit company for its ISP (bell sympatico canada, i am looking in YOUR direction), i can say that this is 100% scare tactic. those hose yankers told everyone repeatedly that their service was meant for one computer only, and to never ever split it, and that such a thing was "unsupported" and shouldn't be done, or you'll burn in hell or something.
then a couple years later, they turn around and sign a big deal with a routing company (maybe d-link? i only paid enough attention to get really ticked off) to sell routers to anyone and acting like this was a new service or something that the old service had previously been incapable of. basically preying on the ignorance of their consumers in the hopes that there'd be enough of them to shell out some cash for these specific routers.
and then when they started CHARGING for extra monthly bandwidth (when their initial ads all said "sign up with us, and never watch the clock again when you're online!"), i wanted to sue their ass for false advertising. but, of course, there's probably some document at their home office that has my signature and reads something to the effect of "and i promise that should bell up and die, ro decide to replace my internet access with weekly printouts, tin cans and string, i will gladly roll over and accept this travesty, and fork over more money because i need the internet access."
i swear, if my wife didn't need access to our sympatico email for replies to her job applications, i would have switched to rogers cable access in a second. grrrrrrr.....
*rok hulking up* rrrrrrrrrooooooaaaAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!
Whatever u do, don't switch to Rogers, these guys are worse.
I went through Look (what a nightmare), rogers and now i'm on sympatico.
..i feel dirty now..
I bought my cable modem from AT&T/@home and that was AWESOME! Fast (Unlimited download speed, 128K upload) for $30 a month (+modem rental) This was the internet I dreamed about, a rock-solid connection even faster that my school! Ahh, those were the days.
Now the catch. @home went bankrupt, kicked the bucket, went belly up, became an EX-ISP... (Sorry, I've been watching Monty Python) and AT&T took over. AT&T said they needed to raise prices because that is what killed @home, and did likewise. ($44 a month) They also removed my static IP address (without informing me) and put me on a network with a DHCP server. I had connection problems for 2 weekends that year. This is just about when the competition from DSL kicked in. PacBell (now bought out by SBC, who has a contract with Yahoo) launched an ad campaign about how cable modems slow down during peak hours. (and in fact they did slow, but not down to DSL speeds) The only way for cable companies to fix this is by capping everyone's download speeds to 2Mbps effectively removing the "webhog lag". Well, a year later AT&T didn't see such a big profit they were expecting and low-&-behold, Comcast was born last December. After settling in for a few months, they pushed their weight by increasing the price to $66 a month. And to justify that, they increased the upload speed from 128K to 256K. Oooooo Not only that, but I get disconnected almost every day. DSL is also not much cheaper anymore.
The moral of the story: The higher the rate, the more expensive the crap. Give me Unlimited download-128K upload and a static IP with a stable connection for $30 any day and I will be a happy camper.
I was a happy camper
Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
Hmm... sounds like there are no good ISPs (or phone companies, or cable companies). I mean, I've never heard even one person say one good thing about their provider!
actually, luca, my opinion is that you're seeing the fallout of all these corporations merging into telecommunications giants, where all of the executives who determine rates and feature and such are so far removed from the technologies they are passing regulations on that all they care about is absolute top dollar. hell, that's why they merged in the first place, right? to earn more? to drive their stock prices up?
so you get the constant one-upmanship of the ceo formerly head of television broadcasts and cable access going "hey, why is this family of five sharing one ISP bill from use each month?!? we should be getting five times that much! how can we stop this??? what do you mean we can't??? you mean people are spliiting the signal, like illegal cable?!? what do you mean 'it's not like that'?!? it's exactly like that! send out an email to everyone -- i don't care if everyone's doing it. they'll all do it if this gets out! -- saying that we will come to your door and snap you with wet towels until you comply!"
and then another company sees this policy, and says "hey, that's a good idea! if anyone complains, we can say it's what everyone else is doing, and it's only right to pay for every person using the internet in your household."
so all in all, all ISPs don't suck, but a HELL OF A LOT OF THEIR EXECUTIVES DO.
Woops, I mean...
<whistling softly and creeping out the door, closing it behind me.>
2-6 mbit free for $8/month.
Originally posted by Anders
I´m happy with my ISP.
2-6 mbit free for $8/month.
You are either in some obscure place in the middle of nowhere or pulling my leg. What ISP? and Where?
Originally posted by Paul
so if i have everything going through my Airport Base Station they can't see a damn thing, right?
Right
Originally posted by DIB
Indeed, any company that expects to be paid for its product or service is bad.
don't be a moron.
they sell a line with a set amount of bandwidth. the contract states that i can use said bandwidth. what i intend to do with that is my business. if i want to have a machine that only checks e-mail, it will hardly use any bandwidth. if i like to make movies of my dog playing in the field and then send a copy to 100 relatives, that's also my business.
fact is i'm paying for pipe. if i have 5 machines all on one pipe, i'm still not using any more than what i've paid for.
Originally posted by DIB
Indeed, any company that expects to be paid for its product or service is bad.
well, no, but anyone that over charges and especially tricks their customers that dont know any better is bad.