[mythtv-users] Comcast vs. FIOS, ease of mythtv integration?

[Eric Sharkey]

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> On Friday, July 09, 2010 12:45:42 pm Eric Sharkey wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Greg Woods <greg at gregandeva.net> wrote:
>> > I believe you will find that the terms of residential service explicitly
>> > prohibit running servers.
>>
>> Of course.  But that doesn't make it right.
>>
>> Bill me per packet if you want.  Bill me more for an increased
>> reliability guarantee if you want.  But don't bill me more because you
>> don't like the bit patterns inside my packets.  That's just not right.
>
> It has nothing to do with the "bit pattern". It has to do with the fact that upstream bandwidth is at a premium with cable
> TV data systems, and running a server means you will presumably have a lot more outgoing traffic than a typical residential
> connection.

But that's precisely my point.  The scarcity is upstream bandwidth so
they should charge based on upstream bandwidth usage (i.e., bill me
per packet).  But they don't do that.  Instead, they say that high
upstream bandwidth usage is correlated with the bit patterns
associated with servers and therefor we'll make our TOS ban servers
and block those bit patterns (the port numbers).

It's stupid.

I guarantee you that the amount of upstream bandwidth I was using to
receive email on port 25 was bupkus compared to my neighbor's kid
chatting on skype all day, but I have to pay $xx more per month so I
can ssh in from work and fix a problem when my wife calls me up and
says the mythtv is fubar'd again?

No, the reason they charge more for servers is because they figure an
internet connection will be more important to anyone who even knows
what a server is so they can get those people to fork out more cash
for it.  That's all there is to it.

I want a service that gives me one dynamic IP with a best effort
availability/reliability guarantee with reasonable usage caps and no
restrictions on bit patterns inside the IP packets.  You could get
this in the days of dial-up when there was competition, but not
anymore.

Eric