Comcast in Court, AT&T Gets Greedy

raindr writes "The Detroit News has this article on how comcast is going after people with modified Cable TV boxes.These fines (170k) seem a bit much to me." They apparantly send out a "bullet" to deactivate modded boxes. In other coax news,Shynedog writes "Boston.com is running a story about AT&T broadband users in the Northeast who are complaining about the unfair price hike that has been imposed on subscribers who own their own modems. It the wake of recent customer complaints, AT&T has started offering coupons to offset the monthly increase, but only for the next six months."

Duh

[DNS-and-BIND]

We need a financial Darwin Awards. Get this:

The customers themselves turned over illegally modified cable boxes to the company when the boxes stopped working.

Call me crazy, but I don't think turning your illegally modified cable descrambler in to the cable company for repair after it stops working due to the cable company deactivating it is a good idea.

For bonus points, diagram the above sentence.

Re:Internet access is a privilege, not a right

[ObviousGuy]

But I'd die without the Internet!

Pokemon is NOT hallucinogenic

[Rhinobird]

Hey now! Pokemon is NOT hallucinogenic. I watch it all the time....whoa! where'd all these pixies come from?!

Seriously, Pokemon doesn't cause hallucinations...it causes seizures, get it straight.

Common sense?

[Alsee]

When customers called to say their service was out, Comcast sent a technician or asked subscribers to bring in the box.

You should always take any dead bodies out of your car before dropping it off at the service station.

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Re:Just forget about tv, its not worth it

[edgrale]

By doing that we are simply funding the companies that are destroying all our freedom.

Easy answer: We need to get Bush to say the following thing "By watching TV you're funding Terrorism!" ;-)

Re:The cable stealers were idiots

[0xA]

Their second mistake was calling the cable company and complaining when their modified box stopped working. They should have been FAR more cautious than that.

I've almost done something similar. A couple months ago my cable went out for 3 days, I got pissed and called the cable company as there was something I wanted to watch that night. Thank god I was stuck on hold for a few minutes, it gave me time to realize that I hadn't ever had my cable service setup. The previous occupant of my apartment had it and while he cancled his account (no bill in the mail) they never deactivated the cable. I hung up before someone picked up the call, thank god.

Re:cabletheft.com

[The Madpostal Worker]

I looked around that site and found this little gem [cabletheft.com]:

"Even more serious, lives can be endangered by the shoddy work of cable thieves. Cable's usually "closed-circuit" distribution system can be compromised, resulting in interference with aeronautic radio navigation signals and emergency service radio transmissions. "

For the love of god don't steal cable anymore or you'll crash and airplane!