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."

Legit users hit with stray 'bullet'?

[CptnKirk]

I'd be interested to know how this 'bullet' technology works. I know a few people who have been having problems with the receivers in their VCRs (they choose not to rent a box and don't have premium/PPV channels) lately. Sure it could be a flaky VCR, but it's happened to more than one person with newish VCRs.

If Comcast is found to be damaging personal hardware with their 'bullet' it would be funny if those users were able to clame irreparable harm and sue for millions. In short, I think that Comcast better be very careful where they point their guns. In the end this can only be bad for them.

The cable stealers were idiots

[leereyno]

Their first mistake was to modify a box that the cable company owned. They should have bought a descrambler of their own on the grey market. These 3rd party descrablers are "bullet" proof anyway which would have completely solved the problem altogether before it started. 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. If I hacked something and it stopped working the first thing I'd assume is that it was either something I did or something the cable company did in response. I would have checked to see whether the box was still good, which is as simple as connecting the cable straight to the tv. At that point I'd take steps to replace the box on my own, or at the very least undo the hack, assuming that was possible, before handing it over to the cable company.

I heard of this same tactic being used when I was living in DC back in the late 80's. You would think that people would be wise to it by now.

I'll bet you that of the people who are stealing cable in that region, all that were caught were fools and idiots. Anyone with a brain would not be so easily busted. I figure the 170k is nothing more than a stupidity tax, something I never ever see a problem with.

A word of advice to all those who would break the law or do something that could get them in trouble, develop some street smarts and an ounce of common sense beforehand.

Lee

Re:not that expensive yet...

[Rhinobird]

All right I think you missed why these people are pissed off. They BOUGHT thier cable modems outright, so now they don't have to pay the leasing charge on the modem itself. AT&T changed thier pricing, now the people who BOUGHT thier cable modems are paying THE SAME PRICE as the people that lease the cable modem. Thier price was jacked up for NO REASON. Basically, AT&T is charging more for the same service because they bought thier modems.

Imagine this, AT&T gives you basic cable and leases you a TV for some amount of money. You go out and buy a TV and have them take back thier TV. Now your bill goes down because you're not paying for the lease on the TV anymore. Say, 2 years later, and AT&T raises your monthly charge. Now you go over to your friend's house and complain about the rate hike, and he doesn't know what the hell you're talking about. Your friend leases his TV and has the same cable service you do. You compare bills and they are the same. WTF? How come his servce+device monthly charge is the same price as your just service charge.

These people do have a legitimate gripe.

YOU WIN!

[TheSHAD0W]

On the topic of stupid cable thieves who get tricked into turning themselves in, I just wanted to mention another trick the cable companies have pulled in the past.

You'd be watching your show, and right when the movie was due to begin, you'd see a message saying you won a prize (new TV, whatever), and to call a number to claim it. When you called and gave your name and address, you'd then wind up losing your cable service and/or having to pay a fine or go to court.

What happened? The cable company scrambled that ad with a key that no one was supposed to be set up to receive. But the modified boxes would treat it as a regular scrambled show and decode it. So only the cable pirates would get the message.

Another problem coming up

[Anonymous Coward]

Our company does some business with ATT and have access to their Broadband information via employees (hence my anonymous, and hence a lack of specific geography).

One of the "goodies" that will be coming up after the Comcast/ATT merger will be the sudden announcement of all current home users to a 256K cap on bandwidth, and the next level (384K) will be available as a "premium" service for about $80 per month, with no static IP.

Businesses will get the 384K service and a static IP for $375/month, according to the source. The point behind this is that ATT doesn't want any home user to have static IP, and are going to try and price it outside the reach of the average person's ability to pay.

We're volume profit, while businesses are pure profit.

Also, one last point...the 'free ride' on ATT is over. On or about July 1, they will be installing what I've been told is the "new Cisco software" which will prevent anyone from homesteading IP addresses as has been the case. Apparently, the dynamic IPs will override the static IP in the present software, which means that when ATT went to a business, they could not guarantee that the IP address wasn't already taken by DHCP for a home user.

With the "new business model" that the merger will bring, the home user will have services cut and prices raised, which will subsidize the business services to the point where those monthly service charges from business will be pure profit at our expense.

It won't interfere with general service, but if you've not had your IP switched on you for a while, you'll likely lose service until you reboot your home network.

Stealing

[Anonymous Coward]

If I own a high-rise overlooking a baseball stadium and with the purchase of $70 binoculars, I can watch a baseball game, does that mean I'm stealing?

Likewise, if I replace components of my car to make it go faster, does Ford have the right to destroy those components?

If I were one of those customers, I would most certainly bring a countersuit.

It seems to me that the cable companies are standing on the logical and philosophical equivalent of thin ice.

Critical Thought [blogspot.com]

AT&T: Scr*wing the loyal customers... WHY?

[dpbsmith]

I don't know why so many businesses these days are going out of their way to punish their existing customers. It seems as if practically every business now offers deals to new customers that are not available to their loyal customers.

I wonder what management text or B-school case study they get THAT advice out of?

To avoid getting shafted, you practically have to PLAN on switching credit cards, banks, phone companies, etc. annually.

Re:YOU WIN!

[mrseth]

Never underestimate the power of human greed. The police do this sort of thing all the time to capture fugitives. It seems to me that people who are in this category of those who steal would be generally even more suseptible to this sort of ruse, so I imagine it'd be effective. As another example, one only needs to remember that Nigerian diamond mine scam that was making the rounds in email. It netted so many suckers that the Nigerian gov't had to construct new laws to react to the problem (IIRC).