[kmeisthax]

The opt-out is buy business-class service[0].

My guess is that the 2x price increase Xs4all was charging for their plan was a bridge too far for most customers. It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people rent their modem, don't know or care what a /29 is, and is calling tech support because the plug is loose or the modem needs a power cycle. Bulk-blocking SMTP happened because open ports are botnet ports, and the average customer does not know how to identify and shut down zombies on their network.

[0] Assuming your provider isn't stupidly committed to "you can't have business class because you're in a residential area, WFH doesn't exist, and the zoning code is gospel, all hail Robert Moses"

[bombcar]

Even if the provider is stupid AF you can usually get around the residential restriction by starting the discussion with the business side of the company; once the salesman has a nibble he's not gonna cut you free if he can help it.

And then get a 2 year term on whatever seems a "good deal" at the time (I had cable speeds and 5 IPs) and once that is up call them and "drop down" to whatever you actually need (cable speeds and 1 IP) - you'll find that at that point there will be various "packages" that were never advertised but the system is quite capable of supporting.

If all else fails, find a company that works with the provider and offers service over their "last mile".

You'll pay for all the above, but not as much as you might think, and business support is actually good in many, many cases. Fabled evil Comcast rolled a truck twice until they tracked down a problem, at no charge.

[mindslight]

Still sounds like a huge hassle compared to municipal fiber.

[bitwize]

I still get emails from Comcrap because once I had a business internet plan with them in a residential area -- an apartment no less.

When it comes to internet service, "giving a crap about the customer" is a premium add-on from Comcast, but once you commit to opening your wallet for that, they do deliver.

[voidwtf]

What Comcast did you do business with?

Comcast doesn’t give a crap about customers, full stop. Oh yes, they’ll send “technicians” out 3 to 4 times a month to tell you everything tested perfectly. But get them to put a line monitor on your connection, provide them logs that you have over 5% packet loss that doesn’t start until after the CMTS, and they’ll get an “engineer” involved who will come out and leave some testing equipment which will confirm the issue. Over a year later, the issue will remain unresolved.

My aunt bought a house where, at the best of times, her kids can finish a game with only a handful of disconnects. The other 20% of the time they can’t even watch Netflix or streaming sports.

They tried the “business connection” trick already, at a cost of $300 a month for 150mbps. That didn’t improve anything.

The “investigation” remains open, and the “engineer” just doesn’t bother updating them anymore.

My cousin went door-to-door only to discover the whole neighborhood is having the same types of issues. It’s just the new normal.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

IMO, if the ISP doesn't want to sell Internet access, they shouldn't be allowed to call it anything that could be mistaken by a consumer for Internet access.

Trying to upcharge customers for what they were initially supposed to deliver should be considered fraud.

[RunSet]

> The opt-out is buy business-class service.

Yes, punish the undesirable behavior with more money. That will teach them a valuable lesson.

[Wowfunhappy]

Well, the charitable interpretation would be that you're paying for their extra support costs.

[RunSet]

The charitable assumption on the service provider's behalf would be that their customers are not morons.

[pixl97]

Most of the time you can get around this by providing your own 'dumb' modem with no VOIP features on it. Quite often the control feature is on the firmware the ISP uploads to the modem.