[Bender]

Read the fine print in your contract. Unlimited usually does not really mean unlimited but if you think it does then consult with a lawyer. Nobody on HN will be able to force your ISP to keep you connected even if they agree. A tech should have an ID badge but they can also disco from the telephone pole if they can not access the property, it's just more hassle for them because they need the cable maint truck and they only have so many with the cherry picker lift.

If you wanted a technical answer it is probably something along the line of your neighborhood is probably over-subscribed on that laser group and or the CMTS is probably really old and over-subscribed. Even if that were the case you would not be able to force them to upgrade anything as it would not be in your contract.

As pnw_throwaway said just get a seed box. It will cost you more money but will avoid the hassle and drama in the neighborhood.

[_z369]

I was more intrigued by the discrepancy of my account being in good standing and a random tech rep deciding to physically disconnect the line to my house. I do have two 1Gbps seedboxes through OneProvider and those are saturated 24/7. They transfer about 300TB a month each. Having the long-term storage for preservation at home was just a bonus.

[Bender]

Depending on how far you are physically from OneProvider another option may be to bring a fast storage devices to them and transfer files off it to bring home. Or you may be able to ship storage to them for that purpose. They may even have a solution to offload your data to something they can ship to you. It rarely hurts to ask. Others have probably asked before you.

As for the cable company there are worse user experiences and always will be by design. Even the latest DOCSIS standards won't help if the ISP is over-subscribed in the neighborhood and/or at their edge or if they have fired or lost all their good network engineers. It will be an endless battle with their users. XFinity formerly Comcast formerly Excite@home formerly a few other names have gone through similar growing pains.

If all else fails one may have the option move to a neighborhood that has fiber vaults and hopefully a decent price on trenching it to the house or already has it preinstalled to the house. Even fiber providers will keep an eye on bandwidth hogs. Unlimited plans are never really unlimited. There is usually fine print. Get a contract in writing that allows you to saturate the link 24/7/365 and be ready for sticker shock. A few to several $k/mo.

[rolph]

i would be kinda concerned, what else was done when the cable was disconnected, such as connect to a sniffer,and do some back n forth packet inspection as the client reconnects and starts torrenting again.

[grahamburger]

They don't need to come on site to sniff your traffic. US law, and likely others, stipulate that the ISP is able to sniff traffic without a truck roll.

[rolph]

and when you sniff right at the customers dropline, its hard to expect someone to believe its not the subscriber, its some imposter forging packets and spoofing your IP.

i really isnt good press to, lets say, accuse subscribers of Criminal involvment based on IP spoofs or hash collisions, so its a good idea to chase it all the way down to the drop line, and any pwnd boxes