OT- Comcast Subscriber Agreement

[brian]

On Mon, 2003-06-16 at 13:51, Tilly, Lawrence wrote:
> As an aside to this, it's interesting how some cable ISPs are configured
> differently than others. I was on attbi for a little over a year, and with
> them I had to actually "register" each of my PCs that I wanted to be on the

Having worked with a few cable co's "behind the scenes"... Most of this
sort of stuff about registering your MAC addy's and whatnot was born out
of their ignorance and fear of people ripping of the service.  I think
that when the register-the-MAC rule was put in place they didn't realize
how easy it is to spoof a MAC address.  A lot of that stuff also
predates the DOCSIS standards and modern CMTS systems, which make it
much easier to manage things on an IP basis vs. a MAC address basis.

I too have been a victim of the "you have to but this to get that"
scheme.  When I signed up for my cable modem I had to either A) buy a
basic (13 channel) cable package for $10.00/mo, or B) Pay $10.00 for
some crazy "access fee" thing.  I had (still have) DirecTV, so there was
no use for the basic cable service, but I opted for that vs. paying
$10.00 for a non-tangible service.  Either way, it was a bunch of B.S.,
and effectively made the cable modem $10.00 higher than the advertised
price.