Hacker News Reader

Comment by hedora | Hacker News Reader

In fairness, comcast (big US ISP) allows you to buy your own cable modem. However, they are terrible for multiple other reasons that would not fly in Europe (data caps, lobbying to resell browsing history, opaque pricing schemes, etc)

View on HN

But at least they have the freedom to do so, unlike Europe where their right to screw over their customers is unfairly infringed.

Sarcasm?

Is it though? Freedom and regulatory overreach arguments are being used right now, with a straight face, to eliminate net neutrality rules that prohibit ISPs from screwing over their customers. Is it really sarcasm if it's actually happening?

That's why I ask. I legitimately cannot tell because people actually think this.

By which you mean that Comcast will let you buy an approved device to which (I believe) they fully control by design.

Pretty much, Cable Modem Hacking is extremely uncommon and even an owned modem is out of your control. Look at all the Intel PUMA cable modems with bufferbloat issues where the cable ISP refuses to update said modem to fix the software bug causing bufferbloat.

DOCSIS modems are a standard, but cable companies often get to manage them with their firmware and/or settings.

Not if you're on a Comcast Business plan with static IPs; you're limited to what they'll give you, even though people have shown that their static IP-setup works with customer provided gear.

Well, there are some reasons for this, such as making sure the equipment is good and can easily be checked on/configured by support to meet service level guarantees (which are a thing with some business contracts). It's just not a very good reason.

Deep packet inspection, network throttling based on traffic type, ...

Sources:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/12/comcast-throws-1...

https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-thrott...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com