HACKER Q&A
📣 _z369

My ISP is telling my neighbors their slow internet is because of me


Nevermind.


  👤 Bender Accepted Answer ✓
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.


👤 appreciatorBus
> I pay for unlimited

Obv if they have an issue with your usage, they should have told you that up front, but as has been litigated on HN over and over again - no one is actually offering unlimited usage of anything, no matter how many times they use the word unlimited. They may have used that word, the word may even have some legal meaning where you live, but one way or another, their capacity is limited, and your payments are limited, so their ability to serve you & their other customers is limited too. If the issues they are having really are coming from your usage, they are either going to drop you or drop the unlimited plan. Enjoy it while it lasts!


👤 replooda
I'm sorry, I really do think you should let the police handle the "who was that guy" angle before moving on to the technical one. It would take more than "drove a Mediacom truck, showed an ID and knew my address" before I concluded the guy Mediacom has no record of sending, and whose behavior violates their policy (and common sense), absolutely must have been either Mediacom or Jason Bourne.

👤 brudgers
It would not surprise me if one of your neighbors paid the guy to disconnect your internet and there’s a reasonable chance neither the tech nor the manager nor the customer service rep you spoke with work directly for Mediacom because cable companies usually contract out anything and everything that can be contracted out to reduce the risk of unionization.

If it matters switch ISP’s or hire an attorney or both. Good luck.


👤 pnw_throwaway
Cable internet sucks, but you’re being ridiculous. Get a seedbox if you’re torrenting that much my dude.

I believe the answers on reddit said about the same, why drag this out further?

And call the cops if the tech was trespassing.


👤 johnsmith1840
What's the cost difference of doing this via S3?

I don't understand whag thr archive is doing either, why does that mean 14TB upload a month?

You could go with a cloud provider that has low to no egress or ingress charges??


👤 pabs3
Original question from before it was edited:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260415000855/https://news.ycom...


👤 rayiner
> I don't want to be the asshole who is making a shit experience for all of my neighbors, but at the same time, I pay for unlimited

What is it about the word “unlimited” that turns technology-minded people into lawyers? Anyone on HN knows that network pipes are inherently shared, somewhere. I’ve got a 10 gig Comcast fiber and I can’t download at 10 gig from Google Drive because there’s a maxed out pipe somewhere.


👤 pmarreck
Super unprofessional, they’re not doing their own traffic management job

👤 _--__--__
I assumed from the title this would be about using overlapping 2.4ghz wifi channels, which I would probably support urban ISPs shaming users for doing.

👤 brailsafe
I think people ITT are being weirdly bootlicking about the whole thing, and you're in the right entirely. I guess if I were in the same situation, I'd request footage from anyone else in the neighbourhood, or see if the neighbours can make the same call you did to track down exactly who visited them.

People don't seem to appreciate that regardless of how reasonable your bandwidth usage is, a company does not have the right to physically disconnect your house from the internet on your property without warning. In theory, they can legally disconnect your house from their service remotely, but without warning (or maybe they do, but that would have to be in the fine print) and that would also be a major problem. They'd have to assume liability for any consequences occurred by intentionally disrupting your connection.


👤 toofy
it should be illegal to insinuate unlimited when it isn’t unlimited.

that said, it’s become so normalized by now for companies to basically lie what they’re giving to you, so ultimately there isn’t a whole lot you can do.

my grandpa used to always say “i fought the law and the law won” that should be updated to, “i fought misleading/lying corp and the corp won.”


👤 Rekindle8090
I was with you at the 14tb a month not being much until I reread the post and noticed uploading 10tb a month. That's fucking stupid. ISPs have ALWAYS cared more about upload.