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To: Jay Lowe who wrote (5612)	2/20/1999 11:38:00 AM
From: ftth	Respond to of 29970

Hi Jay, we're on slightly different pages I think. With or without VoIP adoption, there is a need for the connection to the network to be 'always on' just because of the network topology. The cable modem connection isn't a "set and forget" connection. It is constantly being managed without your knowing it, and adjusted accordingly. The frequency of these management tasks never needed to consider "PC wake-up" consequences before since current modems are stand-alone. So the intervals between Ranging updates, router ARP cache refresh, ping tests, SNMP updates, DHCP lease renewal, security updates, et. al., has never been fine-tuned from a network management perspective, nor has there been any reason to try and synchronize those tasks so as many as possible are done when a "wake-up call" is made. As I mentioned in my original post, both the market and the economics will drive the modems 'internal.' So these issues will have to be resolved even if VoIP never happens. But, VoIP will 'drop in' to the solution if it's done right. dh

To: Jay Lowe who wrote (5612)	2/23/1999 1:37:00 PM
From: Jay Lowe	Respond to of 29970

@Home's license to do as it will Subscriber Agreement obfuscates terms to ISP's advantage BY DAN GILLMOR Mercury News Technology Columnist SUBSCRIBERS to cable-television giant TCI's @Home Internet service recently received a new ''Subscriber Agreement'' in their e-mail inboxes. Some of those customers, when they took the time to read the contract, were amazed. They should not have been. The agreement was one of those classic collections of legalese -- a long, take-it-or-leave-it treatise that reserved all kinds of rights and protections for the company along with a raft of restrictions on the customer. The document, along with @Home's related ''Acceptable Use Policy,'' has been a topic of discussion on several Internet forums during the past several days. A common reaction has been, ''Huh? It says that?'' Before I tell you some of what it says, keep in mind that TCI and @Home, which TCI controls, are not alone in their fondness for one-sided user ''agreements'' of this kind. The software industry is infamous for its so-called ''End User License Agreements'' that grant software users the right to attempt to use buggy products while giving companies explicit rights to sell defective goods. And be honest now: Did you read every word of the contract, and understand it all, when you bought your last house or signed a rental lease? Still, even by today's standards, some of the language in the TCI and @Home agreements is remarkable. In masterpieces of vagueness, these documents seem to allow the companies to behave in ways their representatives say the companies don't intend to behave. The agreements also seem to allow the companies to prohibit customer activities that spokespeople insist they don't intend to prohibit. Let's look at several examples: The TCI@Home Subscriber Agreement says the service plans to keep personal information confidential, but a long section of the contract allows the company to do pretty much anything it chooses with the data it collects about you: ''The types of persons to whom information about customers may be disclosed in the course of TCI's business include: @Home; TCI employees and the employees of TCI's related legal entities; agents; billing and collection services; market research firms; and merchants or advertisers offering services to customers through the Service.'' After reading that, I'm not sure what human being is ineligible to see your private information if TCI wishes to share it. Not to worry, says Katina Vlahadamis, a TCI spokeswoman. TCI shares aggregated information for market research, says Vlahadamis, but individual information is kept private. Doesn't the contract let TCI decide to change that policy? We don't share individual information, she repeated. @Home's Acceptable Use Policy says: ''By using the Services to publish, transmit or distribute content, a user is warranting that the content complies with this Policy and authorizes @Home Network and its distribution affiliates to reproduce, publish, distribute, and display such content worldwide.'' Does that mean a freelance writer who e-mails her material to a client is granting @Home the right to publish it, too? Sounds that way. Not to worry, says Dave Pine, the company's general counsel. This language, some of which he says is straight out of copyright law, is essentially designed to allow the company to make sure your information gets where it's going when you send it somewhere. Why not say so, precisely that way? @Home will ''take that into consideration'' the next time it revises the agreement, Pine says. The TCI@Home Subscriber Agreement prohibits use of the service ''for operation as an Internet Service Provider'' -- that's reasonable -- ''or for any other business enterprise.'' Whoa. Trading stock online, or sending e-mail to a colleague, is definitely a business enterprise. Not to worry (you're way ahead of me). This provision is intended to keep users from doing things like setting up data-hungry computer networks and running traffic-heavy Internet businesses in their homes. TCI@Home -- it's never clear where one company begins and the other ends -- is about normal residential use only. No one wants to prevent customers from engaging in consumer-level e-commerce, of course. I asked, why not be explicit? The way I interpreted the provision was not the way it was intended, Vlahadamis repeated. I congratulated Vlahadamis on her expertise at ducking questions she apparently wasn't authorized to answer. I also called a lawyer friend who's familiar with consumer issues. He laughed out loud at the language, saying he could easily interpret it just the way I had. I'm fairly sure, by the way, that TCI and @Home are telling the truth when they say they have no intention -- today -- of interpreting their agreements in the ultra-expansive (for them) or ultra-restrictive (for customers) ways I suggested. But I'm positive that their talented lawyers could easily write clearer contracts. Will they? Don't hold your breath.

To: Jay Lowe who wrote (5612)	2/23/1999 1:38:00 PM
From: Jay Lowe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

@Home Subscribers Angered By New Policies February 22, 1999 Brian McWilliams, InternetNews.com Correspondent Users of TCI's @Home cable-based internet access service are fuming over a new subscriber agreement the company issued by e-mail last week. The 9,000-word document includes several provisions which have left many subscribers aghast. A section on privacy, for example, says TCI@Home may collect and share information about subscribers and their use of the service to a number of third parties. They include billing and collection services, market research firms and merchants or advertisers. The new agreement also includes provisions which appear to make it a violation to use the service for any kind of business-related purpose -- even checking work e-mail from home. Scott Greczkowski is MIS director at a Connecticut law firm and the founder of the @Home user group in that state. He finds the restrictions on business use objectionable, especially one which specifically forbids the use of PPTP or other tunneling IP protocols which are often used by telecommuters to securely connect to private networks. "They're limiting what you can do on the Internet," he said. John Navas, an independent telecommunications analyst in California and a TCI@Home subscriber, said the new user agreement is just the latest effort by TCI to partition its @Home access service from its business-oriented and more expensive @Work service. "They are dumbing down @Home and trying to push anything else up to @Work," Navas said. The new contract requries subscribers who don't agree to the changes to immediately stop using the service and notify the company in writing. Accordingly, Navas has written to the CEOs of both @Home and TCI, citing the new agreement's "onerous, unreasonable and unacceptable terms" and demanding a refund of his installation costs. According to Navas, the contract reveals a lot about TCI's long-term strategy for @Home. "Their push to gather and sell user data tells me they want to become a commerce portal site, along the lines of America Online," he said. "That's a different profile than many people expected, and raises the issue that DSL may be a better option for serious Internet users." TCI@Home officials were unavailable for comment. The new subscriber agreement comes amid growing complaints of performance problems at the service. Greczkowski says that many Connecticut @Home users have frequently seen throughput drop during busy evening hours to around 28 kilobits per second. He also says @Home users are reporting delays of up to a week in sending and receiving e-mail, suggesting problems with the service's mail servers. Separately, the company's vice president of sales and marketing said @Home's "churn" rate, or the percentage of subscribers who cancel their service, is currently less than 3.5 percent. Speaking at a conference in Boston, Charles Moldow also predicted @Home's total revenues will hit $2 billion by 2002.