this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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20
Belong ISP Updating Their Terms, Maybe Dropping Third Party Modem Support And Speed Throttling (self.australia)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by dylanTheDeveloper to c/[email protected]
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

(straight from email)

• We're adding a term to make sure our customers use equipment that complies with relevant standards.

• We are adding a right to slow your service if we reasonably believe you’ve breached our Acceptable Use Policy.

• We're adding more definitions to what we consider ‘unfair, unreasonable or inappropriate use’.

• If a customer treats our people in an abusive or threatening way, we may end the interaction and – in extreme cases – we may stop offering our service to them altogether.

all 14 comments
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[–] dylanTheDeveloper 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was having another look in detail and this paragraph at the top of customer service terms are worrying

'We occasionally make changes to our General Terms.

If we think a change will have a negative impact on you, we’ll make sure to notify you at least 30 days before the change takes effect.

If you don’t accept a change, you can also cancel your service, no questions asked. Just let us know and we’ll get it sorted before the change takes effect. We’ll also refund any unused portion of your monthly charges and waive any termination fee.'

In the email they wrote 'We’re adding more definitions to what we consider ‘unfair, unreasonable or inappropriate use’.'

So whatever they're gonna add is probably gonna be bad

https://www.belong.com.au/go/privacy-and-terms/general-customer-terms?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CP_SM_TermsUpdate_20231010&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.belong.com.au%2fgo%2fprivacy-and-terms%2fgeneral-customer-terms

[–] lw6352 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is just a response to the UCT changes going live in November. Every big corp in Australia is going to be making changes like that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anyone got any suggestions for a possible alternative provider? Currently with belong and would rather just change than fuck around with whatever this is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Superloop and Aussie Broadband are my top 2. Currently with Superloop myself.

[–] Nihilore 1 points 1 year ago

If my router stops working I’ll definitely be switching providers

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  1. Nothing wrong with only supporting compliant/certificated modems.

2 and 3. Wouldn't you find that in any unlimited data plans?

  1. That's a good thing!
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nothing wrong with only supporting compliant/certificated modems.

Yes there is, depending on what "compliant" means in this context. I expect to be able to use my Openwrt router on any ISP I pay money to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I take the change to mean "no phone support for" not "you can't use".

From a hardware point if view; how would they even know you'd changed the firmware?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

From a hardware point if view; how would they even know you’d changed the firmware?

They probably wouldn't but it's the principle of it. But yeah on your first point, it's certainly a "devil is in the details" type situation. It could range anywhere from "no phone support" to you have to buy and use their bundled modem/router (and everything in between).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your router isn't a modem, they don't care what router you use.

Not sure what kind of ISP these guys are, but I'm assuming coax based, in which case they probably are adding terms saying you need to use more modern DOCSIS modems. This is most likely because they are going to start to phase out support for older DOCSIS standards.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's Australia so it's a combination of:

  • FTTP/FTTC/FTTN
  • HFC cable

Most of this will be installed by NBN (National Broadband Network) contractors. Non NBN based connections are pretty uncommon these days, although the OP doesn't specify.

Anyway that was the reason I assumed that other networking equipment would be relevant (such as routers) because there isn't such thing as a third party device for most of the above. The OP used "modem" but I know a lot of Austalians use the term interchangeably, probably from the history of ADSL where modem-router combinations were common.

[–] dylanTheDeveloper 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We’re adding more definitions to what we consider ‘unfair, unreasonable or inappropriate use’.

Is the excuse they're gonna use to slow your speed without specifying exactly why

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It says "adding more definitions".