Amazon's A9 Search Project Launches >>
<< Musicians Up In Arms Again Over Computerized...
 tdicon 


Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Apr 14th 2004 12:39pm





Is It Misleading To Call A Dialup Accelerator Broadband?

from the seems-like-it dept

These days many dialup providers have been offering "accelerators" for an additional fee (the technology is often provided by the company Propel, though there are a few others out there as well). These work by using caching and compression to make certain webpages appear faster - though, it doesn't actually speed up your connection at all. Now, popular cheap dialup up provider Joi Internet is being sued by BellSouth for false advertising, by claiming that their accelerated dialup is "DSL speed" and showing a commercial that implies it's even faster than BellSouth's DSL. Joi responds by making this into a David vs. Goliath style battle and claims that none of their customers have complained. Still, in this case, BellSouth has a point. The accelerated dialup is not DSL-speed at all, and implying that it is (or that it's faster than DSL) is clearly misleading.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    NOBODY, Apr 14th, 2004 @ 1:23pm

    Netzero and Juno started this. It's bullshit, plain and simple. I think these companies should be sued, and nailed to the wall.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: No Subject Given

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 14th, 2004 @ 5:55pm

    it's all smoke and mirrors. :D

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 14th, 2004 @ 6:32pm

    Is this different from the X.40 modem standard, which compresses data?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Red_Eye, Apr 14th, 2004 @ 7:46pm

    Awesome! The one thing that needs to be made clear to joe newbie is that you cant compress an already compressed piece of data. So jpg,mp3,zip, newer office documents, etc all will travel at the same or in a worst case scenario (if the protocol used is lame enough) things could run slower as it tries to compress the data and winds up making you tranfer the original file and the compression data....

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: No Subject Given

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 15th, 2004 @ 8:48am

    I know you can't re-compress data, but I'm asking if this protocol is any different from X.40.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    PT Barnum would be proud...

    identicon
    OldYeller, Apr 15th, 2004 @ 11:25am

    I wonder how many people jump at this when even the TV ads point out (albeit in fine print) that this service does not work on file uploads/downloads and other typical web uses.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  

    netzero

    identicon
    robert, Jan 1st, 2009 @ 3:56am

    netzero is deceit incorperated. What they advertise is not what u end up with
    It shouild be called
    Name@netzeroshit,com

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


Amazon's A9 Search Project Launches >>
<< Musicians Up In Arms Again Over Computerized...
 tdicon 

A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss

Powered by Postrank

From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This