Here’s why I don’t agree with Gream, et al: not only are you paying for a certain amount of bandwidth per month, but you are also paying for the speed of the pipe to which you are given access for using that bandwidth. Think of it as either a carpool lane or the toll transponder lane of a toll road. The extra “fee” for using the faster carpool lane is having multiple people in the car. Doesn’t matter that you’re driving the same distance (e.g. same bandwidth). Same goes for the transponder lane. If you go through without the transponder so you get through faster, avoiding the slower lanes that are paying the toll manually, you haven’t paid the toll to use the road at all and “stole” the faster access.

Faster throughput costs money to maintain, and the money people pay for that faster access helps the ISPs maintain it. When you gain faster access by hacking the equipment, you’re taking away some of that speed from those who paid for it.

Let me be crystal clear that I’m not saying don’t hack your equipment if you own it (leasing it is a different story). Compared to other countries, US-based ISPs charge insane amounts for bandwidth. All I’m trying to say is that the ISPs speed restrictions aren’t just an arbitrary way of collecting more money. It does cost to provide faster speed. But instead of focusing on ways to “stick it to them” by getting it without paying for it, we might instead should consider pressuring them into availing it for a cost that is more representative of the rest of the world.

My two cents. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

—Lee Bennett