Comcast bans man from Internet for using too much data

[truebluefan]

The end of the internet comes not with a bang or a procession of four lolcats of the apocalypse, but just with two blinking lights on a modem.

At least that's how it came for Andre Vrignaud, a 39-year-old gaming consultant in Seattle, when Comcast shut him off from the internet for using too much data.

Vrignaud, it seems, committed the foul of using more than 250 GB of data on Comcast two months in a row, triggering the company's overage policy that results in a year-long ban from using its services.

"It's one of those things I never thought would hit me," Vrignaud said. "They didn't even call. I just got double blinking lights on my modem."

"If I'd been foolish enough to depend on something like Skype or some other VOIP service for 911, I would have been hosed," Vrignaud said, arguing that internet service has become a utility much like water and electricity -- services that can't easily be turned off, due to regulations.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/07/14/comcast.bans.internet.wired/index.html?hpt=te_bn2