[Gllug] Why are ISPs so stupid?

[Martin A. Brooks]

Rev Simon Rumble wrote:
> Just spent a few phone calls with a client whose Internet "just stopped
> working".  Did all the usual diagnosis, up to and including the "is it
> all plugged in" and "can you get a dial tone"...

I sympathise.

> So why don't ISPs keep the line connected but redirect every port 80
> connection to a page saying "you've been disconnected because you
> didn't pay your bill"?  Would it really be that hard?  Surely it would
> save them some support calls...

Well, it goes like this.

The contract to maintain the phone line is different to that for the 
Internet service provision.  Sometimes this can be the same company 
which really helps.

The comms company is not allowed to tell third parties that you have not 
paid your bill.  If you think about it, that's a good thing.

The ISP can only hand off data that's passed to its network, once the 
line has been disconnected then there's simply no traffic there to 
redirect to a web page.

It's not actually that simple, but that's close enough for the purposes 
of this answer, I think.

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