The Hard Questions in Broadband Policy 136
Andy Oram has written a nice article looking at broadband internet access and the governmental policies that need to be in place if fast, symmetric internet access is to be widely available and affordable in the U.S. The U.S. still doesn't have fiber to the home, and if the last couple of competing DSL providers go under, we may never get it. In the meantime, the U.S. government is approaching the problem by eliminating regulations on the Baby Bells, which is sort of like combating street crime by taking police officers off the street.
Re:Satellite access (Score:2)
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:2)
Running fiber to my house brings me nothing but a higher phone bill. Maybe faster service, but I've had the cable modem for three years and have been quite satisfied with the performance.
Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:4)
This is infrastructure (Score:2)
Building a network of fiber to the curb is not really different in principle than building the curb itself and the road that it is part of. It's just another part of our infrastructure. Like roads, water, sewer, electrical power and phone service, high speed internet access is infrastructure. Providing infrastructure is a legitimate function of governmnet. With electric power, natural gas and phone systems, the gov't has more of a regulatory role with a company acting as a regulated monopoly. The DOTs of each state contract out work on highways. That's the way infrastructure has been built. It ain't going to happen by private companies, out of the goodness of their hearts building roads. They never do. They ain't going to run fiber to the curb either. There ain't nothing liberal or conservative about this. It's strictly pragmatic. While many folks want to cuss the gov't and regulated monopolies, nobody has a better solution. California has veered away from this type of approach and they are paying the price. That's not the only reason they are in trouble but it's a major part of the reason. What passes for deregulation these days is really a thinly veiled form of corporate welfare. There are no technical reasons we can't have fiber to the curb right now, only political ones. It all comes back to sticking with what has worked before. If you want new infrastructure, stick with implementation approaches which have worked in the past.
Broadband should be decentralized (Score:4)
Under the 10th amendment of the US Constitution, broadband cannot be regulated by Congress unless it is part of interstate commerce as defined by Article I. If a broadband network were entirely located within a single state, then Congress couldn't reach it.
But state regulations are also a problem. The idea that states are somehow a better protector of civil liberties because they answer more to their constituencies is lunatic: they're just as prone to tyranny as any other legislative government, and the lording minorities can be even smaller and more extreme. No, states can't be trusted to regulate broadband either, because then you'll have rabid right-wing states like Utah and Vermont implementing censorware at the legislative level, and you'll have rabid left-wing states like Massachusetts and Michigan stumbling over each other to mandate subsidized access for the poor.
What I propose is that we should go back to the old pre-ISP model where each user was responsible for his own access. We got it to work back then even though the technology was more primitive and almost prohibitively expensive. If each user is his own master, then he can decide whether to be tyrannical in his little fiefdom (for example, by exercising proper parenting techniques and restricting his children's internet access) or free and easy. There aren't any technological impediments, so let's start today.
Re:Satellite access (Score:1)
You tell him! After all, we're just a bunch of hicks out here who wouldn't know what to do with a broadband connection, right?
So, your solution is to leave rural people off the Internet all together, right?
Re:Barf me (Score:1)
They are. Well, at least in Ohio our telecommunications companies are governed by our Public Utilities Commission. They are (or were) government subsidized monopolies that have the very lucrative position of having a foothold in your door. They should definitely be regulated and prices should be controlled lest we get into these situations of merger-mania that we've seen since the 1996 telecommunications act where everyone and their brother has been merging. Do you really want to get your phone, cable, Internet, cell phone, etc. service from AT&T-AOL-TimeWarner-Viacom-Worldcom-Sprint? How about we just shorten the company name to AT&T for short and we'll be back to 1984 all over again. How really f***ing ironic that would be now.
Re:Deregulation (Score:1)
Re:Kushnik on the dot-gones (Score:1)
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:1)
"Flamebait" would have been a better tag (not that I'm easily baited ;-)...
Re:Satellite access (Score:1)
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Just one man beneath the sky,
Symmetry is the problem. (Score:1)
baloney (Score:3)
That's is a braindead assessment. They aren't trying to "eliminate" regulations but rather remove those that prevent some of the baby bells from providing a service that they are CAPABLE of, but are currently not ALLOWED to because some laws that were instituted with the stated intent of providing for more "fair" competition. I'd be curious how much money was involved in that decision...
What it's done is to unfortunately, it's given a bunch of companies with shitty speculative business plans the opportunity to have a go at it, while disqualifying other companies from competing at all (at least in certain areas).
Very simple (Score:4)
Re:why so much govt regulation? (Score:3)
Big business, in an ideal economy, has to know what's best for you, in order to suceed. You know why? Because in an ideal economy people like you don't just tolerate being pushed around by big business. If a company rips you off, you refuse to do business with them.
Society has become incredibly apathetic in this regard. Instead of taking a stand when a company tries to take advantage of you, everyone just likes to whine and run crying to the government, expecting them to make it all better.
Would you really prefer the government take advantage of you, instead? What makes you think that they're any more capable of being fair, when we have plenty of examples of corruption in government and of politicians doing things that certainly aren't in the best interests of those being represented.
Sure, you might say that we give our elected officials their power, and we can just as easily take it away. What you fail to realize is that you can take the power away from the big, abusive corporations just as easily. Just stop expecting the government to do it for you.
Re:Governement Regulation (Score:2)
Thanks praedor, nice coverage of reasons for regulation of industry, if a little sarcastic.
I would like to note that moderation is the key to good regulation as it is the key to being successful at most things. There is a delicate balance between overregulation and do-as-thou-wilt, right-wing and left-wing, nationalism and treason, etc, etc, that must be struck to gain the maximum benefit for all involved. I always take the views of extremists on either side of a debate with a grain of salt.
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:5)
My university has very high quality cabling which was originally installed for 4Mbps token ring... was it really necessary to use such high quality cabling for such low speeds? No... but we're still using the same cabling at 100Mbps now.
It's just much easier to do the infrastructure "right" once.
-Alison
Re:canada (Score:2)
Pretty much every Canadian city with >50000 population, and some with less, have broadband internet. I'd say it's going pretty good here.
Re:Deregulation (Score:1)
Re:Symmetry is the problem. (Score:2)
Nah. I don't think it's that they're afraid that it'll get in the way of their broadband media distribution franchise. I think it's pressure from big commercial interests to refrain from giving the common guy the bandwidth to be able to communicate with the rest of the internet. After all, if Joe Shmoe can make his voice heard above the din of the commercial entities that are trying to turn the internet into just another advertising mechanism, people might tune out the commercial parts of the net and start talking and listening to each other. Who knows they might even be tempted to tell others about how lousy the commercial interests are treating their customers. A dangerous development if there ever was one. Especially if you're one of those entities that want to have a lot of passive eyeballs out there merely looking at ads and buying things. And you don't need a lot of bandwidth to transmit your credit card number to an online store you know.
On the other hand, perhaps Freenet would help out in allowing people to disseminate their ideas to a broader audience without requiring a fat pipe into their home. Let each of the hosts of the Freenet users act as an individual leaflet.
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Re:Buckets? Frogs? Crabs? (Score:1)
I recently at some excellent frog legs in a restaurant in Houma, Louisiana on West Main Street. For the uninitiated, they really do taste something like white-meat chicken.
Re:@HOME Broadband (Score:1)
You can take a conspiracy/Chomsky-styled critique and say they're afraid of losing their place as "entertainment providers", but I'm not sure that's completely accurate. I think a lot of it comes from simply not having experience as a telcomm provider.
I also think that a few people serving MP3s, porn or warez are largely to blame for the absence and restrictions on upstream, just as a relatively small number of people who misuse guns totally misrepresent the larger gun-owning population (to pick a totally loaded analogy..).
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:2)
Provided you pick the "right" infrastructure when you're spending all that money. Given the possibilities that wireless provides I'm having a hard time seeing fiber-to-the-door as a goal worthy of spending billions and billions of dollars on.
(BTW, when did fiber-to-the-door become one of my "rights"?)
Re:why so much govt regulation? (Score:1)
Now a good business sense will tell you that this is a good opportunity. But tell me, will you try to start a business to compete with these two? Guess not... and if the municipality somehow decide they want to supply this service to Old Bridge residents I bet they'll get sued on unfair competition by the same two companies.
Ain't that great? The problem with what you're saying is it applies only in an IDEAL economy. Wake up, this is real life...
Re:Very simple (Score:1)
I mean, come on... obviously a LARGE amount of people actually WANT porn. They're making PILES of money. They should get together and mandate themselves a few choice porn laws...
Re:Satellite access (Score:1)
Bandwidth-wise it's a matter of network size. Reliability is quite good -this I know, I work on that stuff.
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:2)
http://www.sprintbroadband.com/prsite/articles/
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:1)
Frog buckets (Score:1)
Re:baloney (Score:2)
If they had the monopolies they want, do you think ISPs would get a fair deal? Fat chance. Note too that VZ DSL here has a 90k byte upstream speed, much lower than competitors. It's just TV to them. Your keyboard is a remote control.
Re:baloney (Score:2)
The law is pretty clear. If Bell runs a line, a CLEC can demand Bell provide him with access at COST PLUS. Not minus. Maintenance is a cost that is included in the rent. Thus, my CLEC can lease raw copper wire analog/ADSL loops from VZ/New York Telephone in Ballston for, oh, $19/month or so, while VZ's local flat rate telephone service, built out of similar wire plus the whole network, costs less than that. Bells are notorious for their creative accounting.
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:1)
Of course, with net access, its even easier to controll the worlds access to oneself.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Re:Baby Bells... (Score:1)
Highly unlikely, I would think (hope?). Such a mega-merger would never pass muster with the Justice Department, although we are seeing regional mergers that combine long-distance and broadband providers with traditional telcos (think Qwest/U S West).
More importantly, since the breakup of AT&T there have been so many acquisitions and reorganizations by the Baby Bells that their corporate cultures are sufficiently balkanized to preclude even the thought of joining forces again.
@HOME Broadband (Score:1)
The download speed rocks. Easily in excess of 1M, usually much higher. The upload speed bites, choked off at 128k.
Other problems:
1. No servers. You can't set up your own web server. That violates their AUP. They provide webpage space, but you can't set up your own CGI stuff and reliability is extremely poor (their web servers are constantly down or swamped).
2. Email is extremely unreliable. Email can get stuck in their system for several months or simply disappear. It's a real pain when an important email pops in that requires your immediate attention, but dated from two months ago. I'd run my own mail server except that violates their AUP of no servers (and they are constantly port scanning to see if you're doing anything funny). They slipped a little disclaimer into the contract that basically states, "email is for recreational use only, blah, blah, blah". One day they're going to send out some official notice via email. When that happens I'll pop off a legal notice that by using email for official, no-recreation purposes, they have legally changed their policy (although IANAL). I can personally get very reliable email via the VPN to my office, but my wife is stuck with @HOME email service. To compensate for their suckiness, she's opened up several of those free email accounts. But those are all web based and so are inconvenient to use (anyone know of a reliable and free pop3 email service that works with @HOME?).
3. Customer support sucks. 40 minutes on hold (minimum) to talk to some trained chimpanzee who blames me for any problems. Hell, I just asked if the mail server is down in the area, I don't need to reconfigure my bloody system! (it's an inhouse policy of @HOME to always blame the customer, regardless of the problem). One time I was arguing with support about the email. When the woman started in with the "it's a very complicated matter and is beyond me" speech, I told her who I worked for (look at my email address) and it was ok if she wanted to get a little technical. That shut her the hell up!
4. 128k upload speed. I know I already mentioned this, but it needs repeating. My company allows me to telecommute once a week (more under special circumstances, e.g. daughter is sick). The limited upload speed makes it a real pain when I connect to the office via the VPN. BTW, doing that violates their AUP. Fsck 'em. I do it anyway.
ATT@HOME is basically treating the internet as a variation of the t.v. You turn it on and they push enterainment (and commericials) at you. Your control is limited to what channel you watch. If you go much beyond their definition of the internet, you will violate the AUP. They don't get it, I guess. When comparing technologies, the internet is more like a telephone than a t.v.
Re:@HOME Broadband (Score:1)
I should mention what I would like. Are you listening @HOME? I didn't think so.
1. 512k+ upload. I'm willing to sacrifice download bandwidth for this.
2. Email that works. I don't expect 100% reliability. No one can provide that because sh!t happens. Alternately, allow me full email access with the ISP of my choice.
3. Acceptable server policy. Allow me to run a server. If I do anything illegal (warez), you can cut me off (but you better have proof!). Allow a reasonable amount of activity for a low volume personal website. Have options to upgrade this for more activity. In the meantime, I'll pray I never post something that get's mentioned on
4. Part of the TOS (terms of service) is that if my system gets hacked, tough. It's my own fault. I recognize your desire to not be responsible for my stupidity.
You could call this new package Geek@Home. If you use this name, I demand free internet access for as long as the name is in use, but not less than two years.
Re:@HOME Broadband (Score:1)
Public-oriented fiber to the home (Score:4)
In Washington State the mostly-agricultural Grant County has over 7,000 miles of fiber laid by the Grant County PUD (http://www.gcpud.org/zipp/default2.htm). This system, when it's completed, will connect every home, farm, and business to the fiber network and allow the users to select from a among a group of competing ISPs for their email and bandwidth. Local ISPs can also sign on for their bandwidth out to the 'net.
The 1-year-old project originated when the PUD engineers lobbied for a remote-meter-reading system and escalated when someone suggested that they could just as well provide high-bandwidth using fiber.
GCPUD is farther along than most but it's far from alone. Several other Public Utility Districts in the State are following close behind them. However, there are some pitfalls: a few legislators, supported by the telephone companies, are fighting it with legislation prohibiting the PUDs from providing Internet access.
How ironic that rural America, long ignored by the large ISPs (AOL doesn't even have a local phone number in this county), telephone companies and cable/DSL providers, will be among the first to get bandwidth connections that will be the envy of the country.
Re:baloney (Score:2)
I have friends who work for the baby Bells. I get an earful anytime this sort of subject comes up.
Re:baloney (Score:2)
As for providing incentive to upgrade the plant: that's easy. Better service == higher fees. You want to have 10 Mbps DSL, pay up! If not, then take the 384kbps DSL and pay less.
More money for higher speed leads to more investment on infrastructure.
Re:Very simple (Score:2)
The solution may not be a government monopoly replacing a telco monopoly, but maybe no monopoly at all. The trouble with this option is now you have 10 companies tearing up the street to bury their cable, instead of one. The redundancy would probably increase the cost. Also, you have ten boxes on the side of your house and that's just bad feng shui.
Re:Very simple (Score:2)
Re:Kushnik on the dot-gones (Score:3)
One example: if it had the bandwidth, maybe the corner grocery store would let you order online, and have your groceries ready for you when you got to the store, saving you time. Instead we have WebVan and HomeGrocer.com, fighting to become the only source for online grocery shopping. High bandwidth on the last mile could really democratize the dot-com business model, take it out of the VC's hands and put it into the hands of local, already successful, small businesses.
Re:Barf me (Score:3)
In the absence of the regulation of the marketplace and competition, which phone companies don't have because they are government granted monopolies, some other sort of regulation is necessary. If not the government, what do you suggest?
DSL providers in bankruptcy (Score:1)
In the case of Flashcom I have another answer. They simply forget to bill their customers and hope that they will send in the monthy check anyway. Yes that's EXACTLY what flashcom did with me. I NEVER got a bill and had to call to ask what I owed. I was able to do that once, after that it became impossible to get through to them on the phone without being on hold for an hour or more. When they finally announced they were terminiating service I had to send them a certified letter in order to pay off my account!
It was a real shame too, because except for once or twice (right after the service started) I had ZERO down time with them.
Re:Barf me (Score:2)
Yes, but when there are 200,000 of them, and my cost is the same, I'm sure I could do it. Cheaper too.
safe workplaces, a cleaner environment
Unh hunh.. These are the schmucks that took forty years to even restrict sales of benzene, and fifty to reduce the maximum exposure to a level that wasn't giving everyone cancer. Sure sounds clean and safe to me!
social safety nets that prevent the least fortunate of society from starving to death or dying from preventable disease
I'm laughing. Everone that lives solely on social security is below the poverty line. Welfare is a joke too.
I didn't mean to imply AT&T was good; Just that they were the least of the two evils. Oh, and it's a quote from
Re:Barf me (Score:3)
There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double- digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, and the first communications satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the telephone business?
Re:What would you do with all that speed? (Score:1)
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:2)
Indeed. My uni has issues with providing everyone with 100Mbps now, due to the poor quality cables they used for *10Mbps* ethernet. *sigh*.
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Re:Kushnik on the dot-gones (Score:1)
for example the credit card issue and international range of reach can both be eliminated by payment at the time of delivery to established customers (to eliminate fraudulent orders) of the store who might want home delivery (or simply to be able to pick up the entire order) of a list of items from a local store daily/weekly/monthly for a reasonable additional charge allowing placement of web orders. The availability of the website could be advertised simply to existing customers in the area to generate awareness without requiring a search.
A decent website with some simple forms without a payment system and a minimal security system to reduce possibility of fraudulent orders isn't that difficult to set up even if you don't hire a big $$ comp-geek.
Admittedly it is more difficult to do this than to balance the books, requires some investment, and might be easier to do in a manner not using the internet. The risks vs. rewards would need to be looked into to decide if this would be a viable expansion to a business and in a lot of cases today that equation is that it is more trouble than its worth, Having a server with cheap bandwidth and possibly easier website design software might change that equation to make this model more appealing.
Re:baloney (Score:1)
What's needed is some way to separate the cable plant from the Internet service.
For example, in my area SBC owns the local loop. To run DSL on that loop, they need to go to the expense of adding splitters/DSLAMs/other assorted equipment to that loop. That is not a trivial exercise and it is very costly.
Right now, if a competive DSL ISP wants to service a customer on SBC's loop, SBC has to provide that loop to the ISP for LESS than what it costs SBC to do all that work.
What there needs to be is a way to separate the loop from the ISP.
Here's the way it should be:
Division "X" of SBC is responsible for the loop/cable plant/asociated equipment. They have a well defined cost/fee structure for providing the loop. The cost should be realistic, and allow them a way to at least break even, if not profit (this is a capitalist business after all) The cost should be well known and published to all interested ISPs.
Any ISP can hook up to the end user on that loop and provide internet service to that customer, for whatever price/services mix they feel appropriate. The ISP would have to pay the fee to use the cable plant. The ISP would have to make sure they set the price for end user appropriately, accounting for their costs of doing business (just like any other business)
One of the ISPs could very well be Division "Y" of SBC. It could just as equally be Bubba. The point is, Bubba and Baby Bell have to pay the exact same cost to provide internet service on that line.
When and if Division "X" is able to make efficiency improvements that make thir costs go down, they have to pass on at least some of that to the ISP's. Bubba and Baby Bell always pay the same price as each other.
Now we would be competing not based on who has monopoly access to the local loop, but who provides the best internet service for the best price/value.
Re:Deregulation (Score:1)
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:1)
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:1)
In the meantime... (Score:2)
Germany (Score:1)
Re:Symmetry is the problem. (Score:1)
Re:baloney (Score:1)
Hidden Agenda (Score:3)
...
"Now Australia is looking to Canada as a model for how to promote broadband competition."
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"American ISPs are looking to models from Canada"
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"These things are not a problem in Canada"
Canadians.. is there anything they aren't the best at?
-gerbik
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:1)
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
As Optimus Prime would say (Score:1)
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:1)
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
Kushnik on the dot-gones (Score:5)
From the article:
Kushnick thinks that, if the fiber had been laid, a wealth of new businesses would have sprung up to offer services and we wouldn't be experiencing the Internet downturn we have now.
What killed the dot-coms wasn't a lack of connectivity. It was more likely a lack of a solid business plan.
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:1)
Isn't it Ironic? (Score:4)
It's also becoming increasingly interesting -- to say the least -- to see how centralized networks (or, more specifically, corporations whose livelihoods depend on the centralization of their resources) cannot -- under any circumstances -- co-exist with de-centralized users or content.
De-centralized 'content' threatens the centralized 'form'.
Katz, are you listening?
Re:So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:2)
OK, the problem with fiber is not as extreme as it is with cars, but... what will happen if there is no rural fiber subsidy? Well, the rural folks might get some kind of wireless network. They might get nothing, and for some of them that might be reason to abandon the country. Fine. America has a long tradition of people moving to get what they want. The black exodus to Chicago. The gold rush. The sun belt boom. The whole country to begin with. None of these migrations hurt anybody. A "fiber migration" away from far flung rural areas to the city could spark an urban renaissance. It would do it without government intervention. We don't know what the future holds. Broadband is *not* essential. If it were, people would have already abandoned areas that don't have it. I speak from experience. I am not in a rural area, but I am in a broadband blackhole. I have not moved because there are other far more essential reasons for me to stay. I am not "suffering". This is a convenience we are talking about. Not food, shelter, or clothing.
So What If Only A Few Get Broadband? (Score:3)
Implicit in many of these debates is the idea that everybody having broadband is a good thing. Why?
Are we going to duplicate the same mistakes that were made with highways? Everybody just had to have paved roads through their county. We tore up rail systems and built roads. Now everybody complains about smog and sprawl. Highway casualty rates are the equivalent of re-fighting the entire Vietnam war every other year.
So what if only a few get broadband? The countryside will be a refuge from the ubiquitous connectivity that can be just as confining as it is liberating. I say, don't subsidize any of this crap. That will just result in more taxpayer expense. Then 50 years from now some unforseen social problem will arise because of it. The same liberals who advocated the subsidy that created the problem will advocate some other subsidy to solve it. Feh!
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:1)
Wireless is wonderful for the ability to roam, but it really can't compete on the bandwidth side. Now it's possible that we'll be satisfied by the bandwidth that you can get from wireless, but I seriously doubt it. When you start talking about video on demand, wireless just isn't going to be able to cut it. As far as picking the right technology, it's pretty clear that fiber will do the job. You can get truly massive bandwidth through a fiber, and upgrading to truly obscene bandwidth only requires changing the equipment at the ends, not the actual carrier. There's every reason to think that fiber to the home would be capable of supplying all the bandwidth any home user will need for way longer than you'd need to justify the cost.
Re:Broadband should be decentralized (Score:1)
The problem with this argument is that 'entirely located within a single state' is not enough. It's easy to make the case that your argument would only apply if the network couldn't talk to anyone outside of the state, which would make it pretty useless. There's an extremely solid case that any network capable of carrying interstate traffic is going to be subject to Federal regulation.
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:2)
But you're still talking about a wireless local network, not wireless to your home. Your system covers a narrow enough area that you don't have to worry about sharing your 11 Mb/s with your neighbor. When you start talking about replacing the last mile, though, you're talking about sharing access for hundred or thousands of end users on a single wireless network, which means that you're going to need to expand the bandwidth quite a bit. Remember that you don't save much compared to running fiber to every house if you still need a separate wireless network on every block.
Your Rights Online? (Score:3)
. Internet access isn't a right.
Transmission Technology (Score:1)
Anyone with a 100Mbps ethernet connection in a large office knows that the link speed alone is often not the limiting factor!
Furthermore, the assumption that the only, or primary, costs involved are the network termination equipment is simply incorrect. Yes, if we are talking about terminating a 10Gbps (or even 2.5Gbps) SONET or SDH circuits, there will be an expense. But, don't forget that the larger the network (i.e. the greater the number of "end-systems") the more intermediate systems (routers, switches, repeaters, etc) are required. Each one of these network elements then must be monitored and managed.
Now, if we assume that the service will be priced inexpensively enough for consumers to purchase, and that there is enough consumer demand for this sort of service; and if we can assume an inital customer penetration rate of, say between 1-10%, the number of network nodes in a city of 500000 is between 5000 and 50000. This is becoming a fairly expensive network to manage.
One possibility is that a city or other entity could build the fiber infrastructure and then lease "dark fiber" to service providers. This is the model deployed Stockholm, for instance. This approach has the advantage of shifting the expense of active network elements to the service providers, but now additional expense is introduced by separating the operation and repair of the fiber component from the transmission equipment (which still may be separated from the higher-level network-layer elements such as routers and servers).
Futhermore, consider the "peering problem" that will occur if many ISPs and internet users choose to interconnect with multiple IP networks: Through careful address allocation policies, the internet community (by means of regional routing registies like those provided by ARIN [arin.net], RIPE-NCC [ripe.net], and APNIC [apnic.net]) has constructed a hierarchical routing system that limits the growth of the size of routing tables on the core backbone routers in use on the internet. This is important for two reasons.
First, routers have a finite amount of memory. Even if memory is cheap, it still needs to be installed and perhaps increased from time to time. Each upgrade causes downtime as the router is taken out of service and upgraded.
Second, and perhaps more important, each provider advertises its network reachability information to others through a external routing protocol (BGP-4). The BGP process on each router must compute the shortest path to each network and inject that information in the router's fowarding table. The more complex the routing table, the longer BGP takes to update the fowarding table leading to network convergence issues. Also, since BGP-4 is mostly manually configured, an increase in complexity serval of orders of magnitide would require the development of new extensions to the system, this would be futher exasperated by the limitation currently imposed by the use of 16-bit autonomous system (AS) numbers which identify each administrative realm of routing policy. Someone will have to absorb the expense incured in the development and implementation of new rotuing protocols. Then, again, each core router will have to be upgraded.
Inexpensive broadband technology is still a-ways away. It will revolutionize the internet (and probably telecommunications, in general) when it becomes available, but that revolution itself will not be cheap.
Re:Honey, have you seen my broadband? (Score:1)
Baby Bells... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but with the recent trend towards huge corporate mergers, does this mean that there is a possibility of all the Baby Bells merging to once again form one Big Daddy Bell?
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The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
Re:Baby Bells... (Score:2)
The same thing was said about AOL-Time Warner.
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The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:1)
And the UK, and Finland, and God knows how many other counties. With great success.
Man, oh man, what I'd do to take some Canadians with me on my next visit to the UK. It's such an eye opener to see a totally different set of problems. Makes you really appreciate what you have at home.
>Hope you enjoy delivering your OWN BABY in hospital
People have been delivering their own babies for years. Why the heck do we have to pay for people to deliver what doctors have previously said are going to be perfectly healthy babies in a hospital? That's what midwives are for! Hospitals are for sick people...
>Canada's got the highest taxes in the G-7.
Our taxes put our tax freedom day on June 30th, the UK (for example, since I've lived a total of a year there) has a tax freedom day of June 10th. Yes, I suppose one might say we have higher taxes.
Now look at the prices compared to wages and taxes.
They own 1/3 the house and land (thrice our prices), half the car (twice our prices), and drive diesel manual transmission cars to eke out the last drop of their $2/litre gas. Even food bought at a supermarket, which was once competitive with Canadian prices, is higher. You can't have a decent meal out for less than $15. Property taxes are insane (ahem... poll tax anybody?).
And, you'll realize, pricing in these countries is VERY petty. I've never paid for utensils before, have you? Well, I lied: I paid 4 cents for a fork in a fish and chippe shop there. You want ketchup with that? $1. And here charging for bathroom access is virtually unheard of! 25 cents - $1 if you're desparate in Europe.
Their wages are not three times ours. They aren't even twice ours. I'd be surprised if they were much higher at all than ours. If they were we know a lot of people who'd be living the high life in Canada, right now.
Here's some _close_ to home salary news:
http://www.eetimes.com/salarysurvey/1999/europe
A little item of interest: A friend of ours took a trip to Germany about 5 years ago. They took their 1 year old Caravan (tm) [not the trailer, the van] with them. We thought they were nuts. They said they sold it for $40k. I don't believe it, but then again, I guess their taxes make up for it, right?
>Canada should be setting its targets at the best. e.g. USA
Before you say the best is in other countries, see this:
http://www.undp.org/hdr2000/english/presskit/hd
[remove the slashdot-forced space]
Canada is multicultural, we pick and choose what's best for this country. Parts of American idealism (free economy, free speech [sorta]) are used here, parts of European idealism (free health care, public services) are used here, etc... That is what keeps our country strong, and the #1 best place to live on earth.
I'm not trying to suggest other countries are horrible places to live (far from it, each counrty has its own charm, and most are quite nice, and depending on what you want from life, better in some ways). I'm trying to say that you can generally live "better" here for less (as far as $$$ goes). Maybe not compared to the US, but elsewhere, yes.
Canada's good. Canada could be better. I'd like it to be better, but not at the expense of our culture and lifestyle.
Just my 2 cents... don't take this too seriously... it's unlikely we're going to find a compromise (it's a little to political for that)
HAND!
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:1)
That's being changed. Slowly... For now just take a trip to the US. If you have the hundreds of thousands private care is going to cost, a $1000 First Class ride shouldn't concern you.
>I've lived in Canada 19 years and spent 4 years in the UK. What are you talking about?
European Union, prices, crime, Hoof and Mouth / Mad Cow disease, just for starters. I was in a small town in Cumbria of less than 10,000 people, and they had people burning each others cars on the street for jollies. I've never seen that happen in any town near me. While over there I saved a man from being murdered (no joke, he was lying on a golf course, nearly beaten to death). Never, ever, have I witnessed an attempted murder anywhere in Canada, and certainly not on a golf course. There's more, but I'm not all _that_ up on their politics, those are just the hot issues. I'm surprised that you never noticed the prices or the farmers dumping millions of tomatoes, or the HGVs filling the roads in gas tax protests over there in your four years stay.
Again, I don't want to bash any country. Every country has its problems, including Canada.
>they should go every time their toddler has a cough.
No disagreement here. It's hard to close that loophole, though, because there seems to be a lot of resistance to the idea in Canada (why, I can't figure).
>Given the exchange rate...What's the $CDN at, $0.50?
1 pound buys $2.25 CDN. www.xe.net will tell you this.
A Ford Fiesta in Canada will cost just over $16,000, according to Ford. A Ford Fiesta, in the UK, similarly equipped: 13,300 UKP. That's $30,000, or within arms reach of twice the price. You'll find that's the norm there.
I'd give some examples of housing, but it's a little difficult (well, more like technically impossible), considering you have to compare totally different cities, lot sizes, etc...
>Now compare to the USA. Ah, right. You don't like that comparison. Just comparisons to Bangladesh and crowded Europe.
Fine. You don't like Europe and think the US is the best place to live on Earth and that everywhere else is a hellhole. I can't argue with you on that simply because you seem too serious on the fact.
Perhaps I can still burst your bubble:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/paw/paonline/clas
It isn't all roses there. Things can cost you. But, fine, if you _want_ to live in the projects, sure, you'll find housing extremely affordable (probably under 1/3 our usual prices).
Did I mention Canada doesn't have "the projects"? Notice that the cartoon, the PJs, is a tongue-in-cheek parody of American life in their worst cities. Doesn't seem too pleasant, does it?
>And agrees to take in every "refugee" that wants a free ride
It's _because_ Canada is that nice that when you go to other countries you get the royal treatment. I've found abroad people mistake me as American. I get really bad service that way. Sew a Canadian patch on your backpack and you will get the best treatment. No, that isn't just from the infomercials, that's real life.
When your country threatens to blow up any country that disagrees with you, you tend to find the world resents you for it.
>and agrees to disarm every Canadian in the name of the Global New World Order
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. With weapons. Like guns.
I can't even fathom why anyone would want handguns on our streets after seeing a few episodes of cops. Aren't the episodes where one kid kills the other with the handgun because they got in an argument sad enough?
>The fact remains though that Canada's richest provinces still have a lower standard of living than Mississippi
For crying out loud man! They are still SENDING PEOPLE TO THE GAS CHAMBER there. And you think that place is the best to live in?
>You can't have "sorta" free speech.
Yes, you can. In Canada, people would say you have free speech. Yet we still ban certain books. In the US everyone "knows" you have free speech. Yet you can't yell "fire" in a theater that isn't burning down.
>And BTW a government policy of taking money from where it's being made and transferring it to welfare provinces isn't a free economy.
If welfare is the gravy train everyone thinks it is, why don't they try it for themselves? Oh yeah, because it SUCKS to get that paltry sum of money. That doesn't mean we shouldn't give them the bare minimum and not a dollar more, but really, no welfare at all and you'll quickly see what problems occurr when people burgle your house for food.
>and you don't ask too many questions about the warlords, drug smugglers, murderers and other scum you give haven, welfare and everything else to
Then they should be in jail. You don't get welfare in jail. And if you think that costs too much, and that they should all fry, that's just too much. Killing a man doesn't fix the crime. It makes us a country of murderers.
>So long as everything's in French
That's Quebec. I don't like their decision, but it is a separate province. Don't like it, leave. Your citizenship is valid in all other Canadian provinces. And so is your language.
And your beloved United States is Biligual too! Didn't you notice all the government made Espanol signs all over?
>Then why is there a brain drain?
Because the US economy WAS hot, and therefore naturally paid better. I say WAS. You watch the Americans complain about the brain drain to Canada now.
>Why can't Canada attract the skilled immigration it wants?
I see a lot of skilled immigrants out there, considering all Canadians, other than Natives, are immigrants.
>What more freedoms do you want curtailed?
If you're talking about Bill C-68, I'm mad too. But I'm not going to dismiss our entire country on the basis of this one piece of legislation. Canada is very free, often to the point that many people don't want us to cross (look at our lax child pornography laws). I'd like to see how we aren't free (excepting the one Bill).
>How many more giveaways to the usual suspects?
If you don't like welfare then I hope you are on tenure. Because without money, you won't last long. If you need relevant examples, I'm sure I can cook you up as many as you want.
Re:Deregulation (Score:1)
Deregulation (Score:2)
"Rights" aren't Rights (Score:1)
Where do you think "Rights" come from (whichever "Rights" you seem to think are legitimate in contrast with the illegitimate rights to broadband/internet rights)?
Well?
God? The ether? Nature? Tradition? Old pieces of parchment?
Try this: "Rights" are "Rights" when enough people decide they are.
So how about we take a look at the possibility/desirability of making broadband/internet access a "Right" instead of bleating about what is and isn't?
EC
Re:"Rights" aren't Rights (Score:1)
It's a lot closer than you think. In fact as close as your nearest public library, or public school. Not much further from there to your apartment.
Here's an idea: Why not fund highspeed access to the libraries/schools, and let them sell service the rest of the way. That way, they get money, the rest of us get cheap, reliable broadband access.
Not a right, but getting there.
EC
Satellite access (Score:3)
Wild Blue is poised to come online in early 2002 and further down the road, Teledesic, in 2005 (scheduled). Unlike current satellite connections, Wild Blue's will be 3Mbps (albeit with high pings (300ms+), nevertheless, it should be affordable and relatively easy to install.
Teledesic's system will be 64Mbps with very low ping times, since it uses Low Earth Orbit satellites (LEOs). I believe this is what is going to change everything. Sure, fiber would be good for you city dwellers, but 64Mbps for a guy in the middle of farm land is pretty good. It will probably be less BW for home users, but they are saying that it will be price competitive, so I'd expect nothing higher than $50/month, but probably more like $30-$40 for 1 to 3Mbps (that's just a guess, tho).
Re:Germany (Score:1)
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:2)
Cable Modem (Score:2)
IMHO
Re:Barf me (Score:1)
oops
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Barf me (Score:2)
In the meantime, the U.S. government is approaching the problem by eliminating regulations on the Baby Bells, which is sort of like combating street crime by taking police officers off the street.
Uh huh. Because as we all know, all good things come from government! We can't trust that no good public sector to actually produce things that people want.
In fact, Michael is right. Clearly things are moving too slow, so the government needs to turn the Internet into a utility! Water pipes are utilities, why not data pipes?
Before you know it, we'll have a nirvana of 100mb fiber running to everyone's home! Universal access at last! And the best of all... a benevolent government running it all, watching out for our best interests. No one getting mislead into choose the eevil AOL, you will only be allowed to choose the friendly, helpful government.
Man, I can't wait until Michael is President.
--
Greed is good? (Score:3)
That's the thing that irks me. Greed to the point of "That's a good Idea! You can't have it because I want it"
If they can't have it, they gotta stop you from having too. Worse than a bucketful of frogs.
[A bucketful of frogs refers to an old country story of if you have a bunch of frogs in a bucket, when one tries to get out, the others will try to pull the potential escapee back into the bucket.]
Re:Do we *really* need fiber to the home? (Score:1)
My connection speeds up and slows down several times a minute.. playing games I have some amazingly low pings, but if you pull up connection info (i.e. netgraph 3 in HL), packet loss is through the roof.
It's horrible, and this after news about the government up here passing laws to make broadband access super powerful and widespread. Ugh.
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:2)
Canada's health care system rates REAL low on the international standards list, by the way. And BTW only Canada and Cuba have communist medicine. With roughly equal success. Hope you enjoy delivering your OWN BABY in hospital, or dying on a waiting list.
Your choice. Live fast, die young. Pay high taxes, live forever. We have lower taxes than most every 1st world country.
Wrong. Canada's got the highest taxes in the G-7.
Seriously. Don't believe me, take a trip to Europe!
I'm not interested in how Canada relates to Sweden or Communist Russia. Canada should be setting its targets at the best. e.g. USA. You must come from the Liberal standpoint of "if you don't like the test results, lower the standards."
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:2)
Actually, UK, Finland etc have full two tier health care (not just a clinic in Ontario for the elite). Canada, China and Cuba remain the only places where it's illegal to pay for better service.
RE: It's such an eye opener to see a totally different set of problems. Makes you really appreciate what you have at home.
I've lived in Canada 19 years and spent 4 years in the UK. What are you talking about?
RE: People have been delivering their own babies for years. Why the heck do we have to pay for people to deliver what doctors have previously said are going to be perfectly healthy babies in a hospital? That's what midwives are for! Hospitals are for sick people...
Tell that to the welfare hordes in Canada who think just because the system is free, they should go every time their toddler has a cough.
RE: Our taxes put our tax freedom day on June 30th, the UK (for example, since I've lived a total of a year there) has a tax freedom day of June 10th. Yes, I suppose one might say we have higher taxes.
That would be like saying Chretien is a liar.
RE: Now look at the prices compared to wages and taxes.
Given the exchange rate...What's the $CDN at, $0.50?
RE: They own 1/3 the house and land (thrice our prices), half the car (twice our prices), and drive diesel manual transmission cars to eke out the last drop of their $2/litre gas. Even food bought at a supermarket, which was once competitive with Canadian prices, is higher. You can't have a decent meal out for less than $15. Property taxes are insane (ahem... poll tax anybody?).
Now compare to the USA. Ah, right. You don't like that comparison. Just comparisons to Bangladesh and crowded Europe.
RE: Their wages are not three times ours. They aren't even twice ours.
Why the brain drain to the USA then? I'm waiting. If the taxes are so low and the wages so high and everything's so cheap, why are people bailing for much greener pastures?
RE:Before you say the best is in other countries, see this:
Ah, the UN. Given that every time the UN says "jump" Canada says "how high"? And agrees to take in every "refugee" that wants a free ride, and agrees to disarm every Canadian in the name of the Global New World Order, is it any wonder that we're #1 in "human development"? Yay, so people serving coffee in Starbucks have two degrees each. They're so actualised. The fact remains though that Canada's richest provinces still have a lower standard of living than Mississippi.
RE:Canada is multicultural, we pick and choose what's best for this country.
So long as everything's in French, and you don't ask too many questions about the warlords, drug smugglers, murderers and other scum you give haven, welfare and everything else to.
RE:Parts of American idealism (free economy, free speech [sorta])
You can't have "sorta" free speech. And BTW a government policy of taking money from where it's being made and transferring it to welfare provinces isn't a free economy.
RE:That is what keeps our country strong, and the #1 best place to live on earth.
Then why is there a brain drain? Why can't Canada attract the skilled immigration it wants? Cause people aren't buying into the "pay taxes for more than half a year on half of what you could make in the USA" crap. Nor the Lieberal spin on some UN document.
RE: Canada's good. Canada could be better. I'd like it to be better, but not at the expense of our culture and lifestyle.
And how would you like it better? What more freedoms do you want curtailed? How many more giveaways to the usual suspects?
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:2)
Or, you can take out health insurance, and have it not cost hundreds and thousands should something happen.
RE: European Union,
And what's wrong with that?
RE: prices, crime,
Prices relate to too many people, not enough land.
RE: Hoof and Mouth / Mad Cow disease,
E-coli outbreaks in Ontario...
RE: Never, ever, have I witnessed an attempted murder anywhere in Canada, and certainly not on a golf course.
Go to any Canadian city, at night.
RE:No disagreement here. It's hard to close that loophole, though, because there seems to be a lot of resistance to the idea in Canada (why, I can't figure).
The concept of entitlement: those who work should pay for us who don't. It's the biggest threat of socialism.
RE: Fine. You don't like Europe and think the US is the best place to live on Earth
I'm trying to point out differences in similar areas. Comparing France to Vietnam - there's too many variables. France to Spain, OK you can do that. You want to compare the problems of a frozen vast wasteland to a tiny island. Well duh land is gonna be cheaper in the former. That doesn't make the country BETTER.
RE: It isn't all roses there. Things can cost you. But, fine, if you _want_ to live in the projects, sure, you'll find housing extremely affordable (probably under 1/3 our usual prices).
Salaries are better, though.
RE: Did I mention Canada doesn't have "the projects"?
Little Burgundy in Montreal. Parts of Toronto where Jamaicans shoot the place up. Elmvale Acres in Ottawa, as well as the nastier parts around Bayshore. Hastings, in the Vancouver area is considered nastier to live in than many 3rd world slums.
RE: It's _because_ Canada is that nice that when you go to other countries you get the royal treatment.
Thanks for the free ride! Here's your UN pin. Yay.
RE: Guns don't kill people. People kill people. With weapons. Like guns.
People kill people. The gun is immaterial.
RE: I can't even fathom why anyone would want handguns on our streets after seeing a few episodes of cops. Aren't the episodes where one kid kills the other with the handgun because they got in an argument sad enough?
The parents should be charged, not have everything blamed on the gun. I don't see Canadians banning alcohol and/or cars when there's a drunk driving death.
RE:For crying out loud man! They are still SENDING PEOPLE TO THE GAS CHAMBER there. And you think that place is the best to live in?
And in Canada, they give Karla Homolka a cottage to live in, with makeup, birthday cakes, etc. when what she DESERVES is to die like her victims.
RE: Yes, you can. In Canada, people would say you have free speech. Yet we still ban certain books.
Oh, OK you have free speech, just so long as it's free speech the government agrees with.
RE: If welfare is the gravy train everyone thinks it is, why don't they try it for themselves? Oh yeah, because it SUCKS to get that paltry sum of money.
Then why do entire families enroll for generations? In Ontario under Rae, you got more in welfare than you did in many jobs.
RE: That doesn't mean we shouldn't give them the bare minimum and not a dollar more, but really, no welfare at all and you'll quickly see what problems occurr when people burgle your house for food.
Anything rather than work, huh.
RE: Then they should be in jail.
Go suggest that to the people investigating Mr. Lai.
RE: You don't get welfare in jail. And if you think that costs too much, and that they should all fry, that's just too much. Killing a man doesn't fix the crime. It makes us a country of murderers.
No, but it prevents recidivism better than any egghead professor saying all we need to do is give them this and that and the other.
RE: That's Quebec.
Canada. Ya can't vote in a PM who doesn't speak French.
RE: And your beloved United States is Biligual too! Didn't you notice all the government made Espanol signs all over?
Yeah, they have the RIGHT to do that. You can't say people can't work cause they can't speak Spanish, nor do they make English illegal in Florida.
RE:Because the US economy WAS hot, and therefore naturally paid better. I say WAS. You watch the Americans complain about the brain drain to Canada now.
Still won't happen. Canada's economy will suck harder. Socialist countries always do.
RE: I see a lot of skilled immigrants out there, considering all Canadians, other than Natives, are immigrants.
I'm referring to the targets they set each year.
RE: If you're talking about Bill C-68, I'm mad too. But I'm not going to dismiss our entire country on the basis of this one piece of legislation.
What about you not having the right to own property? The tilted-to-the-east voting? The enforced socialism? The civil service based on race?
RE: If you don't like welfare then I hope you are on tenure.
Actually, I work for a living. Surprising, huh?
please leave the internet alone. (Score:2)
did the democratic party subsidise this article? this article seemed to spew democratic gut beliefs all over. let the governement regulate service providers?! PLEASE! NOT MORE LEGISLATION! WE NEED LESS GOV'T CONTROL!
what i really don't understand is if company A comes to town and builds a fibre internet access where everyone on the network can download ISO's in seconds, and charges 60$ per month, should they have to let company B come to town and "lease" their lines (at a presumably discounted rate) to become a service provider? if I build the network, i sure as hell ain't gonna let someone else come and make money off of it
and on unfair pricing by the current broadbands? i don't see how it's fair to criticize them for being subsidised by their other services (even though i don't read any hard facts of the such). does ford/gm plan to make a profit on every vehicle line they put out? or do they know that a few cerain models are selling at a loss just to keep their vehicles on the road? if a cable company or phone company can provide broadband on the same line that's already going to the home, don't you think they have a right to do so? even if one product isn't making as much money as the other? do all the channels on the cable network make money for the cable company? i would guess that some of those channels are loss leaders as well. it's just a common business practice no matter which industry you're in.
Not Just Japan (Score:2)
The difference between American/European and Asian telecoms is in the maturity level. The Asian telecoms are still very young and are in the expansion state, whereas American/Euro telecoms are embroiled in corporate takeovers, their CEOs trying to make an extra buck, and generally playing the "Ma Bell is in ashes let's fsck" game. The Asian telecoms were virtually nonexistant until the late 1950s and 1960s after they finally recovered from the last world war. At the same time, AT&T was THE evil empire. (Imagine that if you wanted to buy a telephone, you had to buy it from your local AT&T office).
So while the asian telecoms were just building their networks, the Americans and Europeans were laying down T-lines and E-lines, respectively. Thus, it is much easier for Asian telecoms who have not yet "institutionalized" to retrofit their systems. Note that "institutionalization" has nothing to do with "monopolization" nor does it have anything to do with "decentralization". It is the whole
Re:Broadband internet access is a luxury (Score:2)
An Example:
Here at school all class registration is done on-line via a web-based system. Based on your class standing, you are assigned a period of time in which you can access the system and register for classes for the next term. Everyone with the same class standing registers during the same period of time. For example, everyone in their second sophmore term registered last Monday beginning at 6:00pm. Here is where the inequity between broad-band and traditional access comes into play: If you are registering from the campus LAN (computer labs, dorms, on-campus apartments, etc.) pages load almost instantly, while if you are registering via a modem connection into the university network, pages load much more slowly. The result is that students registering via the campus LAN are more likely to get into their first choice of classes than are those registering via a dial-up connection.
Now lets expand this further. Lets say that many services now provided by traditional means are provided through an application service provider setup. Those without decent bandwidth will become second-class citizens.
We need the government write legislation which provides a fair, competitive market-place, to ensure that everyone has access to broad-band internet. Also, remember that 100 or so years ago, neither electricity, water, phone-service, or natural-gas were a 'utility' by your definition.
Broadband internet access is a luxury (Score:2)
Electricity is a true "utility". It is useful, nay, vital for so many daily tasks that there is a real need for the government to regulate the electrical utilities, and prevent monopolization and price gouging. The same is true of water, natural gas, mail, and (to a lesser extent) telephone service.
Internet service is _not_ a utility. So far, internet service is not necessary to perform any daily task. Oh, I'm sure that the "need" for internet service will eventually be forced upon us; I can see a future where companies will start billing customers and sending important notices entirely through e-mail. Broadband access is even less of a necessity. So why should the government involve itself in the business of regulating ISP's?
hyacinthus.
It works both ways (Score:2)
OTOH my friends on the south shore who have Cox @Home have constant service headaches, outages, hacker attacks (you can have your fixed IP address, I *like* PPPoE), have found customer service to be ignorant, unresponsive, and rude, and while they get more bandwidth than I do they don't seem to get what they were promised.
OTOH I've heard of people with similar DSL headaches elsewhere. It all depends on who your provider is and how serious they are.
Oddly, my regular phone service went out last month due to a bad line from house to pole, but the DSL continued to work. I have been using BellSouth FastAccess for about 4 months now and have never had even a 5 minute outage. Go figure.
This is a good example of synergy (Score:2)
The PUD's are planning to send the guy with the cable to your house anyway, though, because it's to their advantage to install the remote meter-reading network. They're willing to pay for him to drag a cable out there anyway. So it's gravy for them to give him fiber instead of copper. They don't have to charge you for the most expensive part of setting up the infrastructure because it's something they would have done themselves anyway to save money on meter readers.
You're right, though, after the wait for cable and painful measurements of house-to-CO distance for DSL, it is pretty ironic that the most rural folks of all may get even better connections than those of us "lucky" enough to be in broadband now.
Re:Deregulation (Score:2)
Re:Barf me (Score:2)
Er, do you know how much money AT&T spent to develop those things? It's a phenomenal amount, made even more poignant by the tiny number of success stories relative to failures (this is not meant to be unfair to Bell Labs, as almost all pure research labs have this necessary characteristic.)
The reason AT&T was able to do so much for the world was because the American people were footing the fabulous bill (not to mention the corporations who were and still are paying license fees for a bunch of this stuff.) If AT&T is your idea of a good business, then I'd suggest you look at what's happening to them now that they actually have to compete.
The most embarrassing thing about AT&T, while we're on this subject, is that now that they are forced to compete, it turns out that their data network is years behind the competition. Why? Because AT&T felt like they could just go on laying copper while Sprint and MCI put fiber into the ground. Oops.
Re:Hidden Agenda (Score:2)
For something they're actually bad at, you might have to go for "impoliteness"!