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As of Sept 2003:
-America Online had 24.7 million subscribers and a 25.6% share
-MSN had 8.7 million subscribers and a 9.0% share.

So MSFT could buy the dialup business and hold a significantly larger share of the ISP business. 34.6% does not a monopoly make.

Take the content and Roadrunner and Cable. Combine it with Paul Allen's Comcast and you now have 45% of the ISP market and a significant portion of the cable TV market

Time Warner Roadrunner broadband never offered AOL as an ISP option. So I suspect that they do not think highly of AOL even within the walls. You can even get Earhlink or Max.Inter.Net as an alternative!

DSL Prime: Telco Cowboys, Mr. Pulver to D.C.

A rare victory for small business in VoIP should not obscure the fact that DSL competition is fading across America.

by Dave Burstein
DSL Prime
[February 13, 2004]

"Deliver 100 meg to almost all Americans."
-- John Cioffi. Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, Brian Roberts of Comcast, and Bob Blau of BellSouth all recently spoke of moving to 50 and 100 Megs.

They delayed the FCC meeting this morning, but as this issue is going out Jeff Pulver should be getting miraculous news at Thursday's FCC meeting. None of us believed his Free World Dialup petition had any chance, despite the logic of moving voice to the net. "Mr. Smith"--actually, Mr. Pulver, a small businessman--went to D.C. and convinced officials his cause was right. The phone companies realized they can still game the system and stay ahead, and even the FBI offered to compromise on ruling the internet.

Friday is also the day for bids on AT&T Wireless, a deal that will probably go down because $300 million in commissions and accelerated options are at stake. Amazing that bids are at $30 billion for an outfit whose profits are negligible and headed negative, and whose management wants to cash out. Buying AWE is essentially a bet spectrum will go up dramatically in price despite the return of the analog TV band, SDR, and the FCC's plan to make more available. It's time for John Wayne CEOs to ride into the sunset.

Meanwhile, our technology produces everyday miracles. Jef Raskin writes "just gave a talk in Graz, Austria, via iChat AV. Real time voice and video, both ways. We set up the session by discussing it (at no extra cost above my standard DSL line) via audio, video, and text (all simultaneous)." His California Pac Bell connection may soon go to 3 Mbps+ down, 600 Kbps up, making that even easier. Everyone who cares about the user experience should read Jef's The Humane Interface.

Last week, yet another CEO told me how important the interface is, then showed me something second rate. Imagine if the designer of the Macintosh defined your user experience. Companies like Verizon, (whose install is thankless) or gateway/set top vendors should get it right by bringing in Jef, a friend, or similar talent.

Martin on Competition "Time now to speak"
"I'm proud to have stood up for what I believe was right"
"I'm afraid we may be losing some of the battles" to preserve the competition that currently exists. "Policy-makers in Washington are not debating the benefits of the services you offer," he said. "They are too frequently debating how much of the rules should be eliminated, and how should the changes be made to be more fair to the incumbents."

"If you have a message to deliver, I think the time is now . . . . Speak now or forever hold your peace. You must now be your own champions." (From Telecommunications Reports)

Editor's opinion: The right choice is either strong competition or strong regulation. If we don't want direct regulation of telcos' rates and profits, then we need regulation that creates thriving alternatives. Incumbents' economies of scale and financial power allow them to crush others unless curbed. As far as I'm concerned, calls for policies that cripple competitors are also a call for strong government intervention to keep prices down. One day, I'll report a Tauke or a Whitacre call for limiting CLEC access using the headline "Verizon/SBC calls for return to strict rate of return regulation"--the alternative implied if they kill the opposition.

Telco Cowboys
Repairmen to John Wayne CEOs
Ed Whitacre wants to spend $30 billion on AT&T Wireless, building an empire deserving of Ozymandias. He's blind to the AT&T folk desperately looking for an exit, as profit heads towards zero and beneath. Decimated Ameritech has lost $30 billion or more in value, and would have required a career-ending write-off except for an accounting l

I take it this test would be automated?


yes.


What about mailing lists, automated password mailouts (used by places like slashdot when registering or users have lost passwords)?


The system would be based on a whitelist. You could add/remove people to the whitelist by sending a signed email, by using a secure web page, or one day, having a custom app (possibly integrated into your browser's context menu for email links, like 'Add this email to my friends list').

The authorisation process is just another way to get on the whitelist.


Then there is also the fact that the spam will bounce (most often) to a non valid adress, or one which actually exists but is not of the spammers.


Not my problem. They should get a proper spam prevention system like this one ;-).


and re the kid not being free; I had a couple of spare hours so I wrote a small app which simulates mass mailouts, and the addresses mta would send back an authentication (another email which you reply with the word in the email as the subject), with a well designed app, I could do (on average) 12 a minute, and a know tonnes of kids (not necisarily of _legal_ age to work, who's parents and who themselves would be happy to work for $5 an hour (AUD). All my app did was with every incoming mail (an auth email) it would automaticaly display it in a 2 pain window with the bottom being the message body, and the top being the reply. When that window closed (sending) another would be behind it for authentication etc) As the questions would be simple, they would take less time to write the answers than copying the text.


Okay, spamers would definitely go that far to keep their racket working, so lets look at the figures and see how viable this would be for them:

Assuming 12 image tests per minute, and 5$ (AUD) is realistic, then that would allow them to do 720 mails an hour, costing the spammer 1.44 cents per mail.

Now, assuming that they achieve a 0.00036% sucess rate (yes, 3.6 hits per million -- see link), then the cost per sale to the spammer will be $4000 (AUD). Now considering this particular spammer was making only $10 (US) on a sale, that means a huge net loss.


And finaly, one point I did not make: I think that authing people would be the death of email - people like the fact they can click the send button and go onto the next email - if they have to undertake some form of authentication then they will just not bother.


Yes, that's the downside. Admitidley, you only have to do it for people you've never spoken to before, but it's still a pain. But spam is already a huge pain, and it keeps getting worse. But your point is well taken.

There all just ideas, and they could probably be improved. For example, GPG has the idea of chains of trust. If a trusts b, and b trusts c, then a trusts c. Given that we are all connected to each other by only 7 levels of indirection, then a complementary whitelist based on chains of trust might mean that it is almost never necesarry to do the authentication once you become trusted by enough people. An idea like that can never be taken seriously by itself because it has no teeth when somebody is not implicitly truested, but can become useful when there is a system like this one to back it up.

Any more ideas/criticism are most welcome.

Sprint Broadband is apparently not accepting new customers, but there are still local and regional providers like Outlaw Wireless to be found.

ISP-Planet seems to be a good resource.

It would make sense to buy a firewall capable of handing your link speed

Take a look at this link.

" The issue is not the bandwidth," explains Abhay Joshi, Top Layer's manager of ISP relations. "Each SYN packet could be 50 bytes, so 2 Mbps of SYN flood would be about 10,000 packets per second.

Also, it was interesting to note that the Foundry firewall they tested happened to go up to 50,000 packets per second, which is approximately the same as what SCO was seeing (at least, what the backscatter was implying, and the backscatter would only show SYNs which were being handled). It also says that their hardened servers could only handle 10,000 packets per second, so SCO probably was using a firewall with SYN flood protection.

Could SCO have opted for the Top Layer firewall which could handle 750,000 SYN attack packets per second. Sure, they could have, but it surely would have cost a fortune and been overkill.

Also, the numbers for how much this computer is worth don't factor the right things in. Anyone who'd go for this deal needs some sort of ISP to begin with, and the $23.90/month may be higher than other ISPs, but does give the customer something of value beyond the PC. On the other hand, is that really a $699 computer?

Too Late: RIAA sues ISPs

Blacklists don't suppress speech. No one forces you or your ISP to use the blacklists or to refuse e-mail from IP addresses listed on them. I use blacklists and my server may reject messages from you. So what? You have no Constitutionally guaranteed right to use my server to deliver your message. It's my private property, just as your ISP's server is their property.

But never mind all that, just suppose that we do allow owners of networks and servers absolute control of what passes over their wires. Is that something you really want? Sure, it gives them the power to shut down spam. But it also gives them the power to control what web sites their users can access. Or what their users can put on their own web sites. Now, if hardware is owned by a private company and all its users are employees who are supposed to be using the internet to do their jobs, I suppose you have to grant that company a large measure of control. But if we're talking about public ISPs, then we're talking about something very scary. These ISPs, if they coordinated their efforts, and were allowed to totally control whatever passes over their wires, could do something that governments have repeatedly tried and failed to do: censor the internet.

A few years ago, there was a site called blackdeath.org that offended certain parties with its anti-Christian rants. Who demanded that their ISP pull the plug. When the ISP declined, they went to the ISP's backbone provider. Which happened to be owned by a major media company. Now, media companies are not fans of censorship, but they like offending people even less -- they might complain to the FCC, or worse, stop watching TV. So the backbone provider told the ISP to pull the plug on blackdeath.org, or else they'd lose their own internet service, and be forced out of business. Naturally they complied. Blackdeath.org went dark, briefly came back with a low-bandwidth provider, then finally disappeared forever.

This really scared me at the time, since the internet backbone had been consolidated into just a few big companies, most of them with the same censorship-prone connections as the Time Warner backbone. Since then, the backbone situation has gotten a little more competitive. But with the trend to consolidate more and more communications into fewer and fewer companies, I wouldn't get to sanguine. And I'd look for solutions to the spam problem that emphasizes individual, not central, control over network traffic.

here's a post from the isp-tech mailing list where someone asked basically the same question, and got many responses; within a few hours the spam was flowing at the rate of 1 per minute!

Windows 2000 sp3 and Windows XP sp1 give Microsoft full access to your data. So for most bankers, doctors, insurance companies, and so on, if they run MS-Windows they get to choose from getting taken out by the worm of the week now or grabbing their ankles and waiting for the lawyers to read the license.

There is a third option, which is cheaper and more practical: upgrade to linux, using your existing hardware. Or, next time it's time for new hardware, re-examine lower TCO options.

I read your Journal entry. A couple of things for you-

1. Are you doing Voice or Data CLEC? The type of traffic will dictate the network you use. ATM is good for data, but TDM is better for Voice, even now.

2. Have you gotten your certificate from your state PUC? Without it, the local ILEC won't (and doesn't have to) give you the time of day.

3. If you've gotten your certificate, have you negotiated your ICA (inter-connect agreement)? The ICA will specify exactly what the ILEC has to provide you, and at what prices. You might still be able to opt into an existing ICA between the ILEC and another CLEC if you can find one you like.

4. Have you applied to your area co-ordinator for your number block? Who's hosting your SS7? How are you handling connectivity to the required 911 PSAPs?

5. Do you have an OSS platform that's flexible enough to do what you need, but simple enough to operate on a shoe string?

You might want to subscribe to the isp-clec lists at http://isp-lists.isp-planet.com .

AOL owns all their equipment, and they're paying the (no doubt substantial) monthly bills for electricity, bandwidth, etc. They have absolute authority to operate their stuff any way they choose. If they want to block mail from some other ISP because they don't like the color of the admin's car, well... they can do it. That's the way the Internet, as a whole, operates.

Now, with that said... If they start losing customers because of their blocking policies, I'll wager that they'll rethink said policies in a big hurry.

Now, with all THAT said... I've done a little research. It seems that AOL's accusations that CIHost is a spammer are not entirely unfounded. From what I found, it seems they were spamming their own hosting services less than a year ago. More recently, around the beginning of July, it appears that they provided spam support services.

There are numerous other instances, dating from 2000-2002, from the Google Groups search for the group news.admin.net-abuse.email. In short, it would appear that CIHost, while the number of recent reports seems to have slacked off, may still not be completely free of spammer infestation themselves.

They would be very wise to clean their own house before they start yelling "Foul!" about other ISPs doing nothing more than exercising their private property rights.

Train wreck? What a total crock from Keynote. here is a well researched article that's easy to read for you [sciam.com].

I'm sorry but I cant find anything in there that says the train wreck didnt happen?

Are you saying that there was not a crash and that there were no cables affected by the crash?

These stories disagree with you:

http://www.computerworld.com/industrytopics/energy /story/0,10801,62375,00.html

http://www.isp-planet.com/technology/2001/baltimor e_bol.html

http://www.firefighting.com/articles/namFullView.a sp?namID=3365

...snip grumble...

You can contrast that to free software distribution systems where it's easy to set up a local mirror and theyby reduce the amount of traffic needed by orders of magnitude.

No shit! You know thats really interesting. If only MS had a system like tha... heyyy they DO! In fact you know - I have one. On my network.

Incidentally in your mirroring system how do you keep all your software up to date and are 100% certain that it hasn't been tampered with?

But once this standard is in place, I see these interests groups going around and sueing everyone they can get their hands on.

This is already happening.

• The RNIB is acting on behalf of people in the UK
• SOCOG was fined 20,000AUD in Australia for failing to provide an accessible website.
• MARTA lost a lawsuit under the ADA.
• AOL, Claire's, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have all settled when sued over the accessibility of their websites.

The cautious definition "one of the largest" does not fit here. AOL has the largest market share of U.S. subscribers with 27.3%, with the closest competitor, MSN, being at 9.3%.

So Masayoshi Son is betting the company and taking huge huge huge amounts of debt to build an incredible no where else on earth network that has great potential. Making telecoms obsolete and making media outlets change their game to provide on-demand tvshows/movies is world leading pace, but how is this guy going to keep it up if he can't make any money? The whole broadband pipe dream has been alive for decades around the world but recent US bankruptecies of big broadband (cite: XO) argue that whoever builds the architecture is not the likely winner in reaping all the benefits. Its great for the average Japanese getting fat pipe, but the lack of ability to make any immediate profits are detering US cable cos to make great infastructure. Maybe I'm wrong here but this article just pushes the point that infastructue building is a thankless job. This article to me says that US isn't going to be getting ultra fat broadband anytime soon since no one is going to take the enormous (1-2billion reserve) financial hit. So the problem again arises, how is anyone going to make any (real) money by carpeting cities with broadband?

DSL and cable make it look like bandwidth is cheap but it isn't. Try buying 1.5 MBytes from a major backbone and you'll see it cost between $500-750 per month including transport (that's what your ISP is paying, it would be $850-1200 if you tried it). Seven years ago the cost was $2000-2800. Seven years ago the average modem user used 500 b/s. Today the average DSL user uses 4000 b/s, but the average for P2P users on DSL is 128,000 b/s.

I've been following the discussions on ISP-PLANET and Internet providers are pretty concerned over this trend as it breaks the economic model the Internet grew-up on. Articles there are looking at changing pricing from the flat-rate structure we have now to everything from pay per MB to using dynamic bandwidth shapers to reduce the speed of large data transfers to kicking high bandwidth users off their networks entirely. The last is the most common remedy in use now.

I admit I'm an ISP. Since only 10% of users use P2P or streaming, I kick P2P users off my network. My competitor didn't and I stole half his broadband customers because his network became too congested. Now he is madly trying to block P2P after telling his customers he doesn't restrict their usage - he had thought that would get him our customers and it did get some, namely, those I didn't want because I was losing money on them. Many of the P2P types switched to cable after Adelphia started offering it here six months ago and the throughput on Adelphia's local network has dropped to less than a dial-up modem because of the congestion.

P2P and streaming (especially video or high-bandwith audio) is too expensive. About the only thing currently doable is multicast audio like Internet radio but unfortunately the RIAA want's 1.5 cents per listener per song (according to a local radio station ower who checked into it) making it infeasable for most radio stations.

MP3.com is just facing economic reality and it is doubtfull bandwidth costs will fall fast enough to allow them to resume high-bandwidth streaming of free tunes.

The case that appears to have decided current legal status for ISPs in the UK was the Demon case, which effectively decided that UK ISPs are responsible for removing libelous material from their servers. No 'Common Carrier' immunity in Airstrip one.

Nothing seems to have happened to improve the situation since, either, despite official reports suggesting following the US model.

Why don't you subscribe to or at least take a look the ISP-Caching mailing list?

Julius Knapp, FCC deputy chief of the office of engineering and technology, said the agency's policy isn't to punish, but to correct the system before it becomes a problem.

"Generally, we try to correct the problem before we take any further steps," he said. "Of course, there are provisions for people who (continue to) violate Part-15 rules, with up to $11,000 in fines for first-time violations all the way up to $80,000 for repeated violations."

There's a workaround for bypassing the 'eprom' password on Sparcs (actually it's NVRAM with a battery built into the module). You remove the NVRAM chip from it's socket, boot up the system to the OK prompt, then plug the chip in live, with the system running, and make your security changes. I have successfully done this on SparcStations that I bought on eBay that had a password. It's slightly risky, but on older Sparc boxes (all those nice classic SparcStations) it would be NUTS to have to buy new NVRAMs.

The technique is documented here. And here. And here too.

There's also a technique to tack on a replacement external battery on those NVRAMs. There's no reason to EVER buy a new one for non-critical boxes. Most of my older Sparc boxes have had that surgery performed on their NVRAM chips (involves actual physical surgery on the module) and live happily powered by a pair of AAA cells.

Now they can read whats on your computer screen! Whats next? Roaming through college dormitories in search of students downloading music and porno when they aren't over 21 yet? Do we need to bring a legal fiasco back into the mix? Did those admins that knew what was being downloaded really deserve to be locked up instead?

Wow. Search warrents for allowing people to download music...hope it doesn't trickle down to everybody.

In short, the potential recipient of a message/call advertises the potential cost of contacting him uninvited. If the sender agrees to pay that cost, it acquires a token that it includes in the message/call and the message/call is accepted. The recipient decides to collect the fee or not[...]

"ADSL2 is a new standard that will eventually supersede existing ADSL standards. G.dmt.bis and G.lite.bis are designations for G.992.3 full-rate ADSL and G.992.4 for splitterless ADSL. The beauty of ADSL2 is that it is interoperable with existing ADSL deployments--it will perform both ADSL and ADSL2 modes of operation. This is essential to current ADSL providers--providers need to be able to continue to use the equipment they have invested in."

Backwards compatiable with all the previous modes of ADSL.

"ADSL2+ is an extension of the new ADSL2 standard that should be approved by the ITU early in 2003. ADSL2+ is a hot topic because it is capable of doubling the transmission speed of typical ADSL connections from 1.1 MHz to 2.2 MHz. This doubles downstream data rates to over 20 Mbps, but these data speed rates will only be attainable on loops shorter than 8,000 feet. Here's where things get a bit jumbled--ADSL2 is often called ADSL+, but most experts expect that ADSL2+ will be the term used within technical circles, as this name highlights that it is in fact an extension of ADSL2."

ADSL+ only can reach it's "theoretical" maximumn within a 8,000 loop.

"ADSL2 has been engineered to improve the rate and reach of ADSL by overcoming narrowband interference over long lines. ADSL2 accomplishes this through its improved modulation efficiency, which enhances the signal processing algorithms.

For example, on longer phone lines, ADSL2 will provide a data rate increase of 50 kbps--a significant increase. This data rate increase also produces an increase in reach of about 600 feet, which translates to an increase in coverage area of about six percent, or 2.5 square miles. "

Sounds like the same progression that modems went through.

"In order to diagnose and fix problems, ADSL2 transceivers provide measurements for line noise, loop attenuation, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at both ends of the line. These measurements are collected using a special diagnostic testing mode even when line quality is too poor to actually complete the ADSL connection."
AND
"Additionally, ADSL2 includes real-time performance monitoring capabilities that provide information on line quality and noise conditions at both ends of the line. This information is interpreted by software and then used by the service provider to monitor the quality of the ADSL connection and prevent future service failures. It can also be used to determine if a customer can be offered higher data rate services."

Can anyone say QOS?

"As if simplifying the deployment process weren't enough, ADSL2 also reduces overall power consumption while maintaining "always on" functionality. First-generation ADSL transceivers always operate in full-power mode even when not in use. In contrast, ADSL2 brings in two power management modes. The L2 low-power mode rapidly enters and exits power consumption based on Internet traffic running over the ADSL connection. The L3 low-power mode is a stand-by setting for when the connection is not being used for extended periods of time."

Lower power bills for someone and less interference.

"
The commercial bond
When it comes to commercial DSL services, today's carriers strive to provide different speeds to different customers. For example, carriers want to deliver a standard bandwidth requirement to the majority of home users while providing higher bandwidth offerings for corporations. To do so, they use bonding to aggregate the bandwidth from more than one phone line.

However, Benini said this has been a problem, since the original ADSL standard did not support bonding. ADSL2, on the other hand, does support bonding, enabling the delivery of larger pipes that can compete with dedicated telco services. "Bonded DSL lines are the key to offering fractional T-1 services, or even connections that range between a T-1 and a T-2," Benini said. "ADSL2 offers flexible data rates that carriers can build new offerings around. Through bonding, carriers can increase the data throughput on an ADSL channel to as high as 40 Mbps."

To provide bonding, the ADSL2 specification taps into the inverse multiplexing for ATM (IMA) standard developed for traditional ATM architectures. Through IMA, equipment designs can bind copper pairs in an ADSL link. The result is a far greater flexibility with downstream data rates:

* 20 Mbps on 2 bonded pairs
* 30 Mbps on 3 bonded pairs
* 40 Mbps on 4 bonded pairs"

Now how does this compare to what business are presently using?

" Bonding using ADSL2 is expected to play a role in helping carriers to provide bandwidth-hungry applications such as video and gaming to residential customers. It will also be effective in delivering high-bandwidth services to businesses that prefer asymmetric over symmetric data rates."

Note the mention first of tiered service, one lower bandwith offering for residential customers, the other for commercial, and using bonding to achieve that. Then mentions "bonding" and greater bandwith for the residential customers. Parity?

The story

• There's this thing called hit forwarding. The cache can still serve the requested file, while informing the original server that someone is viewing it.
• Alternatively, slashdot editors could use an "opt-in" cache service. When an editor decides to post a story, he could send an email to the webmasters listed on the site. The mail contains instructions on how to automatically enable a slashdot-hosted cache of your linked pages (for a 12 hour period only). Many small web publishers would prefer this option.
• If neither of those is done, at least they could detect an overloaded site and stop presenting links. Basically, slashcode could recognize several different kinds of server error messages, and check the links every 10 minutes (during the first 24 hours of the story). If the site appears to go down, then the links could change from real links to ones giving a slashdot page where the actual URL is printed (but nonclickable).

Has an auto-update feature that is by DEFAULT always on and it continiously patches through to M$ servers sending them all the dirt on you and then for legal reasons, requesting and downloading any new patches. Now, i dont think that the average Joe Blow will know how to turn that feature off, and judging by how M$ worded it, i dont think that he will want to turn it off. So as long as your computer has a connection to the net as do 88 milion US households and a countless number of US and worldwide corporations it will update itself. So lets face it, blow joe will get ticked off when his "glorified digital VCR" wouldn't allow him to transfer files, but when his computer tells him that it is updating itself "for it's own good"...you get the picture... Our only hope is to convert everyone to Mac or Unix users =P

If you can run your own copper DSL dry pair should be an option.

Sad, but true is that it'll take a lot of forward-looking folks to bring this to the fruition. As much as Verizon, Qwest, Bell South, and the other Baby Bells complain that they have to bear the costs of maintaining the copper, it is essential to their business future. If they didn't have that cross to bear (that is, if wireless were available), then what would they have to block out competition as effectively as they can today?

Wireless would be wonderful. But only companies such as Sprint, who is a minority player (relatively, on a national level) in the local market anyway, can actually afford to offer it... And even they've given up. The rest simply don't want to challenge their business plan that much. And can you blame them? The investors would have the head of Ivan Seidenberg.

Face it, we're stuck.

jrbd

Broadband in Japan and Canada is much cheaper - how can they do it?

Unbundling has not played a major part in Canadian broadband. BCE (Bell Canada and others) are a near monopoly on the telco side, but got into DSL early because of competition from cable companies. Cable modems came out in Canada in 1996. During 2000, service problems with cable modems then lead to a growth in DSL access in Canada. There are about 2.6 million broadband users in Canada at end-of-year 2001.

Meanwhile, ISPs have accused Bell Canada of anti-competitive DSL pricing. I can believe this, because Verizon played a similar game versus the CLECs (and I got cheap DSL...)

But recently "Industry Minister Allan Rock Bell Canada shot an arrow at the heart of the Internet, levying a $3-5 toll on a streaming movie and a $2.50 surcharge on a regular radio listener. They raised their basic rates 13 percent, and tacked on a surcharge of $7.90 (Canadian) a gig after 5 gigabyte."

In addition, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) charges 4.5% of Canadian telco revenues for a fund to subsidize service in high-cost areas (i.e. rural ones).

Check out the Canadian Broadband Task Force that wants to spend over CA$4 billion on broadband.

Other countries have it easier because of population concentration. Korea has 15% of its population (7.5 million people) connected to broadband. This is because 70% of Koreans live in 7 largest cities, and 40% of urban apartments are served by DSL. I know average local loop lengths are smaller in Europe due to its smaller area and higher urbanization, and I believe Japan has the same situation as well.

The Korean government has also financed a 22,000 km intercity backbone, is distributing satellite receivers in rural areas, and provides low-interest loans to providers.

Unfair advantage? On a platform that they created?
Yes, it's an unfair advantage. They have a monopoly in one market, and they're abusing it to forcibly maintain a monopoly in another market! It would be like if AOLTimeWarner tried to not let competing ISPs advertise on cable networks they owned...

It is there product, and without it, there would be no Netscape.
Right. Without windows there could be no netscape. Because no other operating systems exist. Yes, thats it.

Being out in the boonies, I gave Starband a try. I struggled with it for a couple of months. It doesn't work.

My biggest complaint was the constant disconnections. I would disconnect around 10-20 times per day from 30 seconds to 4 hours. The best ping time I ever recorded was around 650 ms, making telnet and gaming unbearable. The customer support was useless.

When I cancelled the service, I was charged $499 just for canceling, not counting the many hundreds I paid for the installation and equipment! I refused to pay the cancellation fee. After 3-4 months and letters back and forth, VISA reversed the charge.

Hopefully fixed wireless or low-earth orbit satellites will be available someday. Until then, I'm paying through the nose for a T1.

Yea. We already gave it one shot. Covad, Northpoint, etc all jumped in the fray. And what do we have? Lawsuits over alleged abuses of a monopoly. Not quite the market we need.

Why do we need this competative market? Well, some theorize the Bells aren't really all that interested in DSL. If it weren't for the earlier flurry of competition, its likely nobody would have seen DSL rollouts at all. Now all we have left is a mess.

So if not the government, who else can possibly continue to place the pressure of competition on the Bells? Yep. Cable. And the Deathstar Corporation itself: AT&T.

When I moved to the Silicon Valley area, I was thrilled to have a choice of broadband service. I figured I would go with xDSL and select a nice third person provider. I put my order in. I even rescheduled when they failed to show. Three times. At that point, three months had passed filled with missed appointments, confusion, and even a DSL switch that sat there with a link light but no data for the last month. Then my wife saved our household with a call to AT&T cable. Three days later, packets were routing in and out of my apartment at a fair clip.

Was AT&T eager to rush data to my house and feed my broadband lust? Probably not. They sold me on a premium digital cable package. And soon began inquiring to our changing to their new digital phone service and long distance package (which was a part of the same digital cable network).

That's right. AT&T is gunning for PacBell's market. If we're lucky, they'll go after the other Bells too.

Wait. Did I just say 'lucky'? AT&T and cable companies. Versus the Bells. I'm not sure which to lable the pan and which to call 'fire'.

As slim a chance as it is... the only one consumers might have is in the hands of government.

I hope you all realize that the current exchange rate is about $.625 for $1 Canadian. This of course means that $80 Canadian converts to $50.07 US. Not exactly a far cry from the $49.95 a month I fork over to ATTBI. Indeed, as the article states, some people in the U.S. pay as much as $111 Canadian, which is really $69.47 U.S.

Regardless, the bandwidth hogs will be exceed the amount they pay in terms of the cost of bandwidth. Assuming they have 1.5 Mb/s down and the cost of 1 GB is around $4 US, about 16 GB/day can be downloaded and totaling upward of 450 GB/month. That's $1800/month providing access for a customer who pays only $50 a month. Granted, the cable ISP is most likely not paying the full T1 price for bandwidth, but even at 1/4 the utilization and 1/4 the price for bandwidth, the ISP is still losing money on these customers.

Seems like DSL providers are failing left and right. Is yours one of them? You don't want to take chances with your DSL. Qwest is a well-established national leader in broadband technology serving thousands of customers. You can count on us -- we're here to stay.

Soon all companies will spread FUD routinely! Like negative campaigns, FUD must work on stupid and brainwashed Americans because it's used so much. It is why I call anxiety the drug of choice for most Americans (just watch TV for an hour some day). But I digress!

What bothers me about this: Although some people say that MSN doesn't have a stronghold on the ISP market, their presence continues to increase. They are now the second largest ISP provider with 9%, after AOL, which has a whopping 33% [1].

But Microsoft isn't a monopoly. It's now metastasized into something much larger, as it has its tentacles into gaming, ISPs, aw, hell, you guys know the routine by now. And I'm not just spouting FUD. This is fact.

Tons of small ISP's have turned to fixed wireless using DSSS or FHSS 802.11b as a way to route around their local telephone companies and the cable monopolies. Most people will tell you that wireless service is better than DSL and Cable. The only limitations with it really are interference in highly suburban areas and line-of-sight. But even in heavily populated areas FHSS is pretty reliable.

The most popular mailing list for these types of small wireless ISP's is here:
http://isp-lists.isp-planet.com/isp-wireless/archi ves/

An organization created by alot of these wireless ISP is here:
http://www.wispa.org/

and you can find wireless ISP's in your area here:
http://www.bbwexchange.com/wisps/ Some of these WISP's have thier systems attached to Grain towers with their equipment covered in bird shit, but they're doing somethings the big boys aren't, like making money.

So, how can a company like Covad, basically a reseller, expect to survive against the telco selling DSL themselves?
One word—volume.

All kidding (well, most kidding) aside, I recently saw an article referenced on DSLReports that makes an excellent point—in general, DSL customer service sucks. Installation can be time-consuming without a guarantee of eventual success, service is occasionally spotty, and online help can be hit-or-miss. Work-at-home folk who depend on their broadband for their livelihood, as well as those of us who are just willing to pay a bit extra for good service, would likely do business with a reseller who would wrap a telco's DSL line in better support for a slightly higher monthly fee.

On the other end of the spectrum, a reseller could purchase DSL service wholesale and provide stripped-down service (no email, Usenet, or toll-free support) for less than the full-service products offered by the telco. Many of us geeks would go ga-ga for such a service, especially if all extra services (such as static IP's) were offered a la carte.

Proud owner of a self-restored 1968 Ford Fairlane, 302 V8, 9" 4.11 geared...
Self-restored? Wasn't this the setup for a Stephen King novel?

4. The rest of us will be bored out of our minds.

However, If you can somehow get that signal over the trees, this would work, but you're gonna need some awfully big towers on each side to do it. Perhaps one of your neighbors has a better central location for the T1. I guess you could run fiber to the neighborhood from your house, but that would be very expensive. Normal CAT5 ethernet cable won't work either, because the distance is too great (100m (which is 328ft) max for CAT5).

Anyhow, it sounds like you may have your work cut out for you. Check out the wireless access list: here for more information and tips. Good luck--

http://www.isp-planet.com/technology/homebrew_dsl. html

or

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823. html

Alternative tech article (probably very expensive though)

Just saw over at ISP Planet an article discussing the explosive potential from grain dust. Not very detailed, but a godd short read none-the-less. - Henry

Just saw over at ISP Planet an article discussing the explosive potential from grain dust. Not very detailed, but a godd short read none-the-less. - Henry

From what I've heard, it can be done for ~$10K-$20K.

Whoops ... I apologize for making an assertion regarding range based on anecdotal information. The Lucent sales rep says 30 miles -- but I am scouring Lucent's site for anything that even comes close to that.

Basically to extend the range of either BreezeCom or Lucent Orinoco technology you need a reflective external antenna that has been aligned to point directly towards the central omnidirectional antenna.

One provider claiming to be nearing a working 30 mile range is MidCoast.net. From other sources, including ISP Planet the more typical cell size is based on line-of-site, approximately five miles with optimal base antenna placement.

Again I offer my apology for posting anecdotal information.

I live in a rural area and at this point only have dialup access. I have been looking for an affordable broadband solution that I could potentially bring into my area. In my search I have found that there are two forms of bradband service, besides sattelite, that may very well be the future method of delivery for rural, and quite possibly urban, internet service.
One of these delivery methods is powerline broadband. I won't go into detail on this since this about wireless. The second, of course, is wireless broadband. Fixed Wireless broadband is already being put into use in a few areas and looks like it will quickly gain in popularity for residential use because the cost of equipment and delivery is competitive if not less then other forms. The primary reasons for the reduction in cost for delivering wireless service are 1) you do not have the cost of using the phone company for the "last mile" of delivery to the user, and 2) the frequencies being used, in the U.S. at least, are open for use by anyone.

PrairieInet is one ISP that is already offering fixed wireless broadband for both home and business use, in a rural area, and at rates competetive rates. malibu Networks is another company that is working on delivering fixed wireless broadband. The eZine ISP Planet, which is a online periodical for ISPs, has a new section dedicated to wireless service which includes articles on how to setup a wireless ISP.

Overall it looks to me like Wireless Broadband is one of the up-and-coming internet technologies. This may be something to really look at if not jump into soon.

I live in a rural area and at this point only have dialup access. I have been looking for an affordable broadband solution that I could potentially bring into my area. In my search I have found that there are two forms of bradband service, besides sattelite, that may very well be the future method of delivery for rural, and quite possibly urban, internet service.
One of these delivery methods is powerline broadband. I won't go into detail on this since this about wireless. The second, of course, is wireless broadband. Fixed Wireless broadband is already being put into use in a few areas and looks like it will quickly gain in popularity for residential use because the cost of equipment and delivery is competitive if not less then other forms. The primary reasons for the reduction in cost for delivering wireless service are 1) you do not have the cost of using the phone company for the "last mile" of delivery to the user, and 2) the frequencies being used, in the U.S. at least, are open for use by anyone.

PrairieInet is one ISP that is already offering fixed wireless broadband for both home and business use, in a rural area, and at rates competetive rates. malibu Networks is another company that is working on delivering fixed wireless broadband. The eZine ISP Planet, which is a online periodical for ISPs, has a new section dedicated to wireless service which includes articles on how to setup a wireless ISP.

Overall it looks to me like Wireless Broadband is one of the up-and-coming internet technologies. This may be something to really look at if not jump into soon.